I was going to post last night about Unrequited Bush Virgin K-Lo's threnody at the NRO about
the sacking of Kato's book, but alas Jim Brady shared precious moments with Hugh Hewitt and it had to wait 'til tonight. All's the better, because in the meantime a superior wit -- SZ from
World o'Crap -- took her pen to it:
The whole "sacking" is a shame. Women Who Make the World Worse should incite a constructive debate.
That's why the publisher put such a constructive image on the cover on this tome.
(snip)
Anyway, Kathryn Jean seems to think that the way it should work is that Kate writes a mean-spirited and partisan book, and her publisher puts an inflammatory cover and title on it -- and then people who might be offended by the book buy copies of it, read it thoughtfully, and then engage in a reasoned and mannered discussion of how they are making the world worse.Of course, we didn't really need the admission [that the Amazon reviewers haven't all read Kate's book]; the lead customer review on Amazon for a few days now -- besides citing "her frequent attacks against the television show, 'Sex in the City,'" (good luck finding them in the book -- they aren't in there)
So, the photo of Carrie Bradshaw on the cover was just a case of "bait and switch"? I think everyone who actually bought a copy should join in a class action suit against Kate's publisher!-- says:As much as I enjoyed this book, I can't give it more than a single star because it has a fatal flaw. It promotes the most destructive myth of all, the existence of lesbianism. Mrs. O'Beirne discusses it throughout the book as if it is something that is real. She doesn't seem to be able to understand that women can't have sex with each other.
There's not a single mention of lesbians in the book. That reviewer's got his own vast-right-wing-conspiracy book fantasy going on.
Yes, General J.C. Christian does have his own conspiracies going on, but he would wrestle any man who claims that he's part of the unhinged Left (he wouldn't wrestle K.Lo, but that's because she's a woman, and it's not seemly for men to do that kind of thing with members of the weaker sex). Clearly, Kathryn has not done her research, or she wouldn't be making cracks about the General's fantasies about lesbians, since everyone knows that the General is NOT turned on by the idea of women having sex.
Sorry for the crap typing, I'm near apopolexy over K-Lo-s review of
The General. I'm thinking she didn't quite get it.
My prayers tonight will include a request that K-Lo do a full reading of the General's entire work, because the world will, indeed, be a better place for it. I hear she is quite tight with the Big Man (in platonicly platnoic sense) and I'm hoping he'll put in a good word.
They did a huge buy yesterday to try and prop the book up but it didn't work, it continues to tank. According to K-Lo, the publisher is shitting themselves over the whole thing. That would be a mighty big spanner recently just chucked into the middle of their tidy little right-wing-think-tank-subsidized book scam.
Cue the pearl clutching.
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She speaks:
I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn't. I should have said he directed his client Indian tribes to make campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.
No. What you should have said was that although Abramoff's
victims, the Indian tribes, gave money to Democrats it was much less than they did before Abramoff appeared on the scene and there is no indication that there was anything quid-pro-quo about it. Unlike the Republicans, who are up to their eyeballs in shit over this. To say anything else provides improper context and implies that legitimate contributions and illegal influence peddling are one, which they most certainly are not.
To all of those who wanted me fired, I'm afraid you're out of luck. I have a contract. For the next two years, I will continue to speak my mind
Thanks for making our job easy. You hang in there, li'l gal. Now that you've got a big fat target on yer back, we'll be right here swinging for the fences until you get it right.
The rest of it is just more hilarity as big media dinosaurs discover trolls. They are just not going to enjoy the bumpy ride into interconnectivity and the 21st century, are they? That one-way communication thing was really working for them.
Update: pseudonymous in nc puts it more succinctly:
As I just wrote to her, in slightly more polite terms: that's not your fucking job. Debbie, you're not an op-ed columnist, or on the editorial board. Your job title is Ombudsman.
Debbie still thinks she's a bureau chief or a newsroom boss, and if she continues to 'speak her mind' for the next two years, she's going to have a very, very rough time.
It's Peter Principle Alert: she has indeed been promoted to her level of incompetence.
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Regardless of whether I wind up going to DC or not, the question of what an appropriate public commenting policy is for a news organization like the washingtonpost.com is an interesting one. It's quite different than one that we would implement here, for instance, where we're running a community and regulars can pretty much say whatever they want but we have a low tolerance for trolls trying to disrupt it.
There's a good post up at the
Bubblegeneration about the mistakes made by the post.com in managing the situation, but it also goes to highlight something I think they were completely unaware of -- there was value in leveraging the situation that they totally blew:
Let me simplify some of these thoughts to crystallize some further key points:
1) Newspapers need commenters (read: connected consumers) more than commenters need newspapers. The simple economics of attention scarcity dictate this. The same equation holds true across consumer industries (esp media).
2) That is, you have to leverage and co-opt your readers, audience, etc, before your competitors do. Competing for their attention is a zero-sum game.
3) The big problem with the Post's move is that it's a barrier to learning: it stops it from learning how to leverage connected consumption - which is exactly the force that's hypercommoditizing media. Learning to leverage the edge is a kind of judo. But if you're not in the ring, by definition, you can't learn how to play.
4) Imagine a Post that did the opposite: highlighted in big letters on it's front page the raging discussion, actively driving attention to it.
Would the result probably have been a flame war? Sure. Flame wars mean your market, community, network, is working.
Would the Post have learned a lot more about how to leverage the edge? Absolutely.
As I've said before, I think that the post.com has made some very smart decisions with regard to its online presence. So in light of Jim Brady's comments over at
Jay Rosen's yesterday and the
42 comments they chose to delete from the blog, what would do you as their "consumers" believe should constitute a productive commenting policy?
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Shocked, shocked they are to learn about the existence of trolls. But it really only took
three words:
The deluge, which overwhelmed the Web site's screening efforts, began after Howell wrote in a column published Sunday that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties." That is incorrect.
I also got an invitation this morning from the Washingtonpost.com to go to DC on Tuesday to discuss "a live online roundtable conversation on the issue of what the rules are/should be for major media in accepting free form comments, or indeed whether there should be rules at all."
So I emailed them back and asked who they were inviting -- Glenn Reynolds, Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen.
Digby sees it now:
That's not a bad panel. Glenn can explain why the left are objectively pro-terrorist. Jarvis can talk about the "new paradigm." Rosen can talk blog theory and referee. And you can explain to Brady that in the blogging world, only bedwetter right wingers don't have comments.
It would be remarkably inconvenient to go -- hard to wrangle dog-sitters on short notice -- but I thought I would throw it out there.
Do you think I should go?
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Scooter Libby's defense counsel team, along with Prosecutor Pat Fitzgerald's team, has filed a joint discovery status report with the Federal judge overseeing the Libby matter in advance of their scheduled February 3 hearing in the matter. The motions and filings give a glimpse of defense strategy and, as has been previously reported, it looks like Team Libby will be trying a scattershot approach, highlighting journalists and lapses in reporting and potential other Administration leakers to take the heat off Scooter.
As Jeralyn reports, the Libby segment of the filings highlights a number of disputes over discovery (or material turned over to defense counsel by prosecutors).
6. It is the position of the defense, based on the government’s written and oral responses to our requests, that significant disagreements exist between the parties with respect to the nature and scope of the government’s obligations under Rule 16 and Brady. These disagreements include, but are not limited to, the following:
A. Whether information in the government’s possession about reporters’ knowledge concerning Valerie Wilson’s employment by the CIA from sources other than Mr. Libby is material to the preparation of the defense. The defendant has already prepared and expects to file a motion to compel disclosure of such information on or before February 3, 2006.
B. Whether the prosecution must obtain and produce documents and information within the possession, custody or control of Executive Branch agencies other than the Office of Special Counsel and the FBI. The defense is preparing, and intends to file on or before February 3, a motion concerning this issue.
C. Whether classified information about Mr. Libby’s participation in meetings, briefings and discussions concerning pressing national security matters between May 6, 2003 and March 24, 2004 is material to the preparation of the defense. The defense is preparing, and intends to file on or before February 3, a motion concerning this issue.
D. Whether information concerning Mrs. Wilson’s status as a CIA employee, and the allegedly classified nature of that employment, is material to the preparation of the defense. The government intends to address this issue with the Court and the defense pursuant to CIPA.
This sort of dispute is not uncommon, and often serves as a means of stalling the trial schedule because defense counsel uses a lack of discovery in some area as a rationale for argument to the judge that a trial cannot proceed. Jeralyn has a great discussion of the areas of dispute
at TalkLeft.
Additionally, David Johnston reports
in the NYTimes:
Defense lawyers said the disagreements centered on issues like whether prosecutors were obliged to turn over to the defense information from the government about how much reporters knew of the employment of Valerie Wilson, the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the case, from sources other than Mr. Libby.
Other disagreements cited by defense lawyers focused on whether the prosecution had to turn over to Mr. Libby's lawyers information about Ms. Wilson's status as a covert employee at the C.I.A.
Another dispute, the defense lawyers said, involves whether prosecutors must relinquish documents in the government's possession about classified briefings and meetings that Mr. Libby attended from May 2003 to March 2004.
Johnston has had good sources within the Libby defense team in past articles, so I would suspect that he's getting this from someone who has been in on strategy sessions.
I agree with Jeralyn that this is likely to be a defense tactic -- the reaching beyond the scope of the indictment for a sort of "kitchen sink" defense. In my previous incarnation as criminal defense counsel, I occasionally found it useful to use this stall with a particularly annoying client case so long as it was a low-level offense, because occasionally you can wear down a prosecutor into giving you a better plea deal just to make an annoying defendant go away. This only works, though, when you have a client who is very low level and not at all important for a further piece of a broader case.
For Libby, I would think the long-term annoyance bid will only serve to dig in Fitzgerald's resolve. I know my response as a prosecutor in a complex case when I had opposing counsel trying a tap dance tactic was to say to myself, "Be as annoying as you like, but I'm going to nail your client's ass with both barrels." Fitz strikes me as the sort of prosecutor who doesn't take well to manipulative tactics, but it's too early in all of this to tell that for sure. We know that Fitzgerald doesn't appreciate liars, and I can't imagine manipulation sits well with him, either.
The practical aspect of this is that any trial date will be set much further down the road. Because it is a joint filing, the judge is likely to give it much wider latitude in terms of any request for extension of time. Additionally, there are clearly going to be a number of subpoenas for additional journalist and Administration personnel testimony and records, and then a flurry of motions to quash those subpoenas, so in practical terms, an early trial just isn't likely to happen.
In this case, the government has already turned over more than 10,150 classified and unclassified documents to Libby's lawyers,
according to the AP and
the NYTimes. That is a lot of interview and deposition transcripts and a huge paper trail of government documents that have already been handed over by Fitz. And, because Fitz has been playing this set of charges close to the vest, is likely to only be a small portion of the whole of the case.
Carole Leonnig of the WaPo has some additional spin from the Libby defense team, regarding potential defense tactics -- and looking specifically at a two-pronged approach: (1) independently investigating journalists involved in the case for methods and practices issues (basically challenging credibility because, jeepers, Judy Miller is a paragon of First Amendment virtue and all and...well, you know where this is going) and (2) the Booby Woodward "I've got a secret pal" defense of pointing the finger at others in the Administration who talked, too. (That means you, Karl.)
On the one hand, it's a flurry of motions and other crap to wade through for Fitz. On the other hand, though, it could get ugly if Team Libby and Team Bushie start to have clashing legal objectives and Scooter decides that saving his own ass is more important than covering Karl and Company's. If it can happen in the mob, it can sure as hell happen with this bunch -- you think this Administration has it all over la casa nostra in terms of loyalty and responsibility to the team first, and self last? Please. Blood brothers this crew ain't -- especially if they could sell one another out to keep their greedy little individual holds on power.
(Come clean, Scooter. You'll feel better if you do. Plant the knife in Karl's back for a change...he's due. Wouldn't you rather be the planter instead of the plant-ee this time?)
I can't imagine the Administration would be happy with an "everybody was doing it" defense from Scooter's team, so tactically the "blame others in the Administration" prong is intriguing. Since Loose Lips Luskin had his pie hole shut by Fitz, there just haven't been as many juicy leaks for all of us to chew on, and this filing and the upcoming hearing offer a good window into what has been going on behind the scenes.
Fitz and his team have likely been very busy with a flurry of continual motions requests from Team Libby. Not at all uncommon. And given the magnitude of some of Fitz's previous cases, not something he hasn't seen any number of times before now.
What it has meant, though, is that Karl has been left twisting -- perhaps just as a casualty of a busy schedule, perhaps on purpose. And all the anonymous folks close to Karl who couldn't help but call up
Jim VandeHei at the WaPo to drop some hints in Rover's favor aside, the anonymous aide who said that had Fitz been done with Rove he would have cleared him already is right. You don't keep a full plate unless you have to as a prosecutor because you have too much other work to get done in the public's interest. That Rove is still twisting is a pretty good indication that Fitz isn't done with him yet. In my opinion, everyone ought to hold on -- Karl's on slow roasting at the moment.
Ought to be an interesting few days until February 3rd, wouldn't you say?
(Graphics love to
On the Fritz.)
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Bill Frist says that Judge Samuel Alito is the "worst nightmare of liberal Democrats." Well, that isn't exactly the confirmation strategy message,
now is it?
Asked about the senator's remark, Frist spokesman Bob Stevenson said that Alito "is a thoughtful mainstream conservative jurist who is well respected by his peers, by Democrats and Republicans alike."
Sucks when the Senate Majority leaders slips up and tells his Republican party activist cronies the truth...and then one of them goes straight to a reporter to talk about it, now doesn't it? Or perhaps this was a way for Frist to get in a premature gloat...and wouldn't it be funny if the Dems took that gloat and turned it into a reason to filibuster or something. Oh yeah. Hilarious.
So sad that Frist had to send his spokesman out to backpedal for him. Wonder how much of an earful he's gotten from Rove this morning, considering how choreographed the Alito nomination has been thus far in terms of non-statement statements. Now, if the Democrats can only take this ball and run with it all weekend on the talking head shows...
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Was catching up on
Jill Carroll news this morning, and this nugget caught my eye:
Muslims from Baghdad to Paris urged the militants to free the 28-year-old woman and end Iraq's wave of kidnappings. More than 240 foreigners have been taken captive and at least 39 killed since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein....
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, more Iraqis have been abducted either by insurgents or gangs seeking ransoms.
According to figures compiled by the Washington-based Brookings Institution, there was an average of two kidnappings a day of Iraqis in Baghdad in January 2004 and 10 a day in December of that year. Last month, the think tank said kidnappings of Iraqis averaged 30 a day nationwide.
And here I thought that the meaning of "last throes" was that it would be getting less dangerous -- not exponentially more dangerous. Silly me.
Increasing to a current 30 kidnappings a day? Think about that for a second...and then contemplate how any economy, any government, can operate under those conditions, and contemplate what is going to occur when we pull out. Every once in a while, the enormity of the problems in Iraq hits me smack in the head, and all of those missed opportunities along the way -- starting with our ill-planned entry into the country in the first place -- just pisses me off all over again.
I wish I had some solution to propose, but I don't. The cumulative bad decisions, from the initial decision to invade without adequate planning for sustaining the peace afterward to the looting of the ministry buildings because of too little security in place after the invasion all the way through the failure to secure the oil pipelines from sabotage -- I'm not even sure where to start first. Don't even get me started on the rationale for going to war in the first place or the hyping of nonexistent evidence.
It's so maddening when you think about the enormity of the problems that we have amplified by our piss poor decisions, over and over, and I have enormous sympathy and admiration for the men and women in uniform who have been busting their butts carrying out orders despite the conditions, the obstacles, and everything else, but still find time to help build a new school or play soccer with the local kids or open a pediatric clinic with donated medicines from friends and family back home.
It's such an amazing testimony to the character of a lot of these folks that they have been finding time in their off hours to do the work that the State Department plans would have had us doing from the start. Had they not been thrown out by the Preznit and Rummy, I mean. But coulda, woulda, shoulda doesn't fix the problems there, and frankly I can't even imagine where to start at this point. Wish I had a solution, but this morning I'm just trying not to bang my head repeatedly on my keyboard.
With regard to Jill Carroll, an outpouring of support for her release has come from Muslim clerics worldwide, including from some prominant clerics in the Middle East and in Iraq itself. Negotiators have heard little from Carroll's captors since two twenty-second video segments of her were shown on Tuesday and Thursday, but they are hoping that the pressure from clerics and prominant Iraqi Sunni politicians will help to secure her release.
I'm keeping Jill Carroll in my thoughts and prayers. She is doing a dangerous and vital job, along with all those other journalists who risk their lives and safety every day to report independently in Iraq and elsewhere. Here's hoping she is returned safely to her family soon.
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Jim Brady
assumes the position with Hugh Hewitt:
HH: Jim Brady, you had a meltdown...A) congrats on going online today and answering your critics, and congrats for coming here. Explain to the audience what happened yesterday.
JB: This actually all started on Sunday when the ombudsman of the newsman, Deborah Howell wrote a column about the Abramoff scandal, and in that column, made a reference to both Republicans and Democrats being the beneficiary of Abramoff donations. And what she should have said, and what she put up on the blog on Thursday was that he directed...he did direct contributions to Democrats, which is undeniable. There's lot of documents that show that. But when she wrote it in the column, it was phrased in a way that made it seem like he was personally giving money to the Democrats, of which there isn't proof of that at this point. So on Thursday, she put a clarification up, and we had already been getting hundreds and hundreds of comments about her column, and they were very, very nasty, using words that I didn't even know existed. And after she put the clarification up yesterday, it just got worse and worse, to the point where we just felt like we were not able to keep...we were unable to get rid of the offensive comments faster than they were coming. And so we decided, you know, to take the comments in that blog down for a little while, just to let things cool off, and for us, to look at how do we make sure this doesn't happen in the future. Do we get technology that makes it easier to weed these out? Or do we just pour more human beings on the case? So...
HH: And this has become quite a controversy on the blogosphere for some...not for me. I think you did the right thing. But some are accusing you of censorship, for example, correct?
JB: Yeah, they are. I mean, and censorship is a pretty strong word to use. I mean, we have ways to send letters to the editor via snail mail, via e-mail. We still have 25 blogs on the site that allow comments. There's plenty of way for users to register their unhappiness with Deborah's, or anybody else's column, and those things all remain open. So I think we have 12 avenues to reach the newspaper, and we took one of them down, and I don't think that really goes toward censorship.
HH: The central fact which seemed to upset the critics of the column, is that the Post has reported that between 1999 and 2004, Jack Abramoff's Indian clients contributed to 195 Republicans and 88 Democrats, tens of millions of dollars to both, correct?
JB: Correct.
HH: And so, why do people object to your publishing that fact?
JB: Well, they...they objected originally to the fact that she...that when she stated it, she made it seem as if he personally was donating to Democrats. But what she meant to say was that he was directing money to Democrats, which as I said, is beyond any kind of argument. So I'm not sure why her clarification yesterday didn't solve the problem, but it didn't. It just inflamed things even more. There's a real...this group that has been going after Deborah all week, I don't think, would have been happy no matter what she said. But she was clear about that, we put links up that have documents that show that, and it just wasn't enough. And like I said, the fact that they weren't happy about the column, if that's all they were saying, would have been fine. But it went way beyond that, and they were calling her...
HH: Jim Brady, who do you think these people are? Because I run into them in this business, but we have a six second delay, goodness knows why. Who do you think they are? Why are they so fundamentally unhappy?
JB: Well, I mean in this case, there was very much a concerted effort to...when Deborah wrote her column on Sunday, a lot of the bloggers on the left side of the spectrum really...they got together and they said let's go to the Post blog and tell them how unhappy we are with this column.
HH: Was there an epicenter of that effort?
JB: It looked like it was in a bunch of different blogs. I mean, it certainly was getting a lot of attention on Atrios and Daily Kos, and some other places. So I mean there did seem to be...you know, it wasn't a campaign in the sense of a really organized campaign, but it was kind of a grass roots campaign to...
HH: Well, you've just named the two central islands in the fever swamps. So I'm not surprised. When you write on...in your online edition today, I think it goes to basic human decency. Are you saying protecting Deborah Howell? Or are you saying...I hope you're saying both, you're protecting your readers from it as well?
JB: Yeah, and we've been clear about that, that we're not going to tolerate anybody being called these names, whether they're employees of the Washington Post or other commentors. And this was more directed at Deborah than it was at other commentors. But that was certainly part of the equation, and it's just...you know, as I said in the discussion, if you can't make your point without calling people some of the names they were being called, then you don't have a point in my opinion.
HH: Now, I have never allowed comments simply because of the threat of libel, of the threat of trademark copyright. But I also want to protect my audience against abusers' vulgar...the sadistic and nutty people. How is the Post going to cope with the fact that on both ends of the political spectrum, there's one percent which are nutters?
JB: Yeah. I don't know how you protect from that, other than to build the best system you can to try to make it difficult for them to creat trouble. And I think one of the things we've learned in the last couple of days is we haven't made it difficult enough. We had profanity filters that weren't working, and some other issues.
HH: Jim Brady, how committed is the Post, and Washingtonpost.com to blogging?
JB: Very committed.
(my emphasis)
For someone who's mapping out a future in the blogosphere, he's certainly bellying up to the right side of the bar. That was a major slime of Kos and Atrios that Brady played right along with. Cocktail weenies at the PJM party in
his future.
Update: Wilson46201, from the comments: "Maybe it is time to send poor quasi-literate Jim Brady an unabridged dictionary? Or one of those "a word a day" desk calendars? Or a reprint from Readers Digest of "it pays to increase your word-power" columns? I do find it difficult to believe that anybody with a past career of sports journalism would have been sheltered from the widest spectrum of adult profanities...
Update: Atrios blisters:
Let's get this straight. The Right hates honest journalism. Has run a 35 year campaign against it. Hugh Hewitt does almost nothing but blast regularly what he considers to be "the liberal media" which, of course, includes the Washington Post. All we, on the left, wanted was a straightforward correction and admission of error and a genuine attempt to correct the record.
So, who does Jim Brady run to for sympathy? Hugh Hewitt. Factual errors throughout.
Wanker.
There is nothing within my power that I could possibly do to keep this thing alive and spreading like the WaPo has done. I cannot, cannot thank them enough.
(thanks to reader Sean C. for the tip)
Update III: Jukeboxgrad at DailyKos has a post up with the 42 deleted comments. Go over and judge their trollishness for yourself and give the diary a recommend while you're at it, it would be great for people to see this on the "fever swamp" of DailyKos.
(graphic courtesy Jesus' General, who has
much more.)
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Slashdot:
I find it interesting that this comes the day after NYT columnist David Pogue responded to a rash of personal attacks and other stupidity with his rules for internet hate mail [nytimes.com]. Pogue dealt with the idiots with humor. The Washington Post had to close down a blog.
(snip)
The Post could employ some automatic filters to weed out some of the worst offenders, and thus it seems hard to believe their claim that it was requiring two full-time moderators to keep out the blog comments that violated their standards. Either those were some pretty heavy standards that made context such an issue that automated filtering was ineffective, or their web guys are pretty inept.
And:
There may have been some profanity and unacceptable insults in those comments. It takes me 30-45 seconds each morning and afternoon to clear similar out of my inbox, so I am not sure what the big problem was for the WaPo.com site managers.
Gilliard:
And then, there was no question that the comments, the vast majority of comments were not uncivil or needed moderation. Frankly, I got nastier comments for insulting Chicago-style hot dogs and had a raging debate over mac and cheese which would have curled Brady's hair. I won't even mention what happens when I discuss Manchester United.
(snip)
If you check the posts, available from Democratic Underground, few crossed any lines of civil comment, but most were quite angry.
It would also do your argument some good to admit what we both know: journalists have very thin skins and hate criticism. It would be easy to see that Howell was unsettled by the vehemence of the comments directed her way and unnerved by them. Because criticism in journalism has been restricted to the occasional letter, not daily parusing of stories and constant e-mail contact. In short, the public is holding journalists accountable in real time, and that is a shock for many reporters and editors.
I think Steve's right, the real-time nature of blogging -- where your shit is out there in the open before you have time to catch your breath, and you have absolutely no control over it -- probably shocked them. I'm not unsympathetic, but their steadfast refusal to correct Howell's mistake is till abject wankery.
Then Greg at the Talent Show wonders, once again,
where the Dems are:
The whole reason lefty-bloggers have been pointing out this media misinformation over and over again is to defend you guys. Since you beltway chickenshits have proven yourselves unwilling to defend your own views, we've put ourselves in the unenviable position of going up against media giants whose primary concern is avoiding the ire of conservative watchdog groups. And now that the inevitable pushback is occurring, the conventional wisdom is coalescing around the lie that bloggers and their readers are ignorant, vindictive trolls who add nothing to polite discourse. Here we are trying to pick up the slack for your ineffective war rooms and this is the thanks we get? We've got your back, why can't you get ours?
The other day on a conference call Harry Reid acknowledged that people like Chris Matthews and Tim Russert were abject water carriers for the GOP, and said that blogs were the only way to get the Democrats' message out there "unfiltered." I was happy to see John Kerry backing up the blogger smackdown of Matthews, because people like
Lou Dobbs are going to continue to spew disinformation on a regular basis until we let them know it is
not okay to say Jack Abramoff gave money to Democrats when he didn't, it is
not okay to compare Michael Moore to Osama bin Laden, and there are consequences.
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Jack Abramoff's daddy is a wee bit upset at George Clooney for making jokes about his sainted son at the Golden Globes.
To wit:
The movie star joked, "Who would name their kid 'Jack' with 'off' at the end? No wonder the guy's screwed up," which infuriated Abramoff's father, who was watching the awards show at home.
Frank Abramoff has since fired off a letter to Clooney via newspaper the Palm Springs Desert Sun, accusing the actor of being "glib and ridiculous."
Abramoff's father says, "Your glib and ridiculous attack on my son, Jack, coupled with your obscene query as to the choice his mother and I made in naming him brought shame and dishonor on you and your profession.
"What drove you to this lapse in lucidity, I can never know, but you need to know that your words were deeply hurtful to many innocent and decent people.
"Are you the heir to the dignity and greatness of Hollywood's past, or, more likely, a portent to a depressing and horrific future?"
Daddy Abramoff certainly has a
selective news filter:
The Choctaws were one of a half-dozen Indian tribes who gave more than $80 million to Abramoff between 2000 and 2003. Not only were the tribes paying Abramoff's lobbying firm, they were also paying Abramoff's secret outside partner, Michael Scanlon, who charged the Indians millions of dollars for public relations work and split the money with Abramoff. Scanlon's public relations fees did not have to be disclosed under lobbying rules, thus making it possible for the magnitude of their take from the tribes to be kept from public view. The two dubbed their scheme "Gimme Five," according to e-mails in which Abramoff disparaged their clients as "morons" and "troglodytes."
Someone needs to hip Pops to the fact that his son is a crook because it sounds like unless it shows up on ET he'll never know that Jackie's in a spot of trouble.
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The Deborah Howell/WaPo fiasco seems to be blowing up outside the blogosphere, which is great. We have a lot of these conversations amongst ourselves and we think other people must be hearing them too and they aren't.
This will probably be the first time many a TV talking head like Zombies-Ate-My-Brain Kyra Phillips will even
hear that Abramoff did not give money to Democrats (
Crooks & Liars has the video). If she hadn't heard it before this morning she probably has now. Not that it will make any difference to her, but still, it's the first step in disciplining the press. The talking heads may not give a rat's ass about the truth, but nobody is going to want to be the next Deborah Howell.
I should take a moment to thank
Jay Rosen for his help in all of this. I didn't mention it before because I didn't know how Jay would feel about it but he wrote about it himself this morning -- it was Jay who initially suggested to me that the focus of everyone's comments should be the "Maryland Moment" on the post.blog. That was a real watershed event for the blogosphere, and there has been much communication back-and-forth between bloggers this week about using it as a model during discussions about working together to effect change.
We quite inadvertently repeated it in the attempt to bury the book of WINO (Woman In Name Only -- someone emailed that to me and I just
love it) Kate O'Beirne. The creation of a public record that cannot be erased, that the subject will have to come to terms with, is an incredibly powerful tool. They're now replicating it with great success on the
Chris Matthews blog (18,500 unique visitors last time I checked) for much the same reasons -- it's time to discipline these people out of the sloppy repetition of GOP memes like comparing Michael Moore to Osama Bin Laden (which Joe Scarborough evidently just did).
(As a side note -- John Kerry just joined our blogswarm of Matthews with a post over at
DailyKos. I am so happy to see this happening, and good on
Peter Daou for spearheading it. We are learning. And rather quickly)
So all hail Jay for his help. If I was hard on him this morning it was because I don't think there is any larger consciousness that what Brady is talking about is TROLLS -- Kyra Phillips is essentially going into fits of hyperanxiety because of fucking TROLLS. I'm not surprised they've never heard of them, but to dismiss all participants in this discussion just because they've never heard of the problem before is not only absurd, it leaves them playing a role in a larger constantly repeating cycle that Atrios sketched out so clearly today:
[T]his whole situation is really reminiscent of the 2004 Adam Nagourney incident. Rough version: Nagourney wrote an article which passed on Bush administration peddled horseshit about how after the handover to the transitional government in Iraq U.S. casualties had declined. But they didn't. No matter how one squinted at the data, casualties hadn't declined. There was no way to slice it and dice it to make it so. Many angry exchanges between people and Nagourney and the useless Okrent. Many denials from them. Finally half-assed correction and an Okrent column which revealed the name and hometown of a rather "uncivil" reader because of his dastardly incivility.
We've been down this road before. It's quite sad that the learning curve of many is just getting around to an awareness of the existence of fucking
trolls, and it's quite beyond comprehension that they designed their whole system without ever taking them into account. I don't buy it for a minute as I've said before, but at the very least it makes them look like a bunch of diddling idiots who become tools for the GOP disinformation machine.
And I'd like to thank them for fucking the whole thing up so dramatically that the message is reaching a larger audience. Arianna called to say she's being interviewed by the NYT over it, so this is not going away. The cautionary tale of Deborah Howell is being told to an ever larger audience, and that message will be carried no matter how much they want to jump up and down screaming about how uncouth we all are.
Deborah Howell lied. Jack Abramoff did not give money to any Democrats. It's in black and white and it is not going away.
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The push is on to take the heat off the Post and their kneepads journalism in the Jack Abramoff matter by placing the blame on their unruly readers.
Jim VandeHei, this morning:
It is sad that a group of very mean-spirited readers can not engage in thoughtful, mature and provocative dialogue about stories and controversies. Instead, they revert to cowardly personal attacks on people without the courage to attach their names. As a reporter, I am a staunch supporter of free speech and welcome criticism. But readers should keep their comments to the issues and not make personal attacks that add nothing but empty anger to the debate.
Get it? No distinction between legitimate criticism over the Post's refusal to correct a blatant innacuracy and the inflamed rhetoric employed by a few. We are all trolls.
To his credit, Jim Brady
takes reader questions this morning in an online chat. But if anyone thought it was going to be anything other than a "blame the barbarians" hatchet job, the first question -- chosen, one would assume, out of many, was this:
Cache Valley, Utah: if ya can't stand the heat...
Publish partisan lies and not expect a backlash? Get real pal!!!
Fire that f***ing b**** forthwith and all's well that ends well, no? Otherwise, batten down the hatches, pal, 'cause there's a storm a brewin' and it's gonna be nasty.
Respectfully yours.
This supposedly sets the table to educate people as to what the poor Post has been having to deal with. Brady says as much:
But I wanted to start with it to make a point that this was the kind of stuff we spent all week cleaning out of our message boards (except there were no asterisks). And when the amount of time it took to ferret these kind of posts out exceeded the bandwidth we could devote to it, we decided to close commenting on post.blog down
Maybe I'm more tech illiterate than I thought, but how exactly does "time" exceed bandwidth? Any number of boards have reproduced both the Howell and Maryland Moments comments with no "bandwidth" issues. Does Brady even know what "bandwidth" is?
(Note: I am told "bandwidth" is an "old white guy term" for "resources." I guess it's obvious I'm not a member of that particular club.)When people commented that nothing in the comments on the board (that are still preserved by Salon and DU) seemed remarkably out of line, Brady said:
You were reading the ones that were posted live. There were a few hundred others that were removed the site altogether, and those would not be on the page you're looking at.
So we assume that the ones that
did make it onto the board were, at some point, okay with the Post's policies, because the ones that
weren't were removed. At what point did the policy change?
Brady then ducks the question of Howell altogether on the chat saying it is not his place, but he addresses it this morning
with Jay Rosen:
I'll be honest, I don't think the tone would have been much different if she'd posted something on Monday or Tuesday. The basic issue here is that she didn't deliver the exact message her critics wanted her to. (my emphasis)
I have a great amount of respect for Jay Rosen who questions Brady at length this morning about his decision to shut the comments section down, but he concludes that Brady is someone we should be supporting, not criticizing, and takes me to task for saying Brady's excuses are not the least bit convincing:
Meanwhile, flaming the friends of transparency isn't helping anyone. Get it, Jane?
What I get is that listening to Brady and Rosen discuss the management of a large public board is like listening to two white, middle-aged Exxon executives discuss "what's really wrong with the negroes." As if this was some huge, unforseeable problem.
Anyone who sets up a public board like this in a highly partisan world with really active readers and doesn't make plans for troll management in their system architecture is a full-on, four-flushing idiot. If you do have a problem (and I maintain it is nothing that considering the number of comments involved couldn't be handled in five minutes hovering over a delete key, we do it every day) it is utterly disingenuous to lay off blame for your own shortcomings by blackening the readership. And given the fact that everyone at the WaPo now seems to be toeing this line, I do not think I am overboard in suggesting that this is part of some larger management decision that refuses to take responsibility for a very big problem.
Nobody at the Post has taken responsibility for Howell's comments. Nobody has printed a retraction, and the wagons have been circled by the likes of Howie Kurtz and Jim VandeHei, who now excuses Howell's comments as "a somewhat inartful way of making the point that Abramoff's clients, at his direction, gave money to members of both parties."
This attempt to "blame the trolls" and shift the dialog over onto a remedial internet issue that people like Kos, Atrios, Americablog, Digby, MyDD, Crooks & Liars and other deal with every day of the week quite seamlessly is bullshit. It is a cheap excuse to divert the focus from the real problem -- Deborah Howell fucked up. She said something that was blatantly untrue. The Post management have refused to print a correction. Peoplejustifiableyable angry and to let them hijack the dialog over to "impolite commentary" is an attempt to get themselves off the hook. And it won't work.
The Maryland Moment blog is still
open for comment.
Update: Reader Bionic just emailed this:
I just heard Kira Phillips on CNN talk about the WaPo blog comment turning off incident. It was pretty onesided - hate speech and personal attacks cited as the reason they turned it off and then she said that the reason people were angry was that Howell had said Abramoff had sent money to both Repubs and Dems. Then she said and I quote "Well that's true."
This is the way this is one going to go down if we let it go unanswered.
Update 2:Atrios reports that this is the actual Phillips quote:
What set off readers was a Sunday column by Post ombudsman Deborah Howell who wrote that corrupt former lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to Democrats as well as Republicans. That's true but most of the money went to Republicans.
This is an incredible opportunity to speak up and both educate the media and dicipline them into telling the truth on this one very important point. We've got their attention now. Let's not waste it.
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Now that the DoJ has filed its response to the NSA/FISA legal challenges -- and the Administration has moved into
a full-on admission that we're spying without warrants and we're gonna keep on keeping on -- aren't we all really asking ourselves: "What next?"
Salon has
a great article today (subscription req'd or watch a video for a day pass) from Walter Shapiro, detailing how the behind-the-scenes political consultants have been telling Democrats that the NSA issue is DOA.
Midway through the meal, I innocently asked how the "Big Brother is listening" issue would play in November. Judging from his pained reaction, I might as well have announced that Barack Obama was resigning from the Senate to sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door. With exasperation dripping from his voice, my companion said, "The whole thing plays to the Republican caricature of Democrats -- that we're weak on defense and weak on security." To underscore his concerns about shrill attacks on Bush, the Democratic operative forwarded to me later that afternoon an e-mail petition from MoveOn.org, which had been inspired by Al Gore's fire-breathing Martin Luther King Day speech excoriating the president's contempt for legal procedures.
A series of conversations with Democratic pollsters and image makers found them obsessed with similar fears that left-wing overreaction to the wiretapping issue would allow George W. Bush and the congressional Republicans to wiggle off the hook on other vulnerabilities. The collective refrain from these party insiders sounded something like this: Why are we so obsessed with the privacy of people who are phoning al-Qaida when Democrats should be screaming about corruption, Iraq, gas prices and the prescription-drug mess?
Discussion like this makes me want to tear my hair out, because what consultants are really saying is "the hell with doing what is right or protecting the Constitution, it doesn't play well in Peoria."
Here's my response: maybe what hasn't played well up to now is the way you have been describing it. Maybe what we need is a better message.
You know, something like, "The President has already authorized illegal wiretapping. What's to stop him from authorizing house searches without a warrant, compiling a list of all firearms owners without any legal justification and other infringements on what you ought to be able to do as an American citizen?"
Sometimes, governing is about doing what is right, even if it requires you to do a lot of hard work that you wouldn't otherwise have to do -- and which might cut into your fundraising time. Sometimes calling the President on
his illegal actions is the right thing to do.
Sometimes, what you really want in your elected representative is for them to grow a spine and actually represent your interests and the interests of the whole nation. Let's call the President's actions what they are: an illegal power grab. And then let's hold him accountable for it.
(Major graphics love to
The Propaganda Remix Project. There are some incredibly well done graphics from these folks, many of which are available for sale in poster and other form. Please support their continued freedom of speech and artwork by shopping, if you so desire -- wish this sort of thing had been around when I was in college, my dorm room would have been much more fun.)
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Yesterday's NYTimes had an
op-ed from Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann entitled "If You Give a Congressman a Cookie." I've been struggling to put my thoughts on this article into words, because the pervasive corruption and contempt of the GOP leadership for the rules of Congress and the wider ethical norms of this country is truly breathtaking in its moral decay and scope.
If you didn't get a chance to read
the op-ed, you should. It details a number of issues that the authors, both long-time policy and legislative analysts at AEI (Ornstein) and The Brookings Institution (Mann), see in this Congress and in the political culture of today's Washington, through the lens of how much more corrupt and grasping this particular incarnation of Congress has been under the Republican leadership -- how much further the GOP has taken the notion of "we can do whatever the hell we want, because we are the law."
That the authors chose a title cribbed from the children's book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" is apt -- I read this book often to my daughter at bedtime, and the tale of the greedy little mouse who continually wants more and more and more, never satisfied with gaining his latest objective, is a perfect analogy for the KStreet project and its adherents.
We hear over and over from corporate media stories, political consultants and talking heads on teevee that the American public thinks that all politicians are corrupt, that this issue hurts Democrats as much as Republicans, yadda, yadda, yadda. Well, I say that is bunk. Perhaps the public doesn't quite understand the lengths to which the GOP has gone to bilk cash or trips or whatever out of whatever source was willing to dispense it, and what favors were given in return for that largesse. And I say that the media and the Democratic party establishment have been horrid at educating the public on this issue.
But I would bet good money that what will make the public sit up and take notice is just how this "I'll scratch your bank account, if you'll scratch mine." behavior has impacted their own lives. And if you think that Jack Abramoff and all his KStreet pals and all those Republican budget earmarks can't take their toll, think again.
Today's NYTimes has another doozy of an op-ed, this time from Paul Krugman, that is blocked behind the TimesSelect wall -- so no link, but I am going to excerpt a bit here because it goes hand in hand with the Ornstein and Mann piece from yesterday.
Thomas Scully was a hospital industry lobbyist before President Bush appointed him to run Medicare. In that job, Mr. Scully famously threatened to fire his chief actuary if he told Congress the truth about cost projections for the Medicare drug program.
Mr. Scully had good reasons not to let anything stand in the way of the drug bill. He had received a special ethics waiver from his superiors allowing him to negotiate for future jobs with lobbying and investment firms - firms that had a strong financial stake in the form of the bill - while still in public office. He left public service, if that's what it was, almost as soon as the bill was passed, and is once again a lobbyist, now for drug companies.
Meanwhile, Representative Billy Tauzin, the bill's point man on Capitol Hill, quickly left Congress once the bill was passed to become president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the powerful drug industry lobby.
Surely both men's decisions while in office were influenced by the desire to please their potential future employers. And that undue influence explains why the drug legislation is such a mess.
The most important problem with the drug bill is that it doesn't offer direct coverage from Medicare. Instead, people must sign up with private plans offered by insurance companies.
This has three bad effects. First, the elderly face wildly confusing choices. Second, costs are high, because the bill creates an extra, unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. Finally, the fragmentation into private plans prevents Medicare from using bulk purchasing to reduce drug prices.
This tale of Mr. Scully and Mr. Tauzin is a small illustration of a much, much larger problem. I've been hitting this Medicare problem hard because it is one that I see play itself out every day here in West Virginia, where I've seen elderly folks at the drugstore struggle to piece together change from their coin purse to finish paying for drugs that they can ill afford, where heating prices have skyrocketed this winter at a time when the Administration has cut subsidies for people on the margins, and where my family has tried to help out folks at our local Mission and other shelter options because there are elderly people who have to face a choice every day between their prescriptions and eating, and that is just, plain wrong in a nation of such wealth and prosperity for so many at the highest end of income.
I don't say this to make myself out to be some saint, because I'm not -- there is a lot more than I ought to be doing, frankly. But because it is illustrative of what I've heard from hundreds of readers, friends and family who work with the elderly, the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill, the disabled, the abused and neglected. You know, the people who can't afford to hire Jack Abramoff to buy their way into a piece of the legislative pie bonanza.
We have a Congress and an Executive Branch, run by a Republican majority gone amok, drunk on power and dispensing legislative largesse on their contributors at every turn. A legislature which hands out pork and plums to clients of their KStreet pals, in order to secure employment for chosen staffers...in order to secure more access to cash for campaigns and for travel boondoggles. (Notice how the interests of the American public don't really factor in there.) We have a legislative ethics process that has essentially stalled or disappeared altogether (
via Ornstein and Mann):
Indeed, Mr. Hastert showed open contempt for the House ethics process last year when he fired the Republican chairman of the ethics committee and ousted two Republican members after they did their duty and reprimanded Tom DeLay for three violations of standards. Mr. Hastert then appointed two members to the committee who had given large sums to the DeLay legal defense fund - when the main matter pending before the committee involved Representative DeLay.
The same attitude produced the K Street Project, in which the new Republican majority, led by Mr. DeLay, used its governmental power to demand that trade associations and lobbying groups fire Democratic lobbyists and hire designated Republicans, who could then be expected to show their gratitude by contributing generously to party candidates and committees. Jack Abramoff was one of the progenitors of that initiative.
The Republican party controls both the legislative and executive branches of government. They are responsible for how business is currently being conducted. They should be held accountable for the mess that government has become.
How have Republicans been able to get away with this for the last five years and more? Because the Democrats must have a coherent opposition response to this mess and, thus far, that hasn't emerged. When you add in a complicit media, you have no check or balance but the judicial branch -- and legal balancing takes a long time to weight itself out. As Krugman said today:
The more important effect of the K Street project is that it allows the party machine to offer lavish personal rewards to the faithful. For a congressman, toeing the line on legislation brought free meals in Jack Abramoff's restaurant, invitations to his sky box, golf trips to Scotland, cushy jobs for family members and a lavish salary after leaving office. The same kinds of rewards are there for loyal members of the administration, especially given the Bush administration's practice of appointing lobbyists to key positions.
I don't want to overstate Mr. Abramoff's role: although he was an important player in this system, he wasn't the only one. In particular, he doesn't seem to have been involved in the Medicare drug deal. It's interesting, though, that Scott McClellan has announced that the White House, contrary to earlier promises, won't provide any specific information about contacts between Mr. Abramoff and staff members.
So I have a question for my colleagues in the news media: Why isn't the decision by the White House to stonewall on the largest corruption scandal since Warren Harding considered major news?
Why is it that this has not been bigger news? Well, take a long look at all the reporting Jane has been doing on just the lack of objective fact reporting from the WaPo, and you begin to see a big part of the problem. How we begin to fix this is a very big question indeed. And one to which I've been devoting a lot of thought over the last few weeks. The 2006 elections are a huge part of the puzzle -- and I've been trying to come up with better strategies and ideas to pass along because we simply cannot afford to half-ass our way through under these circumstances. I would really appreciate thoughts on this -- we have some great commenters on message and key issues, and this is the time for all of us to kick into high gear.
I've been working with my local Democratic party apparatus, trying to help with local organization and message issues. Think about the impact we could all have if everyone did the same. That's a whole lot of energy being brought to bear at once and, frankly, a lot of local Dem groups could use a boost in energy.
I look forward to everyone's thoughts on this. And I'm hoping we can continue this conversation over a series of issue pieces I'm working up for the next few weeks. Don't know about you all, but I'm sick of my country being gamed by a bunch of greedy thugs -- it's time that our representatives actually worked for our interests for a change instead of lining their own pockets and trying to get re-elected.
I'm sick of having contempt of Congress. And I'm betting there are a whole lot of readers out there who feel the same way.
UPDATE: Speaking of Congress, Rep. Conyers is spearheading some hearings today on the NSA issue that are currently being shown on C-Span. Current testimony being given by James Bamford and Bruce Fein, among others. Should make for some interesting discussion -- too bad Conyers had to put this together with other Dems because Republicans in Congress haven't yet picked up the ball to do the oversight that is their job. You know, what we pay them to do.
UPDATE #2: Changed to reflect that Ornstein works for the American Enterprise Institute and Mann works for Brookings. Had forgotten to add in AEI in the initial posting. My apologies.
UPDATE #3: C-Span now covering a panel on corruption and politics, including Thomas Mann.
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Sens. Pat Leahy, Dick Durbin and Ted Kennedy
have spoken out against the Alito nomination -- outside the Senate floor, because Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) has declared that there will be no floor speeches on the nomination within the Senate prior to any vote. Nice. Now the Republicans want to restrict freedom of speech within the halls of government as well as at Presidential Town Hall Meetings. (For text of Sen. Kennedy's speech,
read here. Sen. Leahy's speech can be found
here.)
Kos has been running
a whip count on the Alito nomination, so go check and see where your Senators are leaning. I called both my Senators yesterday to lodge my thoughts against Judge Alito's nomination, and staff in Sen. Byrd's and Sen. Rockefeller's offices were very polite and very receptive. If you call, be polite but firm, and give facts as to why you oppose the nomination -- informed voters are carry more weight with staffers.
The vote in or out of the Judiciary Committee is scheduled for the 24th of January.
UPDATE:
The WaPo's Jim Brady will be online at noon ET to discuss the comments issue and Deborah Howell. You can submit your questions early at
this link. Ought to be..erm...interesting, to say the least.
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Pretty amazing day today with much muscle flexing on the left. I think the push last night for
Murtha to give the SOTU address last night forced the hands of the Democrats who tried to pre-empt the move by putting Kaine out there so quickly, but
many people are
still speaking out in
favor of
the idea. Here's hoping the Democrats hear that, too, and make some kind of move to show that the party is prepared to circle the wagons around Murtha in the face of GOP swift boating.
I'd also like to thank Amazon for keeping the
one star ratings on Kate O'Beirne's book as long as they did (and I like to think it was some self-respecting woman at Amazon who was responsible for holding out against extreme publisher/right wing pressure for so long, and if so, hon, you are my hero). It was long enough, however, to put the book in the shitter where it belongs and as we promised,
the bitch is dead meat.
I do have one question, though.
Tlaloc did an analysis of the comments that were deleted (which were emailed to me, no link) and found that 64.9% of all reviewers who posted a 5 only ever reviewed Kate's book, while 65.5% of all reviewers who posted a 1 only ever reviewed Kate's book. He concludes: "Looks like both sides are equally guilty of trying to game the reviews on Amazon which makes the conservative protests about how unfair that is a big old batch of hypocrisy." Why weren't those 5-star ratings deleted as well, if Amazon really wants to be fair?
And
Deborah Howell -- well, what can you say. New York Times public editor Byron Calame does not feel the need to
wipe out all the comments on his reader forum, but then again he does a good job -- one that entails working on behalf of the readers and not being afraid to criticize the Times' staff when need be, rather than acting as an apologist and a conduit for disinformation. The WaPo can blame their readership from here to Christmas and it won't change the fact that Deborah Howell just plain sucks at what she does.
Matt Stoller has a good article up on the
upcoming battle to unseat Lieberman which will, to my mind, be the true test of the internet community's ability to hang together and force real change within the Democratic party. There are a lot of risks involved -- the firepower that may line up against us, as Matt says, could be formidable -- but after Kos called
fatwah on Holy Joe last year the "unseat Lieberman" impulse took on a life of its own. It looks like Lamont may have exercised some rather good judgment in chosing his campaign staff according to Matt, so I'd really like to hear your thoughts on his post.
We'll keep trying to figure this out together, one night at a time.
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They've obviously got kool-aid running in the water fountains at the WaPo. Nice to know
not everyone is drinking it.
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Crooks and Liars has the video up of Matthews getting quite overheated today. He likes to get cozy with ol' Sandpaper Snatch Kate O'Beirne who calls Michael Schaivo a murderer and thinks torture is nifty, but Michael Moore he compares to Osama Bin Laden.
As
Peter Daou says:
"Bin Laden sounds like Clint Eastwood" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Ron Silver" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Rush Limbaugh" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Bill O'Reilly"-- "Bin Laden sounds like Mel Gibson" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Bruce Willis" -- "Bin Laden sounds like Michelle Malkin"... Imagine the outrage on the right and in the press (but I repeat myself) if a major media figure spat out those words. Well, on Hardball, Chris Matthews just blurted out that Bin Laden sounds like Michael Moore. Simple: Matthews should apologize. On the air. This has NOTHING to do with Michael Moore and everything to do with how far media figures can go slandering the left. And last I checked, Michael Moore didn't massacre thousands of innocent Americans.
Feel free to express your sympathies regarding Matthews' exceptional bad taste
here.
Update: John Aravosis reminds us that Chris was on Imus this morning retelling unfunny gay jokes by "the wonderful Michael Savage." Working overtime to earn his Bush biscuits he is.
Update: John Kerry's not too happy about it either, has this to say:
"You'd think the only focus tonight would be on destroying Osama Bin Laden, not comparing him to an American who opposes the war whether you like him or not. You want a real debate that America needs? Here goes: If the administration had done the job right in Tora Bora we might not be having discussions on Hardball about a new Bin Laden tape. How dare Scott McClellan tell America that this Administration puts terrorists out of business when had they put Osama Bin Laden out of business in Afghanistan when our troops wanted to, we wouldn't have to hear this barbarian's voice on tape. That's what we should be talking about in America.
Update: Digby:
Come on. This is ridiculous. This man is either working overtime to kiss right wing ass for some reason or he's been paid off to do full-on GOP character assasination. This is exactly what the Republicans did to Tom Daschle and Max Cleland.
This comparing liberals to Osama bin laden has been going on long enough. We don't want to subjugate women and kill gays. We don't want to turn free societies into theocracies and inflict a particular religious doctine on everyone. We don't see geopoliticc through the lens of religious revelation and compel others to act upon it. It is beyond absurd to keep comparing liberals, any of us, to religious fundamentalist terrorists.
(graphic by Berkeley)
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I respect Jim Brady, he's made a series of smart decisions for the Washington Post online that have really given the paper an amazing internet presence, far ahead of the New York Times or anyone else. But the reason he gave for shutting off the comments to Deborah Howell's blog is
just absurd:
Among the things that we knew would be part of that discussion would be the news and opinion coming from the pages of The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com. We knew a lot of that discussion would be critical in nature. And we were fine with that. Great journalism companies need feedback from readers to stay sharp.
But there are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech. Because a significant number of folks who have posted in this blog have refused to follow any of those relatively simple rules, we've decided not to allow comments for the time being.
I'm assuming WaPo management just imperiously decided they didn't want to have a public record of opposition to the embarrassment that is Deborah Howell, and Brady was forced to make some excuse for shutting it down.
Because they had what, a thousand comments? For fuck sake we get that many comments on any given day and have to write our posts and manage the blog and pick images and do our own HTML coding and Redd and I manage to remove offensive comments quite easily, it takes less than a second. The excuse offered by Brady is so lame as to be comical, and anyone who runs a board open to the public just knows that people who show up are often not going to play by the "rules" you set up, in fact they'll break them just because you have them. To assume otherwise is incredibly naive, and using that as an excuse to silence your critics makes a complete farce of everything Brady has achieved in his online division so far.
But hey, I guess we should be thanking Jim for throwing gasoline on the fire. This complete disregard for the commentary their readers took care to craft, that they hoped to wipe from the face of the planet, has done more than I ever could keep the outrage white hot and active.
Update: Atrios
said it well:
The Post said they wanted a discourse, but part of the reason people were rather angry was that Howell was not providing honest discourse.
So, they blame their readers. Nice job!
It also seems to be the topic of the day over at
Romanesco, who quote
Public Eye, the CBS News blog:
Nevertheless, the discussion was hardly one that could be considered respectful, or even civil. This unfortunate chain of events leaves everyone in the new media landscape in worse position.
Yes it's all our fault. Tisk-tisk. Oh those uncouth bloggers.
We are making some noise and it is being heard. The echo of these actions throughout the media world is thundering. Superb job.
Update II: Via
AmericaBlog, we find our good friends at DU have taken
a snapshot of the deleted Howell page. Better luck next time, WaPo.
Update III:
Editor & Publisher is now trying to contact Jim Brady who is not responding.
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1,590 days and counting.
That's how long it has been since 9/11/2001 -- and how long it has been since the Bush Administration said they would
kill capture Osama Bin Laden. And...erm...they haven't exactly done that, have they? New tape
from Osama today. No capture. Not feeling any safer under this Preznit's watch, that's for sure.
Maybe Bushie should actually start doing his job, instead of just talking about it all the time. Actions speak louder than words. So do inactions.
Results matter. I'm just sayin'.
(Photo via
The Poorman.)
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UPDATE: The Washington Post has now turned off the comments on Deborah Howell's blog. The Maryland Moment blog is still functional however, so I recommend leaving comments here. Lil' Debbie is now a
a blogger:
I've heard from lots of angry readers about the remark in my column Sunday that lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to both parties. A better way to have said it would be that Abramoff "directed" contributions to both parties.
And a better way to have said this would've been "I fucked up, what I said was an outright fabrication based on the fact that I was writing about something I did not understand. I accepted too quickly what the Heritage Foundation told me and I did not do my job as a journalist to check the facts."
Lobbyists, seeking influence in Congress, often advise clients on campaign contributions.
Debbie here assumes everyone is as slow on the uptake as she is and needs a nice, patronizing lecture about this amazing discovery she seems to have just now made. You guys at the WaPo did a great job hiring an obudsman. Really top-drawer.
While Abramoff, a Republican, gave personal contributions only to Republicans, he directed his Indian tribal clients to make millions of dollars in campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.
I don't expect Lil' Debbie to understand this so she can just stop reading now and go back to speed dialing the Hudson Institute for her next column, but those with some interest in spin, publicity and the generation of public image probably don't need to be told that all this dancing around about "Democrats took contributions from Abramoff clients too" is an intentional attempt to mislead the public into making a conclusion that is patently false. The implication is that the Indian Tribes are as dirty as Abramoff, something the Post has so far failed to do. They go straight to the White House for their take on any story which they then dutifully transcribe, and have neglected in any meaningful way to go to the Indian tribes themselves and ask for their version of events.
Somebody much more intelligent than Lil' Debbie obviously held her hand and put up some charts for her showing Democrats took money from the Indian tribes, listing Patrick Kennedy as one of the largest recipients. As they well know from their own reporting, Kennedy had a relationship with the tribes that predated the appearance of Abramoff. Do they have
any evidence to support that Abramoff's "lists" were not somehow taking into account donations that the tribes themselves insisted on covering? Have they interviewed anyone at the tribes to see what their involvement was, were they the ones that demanded that Kennedy be included? We'll never know, at least not from the Post, because it clearly does not serve their purposes to ask these questions.
Somebody from the WaPo: please, please go check out
Wampum. They are so far ahead of you on this one you should have the good sense to be embarrassed.
The propaganda assistance rendered to the White House and the GOP by such obfuscation is immeasurable. By pointing to carefully chosen "facts" which may be technically true (people like Kennedy did take money from the Indian tribes) without placing it in the proper context has lead to polling results that must have Ken Mehlman doing the lambada. According to the latest
Diageo/Hotline Poll, a plurality of voters now do not associate Abramoff with any political party (
PDF). That is just a remarkable achievement, considering everyone involved in this little wool-pulling scam -- with the exception of Lil' Debbie, of course, whom we assume is just too stupid -- knows that Abramoff was nothing but a bag man for the GOP.
If they care so much about the "facts," why don't they hit the "fact" that so far there has been no proof that any of the contributions made by the Indian tribes to Democrats were in any way illegal, or that their overall contributions to Democrats plummeted once Abramoff appeared on the scene? I guess those "facts" don't conform to the dog-whistle journalism they are clearly engaging in.
Congratulations, WaPo. You have done your job well, Bush will no doubt have a biscuit for you. And congratulations on the selection of Howell -- much like Scott McClellan, her own stupidity will now be the focus of anything she involves herself in and take the spotlight off of any larger issues she might be tasked to investigate.
Update: In the comments, David Latchaw reminds us of this Abramoff email from a
Steno Sue article, no less:
"I wish those moronic Tiguas were smarter in their political contributions. I'd love us to get our mitts on that moolah!! Oh well, stupid folks get wiped out."
Clearly the Indian tribes themselves had some history in directing their own money toward politicians. The notion that they were just a bunch of slack-jawed dupes being wholly "directed" by Abramoff is both demeaning and misleading.
(graphic by alysheba)
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Democrats launched their
lobbying reform proposal yesterday, with the signing of a "Democratic Declaration of Honest Leadership and Open Government."
Surrounded by dozens of House and Senate colleagues in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, Mr. Reid and fellow Democratic leaders blamed close ties between lobbyists and majority Republicans for health care, energy and other legislation that they called too friendly to industry at the expense of the public.
"The Republicans have turned Congress into an auction house, for sale to the highest bidder," said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader. "You have to pay to play. That's just not right."
This is a good start. Especially when the Democratic proposal takes things several steps further than the Republicans have proposed. But there is a lot more work to do, and the message needs to get out to the whole of the American public that the Republicans are trying to pull a fast one on behalf of their big money donors and KStreet cronies -- publicly pretending to be for reform, while still cutting deals int he back room with big money interests.
The DSCC has a new ad out today regarding the Senate Republican leadership's choice for lobbying reform point man: Rick "K Street is good government" Santorum. The ad can be
viewed here. It's not my favorite ad of all time, but it does make clear that Santorum isn't exactly an honest broker -- and neither is the Republican party -- so it's a start.
As for the House side of the Republican "reform" agenda,
it's hypocrisy central (hat tip to FiredUpAmerica). Again. Nothing like calling for reform, while continuing to set up a clone of Team DeLay to consolidate your power base. Et tu, Blunt? Boehner? Shadegg? As
Roll Call reports today (subs. req'd):
In the case of Blunt, GOP leadership aides said the most visible outside help is coming from Gregg Hartley, formerly chief of staff for Blunt’s whip operation and now a top lobbyist for Cassidy and Associates.
Blunt’s Whip office is part of the suite of rooms occupied by Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) on the second and third floors of the Capitol and includes Blunt’s leadership office, his communications staff and a conference room.
Several GOP sources said Hartley is often seen roaming through Blunt’s office area, meeting with the Missouri Republican or his staff, using the elevator located in the Speaker’s suite or talking with aides in the conference room.
“He’s there a ton, I can tell you that,” said a Republican aide who often is in the Speaker’s suite. “He’s still heavily involved in Blunt’s PAC stuff and fundraising.”
Another GOP insider said Hartley “has been in and out of the Capitol constantly” since the Majority Leader race began. “He just doesn’t meet with Blunt, he meets with staff.”
Oh yeah. Staff, eh -- as in the Hastert Staff, the GOP House leadership staff, Blunt's staff, or just Republican staff in general? House GOP serious about reform? Not really. Serious about pulling one over on the American public so they can continue their KStreet scam? Absolutely.
The WaPo has a review of some of the articles on the subject over the last couple of days. Yeah, I know, Howie Kurtz, but there are some decent links, including
this gem from Josh Marshall at TPM and this excellent article from
Hilary Rosen at HuffPo.
This is going to be a big story for a long time. Partly due to more impending indictments and plea deals (You can just feel them coming down the pike, can't you? I know I can.) but also because you have Denny Hastert tap dancing around the issue with his Mr. Magoo "I don't see any corruption prior to this month" act. (And that is not a pretty picture, is it?) The White House
continues to stall on answering any Abramoff questions regarding Jackie Boy's contacts with members of the Administration, which only serves as fuel for the "what the hell are they hiding" fire.
At some point, all this combustible material is going to catch fire, and a whole lot of Republicans are awfully frightened right now that they'll get singed in a wide ranging swath. As bits and pieces of this story trickle out in a drip, drip, drip, we need to figure out exactly how to best use this for the 2006 campaigns.
Just saying "culture of corruption" over and over isn't enough. Practical solutions must be coupled with facts as to why the Republicans have so aggregiously and purposefully broken the rules. The KStreet project was an attempt to legitimize bribery, corruption and pay to play politics -- for Republicans and their big money friends and cronies. Period.
It's going to be a lot of hard work -- but it's worth it to kick those smarmy bastards and their KStreet crony machine back into the gutter where they belong. Let's get to work.
(Photo credit to
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images via NYTimes. The color clarity in this photo is brilliant, and the fact that the Dems managed some stage set-up is pretty exciting, too.)
UPDATE: Excellent comments thus far, but I want to highlight
this one from MSB: "We need to say, no scream, that they CHEATED. Then we need to explain how they did it." Agreed -- and wonder how we can build on this to move forward. I think the whole concept of the GOP cheating its way through resonates on so many levels with this particular group, both in the Administration and Congress. Any ideas?
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Sometimes, you just have to take a moment to point out the sheer hackitude of certain members of the Administration. This morning, let's take a moment to discuss the McClellan brothers. It's two, two, two brothers working for one Administration. No cronyism here, though. Nope.
Here's Scott McClellan on torture by proxy in Syria,
via ThinkProgress:
QUESTION: There are allegations that we sent people to Syria to be tortured…
MCCLELLAN: To Syria?
QUESTION: Yes. You’ve never heard of any allegations like that?
MCCLELLAN: No, I’ve never heard that one. That’s a new one.
QUESTION: Syria? You haven’t heard that?
MCCLELLAN: That’s a new one.
QUESTION: Well, I can assure you it’s been well publicized. My question is…
MCCLELLAN: By what, bloggers?
Ooooh, new WH press strategy: if we don't like the question, we'll blame it on bloggers. Never mind the facts, the truth or the importance of the question.
Or the fact that the issue has been addressed a number of times by different news organizations, repeatedly, with no answer from the Administration. Can you say dodge and weave? I thought you could.
And are you asking yourself, "What about the other McClellan brother?" You'll recall that Medicare Plan D
isn't working well? And that seniors and pharmacists and medical professionals who are trying to make sense out of the entire mess can't get a straight answer from the 1-800 hotline, even after waiting forever on hold to get to a person who is supposed to help them? Guess who is in charge of coordinating
this non-helpful service (via The Plank):
I have an article about what's going on with the Medicare drug benefit--and why--coming out in this week's edition of the magazine. But one tidbit I came across in my research seems worth sharing now. It's a Government Accounting Office report, issued in December, warning that the Bush administration hadn't done enough to make sure the most medically and financially vulnerable Medicare beneficiaries could actually get their drugs.
If you do get around to reading it, make sure to check out the part where Mark McClellan, director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, says the GAO has it all wrong--the part where he insists that "CMS has established effective contingency plans to ensure that dual-eligible beneficiaries will be able to obtain comprehensive coverage and obtain necessary drugs beginning January 1, 2006."
Well, maybe not entirely effective.
Is there some sort of cronyism manual that this Administration is using? Because this is one hacktastic duo, and I can't come up with an explanation for their continued employment other than Bushie likes to hang with his cronies regardless of how ill-served the American public continues to be.
Oh, and for those who are waiting for the answer to "How many times was Jack Abramoff in the WH and what relationship did he have with this Administration?" that Scott McClellan promised to give...
still waiting. Thankfully,
Knight Ridder is still asking the questions, even though the WH still isn't giving any answers. Heaven forbid the American public get a glimpse of how things really work in this WH or something.
This concludes this morning's edition of Profiles in Cronyhood. We now return you to your regularly scheduled disgust for the length that this Administration will go to cover its ass, and that of its cronies and large money donors.
We'll revisit Cronies-R-Us soon, because truly it's a continuing saga with these folks, isn't it?
(Graphics love to
Whitehouse.org. I laughed, I cried, I spewed my coffee. Mwahaha. There's something hilarious and disturbing about this photo, but it cracks me up nonetheless.)
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When John Murtha stuck his neck out to call Bush's war a fiasco, he must've known that he would be the next one to be Swift Boated. That no major Democrat has endorsed his plan or called out the
Washington Post and others for legitimizing the attacks of GOP-funded "Cybercast News" is shameful.
A couple of nights ago a commenter here suggested that Murtha be the one to give the Democratic rebuttal to the SOTU address. It is usually a pretty lackluster affair and everyone agreed that having Murtha do it would really invigorate the event, throwing Commander Codpiece into sharp contrast with a genuine military hero who spent
37 years defending his country.
On a blogger conference call with Harry Reid yesterday, I asked Reid who was going to be giving the rebuttal and he wouldn't say. I think it would be a good thing for Reid and all the Democrats to know just how strongly we feel about Murtha and the courage he has shown, because I'm not sure they do.
Democratic Underground has set up a board dedicated to Murtha giving the SOTU address. I urge everyone to stop by and let the Democrat establishment know just how you feel about John Murtha.
Update: The Democrats announced that their choice is going to be Tim Kaine. I think we forced their hand anyway. Good job everyone -- they know we're here.
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I was going to leave off Kate O'Beirne tonight, really I was, the
book is tanking and nothing they can do will save it. But I decided I needed to hit it one more time if only to dispel the notion amongst the conspiracy-minded that I am the one planning their "counter-offensive" (such as it is), because really I could not do a better job if I had orchestrated it myself.
I envision Kate sniffing daintily by the window, waiting for her Bush that will never come to rush through the door and rescue her. All of a sudden one of the Corner zeros -- and I've got five bucks on Jonah -- says "hey I know what, I'll call my mom...." and the rest is history.
Exhibit A:
The Corner and Lucianne (gone now, but she had a giant picture of
Valley Girl's mockup.)
Now I ordinarily wouldn't do their work for them, I'd just let them continue to parade around like a bunch of fucking monkeys, but I figure someone with a brain will show up at some point and scream
for the love of God what were you thinking.
This whole adventure has been most illustrative and has shown many holes in their game that I hope to exploit at a further date so I'll say no more (because I know they read this and it brings me great joy). But I'm willing to give them this one because it demonstrates how thoroughly beatable they are. They may have money and they are ruthless but they are also, evidently, the stupidest people who grew opposable thumbs.
I used the
Boss Tweed analogy the other night and I think it bears repeating. Tammany Hall was dismantled when cartoonist Thomas Nast drew cartoons of Tweed like the one pictured above.
"Let's stop them damned pictures," the Boss supposedly said, "I don't care so much what the papers write about -- my constituents can't read -- but damn it, they can see pictures."
See, Boss Tweed wanted Thomas Nast's cartoons wiped off the face of the planet.
He didn't blow them up to mural size and slap them all over Tammany Hall. Would you like to tell me what kind of fucking moron copies the enemy's piss-takes and blows it up to enormous proportions for the whole world to see?
Jesus tapdancing Christ you really don't need to even bother when they're willing to do all the work for you.
Update: enigma4ever reports in the comments that there was a big pile 'o Kate's books on the floor at Borders in downtown Cleveland -- seems they were putting them back because there were too many out and they weren't selling. How very sad.
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Although Michelle Malkin's blog has been around for much longer than the relatively new Crooks and Liars, according to
Technorati C&L just passed her for number 8 spot in the most popular blogs list among the 25.4 million they track. That is just amazing, considering John Amato does it without benefit of wingnut welfare, think tank-sponsored book deals, columns syndicated to the functionally illiterate or a general willingness to spout fascist gibberish and turn himself into a rodeo clown for the cable news freak shows.
John is a class act, a true innovator and an immeasurable asset to the lefty blogosphere. I called my broker the other day and the girl who answered the phone said "oh my gosh! I saw your name on Crooks & Liars, that's awesome." He draws people into the blogosphere we otherwise wouldn't reach, and he's one of the big reasons the left leaning side of our aisle is growing while the
wingers stay static.
Stop by and congratulate John and let him know how much you appreciate the fact that he just kicked Malkin's ass.
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Okay the WaPo has now entered the territory of deep absurdity, employing an ombudsman who
does not reply to the public. Which I suppose now makes her the ombudsman to the Heritage Foundation, to whom
she does reply.
Just in case there was any lingering doubt as to Howell's political alignment, reader Bob B. did some digging into her background and unearthed some information about her husband, C. Peter Magrath, former president of the National Association of State Colleges and Land Grant Universities.
In 1997 McGrath published a Howowitzian paper calling for the
elimination of tenure:
It is clear to me that tenure is one of those "third rails" that can quickly electrocute university chancellors and presidents.
(snip)
Although still valued highly by society for the knowledge they produce, colleges and universities have only "soft" support in many sectors of society because of perceptions -- some justified, some not -- that we are not fully accountable and responsible; that we are inefficient and too often self-indulgent; and that we neglect the largest constituency that we are supposed to serve -- undergraduate students.
The issue of tenure must be viewed in this broader context of public unrest about higher education. It is part of a larger examination of American universities that is going on nationwide. Studies by such respected groups as the Public Agenda Foundation show that tenure, fairly or unfairly, evokes disdain from civic and business leaders because they believe it protects professors from the accountability and productivity required of other workers. I suspect that college tenure also is caught up in the many negative perceptions that exist regarding teacher tenure in our nation's elementary and secondary schools.
In light of the
LA Times story about the really frightening Bruin Alumni Association's "Exposing UCLA's Radical Professors" initiative, whereby students are paid to spy on professors perceived as liberal, tenure is one of the only safeguards against fascism totally overrunning the institutions of higher learning that are one of the last bulwarks against it in this country.
Howell and her husband may be stupid but they're dangerous, and anything they do should be viewed through the light of their deep conservative convictions much like other Texans Who Shall Remain Nameless.
For anybody wishing to express their sentiments publicly to the Post, the
Maryland Moment blog is still open.
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Crap journalism exhibit A, courtesy Peter Baker of the
WaPo:
White House Disputes Gore on NSA Spying
"...The ACLU said that because of their work, the plaintiffs "have a well-founded belief that their communications are being intercepted by the NSA" but offered no evidence."
Responsible, non-stenographic journalism, courtesy Jonathan S. Landay of
Knight Ridder:
Legal challenges to NSA eavesdropping filed
...She acknowledged that she had no "direct evidence" her clients were monitored.
Several legal scholars said the Justice Department probably would demand the cases be dismissed because the suits are based on suspicions - not proof - that the plaintiffs have been targeted.
In order for such cases to have standing in court, judges require plaintiffs to show that their rights were infringed by the government's conduct, something that will be difficult to demonstrate with the NSA program because it's top secret.
No wonder big wingnut bucks are being thrown around trying to shut Knight-Ridder up.
Will Bunch does an excellent job of following this story.
And if anyone wants to photoshop up a set of logo kneepads for the WaPo, I really think they need 'em.
(thanks to reader Susan N.)
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It was time that a Republican veteran called the party out on its "swift-boating" tactics. Not only because it's just plain wrong ethically, but also because the long-term ramifications of denegrating someone's military service aren't something that a so-called "pro-military" party can sustain without looking like rampant hypocrites. (Personally, for my money, they passed that point a long time ago, but I know a few kool-aid drinking veterans who are just now catching on...)
In
today's NYTimes, James Webb, former Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan Administration and former Marine platoon and company commander in Vietnam, calls
the attacks on Jack Murtha for what they are: a baseless political smear, coordinated by a group with deep ties to the far right of the GOP.
And he calls those behind the attacks for what they are as well:
The political tactic of playing up the soldiers on the battlefield while tearing down the reputations of veterans who oppose them could eventually cost the Republicans dearly. It may be one reason that a preponderance of the Iraq war veterans who thus far have decided to run for office are doing so as Democrats.
A young American now serving in Iraq might rightly wonder whether his or her service will be deliberately misconstrued 20 years from now, in the next rendition of politically motivated spinmeisters who never had the courage to step forward and put their own lives on the line.
Republicans don't get to say they are for veterans, while simultaneously attacking any vet who criticizes them, firing those military personnel who dare to put their men's safety ahead of the political expediency of the moment, by cutting veteran's benefits, and decimating the reserves and national guard through piss poor planning decisions.
The jerks who wore those purple heart band-aids at the Republican convention in 2004 are a prime example of what is wrong in the GOP these days: all PR, no action, no thought, no follow-through. Kudos to
James Webb for calling it like it is.
(Hat tip to
DKos for the link.)
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Just...*snerk*...go...*hahahaha*...
read here.
You'll thank me later.
Who knew Tom DeLay could be a muse for high art?
(Hat tip to
Micah Sifry for the link, and for dubbing it "Green Cash and Scam." Priceless. Dr. Seuss political cartoons can be found
here. This one is from October, 1941.)
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Let me see if I understand
this correctly: the Bush Medicare plan is underfunded and broken. After weeks and weeks of him flying around the country on the taxpayer dime to promote this poorly planned fiasco of a "Medicare reform program," the Preznit is now going to send members of his Cabinet around the country to...erm...promote this poorly planned fiasco.
Here's an idea: how about we use that travel money to instead fix the damn program. You know, so senior citizens can get the drugs they need to keep them alive right now, instead of months down the road.
I'm thinking the money would be better spent on drugs for the elderly, the poor and the disabled than on Air Force One Presidential M&Ms, large PR backdrops and security details. Especially when it's being wasted on promoting a program that
doesn't even freaking work. I'm just sayin'.
How about a program that actually assists the most vulnerable members of the public instead of more drug corporation welfare from the Bush Administration?
Look, the population in this country is aging. We have a lot of baby boomers who are retiring these days. The rise in oil prices and home heating costs this winter coupled with the rapid rise in health care costs and drug costs over the past couple of years, and the instability in a lot of pension plans and retirement investments due to issues with the economy, have combined to create a perfect storm for a lot of vulnerable people on a fixed income.
People at the margins in terms of budget cannot afford this sort of screw-up. I live in West Virginia, a state that has a substantial senior population, and I see people every day make the choice between food and their medicine. Including verterans who ought to have the VA system to depend on in some capacity. This is shameful -- and to use taxpayer money to travel around the country to promote a program that is not working to people who are barely holding on with both arthritic hands to begin with is just plain wrong.
Fix the program. Help the vulnerable. Stop worrying about covering your ass from the political liability on this one. Do the right thing, George.
And to Democrats: hold his feet to the fire until this is fixed. Senior citizens, the disabled, and children in vulnerable families can't afford any mistakes. They don't have the margin of error that the rest of the country does. Democrats need to step up and be the voice of the voiceless in this -- because it is the right thing to do.
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You have to hand it to Congressional Republicans. Introducing
a lobbying reform bill that leaves a huge, gaping hole in in any actual reform, allowing members of Congress to keep wining and dining on someone else's dime...so long as they are also raising campaign funds at the same time -- brazen doesn't begin to describe the scheme.
Can you get more efficient than fleecing a lobbyist and the public simultaneously? Nothing like pretending that you are for reform while propping up the very system you publicly pretend to change. That's some serious ass chutzpah.
According to
the WaPo, a member of Congress could still...say...travel to Scotland for a golfing outing, as long as the outing was also accompanied by a big, fat fundraising check from all the lobbyists
in attendance.
According to lobbyists and ethics experts, even if Hastert's proposal is enacted, members of Congress and their staffs could still travel the world on an interest group's expense and eat steak on a lobbyist's account at the priciest restaurants in Washington.
The only requirement would be that whenever a lobbyist pays the bill, he or she must also hand the lawmaker a campaign contribution. Then the transaction would be perfectly okay.
That's a pretty huge loophole, wouldn't you say?
Clearly the gamble is that the American public is too stupid to figure this out for themselves -- and that the media wouldn't catch onto it, or that folks in the media wouldn't have the balls to report on it if they did catch on to the scam. Guess that's not working so well, considering even the WaPo has picked up on the bait and switch lobbyist money game.
Democrats have gone on the offensive with this issue, proposing their own version of
lobbying reform today, according to the NYTimes.
Democrats plan to push ahead with their own proposals, saying they are skeptical that the Republicans who control the House and Senate will be able to clean up a system they have presided over.
"It is like asking John Gotti to do what he can to clean up organized crime," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.
Oh, that Harry Reid. Pissing off Republicans by calling things like they really are. (Good on ya, Harry.)
UPDATE: Democrats will be unveiling their reform plan this afternoon. I'm told the event is going to be broadcast live on CSPAN starting around 2:00 pm EST and it will be also webcast live on the
Democrat's website for those without access to television.
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I had hoped to have something else for everyone tonight, but alas it will not be until tomorrow. It's a good one though, if everything comes together I think you'll like it.
In the mean time, let's just enjoy dancing on Kate's grave. She dropped to
120 today on Amazon and is sinking like a rock. Which in a way is kind of sad, I had a whole lot more weapons in my arsenal that I was all ready to use but alas they do not seem to be needed. Inertia is pulling her sales, like her prom-queen visage, ever downward. I guess I will just have to save them for the next round, 'cos we're not done with Kate. Not by a long shot.
Wingnuts are bullies but they are (as we well know) roving chickenshits, they travel in packs. It's like that rich kid in the Wedding Crashers who thinks he's a badass because his friends hold a guy down while he wails on them. Single one out and they're pissing themselves. If you have a scattershot approach where everyone gets sprayed it is largely ineffective, but if you separate one from the group and make an example of them -- a cautionary tale to the others, so to speak -- your volley is much more effective.
They want to strike back?
Bring it. Love to have the traffic. Because unlike the Corner where they apparently rescue people from eating lead-based paint off the walls, put them in front of a computer and subsidize their deep forays into
Herbert Spencer scholarship, we have advertisers. I'm going to guess they will not be sending anyone with a book coming out. Nobody quite that brave.
I hear
hairless troll doll Mark Levin is
seething. Considering he is yet another
wignut welfare-subsidized ink slinger, it really makes the whole thing worth it right there, don't you think?
Update: GSD, from the comments:
By the way, for Kate O'Beirne to somehow imply that she wasn't getting "kick me" posters slapped on her back and not spending lots of lonely high school nights watching Dobie Gillis all alone and sneaking off to rub up against the washing machine on an off-load is high comedy.
Just so they'll see it.
Update II: TBogg: "It's nice to see Kate going down faster than Pam from Atlas Shrugs at a PJM get together."
(graphic courtesy Corrado)
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I know this will send the wonks into fits of hyperventilation about the interstate commerce clause, but I find it highly ironic that per the Supreme Court terminal patients can now
end their lives but they
can't smoke weed to make their pain more bearable.
And how about that charmer John Roberts, eh? The one who said
only months ago he probably wouldn't vote against assisted suicide -- and then he did.
Maybe we can work up a few more bold headlines about how Strip Search Sammy is going to keep an "open mind" about abortion. 'Cos I know the Senate Dems are meeting tomorrow to see if they have the 41 votes or not and those always make me laugh 'til I cry.
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The smackdown of Deborah Howell offered up at the post.blog is having remarkable legs. Memorandum this morning had the headline "
HOWELL IS A LYING HACK NOT FIT TO CHANGE TOILET PAPER OUT AT THE MOTEL 6!!!!", and then there is this deft response by Vance Lehmkuhl in
Romanesco to Howie Kurtz' disingenous defense of Howell during his
Post live chat:
Kurtz says Deborah Howell's statement about Democrats receiving money from Abramoff was not a lie, only "inartfully worded," and cites the phrase "have gotten Abramoff campaign money" as though this was the only instance in that column of her referring to this concept.
That's wrong, though. As Kurtz must know, the other reference was beyond artful or inartful; it was simply untrue: "Schmidt quickly found that Abramoff was getting 10 to 20 times as much from Indian tribes as they had paid other lobbyists. And he had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties."
No. Schmidt did not report (nor has anyone else to date uncovered) Jack Abramoff himself making ANY campaign contribution to Democrats. Howell and now Kurtz should apologize for continuing to parrot this falsity.
The Post this morning "disappeared" the Howell comments from the blog, only to restore them shortly thereafter. In case they get "disappeared" again, it's nice to know they are being helpfully logged
here.
Reader RBG emailed me and suggested that much like the Boston Tea Party, the original title of the blog we hijacked -- "The Maryland Moment" -- be forthwith the designated monicker for this rather theatrical bit of reader pushback. I'm liking it.
Update: Wilson46201 from the comments:
What's fun to realize about the WaPo kerfuffle is the internal turmoil going on. Anybody involved in a large organization knows what happens behind the scenes when there's such a flap. The top dogs are chatting, lawyers have been discreetly consulted, office gossips are going full blast, Emails are being forwarded, everybody is afraid of screwing this whole affair up even more...
I also forgot to mention
Will Bunch's pointed Howell rant in Romanesco this morning. If you haven't read it yet it's a delight.
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I've been holding on to this for a couple of days unsure about whether to post it, but now that Jill Carroll's captors have
released a video and demanded that Iraqi women be set free or she will be killed within 72 hours I thought the perspective it offers might be enlightening. I found it quite sobering, from a female journalist I know who has worked extensively in Iraq:
I was very sorry to see that the kidnappings have started up again in Iraq. Unfortunately, it is a society that is accustomed to spying -- they all spy on one another -- and a foreigner cannot move about unnoticed anywhere -- phone calls will be made and it's just a matter of time. It is extremely naive for a foreign reporter to imagine they can move around in Iraq -- even to hospitals, police stations, universities and other public places with security and responsible officials in charge. There is no safe place in Iraq, not even the South. There are spies everywhere. At this point any journalist operating there, especially a freelance one, is one of three things:
1. Not leaving their hotel and if they do go out, it's with very heavy and very expensive security
2. Operating on a basis of being willing to martyr themselves because they truly believe getting the truth about Iraq is worth more than their life
3. Naive. Anyone who has spent anytime in Iraq, had any Iraqi friends, studied its modern history and cared to understand the society SHOULD know there is no such thing as blending in. There is a culture of report writing and tattling and a deep, unshakeable mistrust of foreigners -- They don't even trust each other. They know who all of us are -- they know where we live -- they know who we work with -- they make a point of it. You can't sneak around and you CANNOT hide.
Personally I might be in category 2 -- except one problem -- even if I don't give a damn about my own life, I wouldn't like to have the responsibility of exposing Iraqi colleagues and friends to being shot in the head, making widows and orphans of their families. And what if I survived and they didn't? I couldn't look that family in the eye. Maybe at some point I will change my mind and find myself willing to risk the lives of those people around me -- after all it's the most important story in the world and it's the most lied about story in the world and that is frustrating.
When the civil war starts up in full force it will be possible for journalists to go in with one group or another under their protection -- but right now we're still in the twilight period. I am wondering to myself who took Jill -- they are clearly Sunnis and that is bad news. Being female will help her, the Iraqis find it more distasteful to harm a woman than a man. If she is with the Iraqi Resistance I have a lot of hope for her -- they will not kill her, she may end up in a long dialogue with them and get a good story out of this. But if she is with the Ba'thists and Al Qa'ida these are closed organizations with a nihilist agenda toward Iraq -- no one tells them what to do or negotiates with them and they don't need money -- they have tremendous financial resources -- they don't need to resort to kidnappings for ransom. These are my thoughts for now. Please don't publish anything with my name anywhere near it.
I don't often write about Iraq because I don't know a lot about what's going on there but I am quite concerned about journalists who risk working there, especially the ones who aren't embedded and are trying to get the real story out. I read (and recommend)
Juan Cole.
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I've been quick to kick the WaPo for shitty, partisan reporting so when someone has the courage to speak out and tell the truth I wanna cheer and cheer loud, in this case for
EJ Dionne:
I underestimated the viciousness of the right wing.
Last November, Rep. John Murtha, a Democrat and a decorated Marine combat veteran, came out for a rapid American withdrawal from Iraq. At the time, I wrote: "It will be difficult for Bush's acolytes to cast Murtha, who has regularly stood up for the military policies of Republican presidents during his 31 years in Congress, as some kind of extreme partisan or hippie protester."
No, the conservative hit squad didn't accuse Murtha of being a hippie. But a crowd that regularly defends President Bush for serving in the Texas Air National Guard instead of going to Vietnam has continued its war on actual Vietnam veterans. An outfit called the Cybercast News Service last week questioned the circumstances surrounding the awarding of two Purple Hearts to Murtha because of wounds he suffered in the Vietnam War.
John Kerry, as well as John McCain -- who faced scurrilous attacks on his war record when he was running against Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary -- could have warned Murtha: If you're a Vietnam veteran, don't you dare get in the way of George W. Bush.
(snip)
What's maddening here is the unblushing hypocrisy of the right wing and the way it circulates -- usually through Web sites or talk radio -- personal vilification to abort honest political debate. Murtha's views on withdrawing troops from Iraq are certainly the object of legitimate contention. Many in Murtha's party disagree with him. But Murtha's right-wing critics can't content themselves with going after his ideas. They have to try to discredit his service.
Moreover, the right has demonstrated that its attitude toward military service is entirely opportunistic. In the 1992 presidential campaign, when the first President Bush confronted Bill Clinton -- who, like Cheney, avoided military service entirely -- conservatives could hardly speak or write a paragraph about Clinton that didn't accuse him of being a draft dodger. In October 1992, Bush himself assailed Clinton. "A lot of being president is about respect for that office and about telling the truth and serving your country," Bush told a crowd in New Jersey. "And you are all familiar with Governor Clinton's various stories on what he did to evade the draft."
But from 2000 forward, the Republicans had a problem: They confronted Democrats, first Al Gore and then John Kerry, who actually did go to Vietnam, while it was their own standard-bearers who had skipped the war. Suddenly, service in Vietnam wasn't the thing at all. When a Democrat went to war, there must have been something wrong with the way he did it. Gore's service was dismissed because he worked "only" as a military journalist. You can even find Bush's defenders back in 2000 daring to argue that flying planes over Texas was actually more dangerous than joining the Army and serving in Vietnam the way Gore did.
Most journalists are so whipped and intimidated by the GOP that they just don't use this kind of truthful, direct language even in the unlikely event they timidly call them on their shit. And although it is unsaid, implicit in it is a criticism of his own paper for furthering the cause of these attack dogs with
Howard Kurtz's shoddy journalism.
Good on EJ Dionne. He just called Dubya a chickenhawk. BIG round of applause.
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The Boston Globe had a recent historical piece regarding the growth of Executive power and the abdication of responsibility by Congress. In the context of
yesterday's speech by Al Gore, it is worth a re-read. (Speaking of the Gore speech, Glenn has some thoughts on the speech
posted at C&L that are also worth a read.)
And certainly worth a lot of discussion in the week preceding
the vote for or against Judge Alito in the Judiciary Committee -- and the question of
an Imperial Presidency versus the checks and balances as established by the Founders of this nation.
Steve Clemons has some sharp insights on why the disconnect between Executive Power and Congressional and Judicial oversight have occurred under this particular Preznit's watch. (And I do hope that Steve won't mind my copying an extended excerpt here, because it truly is a spot on point that deserves a lot more attention.)
I do believe that Tom DeLay and his machine took Washingtonian structual corruption to new heights, but the fact is that Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, Gonzales, and other close cronies also warped the way the administration itself works. They cut out dissent inside the administration.
One of the most disturbing but rarely acknowledged aspects of the NSA warrantless wiretap scandal is that it was not the FISA court approvals that were the problem for the administration. Bush's problem was holding his own team together on the requests. The Deputy Attorney General thought they were wrong and perhaps illegal. State got cut out of the loop. Some in NSA were outraged. Even John Ashcroft did not want to sign off on the order.
Bush avoided the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court because the Executive Branch was not cohesive on this issue. Checks and balances usually occur between branches of government, with civil society as an added check on the behavior and performance of government. However, the NSA case is one in which checks and balances external and internal to the Executive Branch failed to work -- because of the perversion of the system of law and process that Bush and his team engineered.
We are four and a half years late in rectifying the problem of an out of control presidency. Congress, the media, NGOs, and others engaged in our democratic system must forcefully knock back the expansive powers of a wannabe monarchy.
The White House will not self correct; it's not designed to. But it's absolutely essential that the White House be curtailed.
Yesterday's Gore speech made similar observations, and today I find further analysis along these lines by
Josh Marshall at TPM, who takes this analysis to the next level: authoritarianism and incompetence go hand in hand, because there is no check to a President who acts like a King -- the King must check himself, and the odds of that happening under this Preznit are slim and none (emphasis on the none).
Does Congress or the Judiciary have the wherewithall to do the oversight and balancing envisioned by the Founders? Does that depend on how much of a political drag this President has become in advance of the 2006 elections and, if so, will the job get done if and only if polling data supports it? (And can you be a polling data patriot -- or is that just too pathetic?)
Now is the time for true patriots to dig deep and raise their voices against the tyranny of King George. The question is, how many true patriots do we have in Congress and on the judicial bench? This is not a political issue, it is an American issue that crosses political party boundaries. If liberty will not be defended by the people of this nation, then liberty ceases to exist.
Either you are for liberty -- or you are for a King. You choose.
(Photo by
Reuters/Corbis via Boston Globe.)
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Way to waste intelligence and law enforcement resources, Bushie. Heckuva job.
The NYTimes is reporting today that the illegal NSA domestic spying led to...hold on, wait for it...dead ends. And a whole lotta Pizza Hut deliveries for chasing them down for the FBI.
Because, you know, what they need to do is devote countless manhours to chasing down repeated bad leads from the same source. I dunno, but after a while if the program isn't panning out, wouldn't you start to say to yourself...say after five freaking years of wasted leads and manhours and internal challenges to the legality of the program and having to cut out entire segments of the government because they refuse to go along with your little illegal, unproductive detour..."Hey, maybe this isn't working well and we ought to try something else."
Of course, that requires that you are actually interested in protecting the country instead of you doing CYA and
refusing to admit a mistake, eh?But the results of the program look very different to some officials charged with tracking terrorism in the United States. More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, including some in the small circle who knew of the secret program and how it played out at the F.B.I., said the torrent of tips led them to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources and diverted agents from counterterrorism work they viewed as more productive.
"We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former F.B.I. official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."
Gee, ya think? When you have a group of people dedicated to catching bad guys, and you send them repeatedly on wild goose chases, you think they might get the eensiest bit frustrated? Whoa, who knew? Especially when there are likely real, live sleeper cells in the United States that they can't track down because they are too busy interviewing and surveilling non-terrorist school teachers on Bushie's whim of an order? No, no frustration here. None at all.
Meanwhile, back at the
ranch pig farm, the Preznit and his AG are still dancing with their seven mangy veils on this.
According to Glenn, the Gonzalez appearance on Larry King
Not So ALive was just plain sad, and so verbally contorted that Gonzalez may have needed a chiropracter after the show for all the knots into which he tied himself in an attempt to cover the Preznit's ass.
Unfortunately, it's not working. Bushie has managed to piss off the far right, the far left, and a whole lotta folks in between. Some of whom
are now suing him. And the Preznit has managed to bruise a lot of Congressional egos, by making them publicly look neutered. (I suppose it's one thing to be neutered behind closed doors, but when you are exposed for the eunoch you are in public, the equation shifts a bit on whose shoulders the blame will be shifted. With the 2006 elections fast approaching, it's going to be interesting to see who is more of a drag on the Republican party -- Tom DeLay, George Bush, or some other unknown scandal waiting to rear its ugly head. Here's hoping anyway...)
Oh, and here's a funny headline:
White House Accuses Gore of Hypocrisy. Do you think the WaPo did that on purpose to give everyone a big ole belly laugh? Pot, this is kettle... (
ThinkProgress covers why the Gonzalez smear is a steaming pile of dung.) Oh, and speaking of the WaPo, their coverage of the Gore speech is
here. With text of the speech
here.
For some background on the illegal spying possibilities, take a peek
here.
Heckuva job, Bushie. Cheney must be so proud of you. (Much more on all of this later today.)
(Graphics love to
The Worried Shrimp via Political Humor.)
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According to
the AP (via CBS News), the Judiciary Committee vote on the Alito nomination has been delayed one week, by agreement of Sens. Specter and Leahy. The committee will now vote on the nomination on January 24th, with the debate moving to the full Senate thereafter should Alito be approved by a majority of the committee.
Sen. Harry Reid was asked about the delay and Bill Frist's comments that it was a partisan tactic
to stall:
"This is a key swing vote on the Supreme Court and Democrats are not going to be rushed into anything," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.
Well, now that's more like it. Plain spoken, straight out yet polite STFU to Frist. Well done. Would that Harry Reid's office had been contacted by the NYTimes for their
rending of garments article on Sunday.
The good news is that some strategy
may actually be planned at tomorrow's Senate Democratic Caucus meeting.
Oooooh, stop it. Stop teasing me with the prospect of coordination and coherent messages. It's making me tingly.
Oh, and Frist, may I say, has again failed to force things through on his terms -- is he the weakest majority leader that everyone else can remember, too, or is it just me?
While it's not a win, it's at least a victory in a part of the skirmish -- politically, the Preznit doesn't get his quick vote. Frist looks ineffectual. Again. And the Dems have bought themselves a little more time to actually coordinate a coherent message for the full Senate debate.
Here's my suggestion: hit the things that matter to real people, the sorts of things that make them sit up and take notice like "if the Preznit isn't willing to follow the laws regarding wiretapping, what's to stop him from sending people into your house to search it without a warrant and seizing your guns? Sam Alito could help him do just that, because he's been really supportive of whatever the Preznit wants to do."
Or they could try "A vote for Sam Alito is another vote for big corporate interests, and allows the Preznit to reward his big money political cronies at the expense of ordinary Americans. Haven't these people taken enough from all of the rest of us? Have you paid your heating bill lately -- you think oil companies aren't raking it in, you wait to see what a packed Supreme Court allows them to get away with in the next few years."
There is a lot more to discuss with regard to potential themes. And we'll be discussing it here over the course of the week. Please feel free to chime in with your ideas -- think of it as a collective help the Dems brainstorm. It's only our future through a lifetime Supreme Court appointment at stake, after all.
UPDATE: An
interesting op-ed in the WaPo today by Ruth Marcus. Although I do think it is a bit unfair to Winnie the Pooh. Don't know that I agree with everything in this, but it's worth some thought and discussion, so I thought I'd bring it to everyone else's attention as well. Where is the line between precedent and justice, or is there a line? It's a tough call in a lot of cases, and personal and political philosophy play a very large part on where that line is likely to be for a judge.
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It was a good day for Team Librul. Even as Dubya made a
cheap, cynical bid to appropriate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Al Gore
knocked one over the fence. He also had a chance to talk with
MyDD's Matt Stoller (above) and let Matt know that he was a faithful
Daily Kos reader, so I guess it was a good day for Al too.
It was a bad day to be Deborah Howell. Although the WaPo has now deleted from the post.blog
50 of the comments (though they claim it was a
dozen) it thought were offensive, over 600 still remain. I guess it is okay to call Democrats crooks but not impugn the integtrity of Ms. Howell. No matter, the same person who told me to direct readers to the post.blog also emailed me to let me know that Deborah getting "hammered" was a big story at
Romanesco. "That means the professsional world of journalists will be checking it out," the person said. How embarassing for poor Deborah.
And it was a worse day to be Kate O'Beirne. While I'm sure her publisher was screaming at
Amazon to delete all the one-star reviews like they did for Malkin, Amazon obviously felt Kate was too B-list to bother with, hence they now have some paid, thick-witted trolls churning out 5-star reviews. It also looks like somebody dropped a huge chunk of change buying back books to try to prop up sales. That is just
awesome. Every dime some wingnut welfare think tank spends trying to save Kate's wreched face is money they don't spend wiping out condom use in Africa or finding new ways to snatch food out of the mouths of the homeless.
Digby reminds us of just what a beast Kate and her ilk are, and
C&L documents the amusing position Kate now finds herself in vis-a-vis
Brokeback Mountain.
Pat yerself on the back. We did good today.
Update: The General has tbeen having a
lively exchange with Amazon.
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A trembling Sir Galahad comes to the defense of the Fair Deborah Howell over at the
WaPo blog:
Writing as someone who was involved in researching campaign contributions for these stories, I'd like point out what the Post's reporting on this has demonstrated: according to Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service records, Abramoff himself never gave any money to Democrats. He did direct his tribal clients to contribute to both Democrats and Republicans, with Republicans getting the bulk of such funds
The links provided by this Derek Willis do in fact prove that the Post has been consistent in their attempts to tar Democrats all along.
This hardly works in his defense.
The
quasi-hit piece co-authored by Mr. Willis in June of last year entitled "Democrats Also Got Tribal Donations: Abramoff Issue's Fallout May Extend Beyond the GOP" buries this bit at the bottom:
A spokesman for [Patrick] Kennedy said the congressman's donations from the tribes "have nothing to do with Abramoff." Kennedy traces the money's genesis to his family's long-standing commitment to Indian causes, to the fact that he co-founded the Congressional Native American Caucus in 1997, and to his personal relationship with Mississippi Choctaw Chief Philip Martin, whom Kennedy met in 1999 on a fundraising trip for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "They just became close friends," said Kennedy spokesman Sean Richardson.
So let me ask Mr. Willis. If the Indian tribes had a relationship with Patrick Kennedy completely independent of Jack Abramoff, isn't it a bit patronizing to say that Abramoff would "direct his tribal clients" to give money to him?
Further at the bottom of Mr. Willis's co-authored article, it is noted that Harry Reid is "a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee with strong relations with Indian tribes."
Is Mr. Willis trying to assert that the Indian tribes were just too stupid to know on their own that giving campaign contributions to Harry Reid might be a wise thing to do? Is he saying that they needed Jack Abramoff to hold them by their little Indian hands while they wrote their big Indian checks?
More reliable
news organizations are quick to point out that Indian donations to Democratic candidates dropped dramatically during the Abramoff era, and it does not take tremendous gifts of deduction to conclude that this was probably the direct result of Abramoff's influence. But there is consistently a strong current of anti-Indian condescension in the Post's reporting and in Mr. Willis's assessment of the situation, and they really need to either prove that the Indian tribes would not have given this money to these Democrats if Abramoff hadn't told them to or STFU.
The only people in the blogosphere that I'm aware of who write about this consistently are the folks over at
Wampum, who articulate the situation quite succinctly:
The Republican strategy is regarding the Abramoff scandal is now quite apparent: 1) paint the story as "bi-partisan", so as to confuse the public, and 2) turn the victims into "villains" and then carefully remind Americans that those villains are part of an Other (Indian, Jew) known to be greedy, dirty and immoral.
Ask yourself if during the years the media covered Abramoff's relationship with the GOP, how many times was his religion/ethnicity even discussed? I can honestly say I never thought of him as anything but a Republican lobbyist, yet time and again in recent months, somehow his Jewishness is worked into a story, usually with the term "dirty" in close proximity.
Same now for Indians. More and more, Republicans are framing Abramoff's tribal clients not as victims, but as essentially co-conspirators, out to tempt the honest, white, Christian Congressmen. GOP operatives are engaging in outright Willy Horton-esque campaign - what's up next? Republican television ads with a "red" hand dropping a bag marked "casino money" into some white hands with Congressional cufflinks?
Ralph Reed is a professional dirtbag, yet implicit in all of this is the suggestion that he and his merry band of Christo-crooks and their morality extortion racket really just wanted to fight off the dirty Indians and their corrupt gambling habits. And on the other side we're supposed to believe that the Indians were too ignorant to tie their shoes and Jack Abramoff did everything but bottle feed them and burp them after breakfast.
I doubt this analysis will have much traction at the WaPo or anywhere else, really. But I feel compelled to keep pointing out the inherent racism that underlies these assumptions nonetheless.
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Anyone who has been following along with the polling stories of late -- from the
deliberately misleading Rassmussen poll on wiretapping to
Richard Morin of the Washington Post and his blatantly partisan refusal to inquire about anything that might make the administration look bad -- knows that most of these organizations seem to devote their energies to providing George Bush something he can wave around in support of his disastrous, stumbling bullshit.
Over at MyDD they are trying to make a serious challenge to this awful status-quo by
sponsoring their own poll to ask real questions that will fuel the construction of a counter-narrative to the GOP lie machine. Says Bowers:
Our groundbreaking poll, which will challenge conventional wisdom on a variety of topics--Iraq, withdrawal, terrorism, Bush approval, domestic spying--is about to be brought to the public. This will be the first comprehensive nationwide public survey where the questions are informed by the collective knowledge of the netroots and the blogosphere. You helped to make these questions, and with your help this poll will serve as a direct challenge to the entire field of public polling as it is run by commercial news organizations.
They need to raise $6500 in the next couple of days. I gave myself and if you're interested in helping them redraw the political map in this country, please consider going over there and
helping them out.
(graphic by dark black)
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Well Fox News certainly knows how to pick a quote-unquote "
expert:"
Sunday, Jan. 15
The investigation of disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has put Congress under a microscope. We'll take an inside look at the investigation with Republican strategist Ralph Reed.
These stories and much more! Don't touch that dial!
That must've been some fucking dance of the seven veils, eh? I'm going out on a limb and asume nobody used the word
humping.
(thanks to Colorado Bob)
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How much incompetence can one economy take? Looks like we are going to find out, sooner or later if we keep pouring money into our Iraqi adventure and oil prices keep going up and the economy...well, you get the picture.
But how much incompetence can an already vulnerable portion of the nation's elderly take? We're about to find that out as well, if things keep going the way they have been with the current incarnation of the
federal Medicare prescription plan.
Lest anyone think this is some trumped-up Democratic finger-pointing ploy --
think again.
The concern was bipartisan. Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, said many people had been "turned away at their pharmacies or told that they must purchase the drugs up front and seek reimbursement later."
"These are very vulnerable people who do not have the means to pay for their prescriptions and who cannot go without their medications," Mr. Gregg said.
Incomptence is bad enough. But when it starts to threaten lives of our nation's elderly because the piss poor planning failed to consider even the most obvious immediate needs and substantial potential for harm if the planning wasn't done properly, it ought to raise the hackles of everyone no matter their political persuasion.
And I ask myself: if the Bush Administration and their cronies in Congress can't handle the implementation of a simple drug distribution plan where the infrastructure for drug production and distribution was already long in place, how is it that we can be confident in any of their so-called Homeland Security planning? The Katrina response looks more and more like the norm, doesn't it?
Got competence?
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Crooks and Liars has
excerpts from last night's 60 Minutes appearance by Congressman Jack Murtha. Clearly his plain-spoken, real world credibility and actual, honest military service is scaring the bejeebers out of the Preznit and his merry band of cronies, because the Swiftboating kicked into high gear this past week in a preemptive character assassination attempt. (Jane covered it
here,
here,
here and
here, in case you've missed it.)
CBS has a full transcript and video of the interview
up here.
Oh, and the news media? MSNBC is finally getting around to showing some Al Gore speech footage at 2:20 pm ET. By my count, it was a whole 10 second clip. Woooo...I feel so well informed by this incredibly balanced coverage. Especially since they've moved on to a substantial piece on Natalie Holloway now. Enlightening, no?
UPDATE:
Crooks and Liars has video highlight excerpts up from the Gore speech. And C-Span has the full video
here from its coverage.
UPDATE #2: NYTimes has coverage on the Gore speech
here. (Via
War and Piece.)
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Al Gore has given a scorcher of a speech today on the FISA end-run and the need to re-commit this nation to the cause of liberty. You can watch the whole of the speech
here, but one segment of it spoke to the heart of the importance of checks and balances and
shining sunshine into the dark places of the current Administration (text of speech):
A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. Indeed, they recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men."
An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution - an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free. In the words of James Madison, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet, "On Common Sense" ignited the American Revolution, succinctly described America's alternative. Here, he said, we intended to make certain that "the law is king."
Vigilant adherence to the rule of law strengthens our democracy and strengthens America. It ensures that those who govern us operate within our constitutional structure, which means that our democratic institutions play their indispensable role in shaping policy and determining the direction of our nation. It means that the people of this nation ultimately determine its course and not executive officials operating in secret without constraint.
The rule of law makes us stronger by ensuring that decisions will be tested, studied, reviewed and examined through the processes of government that are designed to improve policy. And the knowledge that they will be reviewed prevents over-reaching and checks the accretion of power.
This is why the Alito nomination is important to every American. A unitary executive that is all-powerful during a time of ongoing and never-ending undeclared official wartime has no check, no balance, especially given a Congress which has abdicated its responsibilities of any meaningful oversight. In this context, an independent judiciary becomes more important as a balancing mechanism -- and a judiciary which has been purposely packed with rubber-stamping ideologues cannot provide an adequate balance.
Why is this important? Ask
Mohammed Yousry, a translator hired by the Untied States government to work on the Blind Sheik case, who was surveilled and wiretapped via a FISA warrant, for doing his job and translating communications that he was asked to translate by defense counsel. The US Attorneys working on the case said in their closing argument that Yousrey had
no apparent militant ideology.
"Yousry is not a practicing Muslim. He is not a fundamentalist," prosecutor Anthony Barkow acknowledged in his closing arguments to a jury in federal district court in Manhattan earlier this year. "Mohammed Yousry is not someone who supports or believes in the use of violence."
And yet a jury convicted him in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, with one juror writing to the court that this conviction was discussed among those in the jury room as a means to send a message to Muslims that they wouldn't get away with violence against Americans, no matter whether or not this single man was guilty.
This is not the America I know and love. Nor should this be allowed to stand, if the facts are indeed as agregious as they are reported to be. And any judge presiding over such a trial, any US Attorney who prosecuted it and any defense counsel representing this man, who has been informed of jury misconduct has a duty -- a solemn duty to justice and to liberty -- to look into this further and do what is right.
We are a nation of laws. We should start acting like it.
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On those days when my anger outweighs my sense of hope and my sense of fairness, there are a number of writings that I reach for to soothe my mind and my heart. In some cases, it's a matter of philosophy. In some, its factual background. But with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I reach for him because his soaring rhetoric heals the soul.
And his rise from humble circumstances to be one of the genuine heroes of the civil rights movement is a source of inspiration to me on my darkest days. One voice raised in the cause of justice can be a beacon to all those living in darkness, and Dr. King was such a voice.
Such a mighty voice, ringing out over the mountaintops in the cause of freedom and justice, and reaching into the valleys of despair to lift those living in the darkness onto the wings of angels so that they might soar up, up, into the light of freedom that was promised to them in our nation's founding. A promise that was given to all of us -- and an obligation to every citizen in this nation to live up to the possibility that America truly be a shining city on a hill. Every citizen. Every one of us has that obligation every single day.
For me, one of the greatest legacies of Dr. King is that anything is possible if you pour all that you have into it, and do your work with the intent of lifting your fellow man into the light. On this day that we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King, I wanted to share some of my favorite passages, so that you might use them to lead yourselves out of your darkest days as well.
Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963:
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
From Strength to Love, 1963:
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
I Have a Dream speech, Aug. 28, 1963: (includes audio)
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Strength to Love, 1963:The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963:Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence speech, April 4, 1967: (includes audio)
"A time comes when silence is betrayal...."
The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.
And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.
I'm often asked why I started blogging. One reason is that I want my child to grow up in a nation that matches its actions to the soaring hopes of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The time came when my silence seemed a betrayal. No longer.
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This was more than even I had hoped for. With a large press (Sentinal) behind it, able to command page views and recommends on Amazon aimed at people with wingnutty reading habits, Kate O'Beirne's book
Women Who Make the World Worse was #29 in sales when we started four days ago. With positioning like that, which
no independent book could in any way command, it should have shot up the charts.
As of today, Kate's book is sinking like a stone. Yesterday it was #51. Today it is #78, solely because people from this site, from
Crooks & Liars, from
Kos (thanks Rena) and
Jesus' General acted in concert for political action. And I want to thank every last ever lovin' one of you who participated from the bottom of my
Kate-baiting heart.
Oh am I doing the happy dance.
The right-wing book business is subsidized by wingnut welfare when conservative foundations buy large quantities of books and either give them away or charge a penny apiece, so the "sales numbers" that put them on the New York Times best seller list for example are hopelessly rigged, making them appear much more popular and influential than they actually are.
But let's let the tightie whitie rightie crowd
speak for themselves as to how important Amazon is in getting their message out:
Amazon itself is another boon to conservatives, since the Internet giant betrays no ideological bias in selling books...."The rise of Amazon and the chain stores has been tremendously liberating for conservatives, because these stores are very much product-oriented businesses," observes David Horowitz. "The independent bookstores are all controlled by leftists, and they're totalitarians--they will not display conservative books, or if they do, they'll hide them in the back." Says Marji Ross: "We have experienced our books being buried or kept in the back room when a store manager or owner opposed their message." She's a big fan of Amazon and the chains.
Amazon's Reader Reviews feature--where readers can post their opinions on books they've read and rate them--has helped diminish the authority of elite cultural guardians, too, by creating a truly democratic marketplace of ideas. "I don't think there's ever been a similar review medium--a really broad-based consumers' guide for culture," says 2blowhards blogger Michael. "I've read some stuff on Amazon that's been as good as anything I've read in the real press."
The past four days have sent Kate's book spiraling on a downward trajectory in the largest book market in the world. As any marketing guru will tell you, turning it around at this point will be virtually impossible without an enormous infusion of cash.
Good. Make 'em spend. But I doubt they'll think she's worth it.
BOOYAAH!!!
(graphic thanks to Valley Girl)
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I love seeing Ralph Reed tied to Jack Abramoff in print, really I do. And today's WaPo includes
this delightful quote:
Similarly damaging has been a torrent of e-mails revealed during the investigation that shows a side of Reed that some former supporters say cannot be reconciled with his professed Christian values.
"After reading the e-mail, it became pretty obvious he was putting money before God," said Phil Dacosta, a Georgia Christian Coalition member who had initially backed Reed. "We are righteously casting him out."
But would someone like to explain to me how it's possible to do a three page article on Reed's ties to Abramoff and never once mention what exactly Reed
did for Abramoff that made him worth millions?
It's really quite simple. Reed had the fundies in his hip pocket and he used them to bang the anti-gambling morality drum so loudly that then-Texas AG, now US Senator John Cornyn shut down the casinos who were competing with those run by Abramoff's clients. In a series of emails he also took credit for "choreographing" Cornyn. That's not complicated. It's a fucking paragraph.
Cornyn is Rove's hand-picked boy and he continues to get an inexplicable free pass on this from the press. He
accused Reed of being a liar last week on Meet the Press. It really does not take a great deal of intelligence to see that this is going to be at the heart of any quid-pro-quo Reed controversy, and any journalist has to be either remarkably stupid or remarkably craven to fill up three pages without even alluding to it.
As neokneme said in
the comments, "the WaPo would be alot more useful if it were printed on hemp."
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Just in case
Deborah Howell's opinion piece left a doubt in anyone's mind about the prevailing political bent of the WaPo, here is
today's editorial on the Alito confirmation:
Judge Alito is superbly qualified. His record on the bench is that of a thoughtful conservative, not a raging ideologue. He pays careful attention to the record and doesn't reach for the political outcomes he desires. His colleagues of all stripes speak highly of him. His integrity, notwithstanding efforts to smear him, remains unimpeached.
Goober Graham tees up the wife and knocks one right over the heads of the WaPo editors.
He didn't need to aim particularly high.
(photo via
Dependable Renegade)
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For those like Deborah Howell who prove overly anxious to
disseminate the Ken Mehlman-generated lie that Abramoff encouraged the Indian tribes to give money to Democrats as well as Republicans,
AltHippo provides this informative link to
Bloomberg:
Abramoff's tribal clients continued to give money to Democrats even after he began representing them, although in smaller percentages than in the past.
The Saginaw Chippewas gave $500,500 to Republicans between 2001 and 2004 and $277,210 to Democrats, according to a review of data compiled by Dwight L. Morris & Associates, a Bristow, Virginia-based company that tracks campaign-finance reports. Between 1997 and 2000, the tribe gave just $158,000 to Republicans and $279,000 to Democrats.
Jack Abramoff was a Republican crook who did his level best to funnel every last dime to other Republican crooks. If he could have cut the Democrats off completely from Indian money he no doubt would have.
The Republican crooks decided the time was ripe to rip off the Indians via Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed and and the "family values" crowd that "
games morality as an industry," as Wampum declared it. They were not the slightest bit interested in sharing their ill-gotten bootie with the Democrats.
If anyone wants to send their regards to Deborah or her bosses, the party's
here.
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Deborah Howell is an outrage. Or rather, her title of "ombudsman" is an outrage. If you just change it to "Official GOP Steward" I would have far less problems with her continued presence at the WaPo. But they probably have adequate reason to fear that people like John Harris would then start to bristle and covet it for themselves.
It is obvious that on a day-in, day-out basis Howell is being bombarded by representatives of GOP think tanks to complain about any deviation from the official GOP slant on any story, a job which she clearly relishes. She is most certainly happy to print obvious distortions on a daily basis, like this one in
today's column about Jack Abramoff:
Schmidt quickly found that Abramoff was getting 10 to 20 times as much from Indian tribes as they had paid other lobbyists. And he had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties.
That is just an out-and-out, boldfaced lie. It's hard to tell whether Howell is a hack or just an idiot and I suspect a bit of both, and I'm not going to waste any more time beating that one into the ground. I've
already been there, as has anyone else paying even the littlest bit of attention.
Then Howell goes on to indulge her favorite myth -- the smoke-and-mirrors "well both Democrats and Republicans are unhappy so we must be fair and balanced." I'm sure mother Dahmer was upset at the outcome of young Jeffrey's trial too, but that hardly adds up to "two equal stories."
Two persistent complaints have come the ombudsman's way on this story. One, from Democrats, is that The Post is trying to distance DeLay from Abramoff because a Dec. 29 story said the two were not personally close. DeLay had once called Abramoff "one of my closest and dearest friends" and said on Fox News recently that they were friends.
Schmidt and Grimaldi said that their reporting showed that the two were politically, not personally, close. Whatever the degree of closeness, the strength of Schmidt's and Grimaldi's reporting has tied the two together inextricably.
Yes we're aware of it, Deborah, the complaint originated
here. Shortly thereafter
Atrios observed that the DeLay quote about being friendly with Abramoff
came from Schmidt's own reporting 10 days earlier. The abrupt, unexplained change in narrative by Schmidt came just in time to conveniently service Tom DeLay's attempts to regain his House leadership position. Atrios had a supremely valid point. Howell never addressed this question to Schmidt, allowing her to both dodge the thrust of the complaint and look like she was giving equal time to Democrats. Her attempt to portray this as "different reporters, different stories" is utterly disingenuous.
Then she goes on to service those right wing think tank folk with true mastery:
The second complaint is from Republicans, who say The Post purposely hasn't nailed any Democrats. Several stories, including one on June 3 by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, a Post business reporter, have mentioned that a number of Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) and Sen. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), have gotten Abramoff campaign money.
It is a very serious question that needs to be asked of WaPo management: Is Howell's job to mindlessly repeat
whatever the Heritage Foundation tells her, or is she just too brutally ignorant to look beyond it?
That she does not understand the thrust of this story -- that Abramoff was fundamental to the architecture of the GOP money machine -- is obvious. But beyond that, she can't even master the simplest detail -- that Abramoff's VICTIMS, the people he fleeced, the Indian tribes, are free to give money to whomever they feel will help them serve their interests. That is quite a different thing than contributions given by Abramoff himself; Abramoff is the one currently under indictment, not the Indian tribes. What part of this does Howell not understand?
American Indians are some of the most bitterly victimized people this nation has ever seen. And now Howell's attempt to paint Democrats into this picture depends on the completely condescending notion that they are nothing but Jack Abramoff's dupes who cannot be trusted to handle their own money, that every nickel they gave to politicians was done so because he either exploited their stupidity, their ignorance and their naivete for his own ends or because they were complicit in his crimes. As a person of American Indian ancestry, I cannot tell you how racist and demeaning I find Howell's assertions.
Deborah Howell needs to figure out that the Justice Department is prosecuting Jack Abramoff, not the Indian Tribes. If she has proof that any Democrat took money quid-pro-quo, or that the Indian tribes were themselves responsible for actions that in any way violated campaign finance laws, she needs to produce it. Now. The Democrats are the natural constituents of the Indian tribes in this country and their only provable crime so far is that they have not done more. It is quite obvious that they should be recipients of the contributions of Native American peoples as they attempt to have a voice in the system that has oppressed them for so long, and Deborah Howell's bitter, condescending racism is deplorable.
The folks over at
Wampum have been doing an excellent job covering this aspect of the story and it has been largely ignored. The RNC, in their attempts to tie this to Democrats, have been actively promoting the story that Brad Carson of Oklahoma took $26,000 from Abramoff clients, the Cherokee tribes. People like Deborah Howell are swallowing this hook, line and sinker, never managing to look beyond what Ken Mehlman is telling them and doing even the most rudimentary job of reporting to explore the obvious -- Brad Carson is
an enrolled member of the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation. Did Jack Abramoff arrange that too?
Deborah Howell must offer a public apology to ALL the Indian tribes she has deliberately slung her mud on in her attempt to put a "fair and balanced" veneer on a blatant partisan hackery.
Anyone who would like to express their feelings to the WaPo on this matter directly can do so
here, at the post.blog. I know the topic is Maryland Moment but I'm told Jim Brady reads this very carefully, and it's better to post your comments publicly than subject them to Deborah Howell's "delete button." Perhaps it is time for the online edition -- Washingtonpost.com -- to hire their own ombudsman, someone who is at least marginally literate. It is obvious that Howell is not up to the task of doing her job.
Update: Some pretty funny stuff happing at the
post.blog. Check it out.
Update: Ombudsman Howell certainly is making friends for the WaPo:
Brad DeLong,
Crooks & Liars,
The Sideshow,
Atrios,
AmericaBlog,
DailyKos and
Media Matters all seem to be fans of her work.
(graphic via
Wampum)
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I'm not sure what is worse: the fact that Democratic Senators and their staffs couldn't be bothered to do serious work on the Alito nomination hearings and coordinate a coherent and focused strategy for the hearings, the message and beyond over the Christmas break because they were too busy doing personal fundraising or hanging out at the club; or that they felt the need to publicly whine about it, in all its infinite detail, to
the NYTimes before a vote was even held on the Alito nomination in the Judiciary Committee.
And I am so angry this morning, I am shaking. I've had to read through the freaking article three times in order to reach any sort of equilibrium other than wanting to yell "Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" as loudly as I can. (And I didn't think that was appropriate analysis, frankly, because this deserves a hell of a lot more discussion than just being pissed off.)
Let's start with this gem from
the beginning of the article, shall we?
In interviews, Democrats said the lesson of the Alito hearings was that this White House could put on the bench almost any qualified candidate, even one whom Democrats consider to be ideologically out of step with the country.
That conclusion amounts to a repudiation of a central part of a strategy Senate Democrats settled on years ago in a private retreat where they discussed how to fight a Bush White House effort to recast the judiciary: to argue against otherwise qualified candidates by saying they would take the courts too far to the right.
First of all, the fact that someone (or several people, frankly, because that's what it sounds like) are spewing this defeatist crap to a nationally distributed newspaper before a vote is even held in the Judiciary Committee -- and before we start gearing up for the 2006 election cycle -- pisses me off beyond my ability to even put it into words. STFU, you morons!
Sure, you can discuss this behind closed doors in strategy sessions. Sure it needs to be said -- because we need to examine what went wrong and what went right in order to do better next time. But what in the hell are you doing talking about this with the NYTimes? And then wallowing in it for a two page article that might as well have been titled "Democrats: Flogging Ourselves in Public Because We Can." I mean, hello?!? THIS is political strategery?
Then there is
this gem:
The Democratic push began in earnest on the last weekend of April 2001, when 42 of the 50 Democratic senators attended a retreat in Farmington, Pa., to hear from experts and discuss ways they could fight a Bush effort to remake the judiciary.
"There were very few principles on which we could all agree," said Mr. Daschle, who was Senate minority leader at the time of the meeting. "But one was that we anticipated that the administration would test the envelope. They were going to go as far as the envelope would allow in appointing conservative judges."
Well, here's a freaking clue: how about agreeing that you are all willing to do whatever it takes to coordinate several key themes that you can push, over and over, regarding nominees so that these themes begin to stick with the American public.
You know, little things like "individual liberty is more important than a President who acts like a King." Or the ever popular "the President is not above the law -- and his nominees to the Federal bench for a lifetime appointment should share that viewpoint, or they do not deserve a seat on the court."
Or the even more important to Joe Six-Pack theme of "The President is trying to pack the Courts with judges who will reward his corporate cronies, by selecting nominees who say screw the little guy and rule in favor of big money corporate interests."
Or, hey, how about this one -- "A lifetime appointment to the Court will impact your children and your grandchildren, and generations to come. Citizens in this nation do not get a free ride, and neither should the President. We are doing our jobs for the good of the all of the American public, not just the President's extremist political allies and big money cronies."
I could keep going, but you get the picture. The fact that Democrats couldn't agree on a central theme or two after a retreat that was attended by only a portion of Senators (and am I the only one wondering where the hell the others were?) just makes me disgusted at the state of leadership in the party.
Look, I know we are a representative democracy and each Senator has to stand up for the specific point of view of his or her constituents as much as for some overarching Democratic party themes, but...um...that assumption is based on the theory that we actually have some fucking party themes.
Other than the spate of internal Democratic fingerpointing and rending of garments in the article, the overall message that comes out of this is "we are doomed unless we pick up seats in 2006 and beyond." Well, here's a little question then: Do you think the best way to do that is to talk with a national newspaper about how you think our efforts up to now have been a miserable failure and that we have no freaking strategy above "gee, it sure would be nice to win once in a while?"
ARRRRRGHHHHHHH!
The worst part of this is that I know that Judiciary Committee staffers were working on some message issues. I know that the Democratic party has worked on some overarching theme issues and that some strategy (notably the Dean work on his 50 state strategy) has been ongoing. But did any of that make it into this sackcloth and ashes article? Nope.
Is there any moment of a Democrat talking with the reporters about what is being done that is positive -- what strategy is being worked on -- what proactive steps are being taken to do better? Nope.
Whether that is a failure on the part of Democrats who were interviewed or on the reporters writing the piece, I have no idea. But the bottom line is, this article is so off message that I don't even know where to start.
I'm not asking that Democrats become robots who mouth the same damn talking points ad naseum like winger-bots, whether or not they are true or even on point to the discussion at hand. But my God, is there any way that being this off message says anything except "what the hell?"
I'm going to do some work on some on message points from the Alito hearings and from political strategy for the 2006 elections because we need to proactively move forward from this. But first, I have to calm down and stop wanting to swear every three seconds. In the meantime, start by reading my previous starter
"A Question of Doing What's Right." It comes from a much less pissed off place.
(Image via
Penndit, from Joel Pett in USAToday. Good one. I don't use cartoons very often, but this one was too perfect for the article today, and I hope Joel Pett will not mind the indulgence this once. Some days, you have to find your laugh somewhere -- this one was mine this morning.)
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If it's Sunday, it's Talking Heads. Here's
today's announced schedule -- lots of Alito, lots of Pakistani bombing, lots of...well, hot air.
Am working my way through the NYTimes Alito article and trying to keep my blood pressure in check. Thought everyone could use a fresh thread in the meantime.
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