firedoglake Archive Site

FDL Late Nite: Yes, We Scare the Shit Out of Them

The NYT review of Crashing the Gates is dead on:

The netroots' power comes from the same network effect that made eBay a retailing phenomenon. Far-flung political activists now join together on sites like dailykos.com, and inject themselves into matters that used to be settled behind closed doors. The netroots helped make Mr. Dean head of the Democratic National Committee, over several establishment candidates. Now, they are backing Ned Lamont in a primary challenge to Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who is about as popular among liberal bloggers as a computer virus.

Much of the authors' criticism of the party establishment is dead-on. They rail against political consultants who take 15 percent commissions on media buys while giving bad advice. They are especially incensed by what they see as the self-defeating role of special interests, notably Naral Pro-Choice America's decision to endorse Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Rhode Island Republican, over two pro-abortion-rights Democrats. If Mr. Chafee wins, he could ensure that the Republican Party, which has an aggressive anti-abortion agenda, keeps control of the Senate.

To solve the consultant problem, the authors urge more hires from outside the Washington Beltway and lower fees. To rein in special interests, they point to two successful models. In Colorado, a few wealthy donors called in the groups before the 2004 election and prodded them to cooperate. Ken Salazar was elected senator, one of only two Democratic pick-ups. In Montana, Brian Schweitzer threw out the interest groups' questionnaires and spoke directly to Montana voters. The same day that Montanans gave President Bush 59 percent of their votes, they elected Mr. Schweitzer governor.

For all the talk about having to crash gates, the netroots are well on their way to becoming insiders. Mr. Armstrong is an adviser to the political action committee of Mark Warner, a leading candidate for president in 2008. When dailykos holds an offline convention this June in Las Vegas, Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, will be a speaker.

The Democratic establishment could not hold the netroots back even if it wanted to. Their ability to raise money, recruit volunteers and shape the debate will make them indispensable. (my emphasis)

The GOP understands the power of the blogs and works agressively with them. The Democrats are terrified of us and generally see us as an extremely threatening presence. Witness the completely patronizing way that Jay Rockefeller's office dealt with Glenn Greenwald. If you were really interested in getting some popular support for investigating the illegal NSA wiretaps, wouldn't you want that guy on your side? He doesn't cost you a dime, he knows his shit and everyone's listening to him.

Christ almighty if he wrote that persuasively in favor of banning abortion or staying in Iraq Patrick Ruffini would have his baby.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/11/2006 09:08:00 PM

Explain This One To Me, John

More Republicans with values:

The California Democratic Party is asking for an investigation of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senator John McCain for alleged violations of campaign finance law.

The allegations center on a scheduled March 20th fund-raiser in Beverly Hills in which donors have been asked to contribute up to 100 thousand dollars for the governor and the state Republican Party. McCain is the featured speaker at the event.

At issue is whether McCain's appearance violates restrictions on federal officeholders taking part in events that solicit political funds.

Ironically, McCain is being accused of violating a law he helped write.

I never really understood how McCain could go home and explain his unapologetic Bush love to his Bangladeshi-born daughter. You know, the one Bush tried to smear in the South by saying she was McCain's own illegitimate African American child (at least according to McCain's campaign manager).

I guess once you get over a hurdle like that, anything's possible.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/11/2006 05:39:00 PM

Judy, Judy, Judy

I was told last year that Vanity Fair was eagerly courting Judy Miller to write an article for them about her Traitorgate odyssey. According to today's Editor and Publisher, it doesn't seem they were able to get her and instead had to settle for her friend and apologist Marie Brenner (who also helped organize Judy's farewell dinner before she was shipped off to eagerly embrace her martyrdom).

Brenner comes off as a lightweight who doesn't really understand what she's writing about and accepts a rather unsophisticated "journalists vs. bloggers" paradigm hook, line and sinker.

According to Greg Mitchell:

One interesting exchange occurred when Bill Keller, New York Times executive editor, allegedly told Miller back in 2003 that she would have to quit reporting from Iraq because she had become "“radioactive". "You can see it on the blogs." Miller claims she replied, "“Why do you give a shit about the blogs? They do not know anything."” (Brenner relates that Keller disputes this, saying he'’s "pretty sure" he never said any such thing.)

Then she quotes Miller complaining about the lack of editing on the blogs and that sometimes "“slanderous"” attacks on her appear there. But, actually, she is more "“appalled"” by her colleagues "“who believed what they read on the blogs."”

But as time passed, Miller could not escape the blogs, principally Huffington, even though her attorney Floyd Abrams says, "“No one takes this stuff seriously, do they?"” At another point he refers to "the defamation that was running on the blogs."

The article recounts a scene where another lawyer visits Miller in jail and hands her a clip from Huffington, saying, "“You are going to be upset with this."” In view of that attorney, Arianna Huffington and other bloggers were "“passing off speculation as fact" or engaging in "“pure character assassination."” This was a problem because, as Brenner writes, Huffington's blog was "“steadily gaining heft"” and had "“become must reading for the media."

This became particularly troubling when "people at the Times appeared to be talking to Huffington."

Brenner then quotes famed investigator Lowell Bergman as claiming that Huffington'’s idea that Miller was a White House collaborator "“was a fantasy fed by the deep animosity of people toward Judy."

"People at the Times appeared to be talking to Huffington?" Yeah and anyone else who would listen. Judy was loathed by the people she trampled on during her tenure at the Times, people who had to suck it up and take the heat for her crap reporting. She castigates the blogs for passing off speculation as fact? She led the fucking country into war with her quote-unquote "reporting" about non-existent WMDs and then breezily gave herself a pass because her sources misled her (so she says). She makes even the most lowly, conspiracy-theory laden blogger look Pulitzer worthy when compared to what she calls journalism. Blog traffic soars expressly because she is the poster girl for everything that's wrong with traditional media right now.

Judy may have been "appalled" by what people were saying on the blogs, but even our earliest and wildest speculations on the role she played in the outing of Valerie Plame couldn't begin to compare to the reality of the cozy, accomodating relationship she had with the Administration. If she doesn't like the allegations being made about her in the blogs she might want consider the fact that we were only repeating the words of Bill Keller and Maureen Dowd, who all but said she was fucking Scooter Libby. Or the fine people at New York Magazine, who did come out and say she did her reporting with her legs in the air. Nary a blogger in the bunch.

Brenner does get one thing right. The people at the Times were glued to the blogs -- specifically Arianna -- and rubbing their hands together with glee, cackling as they watched Judy finally being held to account for the mountain of bullshit she'd been shoveling for years. If Arianna hadn't taken her on, Judy probably would probably still be working at the Times as if nothing had happened.

Everybody who covered Plame made mistakes as we tried to feed new bits of information into the equation, but relatively little of that happened with regard to Miller. If you go back and read emptywheel's Judy Miller series, definitely the Miller bible in the blogosphere, it holds up remarkably well. Judy was, is and continues to be full of shit and if anyone can find an allegation that was worse than anything she actually did I'd sure love to see it.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/11/2006 03:08:00 PM

The Many Faces of John McCain

Jamison Foser has a very good piece up at Media Matters right now about how the press fawns over John McCain, always looking for the favorable angle even as they let him skate on stuff for which they'd throw a Democrat on the barbecue:

Take, for example, the article Reuters ran about a forthcoming Vanity Fair article in which former Republican lobbyist and admitted felon Jack Abramoff disclosed that he "worked closely with many top Republicans, despite their claims to the contrary." The Vanity Fair article includes this passage:

"Mr. Abramoff flatters himself," Mark Salter, McCain's administrative assistant, tells [Vanity Fair contributing editor David] Margolick. "Senator McCain was unaware of his existence until he read initial press accounts of Abramoff's abuses, and had never laid eyes on him until he appeared before the committee."

Abramoff says, "As best I can remember, when I met with him, he didn't have his eyes shut. I'm surprised that Senator McCain has joined the chorus of amnesiacs."

The Reuters article about the Vanity Fair piece began: "Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff said in the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine that he worked closely with many top Republicans, despite their claims to the contrary."

Yet Reuters didn't mention John McCain at all, focusing instead on comparatively insignificant Republicans like Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman. The Vanity Fair passage about McCain perfectly fit the premise of the Reuters article -- it shows Abramoff contradicting McCain's claim, through a spokesman, that he had never met Abramoff. If Abramoff is telling the truth, we've learned two things: McCain has ties to one of the most corrupt lobbyists ever to walk the earth, and he's lying about it. McCain is among the most famous Republicans in America, and a leading contender for the party's 2008 presidential nomination.

Yet Reuters omitted any mention of him from its article. Does anyone believe, even for a moment, that any other political figure of McCain's stature -- say, Hillary Clinton or John Kerry -- would have been the recipient of this kind of favorable treatment?

McCain would've signed that South Dakota abortion bill too, despite his carefully parsed caveat about taking "appropriate steps under state law -- in whatever state -- to ensure that the exceptions of rape, incest or life of the mother were included." But that's not what people are hearing from the Tweety's of the world who shut their ears to anything that might tie McCain to an extremely unpopular piece of legislation.

If John McCain is going to be beaten in 2008, cracking open the McCain myth has to start now. One of the ways we built up this blog was to take an issue people were really interested in, Traitorgate, and really dig into it such that we became one of the go-to places for Plame info. If I were going to pick an issue today that could virtually guarantee someone all the links they could eat -- and I don't mean just from us, I mean from all over the blogosphere -- it would be following McCain, digging into his history and covering what he does in depth on a day-to-day basis. Every blog can't cover every issue every day so when something arises you just naturally look to the person who makes it their business to be informed on that particular topic. McCain is already running for 2008, and as of yet there is no significant blog presence mobilizing against him.

Anyone who was willing to put the time in and do it well would have themselves a very large audience in a relatively short period of time, IMHO.

Update: As Atrios notes, McCain's stunt at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference was extremely stupid. He regularly gets away with mistakes like this because nobody really holds him to account. There is plenty of fertile ground for McCain posts; he is hardly the boyscout he pretends to be.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/11/2006 12:25:00 PM

More Joke Line

Now that the Dubai Ports World deal is dead, I guess it's time to admit that Joe Klein was right to be concerned about the massive waves of violence that would be triggered upon its demise. The Islamic world has arisen as one to fulfill the prophesies of people like Klein who suddenly developed such sensitivity to the tender feeling of those they couldn't be bothered to defend when people like Ann Coulter call them "ragheads." We should've listened to them.

Oh wait, sorry, Kobe's been chewing the remote again and I was watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Klein was wrong about this and everything else he's ever opened his mouth to say about Iraq. Joe just didn't fathom that people who become enraged at desecrations to the Koran really couldn't be bothered to take to the streets and kill each other as the result of a slight to a few robber barron sheikhs.

No the violence occurring in the Middle East right now can, in large part, be placed at the feet of addled thinkers like Klein who continue to parade before the cameras pimping for war and pontificating on this shit despite having proven time and time again that they have no fucking clue what they are talking about.

Thanks, CNN.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/11/2006 10:27:00 AM

Roots Pennsylvania, Day II

We got a great turnout for our Roots action Pennsylvania yesterday. A lot of people are appropriately angry about the Intelligence Committee's illegal NSA wiretap face flop and looking to let someone hear about it, and that someone might as well be Arlen Specter -- who can actually do something about it.

Lots of good posts:

Pennsylvania bloggers Chris at Rowhouse Logic, Lambert at Corrente and palady at The Lady Speaks
eRiposte at The Left Coaster
Smitheus at Daily Kos
John at Crooks & Liars

As the eloquent Pastor Dan says:

What we're trying to do is leverage the social network of blogs to coordinate citizen response to elected officials on important issues.

Whew. That's a mouthful. We're trying to find new ways for you to write to your Senators and Representatives, or to write letters to the editor for their benefit. It works, it really does.

Shorter short version: we're trying to create a "virtuous mob."

The list of Pennsylvania papers can be found here, and as Dan reminds us, it helps to live in the area but sometimes papers will run letters from outside writers.

A list of phone numbers for Specter's offices can be found here.

Memorandum covered the Roots project as well, the Hotline Blogometer has written about it on several occasions and I did an interview about it yesterday for In These Times. I think people intuitively realize how effective this can be and that effectiveness only increases with each person who's willing to pick up a phone or work that keyboard.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/11/2006 07:40:00 AM

Late Nite FDL: We're Baaack!!!

Well at least I am anyway. Reddhedd is on a Red Eye tonight and will be back in West Virginia tomorrow. It was quite the whirlwind trip.

We spent yesterday with Kos, Matt Stoller of MyDD, John Aravosis of AmericaBlog, Ian Welsh of BOP, Maryscott O'Connor of My Left Wing, Adam Green of MoveOn and author Roberto Lovato as guests of Working Assets in a workshop on media training. Gawd if there is anything more painful than standing up in front of people and speaking it can only be having a camera trained on you at the same time but we had fun, ate really good food, swapped war stories and learned much. I also got to have an eventful dinner with Swopa but more on that later.

I had to fly back to Oregon this morning but Redd stuck around to give her credit cards a workout and have a reader/blogger coffee with John Aravosis and Maryscott. John blogged about it here and our good friend Steve Rhodes took photos and posted them on Flickr. Redd's the one in the blue shirt and (surprise) red hair. Isn't she a beauty?

I'm still catching up but in the meantime lots of people are getting their copies of Crashing the Gates so if you're inclined to share your thoughts on the topic go over to Amazon and write a review or simply vote for the ones that are already there (I put mine up but it probably won't be on the site until tomorrow). Kos is going to be on Stephen Colbert on March 22 (I think) so political blogging should be in the news quite shortly in a meaningful way, as opposed to a thoroughly useless Hugh Hewitt wanky way.

Thanks so very much to Watertiger, Steve, Taylor, Greg, Scott and Pach for the superlative guest posting they did, and to everyone who was on troll patrol. We really appreciate the fine care you took of our wonderful readers and commenters and never worried for a minute that the blog was in anything but the best of hands.

Happy to be back on the beach with the dogs. Oh and I flashed Aravosis (not that he cared).

Did I miss anything?

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/10/2006 08:01:00 PM

They never know you when you get in trouble

Claude Allen

This is funny.

This was up at the Corner, as Atrios pointed out.

CLAUDE ALLEN [John Podhoretz]

I wrote a book about the Bush White House. I know the names of many people who worked in the Bush White House. I've read every story there is to read about the Bush White House. I've been a political journalist for almost a quarter century, worked in a Republican administration, and gone to many right-wing parties. So let me say this about accused thief and former White House policy bigshot Claude Allen:

WHO?

Our friend Atrios posted this up as an answer


Grand Old Police Blotter

Was a bit weird when Claude Allen resigned.

Now we know:

When Claude Allen, President Bush's longtime domestic-policy adviser, resigned suddenly on Feb. 9, it baffled administration critics and fans. The White House claimed that Allen was leaving to spend more time with his family, while the Washington Times speculated that the 45-year-old aide, a noted social conservative, might have quit to protest a new Pentagon policy about military chaplains. Allen himself never publicly explained the reason for his departure.

News today may shed light on the mystery of Allen's resignation. According to the Montgomery County Police Department, Allen was arrested yesterday and charged in a felony theft and a felony theft scheme. According to a department press release, Allen conducted approximately 25 fraudulent "refunds" in Target and Hecht's stores in Maryland. On Jan. 2, a Target employee apprehended Allen after observing him receive a refund for merchandise he had not purchased. Target then contacted the Montgomery County Police. According to a source familiar with the case, Target and the police had been observing Allen since October 2005.

Allen is charged with practicing a form of shoplifting called "refund fraud."

Working in the White House causes stress.

Being a Black Republican wingnut must cause even more stress.

The two together must cause some kind of psychotic break.

Now, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but you can see the vapor trails as the GOP runs away from this guy. The right blogosphere is pretending that they don't know who President Bush's chief domestic advisor and former federal judgeship nominee is because, well he's lost his mind.

And like all black servants of the GOP, well, he's just become disposable. No think tank job for him.

According to Think Progress, he made $161,000 a year, just like Karl Rove. Anyone know him?

posted by Steve @ 3/10/2006 05:52:00 PM

Republicans Trot Troops Out for Photo Op

... "The best info the congresswoman received is there is no violation in honoring Iraqi veterans, and that's what happened," said Guy Short, Musgrave's chief of staff. "It's unfortunate people are trying to make political hay out of an attempt to honor veterans of the Iraq war." Political reporter Joshua Micah Marshall, who writes for the Washington Monthly and is a columnist for The Hill - a weekly newspaper covering Congress - pointed to the incident as an example of the White House trying to use "uniformed military personnel as props at Republican political rallies."
Uniformed soldiers at GOP event raise hackles

It's the case of the missing picture. Is it legal, or is it stretching the limit? I'll present the facts, you decide.

Via Josh Marshall, we have another case of the disappearing art, but this time it concerns our troops.

Marshall's first post on the issue has the picture you see above, which features soldiers appearing at the Republican Lincoln Day dinner. But when Josh questioned the presence of uniformed military at a political event, the picture suddenly disappeared.

I follow military issues closely, but earlier in the week when I saw Josh's post, it was the first time I'd heard about the picture being nuked. I picked the story up here, with more here.

The Coloradoan, did a later follow-up, but as Josh says, the whole story needs more attention.

Republicans say they're only honoring the veterans of the Iraq war. Josh questions their presence, especially after hearing from JAG lawyers and others. I say the Republicans are using the troops as props in direct violation of military regulations, but that's my heart and gut talking, because I'm not a lawyer. Check out the following section of the DoD military regs.

4. POLICY

It is DoD policy to encourage members of the Armed Forces (hereafter referred to as "members") to carry out the obligations of citizenship. While on active duty, however, members are prohibited from engaging in certain political activities. The following DoD policy shall apply:

4.1.1. A member on active duty may:

4.1.1.1. Register, vote, and express his or her personal opinion on political candidates and issues, but not as a representative of the Armed Forces.

4.1.1.2. Make monetary contributions to a political organization.

4.1.1.3. Attend partisan and nonpartisan political meetings, rallies, or conventions as a spectator when not in uniform.

4.1.2. A member on active duty shall not:

4.1.2.1. Use his or her official authority or influence for interfering with an election; affecting the course or outcome of an election; soliciting votes for a particular candidate or issue; or requiring or soliciting political contributions from others.

4.1.2.2. Be a candidate for, hold, or exercise the functions of civil office except as authorized in paragraphs 4.2. and 4.3., below.

4.1.2.3. Participate in partisan political management, campaigns, or conventions (unless attending a convention as a spectator when not in uniform).

In her first piece for The Coloradoan, Lindsay Renick Mayer, makes the following point as well.

... The directive also states that in ambiguous cases, active-duty soldiers are to avoid any activities that seemingly associate the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security directly or indirectly with partisan political activity.

The Larimer County Republican organization said that because it merely honored the soldiers instead of requiring their participation, they did not violate the code. ...

There is nothing about the Republican Lincoln Day Dinner that is remotely "ambiguous."

Honoring U.S. troops is a wonderful tradition of both parties. Trotting them out like mascots is wrong for either party to do.

Let's also remember what has happened to our military through Bush and the Republicans who control Congress. Look at the history Republicans have of smearing soldiers who don't stand silently and subserviently. They smeared John McCain, Max Cleland, John Kerry and now Jack Murtha. It's what they do to veterans who dare talk back. Need I also mention the grunts being the scapegoat for Abu Ghraib, while the bosses who invented the torture got off clean? As for policies, it's hard to keep up with how bad Bush is to our veterans and those serving today in Afghanistan and Iraq and around the world.

Honoring the Iraqi war veterans, by trotting them out to stand on stage at the Republican Lincoln Day dinner?

Republicans must mistake today's Dems for the Democratic Party before blogs were born.

The Bushies are busted and we've got the missing art to prove it. Oh, and speaking of art, if there's nothing wrong with what went on, just why did Republicans scrub the shot that showed Musgrave with the soldiers? Hmmmm.

Over the past few days I've had the distinct privilege to guest blog for Jane and ReddHedd, which has given me access to a great readership. I thank the goddesses of FDL, as well as the readers. You've challenged me and taught me things, as well as being so gracious to welcome my visit. I also appreciate the company I've kept these last few days.

And since I do still have your ear --- you knew this was coming -- I would love to hear from FDL readers who know about DoD milregs to ascertain what side of the legal line the Republicans are on asking our troops to pose at a political function. Remember, if our soldiers break the rules there are harsh punishments.

Oh, but I guess the Republicans don't care about that, as long as they get their photo with a hero.

- Taylor Marsh

posted by Taylor Marsh @ 3/10/2006 03:49:00 PM

"You can't spell 'tyrant'

without I-R-A-N."


AP/Charles Dharapak

U.S. President George W. Bush has called Iran an issue of "grave national security concern" but said he wanted a diplomatic solution to the Islamic republic's nuclear ambitions.

Yeah, where have we heard THAT before? At least he's not advocating the Felafel O'Reilly approach . . . yet.



I'd like to take this moment to thank you FDL readers for being so kind to the substitutes over the past three days. It's been a real pleasure sharing these pages with you.

And thanks again to Jane and ReddHedd!

posted by watertiger @ 3/10/2006 01:18:00 PM

After SD Part III: The Best Defense of Reproductive Freedom Is A Good Offense

The New State Logo.


Molly Saves the Day has 20 questions for those who allege that abortion is "baby killing." Ask them to most "pro-lifers," of course, and I'm sure you'll re-discover what you should already know: the number of anti-choicers who believe (or, at least, are willing to act in ways logically consistent with) their alleged premises could fit in a walk-in closet. And, of course, even the few who take a coherent position face the problem that criminal bans on abortion are highly unpopular. And, moreover, to Republican elites the optimal policy is not so much "abortion should be illegal" as "abortion should be illegal, but no quite so illegal that my daughter wouldn't be able to get one." (Because of the way abortion bans are actually enforced in practice, though, even an outright ban in most states can produce this outcome.)

For supporters of reproductive freedom, however, the problem is that American anti-choicers are as clever as they are illogical and unprincipled. They've constructed a very careful strategy of piecemeal regulations that have little impact on affluent women (but, cumulatively, seriously restrict abortion access for women who are poor, in rural areas, and/or in unstable familial relationships) and are politically palatable. And, to go along with this, they're currently in the courts trying to make it much more difficult to challenge these regulations. If this strategy succeeds, it would allow states to construct baffling obstacle courses without paying the political price of banning abortion, and would also have the perverse result of making the grossly inequitable effects of these regulations an argument in favor of their constitutionality. But as important as this legal strategy is, it's very difficult to explain why it matters. While it's almost impossible to defend these policy outcomes normatively, as pure politics it's very hard to counter, and in many cases it's hard to make it clear to the public what's at stake.

Which is the one potential silver lining of the appalling South Dakota law. It has the potential to blow their "reasonable regulation" cover, and make clear what will happen in many states if Roe is overturned: bans on abortion (albeit bans that inexplicably exclude women from punishments, don't have sanctions for doctors logically consistent with the idea that abortion is "baby-killing", etc.) Publius explains:

I'd actually go a couple steps further. I would ask every single Republican candidate up for re-election in 2006: "Do you support imprisoning doctors for performing abortions following rapes, as South Dakota’s new law demands?" If they hid behind the rape exception, then you could follow up with Oliver’s question about whether doctors should be thrown in jail for performing abortions more generally.

The combination of the Alito and Roberts confirmations along with the South Dakota law is, I think, a watershed moment in the abortion wars. The South Dakota law in particular should serve as a wake-up call to the pro-choice movement that its tactics aren’t working and that it needs to make some changes in its long-term strategy. To develop Oliver’s point, if I were a consultant, I would recommend that the pro-choice movement make two major changes: (1) It should shift its emphasis from a defensive legal strategy to an offensive political strategy; (2) It should shift the debate away from abortion itself – and the abstract questions of when life begins – and focus on crime and punishment. In other words, the movement should aim to make an abstract debate more concrete by focusing on criminal sanctions and the imprisonment of doctors and women.

The importance of this insight would be hard to overstate. The South Dakota law is a political opportunity, presenting the chance to make it clear that they mean it: not about abortion being "baby-killing," of course, but about criminalizing abortion as a way of inscribing the reactionary sexual mores of the GOP base into law. But opportunities are not self-executing: pro-choicers have to make it work. And this, ultimately, is what's so frustrating about the Saletan approach. Even before this pro-choicers already had many opportunities, starting with the fact that the national Republican Platform endorses a constitutional amendment that would make abortion first-degree murder in all 50 states. When was the last time you heard a Democratic politician mention that, even though maximizing the public's knowledge of their opponent's most unpopular positions would seem to be Politics 101? Instead, taking the advice of people like Saletan they accept the debate as it has been arbitrarily carved up by disingenuous pro-lifers, getting in sucked into ludicrous ginned-up non-issues like the "partial-birth" nonsense. The Republicans have been masterful about playing both ends, and keeping the debate focused on tangential side issues. The way to counteract this is not to go along with the existing discourse, but to change the terms of the debate, to make clear what Republicans want to do and put the debate in terms of keeping abortion legal, where public opinion massively favors the Democrats. The draconian (and illegal) actions of the South Dakota legislature provide an excellent frame for making this clear, but the Democrats need to start playing some offense.

[Cross-posted to L, G & M.]

posted by Scott Lemieux @ 3/10/2006 12:55:00 PM

The Rubber Stamp of Arlen Specter

"If as a country we get used to a regime in which the president can basically treat laws that give him power as a basis for expanding his own authority beyond what anyone dreamed and treat laws in which Congress tries to restrict his power in a way that only Lewis Carrol, Franz Kafka and Alice and Wonderland and the trial could take seriously. What that means is that essentially the president is saying I'm a monarch. I can do what I want. I can play with Congress. I don't need their authority. ..." Lawrence Tribe

A belated added note to this post... Is this a preview of coming attractions, or will Specter hold the line? This is what I fear...

He's in the bag.

He's on the team.

He's with the boss.

Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has decided to look the other way. He's decided that fitting in is more important than standing out and speaking up. Arlen Specter now just simply wants to be one of Bush's boys.

So when it comes to the President Bush's illegal spying on Americans, going around FISA, ignoring the law so he can have his way, Arlen Specter is part of the president's posse. Rubber stamp Repubicans can't be bothered with the law, but that isn't going to stop us. Glenn Greenwald gave the lay out. Jane said what to do. PastorDan and Corrente give the run down too.

But Senator Specter is determined to keep the truth from seeing the light of day, as he goes the way of rubber stamp Republican Roberts and all the rest. If you're from Pennsylvania, it's time to let Specter hear how you feel, that the president, any president, is not above the law.

The rule of law evidently no longer means anything. Read all about the Republican hypocrisy, straight from the elephants' mouth.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “The FISA Act was–created a court set up by the chief justice of the United States to allow a rapid response to requests for surveillance activity in the war on terror. I don’t know of any legal basis to go around that.”

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA): “”There is no doubt that this is inappropriate.”

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ): “WALLACE: But you do not believe that currently he has the legal authority to engage in these warrant-less wiretaps. MCCAIN: You know, I don’t think so…”

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS): “I am troubled by what the basis for the grounds that the administration says that they did these on, the legal basis…”
ThinkProgress

What Specter doesn't understand is that this isn't a partisan issue, or at least it shouldn't be. It's an American issue. Our personal freedoms, individual rights and privacy are what makes this country a democratic republic, separating us from dictatorships and the rules of kings.

But the rubber stamp Republicans, led by Senator Arlen Specter, no longer want to keep the chief executive in check. It's all the power to the presidency, at a real cost to we the people. These are lasting changes Bush and his boys are making to this country, without our approval. Specter and the other rubber stamp Republicans don't get to do that to our democracy.

Senator Arlen Specter is putting party above country, president above nation. It's weak. It's spineless, but it is also just plain wrong.

Why is the rule of law only applicable to Democratic Party presidents?

Why is President Bush getting away with an illegal spying program that is vast, unaccountable and never ending, without being held accountable? Because Senator Specter has now bought in.

Today on NPR, Sandra Day O'Connor spoke out about what the rubber stamp Republicans are doing to our courts. Over at Kos, philinmaine blogged it.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor showed Thursday that she's not absent from judicial issues. During a speech in Washington, she said Republican leaders' attacks on the courts threaten the constitutional freedoms of Americans.
O'Connor Decries Republican Attacks on Courts

Being the chairman of the Judiciary Committee is supposed to mean something. American laws aren't partisan, or at least they're not supposed to be. We all know the sentencing reality of minorities, but that's not what we're talking about today. We're talking about the Republican chairman of the Judiciary committee who has decided that President Bush is above the law because he's one of them.

President Clinton got called on to the Senate floor and impeached for lying about sex, with Republicans railing about the "rule of law."

President Bush is has not been held accountable for one thing on his watch. It has reached such a level of abject hypocrisy on their "rule of law" mantra that Senator Arlen Specter feels George W. Bush shouldn't be questioned about going around the FISA court to illegally tap American citizens. To Specter, Bush is above the law even when he illegally wiretaps American citizens in a domestic warrantless wiretapping program, funneled secretly through the NSA that stretches so far that we actually don't even know how far it stretches, because President Bush doesn't believe he's even accountable to Congress.

Senator Specter is on the team, in the bag, backing Bush all the way. It is a disgrace in terms of congressional independence of the executive. It is a disgrace in terms of Congress again refusing to do the job The Founders intended. In fact, it is down right un-American.

The president of the United States is not above the law. That is unless he's a Republican in the era of George W. Bush, with the likes of Senator Arlen Specter chairing the Judiciary Committee.

- Taylor Marsh

UPDATE: Specter is holding hearings, yes, but when I saw the picture it infuriated me and gave me the impression that he's going to go along. Glenn Greenwald has the shot and raised the question. (I've added this link above.) I took it all the way.

UPDATE II: Here's more on retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor warning of "dictatorship."

posted by Taylor Marsh @ 3/10/2006 11:12:00 AM

Not since Nixon

Like Nixon, huh?

A revolt not seen since Nixon

ANALYSIS

BY THOMAS M. DeFRANK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF

WASHINGTON - Not since Watergate, when GOP congressional leaders told Richard Nixon they would vote him from office if he didn't resign, have Capitol Hill Republicans challenged their President like this.

......................

# Self-preservation. Bush has run his last race, but the midterm elections are less than eight months away, and Republicans are jittery about their prospects. Distancing themselves from a polarizing President whose job approval rating hits 40% on a good day is shrewd electoral positioning.

# Payback time. Republicans have seethed for years over what they consider insulting and arrogant treatment at the hands of Bush's lieutenants.

"Their idea of consultation is to tell us as little as possible and demand our blind support," a GOP House source complained.

Or as Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, a House GOP power, told The Washington Post: "This is probably the worst administration ever in getting Congress' opinion on anything."

# Grass-roots groundswell. Even Republicans opposed to the deal on the merits were stunned by the negative fury it generated in the heartland.

"This is the heaviest volume that isn't organized I can ever remember on an issue," a top congressional Republican told the Daily News. "People get it, and they don't like it." In an election year, pols are especially loath to ignore voter sentiment back home.

........................

But having stiffed their President and lived to tell the tale, the mutineers have likely been emboldened to stray again.

This is a baby step in terms of Congress taking its oversight role seriously.

But with Gale Norton resigning today and the ongoing scandal around Karl Rove, this could soon be a lot more like Nixon than anyone imagined just last year.

Has the Bush Administration gotten a break since the begining of the year? No?

But the problem is that no matter how bad things are in Washington, Iraq looms over Bush in a way that he cannot handle. We are facing civil war and disaster. And while the US thinks they can hide and let them fight it out, the first target of an enraged populace will be the foreign invader.

posted by Steve @ 3/10/2006 11:01:00 AM

Those shiftless, lazy people

It's their fault

Racially charged e-mail stirs outrage
Rep. Welker cites his 'poor judgment' in forwarding essay

By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News
March 10, 2006

A Loveland lawmaker has been blasted by his colleagues for e-mailing an essay written by someone else that accused "welfare-pampered blacks" of waiting for the government to save them from Hurricane Katrina.

Rep. Jim Welker, a Republican, said Thursday morning that he forwarded the article because of its message about society victimizing people by making them dependent on government programs.

He said he didn't agree with everything in the essay.

One passage says, "President Bush is not to blame for the rampant immorality of blacks."

House lawmakers - black and white, Republican and Democrat - expressed outrage that Welker would forward such an essay.

Rep. Debbie Stafford, R-Aurora, who worked with Katrina evacuees when they came to Colorado, said she was "appalled and sickened."

"These (were) poor people. Many of them were senior citizens and had no way to escape the hurricane," said Stafford, who is white.

Rep. Terrence Carroll, D-Denver, called it "one one of the most irresponsible e-mails someone in this chamber has sent out."

"It shows (Welker's) complete and utter disregard, at worst, and the misunderstanding, at best, of the lives of people of color," said Carroll, who is black.

After the uproar, Welker issued the following statement late in the afternoon:

"Forwarding this e-mail, particularly without comment, showed poor judgment on my part. I found the opinions expressed by this individual, especially if taken literally, to be offensive and inappropriate. I should not have assumed that this would be clear when received by others."

He earlier said he should have put a disclaimer on the e-mail, and will do so in future e-mails of other writers' material.

Welker said he forwarded the e-mail over the weekend on his own computer.

But Democratic lawmakers have asked the legislature's technical staff to determine why copies of the e-mails forwarded to them by people who were upset with the content bear a time stamp of Monday afternoon, when Welker was in a committee hearing with his laptop computer.

Welker, who is white, said he wasn't implying anything about blacks by forwarding the essay.

"Some of my best friends are of different skin color, like Ed Jones," said Welker, referring to Sen. Jones, a Colorado Springs Republican who is black.

The odious e-mail was written by professional negro Jesse Lee Peterson, who seems not to like being black all that much. He's so crazy, he made Larry Elder shrink back.

On the News Blog we like to write about black Republicans, hell, challenge black Republicans a lot. Because, for the most part, they're pathetic dupes who continually swallow the disrespect of the GOP for reasons which I cannot fathom.

Peterson thinks he's some kind of challenge to the NAACP, when he would have been chased from any large room of black people. The last time I saw this loon on TV, he was in a room full of white people at the Heritage Foundation. I mean, at every turn, you see these people, from the always pathetic LaShawn Barber to people like Peterson, grovelling for the support for people who hold them in utter and complete contempt.

The Republicans never listen to the black professionals in their ranks, not that most black people have any respect for them anyway. I once saw former USA Today columnist Deborah Mathis ask some GOP lackey "why was she a Republican" in the kind of tone people usually reserve for child molesters and cannibals.

What most people don't get is that black Republicans, are in a way, seen as betraying the community. The idea that someone like Lynn Swann can walk into a black church and get votes is well, silly. Because the black church is a repository for professionals, teachers, nurses, the people most likely to be unionized and least likely to be interested in the tired and insulting GOP pitch that black people are on the "democratic plantation".

The RNC went nuts, along with their blogger amen choir, when a study showing racists gravitate to the Republican party.

Gee, between Fancy Ford rollin' in an Escalade and wearin' Armani, and the rantings of Jesse Lee Peterson "self-hating negro", why would anyone think that the GOP appeals to racists?

posted by Steve @ 3/10/2006 09:42:00 AM

Closing the barn door...

um, not THAT one.



Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and formerly Communist countries, where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O’Connor said we must be ever vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

Hey, Sandra, about that decision you and the majority made back in 2000 -- you know, the one that appointed Bush king? Let me guess. You're not feeling too good about it now, are you?

Atrios has more.

posted by watertiger @ 3/10/2006 08:43:00 AM

Roots Pennsylvania

Now that the Senate Intelligence Committee has caved like a bad souffle and voted not to investigate the illegal NSA wiretaps it's time to put some serious pressure on Arlen Specter, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. We need Pennsylvanians to write letters to the editors of every major Pennsylvania paper and call Specter in his DC offices to demand real oversight of the NSA wiretapping program by the Judiciary Committee.

Local blog PSoTD has a great post up about this effort this morning. Glenn Greenwald and Anonymous Liberal have been doing a superb job covering the major points of this matter so if you need a talking points refresher you can find it at Unclaimed Territory. And Pastor Dan and rkrider have put together a terrific newspaper contact list at pennsylvaniaroots.blogspot.com which they will be continually updating, so if you're from Pennsylvania or have a reasonable tie to the state and feel qualified to write a personal appeal please do so. Therisites2 at VichyDems also has Specter's office contact info.

Local blog PSoTD has a great post

I'll be home tonight, thanks to everyone for taking such good care of the blog while we've been gone. If anyone needs to do their good deed for the day they can certainly chalk one up by giving Arlen Specter something to think about.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/10/2006 06:42:00 AM

The Chickenhawk in Winter

Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70 percent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq — the bloody hot spot upon which Bush has staked his presidency. Nearly 70 percent of people say the U.S. is on the wrong track, a 6-point jump since February.

"Brother, can you spare a few percentage points?"


REUTERS/Jim Young


OT - Atrios points out this spot-on quote about the Preznit from Graydon Carter:

He speaks to the audience as if they're idiots. I think the reason he does that is because that's the way these issues were explained to him.

posted by watertiger @ 3/10/2006 04:36:00 AM

Getcher Hot Links! Late Nite FDL Edition

Since I have a new audience, and many of you may not read all of the stuff I do, a few things of interest from around the intarweb (plus a thread for any night owls out there):

• More evidence for Barney Frank's dictum that for Republicans, life begins at conception and ends at birth. (Although, in fairness, they now seem to think that life begins again when your cerebral cortex is liquefied.)
  
• Once you've compared Charles Johnson to Van Gogh, I think you're several trillion light years beyond self-parody.
  
• Earlier today, I mentioned my skepticism about Robert Casey Jr. both on the merits and in terms of the politics. I don't know enough about Pennsylvania politics to comment on his challengers, but eRobin of Factesque has lots of great stuff in support of one of his challengers, Chuck Pennachio.
  
• The Ezra awards! All 3 blogs he recommends are outstanding. (See Laura here, for example, noting some innumerate pro-war hackwork passed on uncritically by Glenn Reynolds, and here on blogs and elections.
  
• After a similar case ended in an acquittal, it's good that there was a just outcome in the horrifying OC rape case. (Via Fantasy Life.) Background on the case (including remarkably misogynist conduct by the defense attorney--who relentlessly slandered a young woman repeatedly assaulted while unconscious) here.
• And the wingnut drive to invade Iran gains steam, although exactly what we'll attack them with our troops in an endlessly wasteful quagmire in Iraq remains unspecified.
  
• And, finally,World O' Crap on fraudulent war profiteering (and--of course--less-than-zealous enforcement at the DOJ.)

Enjoy!

posted by Scott Lemieux @ 3/09/2006 11:38:00 PM

The Eternal Search for a Message

To call Slate's lazy hatchet-job of Republican conventional wisdom "bullshit" would be a compliment to the fecal matter of male bovines. Nevertheless, if you look beyond the Pelosi, Reid, and Dean bashing, there's a tiny bit that's worthwhile :

But more important than what the three stooges do wrong is what they can't seem to do at all, namely articulate a positive agenda for reform and change. Voters have grown disenchanted with Bush's mishandling of the war in Iraq and the country's finances, and with the evangelical tilt of many of his policies. But there remains a baseline mistrust of Democrats on security, the economy, and values issues. For a sweep big enough to recover both houses of Congress, the party will almost certainly need an affirmative message as well as a negative one.

Granted this is a summary of the same hackneyed "What's the Democratic message?" question that journalists have been writing in a tag-team fashion for a few years now, but it does hint at an important point.

If the Republicans lose in November, that doesn't necessarily mean the Democrats won.

I've been hard on the Democrats for being spineless cowards who aren't even willing to defend themselves, but this whole obsession with coming up with the "message" is way overblown. Yeah, you guys need to get your shit together, be on the same page, and offer a compelling alternative to the GOP culture of corruption, but there's no rush. The "Contract with America" came out only six weeks before the 1994 midterms. If you guys are still entertaining fantasies of having a similar victory, you should keep your cards extremely close to your chest until it's close enough to election day for the country to remember your ideas.

As far as what those ideas should be, I'd suggest taking a cue from FDR. Something like this from his final State of the Union address would make a good foundation for the future of the Democratic party :

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. "Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America's own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

Maybe you could borrow some of the wording from FDR's "Four Freedoms" speech as well. If the Democrats came out with their "Freedom Agenda" that focused on pursuing a freedom from want, freedom from fear, etc., it could go a long way towards ending the myth that the Republican party is the only one that has any ideas.

posted by greg @ 3/09/2006 10:03:00 PM

Late Nite FDL: What You Can Do. . . NOW

posted by AJ @ 3/09/2006 08:52:00 PM

Wow, the race card so soon?

When you see Harold Ford, the NRSC wants you to see him

NRSC website assails ‘Fancy Ford’

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn. ) is taking flak for attending a Playboy Super Bowl party and spending thousands of campaign dollars on flowers and “lavish hotel stays. ”

A website being launched by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) repeatedly refers to the fifth-term congressman, running for the seat being vacated by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn. ), as “Fancy Ford” and includes pictures of expensive restaurants, hotel facilities, cigars, tulips and Playboy bunnies.

“It makes you wonder … what would the folks back in Tennessee think? ” the site asks.

NRSC spokesman Brian Nick said: “The overall theme of the site points out how Fancy Ford has become a Washington insider who is very out of touch with Tennessee values. ”

Nick added that the site is linked to the NRSC website and will target activists across the country on the Internet. The NRSC will also buy Web ads to drive traffic to the site, he said.

The Ford campaign declined to comment.

So why use the word fancy?

Well, according to Encarta:

fancy man

noun
1. woman's lover: the lover or boyfriend of a woman, especially a married woman (dated informal)
2. Same as pimp
(archaic)

There's no reason to make an issue of his spending in this way. You can bet that the picture of the Playboy bunnies, all white, is about more than his high living.

It's about station, class and race. How can this high toned negro live so well and chase white women. The more you click the links, the worse it gets.

The fact is that Ford is doing the exact same things all the other Congressman do. What? Is he supposed to have a senatorial fundraiser at McDonalds?

There is a clear racial subtext here, because of the use of the word Fancy. There's more than alliteration here. Because there's a tone that Ford doesn't deserve this kind of lifestyle, that's getting above himself. And in the South, that has a racial connotation. Because no one gave a damn about Bill Frist and his hightoned living habits. Anyone sneer at him going to Harvard and being rich?

I doubt it.

posted by Steve @ 3/09/2006 07:10:00 PM

Attention: Senate Democrats

posted by AJ @ 3/09/2006 06:23:00 PM

BushCo., Inc. - Where Every Day is Groundhog Day.

Despite Hoelscher’s apparent total lack of professional management or security experience, the press release announcing his appointment praises his qualifications and claims he will now be providing “strategic counsel” to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff...

"Well, he knows how to use email."


REUTERS/Linda Spiller

posted by watertiger @ 3/09/2006 05:21:00 PM

After South Dakota Pt. II: Stand Up For Roe

Drink to his health.

As most of you know, pro-life rhetoric in the U.S. is, more than anything, focused on diversion, using the language of states' rights or "reasonable regulations" to advance their agenda of banning abortion entirely. Perhaps the most common strategy is to argue that "everyone knows" that Roe is wrong, and therefore everyone should agree that it's illegitimate (although, mysteriously, this rhetoric temporarily vanishes when a Supreme Court confirmation hearing is in progress.) It's important for pro-choicers to understand that most of these claims about Roe are false. In the course of his celebration of South Dakota's legislature using illegal means to compel young women to give birth to their own sisters, Captain Ed offers a typical example, arguing that "[n]o one these days defends the basic legal framework of Roe, with even Justice Ruth Ginsburg noting its legal flaws." First of all, is it true that "nobody" defends the "basic legal framework of Roe? Sadly, no! (TM) As Justice Stevens pointed out while explaining the egregious unconstitutionality of the cutting-edge anti-choice diversionary technique of passing irrational bans of what they call (using a scientifically meaningless term) "partial birth abortions":

Justice Ginsburg and Judge Posner have, I believe, correctly diagnosed the underlying reason for the enactment of this legislation–a reason that also explains much of the Court’s rhetoric directed at an objective that extends well beyond the narrow issue that this case presents. The rhetoric is almost, but not quite, loud enough to obscure the quiet fact that during the past 27 years, the central holding of Roe v. Wade has been endorsed by all but 4 of the 17 Justices who have addressed the issue. That holding--that the word "liberty" in the Fourteenth Amendment includes a woman’s right to make this difficult and extremely personal decision–-makes it impossible for me to understand how a State has any legitimate interest in requiring a doctor to follow any procedure other than the one that he or she reasonably believes will best protect the woman in her exercise of this constitutional liberty.

And who are the judges who joined or voted to affirm a holding that every reactionary call center manager in the country knows to be indisputably wrong? These radical Trotskyites include 3 of Nixon's 4 appointments, Ford's only appointment, 2 of St. Reagan's 3 appointments, and 1 out of the first Bush's 2 appointments. That's one far-reaching conspiracy to subvert the law! Morrissey also is highly misleading about Ginsburg's argument. Ginsburg never disputed the correctness of the holding in Roe; she just argued it would have been preferable to decade the case on equal protection grounds. It's true that most people have serious criticisms about the quality of Blackmun's opinion in the case--I certainly wish that the opinion had been more along the lines of Douglas' opinion in Doe or Stevens' devastating rebuttal of White in Thornburgh--but the fact that an opinion doesn't exhibit perfect craftsmanship (which is hardly unusual, even among landmark opinions) is not to say that the outcome of the case is wrong. So why does Morrissey think that the opinion is indefensible? In an earlier post, he says:

And in all honesty, Roe was bad jurisprudence, no matter what one thinks of the outcome. The reasoning behind Roe allows any Supreme Court at any time to declare anything unconstitutional, as long as five jurists can find an emanation from a penumbra of a out-of-context piece of text that may or may not have anything to do with the issue at hand. It certified a procedure that should have a fancy name in Latin, but it would nonetheless mean "making it up as we go along". Without a doubt, the South Dakota legislature would not have attempted to do this ten years ago with the composition of the Supreme Court at that time, but now they feel they have as receptive a panel as they are likely to ever have.

First of all, as many of you know the "penumbras and emanations" language appears nowhere in Roe v. Wade. While the decision cites Griswold (the case where the language actually appears), Blackmun's analysis (such as it is) relies not on Douglas' majority opinion but on the due process reasoning of the concurrence written by Warren Court house conservative John Marshall Harlan. This helps to clarify what Morrissey and so many armchair critics of Roe are up to. He is not making the perfectly reasonable "pull the thread" argument against Roe, which accepts that court's decades-long recognition of a fundamental right to privacy but simply argues that it does not apply in the particular case of abortion. Rather, he's saying that any structurally inferred right to privacy is nonsensical. In other words, to Captain Ed, forced abortions, forced sterilization, bans on the use of contraception--all perfectly legitimate exercises of state power because the Constitution does not prohibit them in exactly those words. He's welcome to this view, but to claim that virtually nobody disagrees with him is ridiculous.

And so, of course, as I explained in excessive detail last year (1, 2, 3) Morrissey's claim that "The reasoning behind Roe allows any Supreme Court at any time to declare anything unconstitutional" is just ahistorical nonsense. Reasonable people can disagree, but to argue that applying long-established rights involving educating children, forced sterilization and contraception to the directly related area of abortion provides unlimited judicial power is silly. The holding in Roe is a perfectly logical application of precedents that are well-established, and there's no reason for pro-choicers to be defensive about it.

And, of course, under the second Bush administration the accusations of "judicial activism" (i.e. "judgifying I don't like") ring especially hollow. It's not just that the conservatives on the Rehnquist strike down more acts of Congress than any Court since the New Deal, or have no problem playing in the penumbras and emanations of the 11th Amendment in order to assert that the state universities have legal immunities similar to those of 17th century British monarchs. There's the decision that put George Bush in the White House. The completely indefensible Bush v. Gore 1)was entirely unprecedented, 2)involved a majority putting narrow partisan interests ahead of long-held legal principles (including two justices who read the equal protection clause so narrowly that they don't believe it applies to gender discrimination but invented a new right to have ballots cast under different systems counted under uniform standards), and 3)was so unprincipled that not only did they decline to apply the newly-minted right to future cases but weren't even willing to provide a logical remedy in the case itself. None of these things are true of Roe v. Wade: it applied an extensive body of relevant precedent, was an expression of sincerely held (though contestable) legal principles, and the justices in the majority logically applied the principle in both that case and future cases. So if Roe v. Wade is illegitimate "judicial activism" that state governments are right to nullify, Bush's presidency itself is something well beyond illegitimate. Somehow I don't think we'll be hearing this from many of Roe's amateur critics.

Pro-choicers have no reason, in other words, not to fight for Roe. The decision was right, and many of its critics have no idea what they're talking about. Don't back down.

(Cross-posted to L, G & M.)

posted by Scott Lemieux @ 3/09/2006 03:36:00 PM

O'Reilly Referees Christian Right Fight

... Meanwhile, the controversy surrounding Mr. Reed continues to create tension for other evangelical leaders. E-mails released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee indicate Mr. Reed told Mr. Abramoff that he would solicit anti-gambling help from big-name evangelicals including James Dobson and Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family. Days later, each wrote letters to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, protesting the opening of a casino in Louisiana.

In a Feb. 6, 2001, e-mail, Mr. Abramoff asked whether Mr. Reed "can get Dobson on the radio" to criticize Republican Haley Barbour for supporting the new casino's opening. Mr. Reed replied: "yes. there's a history there." Mr. Abramoff replied: "Let me know when Dobson hits him. I want to savor it." On Feb. 19, Mr. Reed assured Mr. Abramoff: "we're negotiating that now. don't have a green light yet, but they are very interested." ...
Focus on Finances

Via Max Blumenthal on Huffington Post comes a walk through the Christian right, with Ralph Reed all tied together with Jack Abramoff, which has brought some fresh hell to Dr. Dobson of Focus on the Family. But it's really all about Ralph Reed right now. Get ready for a ride, especially since the "big giant head," to quote Keith Olbermann, has decided to play referee.

Last night on "The Factor," the first guest up was none other than Dr. Dobson. You might remember the good doctor from Samuel Alito's recent thank you note, or maybe it's his non-stop jihad on all things post 18th century. Well, last night Bill O'Reilly offered Dobson an opportunity to answer charges from a group called DefCon, whose cause is "Campaign to Defend the Constitution Because the Religious Right is Wrong." Amen.

Dobson was in a near tizzy over the implication that he had anything whatsoever to do with Ralph Reed's current troubles that extend across the south, compliments of his religious right hypocrisy. As a renegade member of the "frozen chosen" I'm all ears when hypocrisy hits the news.

Tonight, O'Reilly is supposed to have people on from DefCon, in an effort to be "fair and balanced," so we'll see what evolves. One thing is clear is that the quiet problems of Ralph Reed and his connection with Jack Abramoff, as well as Dobson's involvement, have put a spotlight on a growing rift in the Republican religious right. That's the story Blumenthal lays out for us all.

Enter Marvin Olasky, the guy who coined "compassionate conservatism" back when Bush was governor. Olasky's the one who also created Bush's Faith Based Initiative program, once he hit the White House. Well, now Olasky is miffed and coming after the people in the Christian right who are tangled up with Abramoff. Olasky's World Magazine, one of the largest evangelical mags around, recently took out straight for Ralph Reed, with some blowback hitting the estimable James Dobson and his Focus on the Family. From one evangelical to another, can you feel the love, baby?

So what does this all mean?

Olasky's World is saying that corrupt evangelicals have to stand up, admit their wrongs, then do penance. It doesn't matter if you're Republicans or not, because if you're involved in illegal actions you're simply not doing God's work, which is the bottom line. But now Olasky, The World and his reporter are getting heat from Dobson and the Christian right, with O'Reilly now aiding their cause on Fox.

As every regular reader of my blog knows, the thing that truly bothers me about the right is their stranglehold on terrestrial radio, which I've been involved in for a long time. It starts with Rush and Sean, but gets really serious as it spreads into Christian broadcasting, all of which have a line to Armed Forces Radio. Progressives just got on AFR in late 2005! That's why Jane and Glenn's Roots Project, along with Mike Stark's work, are so important. Though obviously they're working in a parallel frame to mine, it's all connected to getting the grass roots active.

Well, Dobson ran right to radio when The World and Olasky's reporter came after him. Nice to have that built in network, isn't it?

"They [World] have a reporter who wanted me to dump on ralph reed because of Jack Abramoff. I wouldn't do it. So in the story they wrote, the made it seem like I was covering up for Ralph. they terribly misused the interview I gave them, and in the letter I wrote them, I tried to set the record straight. They refused to print it. So maybe I'm overreacting. But it is tough when your friends criticize you for something that shouldn't be."
via Max Blumenthal

But now not only does Olasky have to fight Dobson and his radio roots, but O'Reilly has given him another boost through Fox. Talk about media mafia.

But Olasky and The World aren't backing down.

If Reed had been transparent, he would have faced disagreement but would not now be facing disgrace. He has shamed the evangelical community by providing evidence for the generally-untrue stereotype that evangelicals are easily-manipulated and that evangelical leaders are using moral issues to line their own pockets.

The Ralph Reed Scandal

The issue comes down to hypocrisy. You don't get to play Christian, preening about your piety publicly, while gaming the odds and stiffing the notion of integrity privately, or at least you shouldn't. You don't get to have a "golden boy" image like Ralph Reed's, when you're actually doing the work of the devil by double crossing the people who put their faith in you.

Reed needs to pay for his hypocrisy through exposure, then pay for his crimes if there are any. That another branch of the evangelical movement is holding him to account, while simultaneously driving a stake through his image is not only ironic, it's political justice of a holy order.

Just imagine the Republican Party with a Christian right out of favor and out of power, because their pulpit politicians have been made to do a moral, if not actual, perp walk. Now hold that picture as a visualization.

cross-posted at Taylor Marsh
I do podcasts Mon-Thur., including on
this story, found here.

posted by Taylor Marsh @ 3/09/2006 02:04:00 PM

C'mon General Washington.

You know you want to.


Reuters/Jim Young

posted by watertiger @ 3/09/2006 11:20:00 AM

Why I Don't Care About What Paul Begala or James Carville Think About Anything

Stunningly, It Could Have Been Worse

Michael Berube reminds us, in the wake of South Dakota's brand spanking new abortion ban, about how the reactionary vanity candidate who handed the 2000 election to George Bush was saying at the time about how little difference it made who occupied the White House, while repeating the myth that overturning Roe "would just send the issue back to the states" and wouldn't result in any major restrictions on choice. Oh-oh spaghetti-o's! (In fairness, though, I too wouldn't label Nader a "closet" cultural conservative; actually, he's quite open about it.)

Still, despite my unyielding contempt for Nader, even I was sympathetic to one argument advanced by some friends who voted for him: their revulsion at putting a check next to Joe Lieberman's name. I can't deny that this was hard to stomach. What's amazing, though, is Michael's archival find--the alternative suggestion advanced at the time by Paul Begala and James Carville, the Democratic Party's self-appointed saviors:

By choosing former Georgia governor Zell Miller as his running mate, Al Gore could add intellectual brainpower, rhetorical firepower, and lots of plain old populist piss-and-vinegar to this staid election.

[...]

Miller would bring to the ticket a compelling personal story. In an election in which the final four candidates were the sons of a bank president, an admiral, a senator, and a president, Zell Miller was the son of a teacher--a teacher who died when Miller was just two weeks old. Raised by his mother in Appalachia, in a rock house she built herself, Miller found his focus in the United States Marine Corps, and his unabashed patriotism, combined with his down-home populism, makes him an American classic.

Zell Miller is also a world-class campaigner and orator. His keynote address to the 1992 Democratic convention ranks with Barbara Jordan's and Mario Cuomo's as one of the finest examples of powerful rhetoric and partisan passion.

At a time when politics seems moribund, Zell would bring energy. When people are looking for heroes, Zell's the real thing. And when Democrats need someone who's not afraid to open up a can of whupass on the radical right, they need look no further than Zell Miller.

Oh yes, what a fantastic idea for the 2000 ticket--the right-wing-even-for-a-Republican-Senator-Zell Miller. (At least Holy Joe has a nominally decent voting record.) I suppose one person's "down-home populism" is another person's vile Dixiecrat demagoguery, but frankly I thought that this was kind of "powerful rhetoric" the Democrats abandoned after LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act. (I can't deny Miller's "partisan passion," but generally one prefers it not to be directed against one's own ticket.) Anyway, I'm not sure it's possible for me to give less credence to their support of take-our-word-for-it "populist" Bob Casey Jr., but I certainly am not going to modify my position on the issue. That Begala is telling anyone who will listen what a great catch Casey is counts as another strike against him in my book....

[Cross-posted to L, G & M.]

posted by Scott Lemieux @ 3/09/2006 10:34:00 AM

The Rats Desert Dubya's Dubai Ship (updated)

... ... Even leaving the Carlyle and Bechtel Boys aside, it gets better. Another "protege" of Baker's appears on the scene: Robert Zoellick, currently Deputy Secretary of State, but from 2001 to 2005, this country's Trade Representative in charge, largely, of setting up free trade agreements such as CAFTA around the world. I guess it was little noticed in 2004 when Zoellick signed a TIFA -- Trade and Investment Framework Agreement -- with the UAE, a first step in the negotiations with the Sheiks of Dubai toward a FTA, a Free Trade Agreement, negotiations for which are ongoing. In a speech in Jordan that year, Zoellick described the UAE as a "very positive partner for free trade in the region. ... ...
“Our Two Bobbies,” Lucian Truscott IV
(guest blogging on Digby)

It took them over two weeks to figure it all out. But just watch the rubber stamping rats run.

They should have watched the Democrats, who sized up this story in a New York minute. Senator Chuck Schumer has been the pied piper of the port story since the Republicans' Dubai debacle began.

Yesterday, Terror Guy, our anti-hero, collapsed in the name of commerce. We didn't know the half of it. But reading the article by Lucian Truscott IV on Digby makes it all so very clear.

Today, it's all rats off deck.

...That instinct for political survival is helping to stiffen the Congressional spine. Republicans have held a significant political advantage over Democrats on the issue of national security, offsetting Democratic strength on social policy. Given the uproar at home over the port deal and nervousness about the implications of eavesdropping without warrants, Republicans are worried about losing their edge. Democrats say they should be.

In a memorandum to Senate Democrats that quickly made its way to reporters, a pollster reported Wednesday that the opposition to the port proposal and uncertainty over Iraq have significantly eroded Republican advantages among voters when it comes to security concerns.

"With huge majorities opposing the president's proposal to sell control of U.S. ports to Dubai and the failure of the president's Iraq policy, Republicans' once-yawning advantage on security issues has been largely neutralized," said the pollster, Mark Mellman.

Suddenly, a Rebellion in the G.O.P. on a Signature Issue

"Suddenly, a Rebellion"?

The press is so slow.

Did I mention they're also lazy, refusing to step further into the story than their latest access press release?

"Suddenly, a Rebellion"?

Try, finally, a reaction, because it's taken the rubber stamping Republicans five years to figure out Terror Guy's "war on terror" stops where commerce is the connection.

But even their reaction is too little, too late, especially since the majority leader in the Senate, Bill I diagnose from videotape Frist, is blocking the deal, with Senator Suck Up (aka McCain) saying we should "trust" the president on the port deal.

"Surely his administration deserves the presumption that they would not sell our security short." - Senator John McCain

Yeah, John, and George didn't scuttle your campaign in South Carolina either.

Democrats' gut feeling about the Dubai port deal has led the uprising from the get go and that's the Republicans' real problem. Senator Schumer tried to attach an an amendment to a lobbying bill just yesterday to take the deal down. However, the rubber stamping Republicans who control Congress blocked it. So the people are left with the reality that the only ones leading on the Dubai port deal are the Democrats.

Democrats tried to press their advantage Wednesday in the Senate. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York surprised Republicans with an amendment to a lobbying bill that would ban any company "wholly owned or controlled by any foreign government that recognized the Taliban" from managing port facilities. The company at issue, DP World of Dubai, fits that description.

Senate Republican leaders, trying to buy the administration some time on the port fight as their counterparts in the House deserted Mr. Bush, blocked a vote. But a showdown appeared inevitable.

"We know what the people of America think," said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. "This is a very bad idea." ...

Meanwhile, the press misses the message, because they're only reading press releases put out by the president and his people and all the hacks in power, missing the beating heart at the center of the story. Access is everything, baby.

House Republicans know they're in the last throes of power, with Democrats having "neutralized" the only issue they had going for them. Let's say it again, Democrats now lead on national security, with the Republican Dubai deal exhibit A, the incompetence of George W. Bush exhibit B, with the Republicans controlling Congress exhibit C on Iraq, because they're not doing anything to change the dynamics in the war.

Rubber stamping Bill Frist knows they're in trouble over the port deal, so he can't let Schumer's amendment through, because it would prove what we already know. Frist and his rubber stampers are actually powerless because George W. Bush doesn't think he has to answer to anyone, since during his entire presidency the Republicans in Congress have not stood up to him once. Ready the veto pen, Republicans man the pails, we're going down.

If President Bush goes down on Dubai, his lame duck status will turn into a dead duck reality, with Republicans adrift from the ship, no leader in sight and 2008 staring them down on the horizon.

But first things first.

Democrats taking the lead as Terror Guy collapses, has brought all rubber stamping Republicans on deck in a desperate attempt to separate themselves from the boss. It's a last ditch effort to save their political lives for 2006.

We're watching the death of a presidency, with the rubber stamping Republicans looking on and trying to figure out how to save themselves.

Democrats helped bring about this shift in fortunes because they stood up and led on the Dubai port deal without looking around for approval. Democrats are in touch with the people's rage, they feel it, they know what to do about it.

The rubber stamping Republicans can only jump ship, grab on and ride the Democrats' message to safety. But what's left in their wake is a president with no one to lead. That's why Bill Frist is trying to save him. They've backed the boss so long that if he goes down, they all go down with him.

Seeing political death in the rear view mirror, Republicans are running like rats from the sinking ship. Baby, this isn't a rebellion, it's a suicide mission.

cross-posted at Taylor Marsh

UPDATE (11:03 a.m.): Senator John Warner just announced on the Senate floor that DP World will give up stake "in some U.S. ports," handing control over to a "U.S. entity." What U.S. entity? No one is saying yet, but could it be? Nah, that "U.S. entity" wouldn't be Halliburton, would it? Nah.

UPDATE II (11:11 a.m.): Here's the Washington Post "breaking news" story.

posted by Taylor Marsh @ 3/09/2006 10:03:00 AM

Playing the long odds

Longshots can and do win

TNR misfires
by kos
Thu Mar 09, 2006 at 08:45:23 AM PDT

The dying New Republic (what are your latest circulation figures, guys?) endorses a loser like Lieberman, and it's done on principle, but bloggers fight for underdog candidates, and we're losers.



But, like I said, their batting average is still a big fat zero.



Here's TNR's assignment for the day -- call Rep. Ben Chandler and ask him what the blogger batting average is? Then call Rep. Stephanie Herseth. And Sen. Barack Obama. And, yes, Howard Dean at the DNC. Then they can call Gov. Mark Warner and ask him why he hired Jerome.

Heck, call Kerry and ask him what bloggers can do. Because if it wasn't for his own little private stash, Dean would've won the nomination. And it's obvious Kerry understands this now. Heck, even Hillary Clinton recently hired a netroots outreach staffer.

They can even call people like Sen. Russ Feingold and ask him why he spends so much time posting on blogs. And finally, they can call Gov. Brian Schweitzer and ask him why he reads so many blogs first thing in the morning (he loves both the liberal and conservative Montana bloggers and some national ones). And ta da! You have an instant story based on facts rather than sour grapes.

Backing the underdog means you will lose more often than not. Backing outside-the-establishment candidates mean we have to build momentum over time. Good thing for the modern conservative movement that they didn't pack it in after Barry Goldwater got crushed. They knew they were in it for the long haul, unlike the bitter, obsolete crew over at New Republic, cursing that newfangled people-powered media that has stripped them of whatever ill-gotten influence they used to wield.

Stupid bastards.

Our job is NOT to back winners, but to MAKE winners. Sure, that means losing a LOT of races, but when we win, we win big. Why should I help people who can win without me, when it is more effective to make a close race in a GOP district, forcing them to spend money they wouldn't have to.

The should worry about the day ordinary people replace the bosses, because that day is coming. They can sneer now, but that sneer won't last long.

Let's see the Republicans do the same.

Remember when the Bushies asked people to kick in for Iraq? How much did the supporters of President Bush give?

$600.

Yeah. By rights, our money shouldn't make a difference, but it does. And that scares people.

Crossposted on the NewsBlog

posted by Steve @ 3/09/2006 08:59:00 AM

Oooh, unicorns and fairy dust!

"The plan is to prevent a civil war, and to the extent one were to occur, to have the — from a security standpoint — have the Iraqi security forces deal with it, to the extent they are able to," Rumsfeld said.

"Nah, it's good. I've got a reality check at 1:00 I'm going to blow off."


AP/Dennis Cook

posted by watertiger @ 3/09/2006 08:46:00 AM

The liberal blogger-stop them at any cost

Damn, the only thing more dangerous than an Iraqi car bomber is a liberal blogger

Americablog has this charming piece up

Are the NYT and Adam Nagourney running a hit piece on liberal blogs?
by John in DC - 3/09/2006 10:11:00 AM

Sounds like it from what we're hearing.

You'll recall that Adam has run a slew of pieces pointing out how the Democratic party is a mess, and our sources tell us that he's now working on a similar piece about the blogs, and his intent is to paint us as crazy, lefty, wingnuts.

Now, first off, Nagourney has a bit of a conflict I hope he plans to disclose in any such article. He's been the target of a parody blog for over a year now - it's called
Ad Nags and can be found here. One wonders whether the constant funny, but pointed, barbs from that joke site have in any way biased Nagourney. We would hope not.

If the NYT is going to do a look at blogs, then it needs to go beyond the obvious. The obvious is that there is a perception out there that bloggers are all young inexperienced angry children who work in their pajamas, and they're dangerous dangerous DANGEROUS people to be around. You could write about that perception, but then you'd be writing about a preconception that's incorrect and about something we already know.

In fact, the more interesting story, is that many of the most well-known bloggers on the left and right are lawyers (not that that's a good thing, but you know, does put you a step above some crazy kid) and have other advanced degrees and experience.
Markos is a lawyer and former military. Atrios has a PhD in Economics. As for my
blog, I've got a law degree and a masters in foreign service from Georgetown,
worked in the Senate, the Children's Defense Fund, and the World Bank. Joe in DC
has a law degree and was the political director at Handgun Control. Chris in Paris is an international high tech consultant in Europe. We're people with real world xperience that kind of kicks ass. And suffice it to say, all of us have far left our 20s behind us.

And as for working in our pajamas, that's an outright lie.

I work in boxer-briefs.

But seriously, the interplay of the blogs and politics is becoming more fascinating by the day. To simply write these articles about how dangerous the blogs are and how everyone is so afraid of them, well, that's sloppy and its sensational and it's something FOX News would do (and has done). We'd expect, and hope, that the paper of record could do a more serious and deeper look at just how successful liberal bloggers and blogs have been, and how the future is pretty amazing if the bloggers and the established politicians can finally get together at full strength.

That's a real article.

I wish they would print a series of lies. so we can rip into them and demand retractions and all that kind of crap. The fact is that fucking with us is increasingly like fucking with Howard Stern, a dumb thing to do. We have bytes by the hard drive and lots of time to bitch.

And of course. Dana Milbank and Dan Froomkin can tell you how nice it is to have blogger friends. You think Froomkin would still have a job if it wasn't for his blogger friends? And Mr. Milbank making a funny on Olbermann could have caused him real problems if people weren't on the ass of the Ombudsman of his paper.

One day, they will figure out that we can be great friends instead of niggling enemies. A little mutual respect, especially when Bush is coming after them, might do them well. Most bloggers don't have a boss to fire them, most reporters do. They might well wind up in our ranks if the firing is nasty enough.

The irony is that the idea that we're all crazed leftists is funny. My father was a Republican since he was 21, even though he doesn't vote that way. He's also an ex-Marine who worked for the VA. Commie flag burner he is not. Many of the readers of my site are veterans and some are active duty military, some serving in Iraq. If you want real hard leftists, go to Counterpunch. But my readers are liberal democrats, not ANSWER devotees.

Part of this comes from the perception that bloggers are kids. I'm 41 and my partner, Jen, is in her late 30's. We are hardly kids out of college. We came by our beliefs by experience. You know why I distrust bureaucrats? I'm an NYU alum, in fact I'm posting this up from across the street from their campus because I had to leave home early. And while some people were getting their hand held on treelined campuses, NYU was dumping our files in the street and a woman in the bursar's office stole $6m in financial aid and booked to Palm Beach. That's enough to make you wary of any large institution.

So we have a range of experiences and education behind us. The idea that we're seeking some kind of virtual revolution is a joke. You want revolutionaries, go interview Rob Malda of Slashdot. He's got a revolution for you.

But most of us just want a working democracy, where the interest of oligarchy and kleptocrats aren't before soldiers, single moms and students.

Let Nagorney do his worst. He will realize how many people like and support blogs.

posted by Steve @ 3/09/2006 08:25:00 AM

"I don't get it.

Why is Marmaduke wearing a raincoat?"


AP/Eric Draper

posted by watertiger @ 3/09/2006 04:52:00 AM

Sign O' The Times

Talk about treating the symptom and not the disease :

Gov. Joe Manchin said Thursday that the Bush administration should require full-time, professional rescue teams to respond to fires and explosions in the nation’s coal mines.

Manchin called for the action during a Charleston event to honor mine rescue teams from across West Virginia.

The governor praised rescue team members, but noted that few mines have their own teams and all members are volunteers.

Manchin said January’s two mine accidents showed the volunteer system is inadequate. More teams are needed at strategic locations around the coalfields, the governor said.

You know what would be even more effective? Preventing the accidents from happening in the first place. I guess that would take something crazy like enforcing the workplace safety laws already on the books.

In my earlier post, I complained about Democrats not standing up for what they believe in, so let me present this perfect opportunity for the Democratic leaders in Congress to step up and say something that doesn't poll well but is the right thing to do. With the GOP having a boner for tort "reform", deregulation, and other ways of kissing CEO ass, it would be nice to hear a politician say "You're right. Jury awards and fines are out of control. The problem is they're way too low to be effective." Seriously.

I know we've all been conditioned to believe a multimillion dollar fine is insane, but that's largely because liberals of all stripes have rolled over and played dead while corporate shills have convinced the public that punitive damages are like a winning lottery ticket for the victims who, as they'll often imply, probably didn't even really get hurt that bad to begin with. This blame the victim mentality is an entire plank of the GOP's rickety platform and it's time for someone to knock the damn thing down.

Businesses exist for one reason only : to make money. I don't begrudge them that, but I do think one of the big lines that separates the two parties is that Democrats by and large think our laws should protect Americans from amoral entities, while Republicans are content with pretending that corporations have our best interests in mind. Of course, if a company is actually held to that same standard later, "pro-business" shills are quick to point out that their obligation is to shareholders. If that's the way things are going to be, then that's fine, but then we need to make sure our laws reflect the fact that businesses put money first and people second.

Which brings me back to the mine disasters. We've all read about the pitiful government oversight, fines for safety violations that could be paid with the change you'd find in your couch, etc. With the tragedy we've seen, it's tempting to reevaluate punitive measures against the mine companies with questions like "How much should a human life be worth?", but posing vaguely philosophical questions misses the mark. Nailing down a dollar amount is pointless without pursuing this goal :

Fines and damages should always be greater than the total cost of complying with the law.

As long as it's cheaper to break the law, we're going to keep seeing innocent people killed by corporate negligence. It's not because corporations are necessarily evil, but that it's cheaper to pay the fines and cross your fingers (especially when CEOs are pressured to keep costs down and are competing with other businesses equally willing bend the law). As long as the government lets businesses get away with doing a cost/benefit analysis with your lives, the string of tragedies will continue. If you want this to stop, the first step will be having an opposition party who takes the same "no tolerance" approach towards corporate crime that they do with violent and property crimes.

Here's an idea : Since corporations are legally viewed as persons, why not a corporate three-strikes law?

posted by greg @ 3/08/2006 11:04:00 PM

The Republican Revolution in a Nutshell

It's been twelve years since the "Contract With America" and twenty-six since Reagan rode to office proclaiming that "government is the problem", yet Americans are still waiting for the miracle to occur. Aren't lower taxes supposed to create jobs? Aren't lax environmental regulations supposed to make the air and water cleaner? As I wrote a while back :

"When a politician talks about 'deregulating' something, what he really means is getting rid of the laws that 99% of the time exist for a damn good reason...For a party that prides itself on its common sense, [Republicans] seem smitten with the retarded idea that the only thing that stands in the way of corporate titans keeping the environment clean (to cite one example) are the laws that mandate the very thing they're refusing to do. Would the Republicans be willing to apply this same standard of logic to laws that don't excite their base or reap profits for their benefactors?"

At what point are people going to wake up and realize that all the promises of a leaner, more responsive government are complete bullshit?

posted by greg @ 3/08/2006 10:16:00 PM

How the GOP lost Iraq

Guess voting wasn't enough for them.

You know, it's been amusing to see Glenn Reynolds and the chickenhawk brigade talk about the liberals and the media losing the war in Iraq. Ah, personal responsibility for everyone but thee, right?

But as we spiral out of control in Iraq, let's talk about how our conservative friends have helped destroy any chance of a Democratic Iraq and instead help deliver it into the hands of Iran.

1) The Coalition Provisional Authority

So many of the CPA's employees were hired for their reliability, not any skill in managing anything. You had CPA employees worrying about judicial review and flat taxes instead of running water and reliable power. They brought their US concerns to Iraq, which needed NGO professionals to help rebuild the country. Instead they got Heritage Foundation waitlisters.

While young and eager, mostly for their six figure salaries, few, if any, understood the Arab world, much less spoke Arabic. So they wrote papers, spent money and had no clue. The Iraqis paid for this

2) Dick Cheney

At every turn, he backed the wrong horse. He was Rumsfeld's protector in the White House, isolated Colin Powell and State and refused to realize when the Iraq project was turning sour. He kept expecting reality to meet his fantasies and it never did. He was the primary backer of Chalabi, the supporter of sending underarmed units to Iraq and the main backer of "preemptive war". Yet, he was too inflexible to suggest other, more proactive strategies, to prevent violence and limit the role of the clerics and militias. By relying so heavily on exiles, they bought into their limited ideas of Iraq and could only fail

3) The Congress

Instead of supporting the troops and making sure they were armed, they blew smoke and did almost nothing. Proper Congressional oversight could have prevented Abu Gharib and the worst abuses of the US in Iraq. It could have also pushed along reconstruction. Instead, people wanted it all, a premature victory in Iraq, tax cuts and scaring Iran.

Instead, a religious nut is now president of Iran, Iraq is about to collapse into a civil war which will place the nationalist Moqtada Sadr as the ultimate ruler of Iraq, a state openly hostile to the United States. One could argue that this would have been the outcome once Saddam disappeared anyway, but the US hastened the process along by years.

Congress failed over and over to actively oversee US activity in Iraq and hold companies accountable. They failed to demand that DOD supply proper vehicle and body armor. They refused to control the use of Reservists and Guardsmen to the point that the states are screaming.

In short, the GOP led Congress has refused to carry out their basic Consititutional responsibilites, instead backing Bush and his ill-fated war.

4) Pundits

Like the President, the right from columnists to bloggers have engaged in the grossest form of intellectual dishonesty. Too cowardly to enlist, shirking when asked, they created an environment where tormented the parents of the dead was legitimate political debate. Quick to use words like treason and cowardice while revelling in the deaths of others, not only have they been slow to join the fight, but do little to support veterans

It was bad enough they attacked Cindy Sheehan without understand why she was so upset. Her son was a mechanic. He was not supposed to be on patrol in Sadr City, but because his unit was short infantry, that's what he did. And he died doing it and she never got an honest answer why.

They also reveled in the elections, which created the current mess. The Kurds, Shia and Sunni don't trust each other, which is what led to the current spate of killing. At every turn, they offer fantasy and blind loyalty at a time when patriotism would demand holding Bush and his administration to the highest standards. When you mention this, they twist history and create fact to shape their argument.

They pretend we can control events, even when we can't. And they deserve some of the blame for that, because they created an uncritical environment where only praise was tolerated when our soldiers needed brutal honesty and support. Metal ribbons and cheap words are not support, they are indifference with a smile. Indifference to the fate of thousands of veterans who come home to broken marriages, bad health care and lost jobs. To them, war is a Michael bay movie and when it ends, they move on.


When asked, it will be as much Republican refusal to deal with the reality of an increasingly failed and dangerous war in Iraq, as any political victories created by the Shia and their Iranian allies. They created a fantasy world of elections and Iraqi Army training while real American soldiers were returning home with a burning hatred of Arabs and severe psychological problems.

They failed this country because they couldn't adapt to unpleasant realities. And like our doomed support of Chang Kai Shek, the end will be the same. No matter how much money we put in, we will lose Iraq, but because of any fifth column, but because of feckless Republicans, too cowardly to change course and put the country above their party.

posted by Steve @ 3/08/2006 10:09:00 PM

Help Chris Muir Find TEH CONSTITUTION!

As a follow-up to Amanda's long-running series, we can perhaps help Chris Muir out by pointing him to an obscure document he seems to be unfamiliar with, the United States Constitution. As you can see, in his latest attempt to be as didactic and unfunny as Mallard Fillmore in a more pretentious way, Muir's reactionary stand-in responds to a claim that the press should have the final decision about what to publish by quipping: "I don't quite recall when the press was directed to run national security." Ha-ha! You see, national security requires that the government get the final say about what's publishable, not those silly editors. One minor problem, however:

Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.

Strange. While the press indeed was not "elected" to "run" national security, it was given the right to report information important to the public. Oddly, there isn't a "national security" exemption. The reasons for this were very effectively explained by Hugo Black, when the Nixon administration--Muir surely would have approved!--tried to suppress the publication of the Pentagon Papers:

In the First Amendment, the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell. In my view, far from deserving condemnation for their courageous reporting, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other newspapers should be commended for serving the purpose that the Founding Fathers saw so clearly. In revealing the workings of government that led to the Vietnam war, the newspapers nobly did precisely that which the Founders hoped and trusted they would do.

[...]

The word "security" is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic. The Framers of the First Amendment, fully aware of both the need to defend a new nation and the abuses of the English and Colonial governments, sought to give this new society strength and security by providing that freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly should not be abridged.

As fashionable as it is nowadays to use "national security" as a universal solvent which instantly dissolves the restrictions on executive power contained in the Constitution, I find Black's reading of the First Amendment rather more persuasive.

(Cross-posted to L, G & M.)

posted by Scott Lemieux @ 3/08/2006 09:30:00 PM

Late Nite FDL: The GOP Is An Organized Crime Racket

Atrios alluded to this earlier: the whole Republican Party is an organized crime syndicate.

From Wikipedia (emphasis added):

Organized crime is crime carried out systematically by formal criminal organizations. The Organized Crime Control Act (U.S., 1970) defines organized crime as "The unlawful activities of ... a highly organized, disciplined association...". Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are politically motivated. Mafias are criminal organizations whose primary motivation is profit. Gangs sometimes become "disciplined" enough to be considered "organized". The act of engaging in criminal activity as a structured group is referred to in the U.S. as racketeering.

Sound like anyone we know?

Wait, there's more (emphasis added):

Criminal organizations keep their illicit actions secret, and members communicate by word of mouth or telephone. Many organized crime operations have substantial legitimate businesses, such as licensed gambling, building construction, trash hauling, or dock loading enterprises, which operate in parallel with and provide cover for drug trafficking, money laundering, prostitution, extortion, hijacking, fraud, and insider trading, among many other possible criminal activities.

To which list we can now add many other organizational structures, campaign PAC's and charities, like this one from Rick Santorum:

Santorum's charity got a $25K check from a real estate developer at the same time that he was working to win as much as $8.5M in federal aid for one of the donor's projects.

Charity begins at home, eh? That's just one of a jillion possible examples. But Wikipedia has even more illuminating stuff (emphasis added):

In order for a criminal organization to prosper, some degree of support is required from the society in which it lives. Thus, it is often necessary to corrupt some of its respected members, most commonly achieved through bribery, blackmail, and the establishment of symbiotic relationships with legitimate businesses. Judicial and police officers and legislators are especially targeted for control by organized crime via bribes, threats, or a combination. Financing is made easier by the development of a customer base inside or outside the local population, as occurs for instance in the case of drug trafficking.

Now that's a mother lode of information!

The GOP crime racket buys support from the public through fraud. These fuckers distract large swaths of the electorate with their lies and bogus non issues, like the existential threat of Jake and Ennis settling down, and then run a cash and carry operation raiding the public till.

The latest attempt at distraction? Why, the line item veto, of course!

The game has long been to use the fundamentalists (one "customer base" as described above) as get out the vote shock troops while selling government to the highest corporate bidder (the other "customer base"), with kickbacks to all the GOP pols who grease the skids. When pesky pissants like Hagel and Snowe threaten to blow the lid off, their arms get turned into pretzels behind closed doors, and presto!, the Senate Intelligence Committee will hold no hearings on presidential assumption of the power to ignore the law. Though of course, it's quite possible Snowe and Hagel did not cave to pressure, but that they just maximized their leverage to shake down the company for the best deal. Entrepreneurialism, and all that.

And speaking of fraud, though we do not have the smoking gun to prove ballot box fraud yet, we sure do know how dirty voter supression works in the GOP Crime Family Playbook, now don't we?

Wikipedia further observes:

In addition, criminal organizations also benefit if there is social distrust of the government or the police.

In the Republican case, the fifty year effort to discredit and demonize the government itself has provided the cover the crime organization has needed to gain sufficient support from the public. But with Patrick Fitzgerald's efforts to blow the lid off the organization over the Plame leak, w've had Crime Bitch Barbara Comstock attacking the "out of control prosecutor." Seems police and the "rule of law" are no longer sunny topics for a crime family under serious pressure.

And make no mistake, they are under serious pressure.

Though they hold the keys to the media, what with Time Warner going along for the deregulatory ride, and they can fix some election results, they still need a majority of the public to remain duped to hang on to power. But poll after poll shows us the public is catching on. The public is way ahead of the war profiteers and tinkerbell-clap-harder-for-unreality crowd. John Murtha, God bless 'im, keeps pointing this out.

The GOP is weakening. Later this month, when Abramoff is sentenced, he will sing and name names as part of his plea agreement. In fact, he's already begun to sing to Vanity Fair (pdf alert!).

Are you looking forward to HBO's sixth season of The Sopranos? As amazing as that series is, reality has it beat. Get your popcorn and stay tuned.

The entire Republican Party is an organized crime racket, and it's about to get a lot more exposure. But I sure as hell would like to hear our elected Dem leaders talk about the Republican Party as an organized crime racket, repeatedly, without apology or qualification.

Can you hear me, Nancy Pelosi? How about you, Harry Reid? Ready to draw some fire again, Governor Dean? (Ready to STFU, Joementum? Or are your still playing smoochie with John McCain?)

In the end, the only way the GOPpi (not "Gotti") Crime Family will truly be held accountable will be for us to change the country. More on that, perhaps, tomorrow night, here on Late Nite FDL.

Photo by Craig Blankenthorn

posted by AJ @ 3/08/2006 09:13:00 PM

Is It High Tide Yet?

There's something else you need to understand about social movements: they happen according to a predictable path of progression (this model is adapted from Everett Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations).

They start with Innovators, who make up just 2.5% of a population. Think of a bell curve. They are waaaay out on the left side. Quirky, even flakey, they support a lot of ideas that never make it. But they are great experimenters.

Early Adopters monitor the Innovators. They pay attention to ideas that might work, but are discriminating. They general favor change, but not just any change. They make up about 13.5% of a population, and function as leading edge opinion leaders. They are a highly influential minority.

Moving across the bell curve of the general population, the next group is the Early Majority, so-called because when they adopt a change, the change has moved to the big time. They make up a fat part of the bell curve, 35%, and once you have all these three groups on your side, you have 50% of a whole population. Cut the curve in the middle; that's where you are now. Early Majority members trust and follow the lead of the Early Adopters.

The next group, on the right hand side of the curve, is the Late Majority, or what I call in a forthcoming business book I've written, the Skeptical Guardians (so-called because they guard the old way of doing things or seeing the world). These people are generally change resistant. They like the tried and true, the familiar. Like the Early Majority, their mirror image, they make up 35% of a general population.

The last group on the bell curve is the Laggards, or what I call the Confirmed Traditionalists. About 15% of any population, they will never believe in the new way. They may grit their teeth and comply with a new way, or just resist and never sign on. Dead enders, as it were.

What does this have to do with politics and the progressive movement?

Everything.

Some points:

• The most recent great wave of innovation in American politcs was the conservative "revolution," often traced to Goldwater and moving through Reagan to the present day. That movement has reached its apogee and is now moving past its peak. Evidence for a turning of the tide is all around us.
  
  
• What evidence? Well, for the first time in the post-Viet Nam era, to the best of my knowledge, more Americans trust Democrats on national security than trust Republicans. That's seriously revolutionary.
  
  
• The institutional strengths of the conservative establishment mask how strong we are. That's because the creation of conventional wisdom still lies in their hands, as they control the media. They worked hard, starting in the 1980's, to gain that control. Now they have it. But already, it's slipping. We are cracking it up, along with Jon Stewart and other cultural forces.
  
  
• The conservaitive revolution took a long time to build. The funding came from the corporate side of the coalition, but the grassroots passion came from the fundamentalists, who decided to move out of their own social circles to run for small, local offices, and move stealth-like into the mainstream. That also really took off in the 1980's.
  
  
• As a progressive movement, we are about where their side was in the late 1970's, before Reagan became president. And yet, the pace of our progress in the last two years has put their early progress to shame, probably because our ability to use the Internet to dissemminate information and to communicate alters the pace of social change generally.
  
  
• As a progressive movement, on the issues, we already have the Early Majority on our side, but we have to close the sale in the midterms and consolidate it in the '08 presidential campaign. The media will follow our progress, and not see it or give it credit in advance. That's because the media is in the hands of pro-establishment forces.
  
  
• To maintain strong majority governance, we don't need to win over any more than a solid, sustainable 5% of the Skeptical Guardians. Sometimes we will have more than that, sometimes less, but if we can keep a solid average above 50%, obviously, we dominate. Forget the Confirmed Traditionalists, the flat earthers. We'll never win them and we don't need them.
  
  
• Even once we win more Democratic seats in '06, we still need to push the party to stand for progressive ideals. The fundamentalists actually kept pushing the Republican party for 20 years before becoming the party establishment, or at least its co-establishment. It won't take us as long, I think, but it will take at least two more election cycles, I figure.
  
  
• We win by erosion and consistency. Thats' why I chose the graphic I chose. But I think we can cover the ground the conservative revolution covered in thirty years in much less time: more like ten years.
  
  
• Malcolm Gladwell wrote a popular book caled The Tipping Point. That was all about moving a product in the market from the Early Adopters to the Early MAjority, and he said that's the hardest part. And it is. But get this: we've already past that point. The electoral results will follow. Katrina was a tipping point. So is the Dubai Ports deal. The collapse of the American effort in Iraq, now apparent to a majority of Americans, is a tipping point.
  
  
• Finally, to sustain our gains, we have to tell America a new story about what America is and what we need. Government is not the enemy. Public service with accountability serves the public interest. "Together, We Can Do Better" is not a bad branding statement, overall. The narrative, which underlies all the stories Americans tell themselves, is up for grabs now. We have to fill that void with our story. And we will.
  

So, in this long post, I'm saying, see the big picture, Social movements progress according to a predictable cycle, and the polling data tell us where we are. Don't let losses like Ciro Rodriguez get to you. We pushed the edge and took a no-run candidate and made a tough race for an incumbent. In another election cycle or two, we will win those races. In the meantime, we continue pushing like the tide, reshaping the political landscape.

Photo by Derek Dobbie

posted by AJ @ 3/08/2006 07:09:00 PM

"Wow, the Twins really kicked it up

for Mardi Gras!"


AP/Charles Dharapak

Just like their daddy. Maybe he should get them jobs already?

posted by watertiger @ 3/08/2006 05:35:00 PM

They haven't done Jack

The News Blog's logo for Pajamas
Media or as we call it, Ass Clown
Media


There was some bitching about how Ciro Rodriguez went down in a close primary, and I think people lose the trees in the forest at some point

Let me make a point: how many candidates has Red State or Instapundit raised money for?

How many long shot GOP candidates did they give a fighting chance?



Yeah, that's what I thought.

Let's remember what we're doing is revolutionary. We can channel help and money to candidates across the country. The GOP, because they insist on a top down management scheme, have sharp limits to what they can do.

Also, because we're independent, our actions don't affect each other in the same way, Our friends are Red State are trying to play all sides of the fence, working with the GOP, shilling for Wal Mart and running an "independent" blog. If oh, Kos decided to do a Mac ad, that has zero effect on me. Jen and I have our opinions on Apple, and he has his.:) But it's not like he's got to serve Apple, the DNC and his blog. That wouldn't affect my advertisers or readers other than in a post.

But, when someone writes a racist post on Red State, a whole bunch of other organizations can be forced to explain it away. Because these folks are all so tied together between GOP politics, clients and their blogs that if La Shawn Barber flips out on her Pajamas media Sponsored blog, because he's associated with them, he can be made to defend their actions,.

My larger point is to remind everyone we have two advantages, one we are credible people without hidden conflicts of interests. Which means we don't have to serve more than one master.

Two, we have the ability to affect real world events. We may not win at once, but we can change races and get people to reasses decisions. Our friends on the right can only bloviate because they have neither the credibility or the audience to affect politics. And because of their interlocking ties, they can't even jump into primaries or choose sides.

The Republicans are scared of our collective power. To them, we're the "extreme liberal left", which, besides being bad English, makes no sense. Extreme for what? Not wanting the US to torture people? To end the failed war in Iraq? To give fair benefits and treatment for our veterans? A fair rebuilding process for Katrina survivors?

If that's an extremist agenda, it's one most Americans agree with.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee is so scared of Kos, they want to go after him again, by distoring his words and ignoring that he's an Army veteran. He says he was even once a Reagan Republican. Hey, when I was a kid, I used to eat mayonnaise sandwiches with my dad. Then I turned seven.

Most of them wouldn't know public service if it broke into their homes and held an AK to their heads. And given the insane comments by people like racist Michelle Malkin, cowardly Glenn Reynolds and that half-wit LaShawn Barber, they are in no position to criticize anyone for their opinions.

These people live in fear and want you to share in it, by making reasonable people, with reasonable views seem like they have a problem, not the people who want to sell our ports to people who go hunting with Osama.

posted by Steve @ 3/08/2006 05:18:00 PM

Playing The Game

Haven't paid much attention to the latest twists in the Katherine Harris corruption scandal, but this update at TPM Muckraker put a smile on my face :

Here's the kind of lede you never want to see as a candidate, particularly if you're a makeup-happy Republican running for Senate in Florida: "Katherine Harris has seen better days."

Or try this one: "If you heard a big implosion during the weekend, it may have been the sound of Katherine Harris' campaign."

Or, my favorite: "A yet-to-be-identified Hawaiian has almost as much of a chance of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate as Longboat Key Republican Katherine Harris[.]"

Unfortunately, the very fact that we're still talking about Harris in 2006 shows how poorly the Democratic party is at playing politics. The main reason people know her name at all is because she was the Florida Secretary of State who worked on the Bush campaign and led the 2000 recount. I know we're supposed to put the stealing of an election behind us, but are you guys really so shell-shocked that you're afraid remind people of a blatant conflict of interest? You don't need to reopen the election 2000 can of worms to point out that her unwillingness to recuse herself from that recount doesn't inspire confidence that she'd put the interests of her constituents first. The people of Florida deserve a Representative that doesn't have divided loyalties.

Of course, the Democratic rope-a-dope strategy worked well here, since Harris is essentially knocking herself out, but that same political timidity is evident all over the place. I've brought this up plenty of times over at my site, but it bears repeating : Democrats need to stop apologizing for being right. For a good example of what I mean, this March 2004 article is an early glimpse at the traits that made John Kerry lose his bid for the presidency :

After a union rally in Chicago, Illinois, on Wednesday Kerry told a worker that "these guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group of people I've ever seen." His microphone was still on when he made the comments.

Kerry, who was on Capitol Hill Thursday to meet with Congressional Democrats, he told CNN, "I didn't say it about the Republicans, I said it about the attack dogs."

On Wednesday, a campaign aide had said that Kerry wasn't talking about President Bush.

Kerry has touted himself as a "fighter" who will stand up to GOP attacks. He told the worker, "Don't worry, man -- we are going to keep pounding, let me tell you."

I was a big supporter of John Kerry, but this incident was complete bullshit. If you get "caught" telling the truth, don't obfuscate later when pressed on the subject. In this case, John Kerry's gaffe gave him the perfect opportunity to explain why he thought the Bushies were "crooked", but he figured he'd be better off tiptoeing around the feelings of his opponents. Democratic consultants may think this sort of thing wins them points with undecided voters, but it also makes people like me embarrassed to be supporting a guy too craven to back up his own words.

This is even worse when you realize that politicians hardly ever take damage for speaking off the cuff. George W. Bush called a reporter an "asshole" and Dick Cheney told a Senator to fuck himself, but their potty-mouths didn't cost them a single vote among the moral police. Why? It's not just because 90% of the righteous indignation that comes out of that crowd is manufactured outrage, but because sticking to your guns will make people respect you. Even in cases as obviously immature as Bush's and Cheney's, after the first couple days of faux-anger on the part of Democrats, voters responded positively in both incidents because the closest they came to an apology was saying (I'm paraphrasing here) "Sometimes when I get pissed off, I lose my cool."

Not that I'm saying that Democrats need to start cussing like sailors, but that they need to realize that when Republicans get offended it's probably because they're doing something right. Yet even with the GOP imploding, we're still treated to the sorry spectacle of Harry Reid comparing the GOP to the mob in an op-ed and a week later issuing an apology for a report coming out of his office that actually named names. As Henny Youngman might say, "Give 'em hell Harry...please".

posted by greg @ 3/08/2006 02:55:00 PM

The Blood Flows in Iraq

The AC-130 Gunships are Back

Gunmen wearing what appeared to be the uniforms of Iraqi Interior Ministry commandos stormed a private security company in the capital Wednesday afternoon and kidnapped as many as 50 employees, an official of the ministry said. In an atmosphere of spiraling lawlessness, at least 47 people across the country were killed between Tuesday and Wednesday nights. In the deadliest incident, the bodies of 18 men, all bound at the wrists and blindfolded, were found piled in an abandoned minibus late Tuesday by a U.S. military patrol in al-Mansour, a mixed neighborhood of Shiite and Sunni Arabs in western Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement Wednesday.
Gunmen Raid Baghdad Security Firm, Abduct 50 Employees -- Meanwhile, at Least 47 Killed in Latest Wave of Iraq Violence

This is going from bad to worse, like the final beat of a stopping heart.

Iraqis are being found bound, gagged and dead across Iraq, slayings no longer an aberration but the norm. Whole families and people from the same religious sect murdered with impunity.

In the middle of the carnage stands the U.S. military, between hell and the blood waters.

Death squads operate in the light of day.

Reuters reported that thugs attacked at the home of Interior Ministry advisor Maj. Gen. Moussa Salman in western Baghdad. Two of his bodyguards died.

At least some of the insanity seems to come compliments of the push back over the Shiites' nominee for prime minister, Ibrahim Jafari, who is not backed by Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians. Juan Cole (always) has more.

Meanwhile, Donald Rumsfeld has joined the estimable but checked out Joint Chiefs' head Peter Pace in Iraqland, a place where reality is put on hold and every fantasy is indulged. Yes, of course, gentlemen, the carnage is overstated. In what world, by what measurement?

Via Emily Messner, let's turn to some Iraqi bloggers... Iraq the Model, with a conversation he had with his dad about why the bombs were so loud in Baghdad. "Iraq Democracy is a Farce," is sobering. Also check out 24 Steps to Liberty.

"More than 1,000" have been killed since the Golden Mosque bombing, which for me was the insurgents' Tet Offensive, for those of you willing to walk the metaphor out.

The Pentagon confirmed 2,304 U.S. service personnel have died in Iraq since March 2003. But what of the wounded? Senator John Warner said that between 25-30,000 have been wounded, some seriously maimed. That's not nothing, people.

Oh, and by the way, the AC-130 gunships are back, which can only mean escalation on all fronts, because those babies don't exactly pick and choose their targets.

It looks like a new type of war to me. Dare we call it civil?

posted by Taylor Marsh

posted by Taylor Marsh @ 3/08/2006 02:44:00 PM

The U.S. diplomatic effort

encapsulated in one facial expression:


AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta

posted by watertiger @ 3/08/2006 12:29:00 PM

Deadeye Taunts -- Iran Threatens

Deadeye Dick on Iran: All bluster, no bullets

"I think that provocative statements and actions only further isolate Iran from the rest of the world," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters traveling with President Bush to hurricane-affected states in the Gulf Coast. "And the international community has spelled out to Iran what it needs to do." Iran Threatens U.S. With 'Harm and Pain'

Finally, something George W. Bush and the Republicans know something about, isolation.

Because no president has done more to isolate this country than George W. Bush. The president's incompetence on the war in Iraq has put the failures of Republican foreign policy out in the open for everyone in the world to see.

And while we were dallying in the Iraqi desert, Iran continued their nationalistic dreams of becoming a nuclear nation.

The reality is that, whether the wingnut neocons want to admit it or not, we need Iran. Former General Wesley Clark believes we need to make some sort of deal with Iran because of where we stand in Iraq. Without Iran working with us, on some level, what we end up getting in Iraq is a mess made even worse. With the reality that Iran is almost certainly stoking the insurgency, not to mention helping Iraq move right, we truly can't afford to ratchet up the Iranian reaction, but Bush and Cheney aren't dealing with that reality or any reality at all.

One point that needs to be stressed, which has been made by experts, is that the issue on Iran is not about nuclear bombs, but a nuclear regime. Most people believe Iran is years away from the technology needed for bombing. However, the fierce nationalism of Iranian citizens can be stirred to inspire President Ahmadinejad to amass real legitimacy where he actually has none. The only way he can get it is if we give it to him, something Vice President Dick Cheney seems to be working hard to do.

Unfortunately, the “international community” has a tendency “to only react to crisis,” Goldschmidt said, which puts him in an “uncomfortable” position trying to “solve one specific case, which is Iran.” He offered two solutions that, by involving the UN Security Council, would make Iran’s current voluntary commitments legally binding:

“The minimum for me is to report [Iran] to the Security Council to request Iran to immediately resume the suspension of all enrichment-related activities, and, second, [for the Security Council] to provide the IAEA with a significantly increased verification mandate and authority. Once more, this has nothing to do with sanctions.”

George Perkovich elaborated on Goldschmidt’s account of Iranian noncompliance:

“[There were centrifuges in Iran that] were contaminated with uranium particles, but then when the inspectors went to the place where they were stored–which is an unnamed country by the IAEA, but which I know is Dubai–and did environmental samplings in the storage facility, there were no isotopes found in the facility….If the machines in Iran were contaminated and they had been in the facility in Dubai, the facility should have had some of this contamination as well.”

Perkovich, in response to a question on Iran’s “shift in their negotiating behavior,” said:

“The president of Iran says…Iran was either mistaken to engage in the suspension and the negotiations or at least was way too accommodating, and that the President Ahmadinejad and perhaps others have a view that the way the world works is you act tough, you make clear what your bottom lines are and you pursue it, and you don’t act as if people have the strength or will to stop you and you create facts on the ground and eventually the rest of the world has to adapt to this.”

Perkovich drove this point home by noting that during the UN Summit in New York he was told that President Ahmadinejad “turned to one of his agents and said, you know, these Europeans are like barking dogs, if you kick them they’ll run away.” Iran’s recent negotiating tactics, Perkovich said, “suggests that logic.”

Carnegie Endowment - Proliferation News

Did you notice above that the "unnamed country" mentioned is none other than Bush's port buddies?

Of course, Ahmadinejad's threat today comes the day after Deadeye resurfaced, warning of "meaningful consequences" if Iran fails to cooperate with the U.N. Security Council. Cheney didn't stop there, offering the fantastic fantasy that we are "keeping all options on the table in addressing the irresponsible conduct of the regime." Oh, and one more thing, the U.S. is sending "a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon."

That comes as news to some of us, since just last week Bush traded nuclear rods for mangos.

President Bush and his Dick have the passive-aggressive game down, but what kind of message are they really sending?

Does anyone honestly believe that our military can turn on a dime and strike in Iran? It's a preposterous threat, saber rattling at its wingnuttiest, which Rep. John Murtha and others have said is making matters worse.

The U.S. military has been stretched to the breaking point, with 45% of the troops on their 2nd rotation, 29% on their third tour or more, 26% on their first, with no end in sight. Divorces have skyrocketed, with "battle fatigue" a growing epidemic. The U.S. military is always willing and able to make the fight and they certainly don't want our pity or sympathy, because they relish their job. But if a terrorist incident really does happen, because of Iraq, the U.S. will be caught with our offenses obliterated, which is something we must realize and fight against, because the Republicans are obviously clueless.

We're in another escalating war of words that does not serve this country, but instead isolates us more from allies we need on the war on terror, which has been forgotten in Bush's incompetent campaign to spread democracy in the Middle East. Threatening Iran with some mythical military action won't bring allies to our side and it won't solve the escalation game.

Imagine the carnage if Bush and Cheney decide to take their neocon threats into action. Seriously, who would join us in such folly after Iraq, with the Iraq war devolving into civil carnage?

In the end, we need alliances in the world to make us all safer. You don't make friends by trading nukes for fruit in India one week, then turning around and making threats to a nation we cannot afford to strike the next.

There is no need for military strikes against Iran. The country is five to ten years away from the ability to enrich uranium for fuel or bombs. Even that estimate, shared by the Defense Intelligence Agency and experts at IISS, ISIS, and University of Maryland assumes Iran goes full-speed ahead and does not encounter any of the technical problems that typically plague such programs.

This is not a nuclear bomb crisis, it is a nuclear regime crisis. US Ambassador John Bolton has correctly pointed out that this is a key test for the Security Council. If Iran is not stopped the entire nonproliferation regime will be weakened, and with it the UN system.

But it will have to be diplomats, not F-15s that stop the mullahs. An air strike against a soft target, such as the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan (which this author visited in 2005) would inflame Muslim anger, rally the Iranian public around an otherwise unpopular government and jeopardize further the US position in Iraq. Finally, the strike would not, as is often said, delay the Iranian program. It would almost certainly speed it up. That is what happened when the Israelis struck at the Iraq program in 1981.

No Military Options

So, I ask you, just what is Vice President Dick Cheney talking about with regards to Iran? It's frightening in the extreme to say it, but I don't think he knows.

cross-posted at Taylor Marsh

posted by Taylor Marsh @ 3/08/2006 11:26:00 AM

"Why isn't it spelled

l-e-v-y?"


AP/Charles Dharapak


BTW, I've been remiss in thanking jane, reddhedd, and the firedoglake community for allowing me to take up valuable bandwidth here with my snark. Thank you.

posted by watertiger @ 3/08/2006 10:21:00 AM

The aria of Casino Jack

Tom DeLay with his travel agent,
Jack Abramoff

Vanity Fair has a PDF of Casino Jack talking

...... He’s the fellow responsible for what might be the biggest government scandal since Watergate, the man whose sullied example could maybe, possibly, help clean up Washington. He’s the guy who wore that infamous black hat on the day he admitted it all. Abramoff is known everywhere but in two buildings, that is: the United States Capitol and the White House. Sure, he spread around millions of Indian-tribe dollars, to say nothing of golf trips to Scotland and free meals at Signatures, his own fancy restaurant, and luxury-box seats at sporting events—American Indians, of all people, paying for Redskins tickets—among roughly 270 members of Congress.

Sure, a few senators and representatives admit to having brushed up against Abramoff, but only long enough for him to have “duped” or “misled” them. And President Bush can barely remember him: for a couple of Hanukkahs, Abramoff apparently stood on gripand- grin lines at the White House to be photographedwith the president, but almost anybody can do that. Being airbrushed out of a whole community in which he cut so wide a swath for the past 10 years, where he helped revolutionize lobbying, where he was very nearly ubiquitous and invincible—it’s enough to hurt someone’s feelings. On other matters related to his situation he tiptoes, as would anyone whose fate—the amount of time he will languish in prison—lies in the hands of prosecutors and the judge.

But for someone who has fought his whole career to be acknowledged and respected and feared, being treated like a nonperson is simply too much to take.

“For a guy who did all these evil things that have been so widely reported, it’s pretty amazing, considering I didn’t know anyone,” Abramoff says sardonically. “You’re really no one in this town unless you haven’t met me.”

Just to cite one typical example, the head of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, said in an interview, “Abramoff is someone who we don’t know a lot about. We know what we read in the paper,” even though, according to documents obtained by Vanity Fair, Mehlman exchanged e-mail with Abramoff, did him political favors (such as blocking Clinton administration alumnus Allen Stayman from keeping a State Department job), had Sabbath dinner at his house, and offered to pick up his tab at Signatures. (According to a spokesperson, Mehlman does not recall the e-mail exchange, “because he was often contacted by political supporters with suggestions and ideas,” or the Sabbath dinner.)

The newly elected House majority leader, John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, also doesn’t know Abramoff, but Abramoff’s clients gave him $30,000 over the past few years, and ate many meals at Signatures. (For a couple of years, Abramoff’s principal liaison with Boehner was David Safavian—a former member of “Team Abramoff” and later head of procurement for theWhite House Office ofManagement and Budget—who has been indicted for lying about his Abramoff ties.)

Then there’s presidential adviser Karl Rove. He has not spoken of his relationship with Abramoff, but the White House insists Rove, too, barely knew him, acknowledging only that they met at a political event in the 1990s. “He would describe him as a casual acquaintance,” a White House spokesman said. But Abramoff was Rove’s spiritual heir at the College Republicans in the 1980s; both men headed the group, and the two met from time to time in connection with it. After George W. Bush took office, Susan Ralston, Abramoff’s assistant, took the same position with Rove at the White House, where Abramoff met with Rove at least once. (An eyewitness also recalls seeing Abramoff emerge from a car near the White House and have what looked like a pre-arranged, street-corner meeting with Rove; Abramoff says he can’t recall that.) Rove dined several times at Signatures and was Abramoff ’s guest in the owner’s box at the N.C.A.A. basketball playoffs a few years ago, sitting for much of the game by Abramoff’s side. Recently, three former associates of Abramoff’s have told how he frequently mentioned his strong ties to Rove, and one described being present when Abramoff took a phone call from Rove’s office.

Then ,most important, there’s President Bush.“I, frankly, don’t even remember having my picture taken with the guy,” he has said. But how about those 10 or so photographs of him with Abramoff, or with Abramoff’s sons, or of Laura Bush with Abramoff ’s daughters, apparently taken during all of those meetings that never took place? And the time when the president joked with Abramoff about his weight lifting: “What are you benching, buff guy?” How about the invitation to the ranch in Crawford, where Abramoff would have joined all of the other big Bush fund-raisers?Abramoff didn’t go to that—it fell on the Sabbath, which, as an Orthodox Jew, Abramoff observes—but how about that speech Bush but how about that speech Bush gave to big donors in 2003, when Abramoff sat only a few feet away, between Republican senators George Allen (Virginia) and Orrin Hatch (Utah), and was the only lobbyist on the dais?

“He has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met,” Abramoff wrote of the president in yet another of his notorious e-mails, which have evolved from his principal means of communication to the rope with which he has hanged, and continues to hang, himself. “Perhaps he has forgotten everything. Who knows.”

There are other people from Abramoff’s more distant past who also never knew him, such as former Republican House Speaker (and rumored 2008 presidential candidate) Newt Gingrich, who first never met Abramoff during the latter’s firebrand days atop the College Republicans. “Before his picture appeared on TV and in the newspapers, Newt wouldn’t have known him if he fell across him. He hadn’t seen him in 10 years,” Gingrich’s spokesman, Rick Tyler, tells me. That this especially rankles Abramoff becomes clear as he rummages through a box of old memorabilia with me.

“Here’s [former Republican Texas congressman and House majority leader] Dick Armey,” he tells me.“Here’s Newt.Newt. Newt. [Former president Ronald] Reagan. More Newt. Newt with Grover [Norquist,the Washington conservative Republican Über-strategist and longtime Abramoff friend] this time, and with [Seattle archconservative Republican] Rabbi [Daniel] Lapin. But Newt never met me. [Indicted Iran-contra figure and longtime Abramoff friend] Ollie North.Newt. Can’t be Newt . . . he never met me. Oh, Newt! What’s he doing there? Must be a Newt look-alike. I have more pictures of him than I have of my wife. Newt again! It’s sick! I thought he never met me!”

Yeah.

I guess Abbe Lowell wasn't kidding when he said he could name names. My bet is that Jack Abramoff's photo Album will be making the rounds very soon.

I love it, denying they know the largest GOP lobbyist in DC. Why are they telling such pathetic lies? Jack's going to jail, and he wants company.

By the time he finishes singing, Karl Rove may have more problems than Pat Fitzgerald.

Oh yeah, this is cross-posted to the News Blog

posted by Steve @ 3/08/2006 09:56:00 AM

This is OUR problem

The Wal Mart blogging scandal has picked up


Wal-Mart's Blogging Blunder

By Alyce Lomax (TMF Lomax)
March 7, 2006

Despite the idea that bloggers' independence from the "mainstream media" can offer a broader perspective on the news, or even break important stories, most of us know bloggers need to be watched, too. A New York Times article has underlined that idea, exposing Wal-Mart's (NYSE: WMT) efforts to use bloggers to improve its public image. Some of these bloggers have not handled the situation responsibly, and that's a big mistake for everybody involved.

The article centers on Brian Pickrell, who created a blog post condemning state legislation to require Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health care. Presenting such an opinion is fine -- there's nothing wrong with thinking the legislation might be a bad idea -- but the post apparently consisted of a whole lot of information, some of it verbatim, that had been fed to the blogger by an employee of Wal-Mart public relations firm Edelman.

Indeed, as Wal-Mart tries to head off the barrage of criticism it often faces, it has begun strategically feeding "news stories" -- consisting of positive press about its business practices -- to the blog community. The New York Times article pointed out that the company tantalizes pro-Wal-Mart bloggers with "exclusive" information as well. (Some bloggers do disclose where they're getting this information.)

....................But I can't understand why some bloggers would fail to identify where they got their information, especially when it clearly seems to have colored their opinions.

..........................

Wal-Mart's strategy to repair its public image through the blogosphere has resoundingly backfired. News like this makes the company sound sneaky and underhanded, out to launch the equivalent of a corporate propaganda campaign, which of course fires up Wal-Mart's detractors even more. Meanwhile, bloggers who don't disclose their relationships with certain entities or individuals lose a heck of a lot of credibility, tarring the entire blogosphere by association, and making blogs seem that much less reliable as a source of information.

The way I see it, lies of omission are cop-outs. Honesty makes for good ethics and good business.

The fact is that our right wing blogger friends think that they can be loyal minions of their patrons and still be credible.

I could care less about the pathetic defenses Glenn Reynolds throws up, as described by a regular commentor of mine at the News Blog

You know...I had a feeling something big was about to hit on this subject almost a week ago (before teh story broke) when the Inbred-pundit cryptically leaked this story...save for the mention of the name of the beneficiary--WalMart. On March 3rd, the shifty little twerp wrote this:

MARCH 03, 2006

PR AND BLOGGER ETHICS: I talked to a reporter about blogs and PR -- I won't spoil the story, but the gist is that some PR people have been sending stuff to bloggers, and some bloggers have apparently reprinted some of it without attribution.

Of course, he conveniently left out who the big company was that had their stuff run--and it's quite the coincidence that that company--Walmart, is a company he goes waaaaaaay out of his way to champion in his "blog" from time to time. Which is whenever something negative about them finds its way into the press. Of note is how this was also probably his semi-surreptitious way of saying to his peers on the right (and somehow, I'm guessing that beyond the execrable now Andrew Young, the vast, vast bulk of those shilling for the Waltons were wingers), "Cheese it! It's a RAID!", so they could try to get out in front of the story. It failed...but in hindsight, it is awfully funny to see how he tried to get his bunch out in front of the scandal he knew was gonna blow up in their faces.

Oddly enough, as he's generally known for short blips, links and nattering "hehs" and "indeeds" after a sentence or two, a crawl over to his little slime pit (I ain't linkin') shows that post as being damn near Tolstoy-esque in length for him--with updates, quotes and paragraaph after paragraph of futile *ss-covering.

He seemed a little defensive, wouldn't you say?
LowerManhattanite

You bet he's defensive, because he's just wrong. It's a gross breech of ethics to take Wally World press releases and not say what they are. They're so used to sucking up to daddy that they don't even realize when it will be against their own interests.

Oh yeah, I'm filling in for the owners as they go to SF for something or other. This is a revised article originally posted on our site, the News Blog.

posted by Steve @ 3/08/2006 09:16:00 AM

The Collapse of Bush and His Dubai Deal

"This issue is going to go away like the sun's not going to come up in the morning," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). Showdown With President Likely

Terror Guy has slipped into a coma in the name of commerce.

Now he's being made to pay for his presidential misstep.

Democrats have been leading on the port issue from the start. So now there's a head-on collision brewing between the president and his rubber stamping subjects, because Republicans who control Congress have decided it's more important to take cover than it is to back the boss.

There are exceptions, of course, like Senator John McCain, who thinks we should just trust the president on the ports. Yeah, that's worked so far.

Take Rep. Peter King, who started off as an adamant opponent of the DP World deal. Then King was kicked off a congressional delegation to Iraq by the Pentagon, likely payback for him going against Bush on the port deal, so he's now "shopping around" a compromise for the president. Access is everything, baby.

"Collapse" really is the operative word on so many issues where the Republicans are involved. So while they've been kissing the king's ring, Democrats have taken the lead on national security. It has shaken the rubber stampers to their core.

There have been so many warnings, Iraq, Katrina, Hamas winning, Iran, offering nuclear rods for mangos... oh, and did I mention Iraq? But nothing has driven the complete collapse of Bush credibility more than his incompetence, weakness and out of touch view on the port deal. At the moment when the Katrina tape was revealed, the port deal just seemed like another American sell out from the Republicans. After all, they control everything, so if they wanted to stop it they could. But to do so they'd have to stand up to the boss, something the Republicans in Congress haven't done once.

Question is why did Bush box himself in so thoroughly, threatening a veto from the start? Answer: He is so out of touch with the average American that he doesn't realize what this deal means to us all. He's lost credibility with Democrats, independents and people with no political bent at all, but also with his Republican base. It's that pre-9/11 mentality Karl Rove is always accusing Democrats of demonstrating. But Democrats said from the start, we don't want no stinkin' Dubai deal.

We've been called racists, prejudice and all manner of names, when all we're trying to do is protect our country. Some of us haven't forgotten. Two of the hijackers came from the UAE, where terrorist money was laundered pre-9/11. Al Qaeda is said to have "infiltrated" the UAE. What the UAE has done post-9/11 is a great start, we need the base in Dubai, they've been partners post 9/11, but it doesn't excuse aiding Osama or the A.Q. Khan network, which has dispersed nuclear components to places like Iran. Unlike Republicans, Democrats believe some things simply aren't for sale.

The Dubai port deal is dangerous for America and the Democrats knew it from the start. Ports and homeland security have been our issue from the beginning. Bush didn't even want a Homeland Security Department. Democrats were leading on the issue right up until the moment where Joe Lieberman sold us out and homeland security became Terror Guy's territory. John Kerry talked about the reality of our homeland insecurity, with ports, railways, chemical and nuclear plant vulnerability being a real national security threat to this country, but nobody listened.

Well, even the Republicans are listening to us now.

~~~~~~

...It's an honor to post for Jane and ReddHedd here at firedoglake. Thanks to all the readers here for accepting me in for a visit. - Taylor Marsh

posted by Taylor Marsh @ 3/08/2006 08:17:00 AM

"Hey, no tongues!

What did I tell you about gettin' too friendly with the help?"


AP/Charles Dharapak

Looks like Bush is wearing his kevlar diapers again.

posted by watertiger @ 3/08/2006 07:47:00 AM

After South Dakota, Pt. 1: The Side of Principle

Hi all--this is Scott from Lawyers, Guns & Money. Many thanks to Jane and ReddHedd for letting me post with so many excellent bloggers!

Between the confirmation of Samuel Alito and the appalling recent legislation passed in South Dakota this is a grim time in many respects for pro-choicers. For Blog Against Sexism Day, over the next three posts I'll point out why the pro-choice position is more coherent, principled, and popular than the pro-criminalization position, why pro-choicers should not be reluctant to embrace Roe, and why the South Dakota legislation may be a political opportunity.

If there was any question of whether the advice of Vichy pro-choicers such as William Saletan and Amy Sullivan to fight for reproductive freedom by accepting the anti-choice framing of the issue and by capitulating on everything but the formal legality of first-trimester abortions had any value, its endorsement by the folks at RedState should remove all doubt. Trying, no doubt, to be a selfless good sport, one Leon H. Wolf wonders about why pro-choicers won't take Lord Saletan's sage advice:

Saletan is one of the few pro-abortion writers who can manage an argument more cogent than "you pro-lifers just don't want women having sex!" His advice, if the pro-abortion forces in this country are smart enough to listen (they aren't) is that it is time for Roe to go, that defending second trimester abortions is an ever-increasing political loser which raises (gasp) ever more serious moral questions as fetuses become viable at earlier stages of development. In other words, second-trimester abortions are the anchor which threaten to drag down the entire pro-abortion movement.

Politically speaking, Saletan is right. But it is also a virtual guarantee that those whom he is defending will not listen. First, they are generally of a stripe that does not understand that sometimes, as a matter of strategy, you must surrender untenable ground to solidify your overall position. Second, while Saletan's position is a winner politically, it creates an internal incoherency that the forces which drive the pro-abortion movement cannot abide: it provides legal rights to some unborn humans, while depriving others of the most basic human right, the right not to be killed.

I agree with Wolf about one thing: the pro-choicers who argue that abortion should be nominally legal but burdened by a number of pointlessly burdensome and grossly inequitable regulations are taking an incoherent position, although Wolf's own example is inept: it's perfectly rational and defensible to say that the state has a greater interest in protecting a viable fetus than a non-viable one. (And, as I will get into in a second, these contradictions are trivial compared to those of the American pro-life movement.) But the rest of this is just nonsense. In particular, as I explain in detail here the implication that "grave moral questions" are being raised because technology is making second trimester fetuses viable is just a flagrant lie, and nor does he provide any evidence that it's a "political loser." (He also, of course, ignores the fact the abortion regulations he urges pro-choicers to support make second trimester abortions more likely by making it harder for women to obtain abortions in a timely manner.) The fact that Saletan is willing to advance these evidence-free arguments proves nothing except that many pro-choice pundits have the remarkable ability to fall into every rhetorical trap, false claim and diversionary non-sequitur floated by the forced pregnancy lobby. I urge supporters of reproductive freedom to avoid doing this. When somebody claims that second trimester fetuses are becoming viable, the appropriate response is to point out that it isn't true, and pro-lifers are lying about it as a part of a disingenuous smokescreen in order to camouflage their extremely unpopular agenda of using state coercion to force women to carry almost all pregnancies to term.

But, wait, it's about to get a lot worse:

The pro-abortion forces in this country are thus faced with a choice. They can either continue to defend wildly unpopular abortion practices, or they can render their position internally incoherent, and bank on the hope that the American public will not notice. It's not a very enviable position to be in. By contrast, all that the current pro-life position in this country demands is that the states be allowed, on a local basis, to set abortion regulations in accordance with local norms and practices. This is an eminently reasonable, and increasingly popular proposition, especially as the American public grows more educated about what exactly Roe stands for, and the monstrosity it entails.

This is far too much to bear. First of all, the claim that Roe is becoming unpopular is, again, simply a baldfaced lie: Roe remains extremely popular with the American public, and the position that abortion should be criminalized is highly unpopular, which is why the GOP did everything it could to obfuscate Alito's opposition to Roe. But even worse is his critique that the pro-choice opinion, if not absolutist, could fail because it is internally incoherent. Really, being lectured by an American pro-lifer about incoherence is like being lectured about ethics by Duke Cunningham, or having Orson Welles piously inform you that you're letting yourself go. Take Wolf's purportedly "eminently reasonable" position that " the states be allowed, on a local basis, to set abortion regulations in accordance with local norms and practices." Except that earlier he claimed that "unborn humans" have "the right not to be killed," and you're unprincipled if you believe that this right varies at all during pregnancy. If this is true, how on earth could it be acceptable for some states not to respect this right? According to Wolf, in Mississippi a fetus has an inalienable right not to be killed--but this right vanishes entirely if a woman boards a plane to New York! To state the obvious, this argument and the word "principle" should not even be mentioned in the same sentence. It could not possibly be the policy advocated by someone who really believes in the right of "unborn humans not to be killed."

But, of course, most American pro-lifers don't believe it, or at least are not willing apply this position with even a shred of consistency. American pro-life politics is in fact a moral, legal, and ethical shambles, defined by risibly illogical arguments and comically transparent internal contradictions. To cite a few examples, first of all according the GOP platform, abortion should be first degree murder in all 50 states--but women should not be punished at all for obtaining one. (The SD law also makes this indefensible distinction, which is straight out of late 19th century law, when women weren't seen as responsible enough to practice law or vote.) They attach scary names to morally neutral medical procedures in order to pass wholly arbitrary and irrational regulations. They oppose policies that would unquestionably reduce abortion rates, while unquestioningly supporting the highly ineffective policy of criminalization. Which is why Wolf wants to pre-empt arguments about the obvious importance of the regulation of female sexuality inherent in abortion laws. Whatever individuals have subjectively convinced themselves, it is self-evidently true that while the policies supported by most American pro-lifers don't make a shred of sense if they were trying to protect fetal life, they certainly do make sense if seen as an expression of discomfort with the ability of women to have sex without the "consequence" of pregnancy.

None of this is to say that pro-choicers will never need to make any compromises, or that there's anything wrong with Hillary Clinton's strategy of pointing out that the bundle of policies favored by pro-choicers both promotes female autonomy and happens to lead to lower abortion rates than those favored by pro-lifers. But pro-choicers need to go on the offensive. Our position is popular, it is right, and it is also far more principled than the "pro-life" position as it manifests itself in American politics.

(Cross-posted to L, G & M. Graphic from Liza.)

posted by Scott Lemieux @ 3/08/2006 06:57:00 AM

"I wouldn't call it a civil war, per se.

It's more like a big disagreement."

And, as usual, it's the media's fault.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday there has always been a risk Iraq could plunge into civil war but he accused the news media of exaggerating the gravity of the current situation.

(snip)

"I do not believe they're in a civil war today," Rumsfeld said of Iraq, but added "terrorists" want to foment one. "There's always been a potential for a civil war. That country was held together through a repressive regime that put hundreds of thousands of human beings into mass graves."

(snip)

"From what I've seen thus far, much of the reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation," Rumsfeld said. "The steady stream of errors all seem to be of the nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq," he added. Asked whether these "exaggerations" were intentional, he added, "Oh, I can't go into people's minds."

Yet he feels free to make baseless accusations. Curious.

posted by watertiger @ 3/08/2006 05:00:00 AM

Bush flies 1500 miles to vote for DeLay

Okay, okay, so he's not in DeLay's district. But has anyone ever calculated how much these little jaunts aboard Air Force One costs taxpayers? Surely, it's more than the 39¢ it would've cost for an absentee ballot.

Ah, but he's going to tour the Gulf Coast today to see how the reconstruction of Trent Lott's porch is coming along.

"We're going to be tearing down the black neighborhoods here and here..."


REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

posted by watertiger @ 3/08/2006 04:42:00 AM

We're Off!!

Redd and I are going to be in San Francisco from Wednesday through Friday. We'll be leaving you in the capable hands of:

Steve Gilliard
Taylor Marsh
Scott Lemieux
Greg Saunders
Watertiger
Pachacutec (who will be handling Late Nite)

Our only worry is that when we return you'll be so spoiled that you won't take us back.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/08/2006 01:33:00 AM

Late Nite FDL: Thank You

It looks like Henry Cuellar is going to take the Democratic nomination in Texas 28, but I just want to say how brave, how inspirational the participation of everyone on this site and across the blogosphere has been in the Ciro Rodriguez race.

It took Rove, Reed, Norquist and the College Republicans 20 years to gain power. We like to think of the Presidency of George W. Bush as an aberration of the Florida vote in 2000 but that doesn't take into account the ground war that the Republican party has been waging since the 80s. The extreme right wing of the GOP gained power because they put up extreme right wing candidates in every race and backed them to the limit, win or lose. And they did it virtually unnoticed by the American public until eventually, they prevailed.

We did that in this race. We sent a very loud, long message to the Democratic party about what we're willing to fight for. It's extremely difficult to defeat an incumbent and we took a race that wasn't even close in January and made it competitive. That's huge.

As much as we look for a hero to ride in on a white horse and deliver us all from this mess that's not going to happen. Many count on Bush to eventually screw things up so badly that the electorate simply jumps ship but that doesn't ever seem to happen either, no matter how bad it gets. The sad, hard truth is that the GOP has gamed the system so thoroughly that we're going to have to challenge it brick by brick from the bottom up and that's going to take a lot of commitment, a lot of patience and a lot more time than many will comfortably admit. But that is the reality of the situation we're in.

Wyonate supplies this Chomsky quote:

"John Hamilton, who drove from Ithaca to see Chomsky, stood up to ask a question during the question-and-answer period following Chomsky's speech. "My question is, what do you find hopeful?" Hamilton said.

"I think one should be very optimistic for the reasons I just mentioned," Chomsky said. "The large majority of the population already agrees with the things activists are committed to."

The talking heads would have you believe that we're so far out of the mainstream that we're just marginal, angry extremists. In point of fact we only seem extreme when measured by the yardstick of those they themselves have allowed to dominate the debate.

Cuellar is an example of the latest GOP tactic -- run a Republican as a Democrat in a district that will never elect a Republican. He represents a creeping cancer within the party that has to be fought if we're not going sit back and let it be overtaken by the GOP too. We had to draw a line in the sand and actively show them we're willing to challenge them on that front. We did that. It was important. We showed up for the fight.

There are no quick fixes. We're not going to be able to match overnight the ground game that was put in place by the right over the past twenty years and beyond. The Ciro Rodriguez race may be a short term defeat, but it's a necessary part of a long game. Thanks to everyone who showed up, who contributed, who took part in the battle. Thanks to Kos and Atrios and MyDD and the Swing State Project, to Tracy Joan and all the people in the Rodriguez campaign, and especially to Redd and all the people here at FDL.

You're my heroes.

Update: By special request, our Act Blue page -- where you can give to Ned Lamont.

Uupdate II: Email from Ciro:

"As far as I am concerned we are in a run-off. We will be picking up our signs from the polls and re-using them in thirty days. Until we know exactly what happened today in Webb County, this race is not over.

I wouldn't be here if I hadn't gotten the support of the online community. It's been overwhelming to see how people can make a difference, and make things happen by coming together, even if it an hour of blockwalking, a few phone calls or $20 and $40 dollars at a time. We must have the final word in who our leadership will be, not the
special interests, and we must keep up this fight. I want to think the thousands who have given their time and resources to push this campaign forward.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for each and every kind word, dollar bill and one cent.

Update III: Gilliard, via email:

Let's understand two things:

One, we DO NOT RUN CAMPAIGNS.

All we can do is give them a fighting chance. That's it. We can give them the resources, but that's it. How they use it is up to them.

Two, EVERY race is a learning lesson. Rodriguez was going to get blown off the map without that money. Please, please keep that in mind. This way, we made this a race.

Look, we've moved a lot faster than the GOP has or can. We've done in two years what took them 20 to do.

We will win races, but it will take time. It may well take until 2008 or 2010. Because it took the conservatives from 1964 to 1980. So if we win in 2006, great. But this is a marathon, not a sprint. One race is just another fight, it isn't the war, it isn't even the battle.

So, we did a lot more than anyone else was going to do. And that's it.

Update IV: Bowers:

I'd like to point out that Texas apparently has an open primary system, where Republicans can actually vote in a Democratic primary, and vice versa. Given this, Ciro almost certainly won the day among registered Democrats, and at the very least would have forced a runoff in a closed primary. As someone who has always been an advocate of clsoed primaries, I submit this election as Exhibit A. As disgusting as it sounds, if Cuellar wins the Democratic primary without a run-off, it will be because of the Republican vote. I love it when Republicans select the Demcoratic nominee! Someone please tell me again why we should have open primaries.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/07/2006 09:54:00 PM

Ciro Watch

Polls closed at 8pm EST/5pm PST. You can watch the results as they are posted here.

Kos is following the race closely, and Tracy Joan is live blogging over at Swing State Project. She is reporting that at 7:30 pm that:

According to Commissioner's Court sources in Webb County they are unable to report Early Voting because their systems are down.

Let's just hope Webb County doesn't wait to see the votes that they need to win before reporting. Locals claimed it has happened before.

In fact Webb County was a deciding factor in Cuellar's last win over Ciro:

An abnormally high number of voters in Webb County aged 90 years or older prompted an attorney for the Ciro Rodriguez congressional campaign to request an investigation by the Texas Secretary of State. During the first 4 days of early voting, 93 votes were cast by people 90 or over and 51 were 100 or older.

In a message addressed to Kim Thol, Programs Specialist for the Elections Division of the Secretary of State, Luis Vera requested “an immediate appointment for an inspector for Webb County.” Vera reminded Thol, “Webb County has a long history of allegations of voter fraud.” In the 2004 primary election, Vera added, “the fraud made national news.” He was referring to the controversial election between Henry Cuellar and Rodriguez in which ballots, “discovered” days after the polls closed, eventually swung the election to Cuellar by a narrow 58 votes.

Vera also requested an investigation by the Voter Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.

Fasten ye olde seat belt.

Update: The Austin Statesman is reporting quite different totals from the Secretary of State site.

Update II: Tracy Joan says that "Two representatives from the AFL-CIO have been sent to Webb County to deal with the developments" (where they have touch screen voting).

Update III: Cuellar has a history of screwing around with Webb County voting. In the last election Ciro charged that 500 of the votes that put Cuellar over the top came from people who were registered in vacant addresses or homes where they did not live in Webb and Zapata counties -- including Cuellar's campaign manager, Colin Strother, who was registered at the address of Cuellar's parents.

From The San Antonio Express News, 2004:

The Cuellars, in an interview with a reporter Monday, said no one named Strother lives there.

Told of the allegation, Cuellar spokesman T.J. Connolly said that when Strother agreed to work on Cuellar's campaign, he was given a salary and the option to live in a rental property at Cuellar's parents' home.

Strother reportedly registered and voted at that address, although he has been living with his wife in another location outside of District 28 as part of her employment compensation. The two have been planning to relocate to the Cuellar residence, but furor over the campaign has kept them from doing so, Connolly said.

"He knew that's where he'd be residing long term," he said.

Well I'm convinced.

Update: Bowers is tracking the race over at MyDD.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/07/2006 05:51:00 PM

Profile in Courage: Olympia Snowe

Last week Olympia Snowe said she would vote to investigate George Bush's NSA wiretap crimes as part of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In December she said:

“Revelations that the U.S. government has conducted domestic electronic surveillance without express legal authority indeed warrants Congressional examination. I believe the Congress – as a coequal branch of government – must immediately and expeditiously review the use of this practice,” said Snowe.

Today she caved like a cheap suitcase.

Glenn Greenwald:

Nobody who has lived outside of a cave for the last five years could possibly be surprised by any of this. One of the reason we are at the point we're at in our country -- where we have a President who not only breaks the law but claims he has the right to do so, while the media barely finds any of it worthy of much attention -- is because the Congress has completely abdicated its responsibilities at the altar of cult-like obedience to White House decrees. That's just one of the many rotted roots in our government.

From Bloomberg:

"This committee is basically under control of the White House," Rockefeller told reporters after the two-hour meeting today in Washington. "It's an unprecedented bout of political pressure from the White House."

Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts said any inquiry would be detrimental to national security.

"We should fight the enemy, not fight each other," Roberts, a Kansas Republican said. "The program is extremely important."

After negotiations with the Bush administration, the panel voted to create a new subcommittee whose seven members, out of the committee's 15 total lawmakers, would receive full briefings on the program. Those briefings had been limited to just Rockefeller and Roberts.

Emptywheel (from the comments):

Interesting note: Roberts has announced the 4 members of SSCI that will be part of this "oversight" committee (and I use scarequotes advisedly). Roberts, Bond, Hatch, and DeWine.

So the three people who invented anti-Wilson conclusions for the SSCI, plus DeWine, who seems like he's going for double wingnuttery or nothing in OH.

Georgia10 has a few words on the topic. Pat Roberts' announcement is here. And emptywheel has more on GOP Eunuchs.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/07/2006 04:56:00 PM

Traitors

CNN is reporting that the Intelligence Committee has knuckled under to Bill Frist, shirked their responsibility for oversight, collaborated with the criminal Bush cabal and voted not to look into the illegal NSA wiretaps. Ed Henry says that they agreed to propose new legislation requiring a 45 day reauthorization cycle.

Proving once again -- there is no such thing as a moderate Republican.

Our hopes for the immediate future now seem to lie with the Judiciary Committee. The Roots Project will be having an action later this week in Pennsylvania to put pressure on Arlen Specter so if you live in Pennsylvania or have some connection to it and would like to be involved in the action please send me your email here and I'll add you to our contact/discussion list.

We're also planning to do a little fundraising shortly to expand the Roots project and hire a full time person to oversee it. It's an effective mechanism we are just beginning to fully exploit so keep the faith and pass the ammo.

Update: Josh of Thoughts From Kansas reports (via email) that Snowe, DeWine, Hagel were all on board.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/07/2006 02:33:00 PM

CIA Opposes Libby Access to PDBs

The CIA filed a motion on Friday opposing Scooter Libby's request for access to the Presidential Daily Briefings (PDBs), citing substantial national security concerns at allowing any of the information contained therein become public. The motion was unsealed on Tuesday, according to the AP (via Forbes).

Gathering the materials sought by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, would take up to nine months, Marilyn Dorn, a CIA information review officer, said in a sworn statement filed in U.S. District Court.

Dorn said the CIA believes disclosure of the information would damage national security and wants a chance to be heard in court before any material is turned over to Libby, who is charged with lying in the investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

"The defense's requests clearly implicate highly classified, compartmentalized information and potential claims of executive privilege for presidential communications and the deliberative process," Dorn wrote.

"Compartmentalized" information requires a special security clearance, meaning the CIA could not assign just anyone to help gather the material Libby's lawyers want, Dorn said.

As our Traitorgate readers already know, Fitzgerald opposed Libby's voluminous request as a breathtaking attempt at a graymail defense. (I covered this here and here.)

Bloomberg reports that it would take the CIA over nine months to compile the full breadth of what Libby requested, and over three months to compile the compromise amount proposed by Judge Reggie Walton, in an order after the last hearing.

It was expected that the CIA would take a hard line about disclosing any of this information, because of the substantial risk for leaks and that the information would become public in a criminal trial with this level of press coverage.

"Referring to the topics ... even in an abstracted or generalized manner presents the same concerns about disclosure of classified information," she wrote. "The very fact that these topics were presented to the president discloses sensitive information concerning U.S. intelligence and policy priorities."

That these PDBs deal with the most sensitive information the federal government touches -- and that the PDBs have substantial imapct on the ongoing national security matters with which the President deals on a day-to-day basis -- well, that is a calculation made in a graymail defense strategy, isn't it? If the government simply refuses to hand over the information for national security reasons, then Team Libby will ask for a dismissal.

What Judge Walton will do with this, though, is anyone's guess. I would seriously doubt that he will grant a dismissal motion on this, just based on his pre-emptive attempt at compromise, and I would bet he has some ideas up his judicial robes to cut through the crap on all sides and strike a balance that keeps the trial on track. I hope so, anyway, in the interests of justice. I do think that his pre-emptive maneuver bodes well, but I'm trying not to get too ahead of myself, since I have never practiced before this particular judge and am only relying on hearsay from several attornies who have been before him that he is a no nonsense, tough on crime kinda guy.

As I said, we'll see.

I would argue, strenuously, that the PDBs have no value in terms of whether or not Scooter Libby was honest with the grand jury or investigators, or impeded the investigation in any way. It's a smoke screen for the jury designed to give Scooter an excuse to be a liar, and it won't fly in any event.

Here's hoping the Judge agrees with me. Look for more hearings to be scheduled to argue these matters in the weeks ahead. And for another flurry of motions on this topic as well -- this particular issue is far from over, as it is the last best hope for Libby prior to trial.

posted by ReddHedd @ 3/07/2006 12:10:00 PM

One of These Things Is Not Like the Others

Retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash:

"We're in a civil war now; it's just that not everybody's joined in," said retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a former military commander in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "The failure to understand that the civil war is already taking place, just not necessarily at the maximum level, means that our counter measures are inadequate and therefore dangerous to our long-term interest.

"It's our failure to understand reality that has caused us to be late throughout this experience of the last three years in Iraq," added Nash, who is an ABC News consultant.

Anthony Cordesman:

"If you talk to U.S. intelligence officers and military people privately, they'd say we've been involved in low level civil war with very slowly increasing intensity since the transfer of power in June 2004."

Since the elections last year, Cordesman says, more radical Islamist insurgents have made "a more dedicated strike at the fault lines between Shiites and Sunnis." And they have succeeded.

Current US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad:

The top U.S. envoy to Iraq said Monday that the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime had opened a "Pandora's box" of volatile ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in all-out war if America pulled out of the country too soon.

In remarks that were among the frankest and bleakest public assessments of the Iraq situation by a high-level American official, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the "potential is there" for sectarian violence to become full-blown civil war.

For now, Iraq has pulled back from that prospect after the wave of sectarian reprisals that followed the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra, he said. But "if another incident [occurs], Iraq is really vulnerable to it at this time, in my judgment," Khalilzad said in an interview with The Times.

Official Presidential and DoD outlook, via Chairman of the JCOS, Gen. Peter Pace:

"I wouldn't put a great big smiley face on it, but I would say they're going very, very well from everything you look at."

Froomkin documents even more articles on the subject of civil war and conflict in Iraq and quotes from various experts on the ground and back here at home, but Pace's comments are clearly a bit out of step, to put it mildly, compared to every other assessment I've been reading.

For more perspective on this, please take a peek at the articles Froomkin links today -- some good stuff. (Yesterday's Froomkin had some great links as well, in case you missed it.) One in particular that I want to highlight for its Iraqi take on things is the one from Reuters. Also, as always, Prof. Juan Cole has an exceptional summary and updates that are well worth your time. See also, here and here from the NYTimes.

I don't know any good answer for any of this mess. Everything I read on potential solutions comes riddled with caveats. I was against this war from the start, because it was ill-advised, unnecessary and very poorly planned. But woulda, coulda, shoulda doesn't get us out of Iraq without making things any worse...and lord knows, making things worse is the last thing that the Iraqi people need at the moment.

The one thing that is crystal clear in my mind is this fact: in order to resolve any of these issues, the President has to be willing to look at the facts -- the honest-to-god reality of the situation, and not the sugar-coated rosy scenario that his advisors spoon-feed him to keep him happy -- and I'm not confident that is happening, based on the spin we constantly get from the Bush Administration.

When the President can't even be honest with himself about a grave error in judgment -- when he is too cowardly to even be honest with himself in his own heart, can he ever make a course correction for the better? Can he allow himself to say "I was wrong, and we need to do things differently?" (And nothing like having the Vice President threaten Iran with "meaningful consequences" to escalate tension in the region, eh? I'm just saying...)

If the President refuses to even be honest with himself, who will step in and make him see the need to do just that...before it is too late?

posted by ReddHedd @ 3/07/2006 10:18:00 AM

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Two things:

(1) Congress legislates. Not the President.

(2) President Bush is proposing legislation for a line-item veto. Again. This time it's being fronted by Administration surrogates: Bill Frist, Mitch McConnell and John McCain. (And, btw, this has already been declared unconstitutional in a previous form that was put forward during the Clinton years. Just, you know, for history's sake and all, I thought I'd mention it.)

Given the President's propensity to use his powers to punish those who cross him, why would any member of Congress want to give him this power? I mean honestly -- you think Trent Lott is going to be comfortable with Bushie's finger on the pork button? How about Chuck Hegel? Or Olympia Snowe? Or...well, you see where I'm going with this.

Would you trust President Bush to make these budgetary decisions based on merit and need, and not retribution and greed for his Republican cronies? Unless you are part of Bushie's little governance clique, your state or district is going to get screwed -- and as mercurial as the President's temperament has been of late, would any sane person in Congress want to take that risk? The WaPo reports:

Seeking to reassert his party's scuffed reputation for fiscal conservatism, President Bush yesterday proposed a law giving him authority to veto individual items in legislation as a way to curb fast-growing federal spending.

Bush, who has never exercised his veto power in more than five years as president, said the line-item veto would give him authority to clamp down on special-interest items, known on Capitol Hill as earmarks, increasingly slipped into legislation to benefit the home districts of lawmakers.

Just to be really clear on this: Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House at the moment. Fiscal responsibility is not exactly their specialty, is it? I'm just saying.

No Democrat (short of Joe Lieberman) could possibly be on board with something this idiotic, would they?

At first blush, Bush's proposal is being received with bipartisan approval in Congress. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who proposed similar legislation during his 2004 presidential campaign, called the measure overdue. He introduced his own version of the measure yesterday, which his office said appears to be no different from Bush's proposal.

SIGH

Well, maybe that string of no vetoes in five whole years in office will hold. Or, maybe not. What's wrong with this picture?

UPDATE: Southern Dem has a great diary at dKos this morning on a smarmy Elizabeth Dole tactic. Please go and have a read and give it a recommend or leave a comment. This sort of crap needs to be exposed to some serious sunlight! Thanks to Southern Dem for bringing it to everyone's attention.

UPDATE #2: Reader Malcolmjames asks the big question in the comments: Even with a Congressional vote being required to uphold the Presidential line item veto, what makes anyone think this Republican Congress would do anything other than continue to function as the Bush Administration's rubber stamp?

UPDATE #3: Thanks to Pach for pointing me to this Steve Gilliard theory on Kerry's proposal. Interesting...guess we'll see where this goes over the next few days.

UPDATE #4: From the comments, reader cbl gets a serious chuckle for this one:

"Seeking to reassert his party's scuffed reputation for fiscal conservatism, President Bush yesterday. . ."

Excuse me, scuffed???

I'm sure the writer was trying to sound all urbane and stuff but, the Titanic was lightly grazed by an iceberg, the Hindenberg brushed a wire . . .

Bwahahahaha. Good one.

posted by ReddHedd @ 3/07/2006 07:50:00 AM

Intel Committee Vote Today on NSA Oversight

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence votes today on whether they will exercise their Constitutional duty to provide oversight on the illegal NSA domestic spying -- or whether they are an irrelevent bunch of nitwits who don't deserve a paycheck. I think that pretty much sums up how I feel about it -- how about you?

Anonymous Liberal, guest posting at Glenn Greenwald's blog this morning, has a few choice thoughts for the Democratic leadership on this issue.

Long story short, it seems that most Democrats have, at least so far, badly misjudged the relative strength of their hand and the weakness of their opponent's. They've got pocket Aces with another Ace showing on the flop, and they're still afraid to call an obvious bluff. It's pathetic. Every Democrat should be repeating verbatim what Al Gore said when he spoke about this subject last month, and with the same intensity.

Damn straight.

If Americans understand anything, it's real world examples that directly impact their lives. You think the Bush Administration isn't spying on everyday, ordinary people who are doing nothing wrong? Well, think again. How about this example of some regular folks who were scrutinized because they...paid off a credit card.

And all they did was pay down their debt. They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a machine gun through customs.

They just paid a hefty chunk of their credit card balance. And they learned how frighteningly wide the net of suspicion has been cast.

After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed....

They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.

I'm with Arthur on this one. I'm just going to assume from now on that the Bush Administration is monitoring everything I do. (And a big morning howdy to my minder. Just put on a fresh cuppa coffee in case you are stopping by today. **wave**)

Take a little time this morning to call members of the Senate Intel Committee and explain -- in a short and succinct way -- how un-American you find this behavior without some checks and balances and oversight -- and that you expect them to do their jobs and provide oversight. It will make you feel better.

Then, put on a fresh pot of coffee. You never know who might be dropping by to check on that payment you sent to the drycleaners or the pharmacist or...well, you never know these days, do you?

UPDATE: As Wesgpc points out in the comments, all those Pizza Hut runs for the FBI have a whole new level of meaning now, don't they? Also, Sam caught an error -- that Bruce Schneier pointed out -- the problem is the amendments made to the Bank Secrecy Act via the Patriot Act. Check out Bruce's blog for specifics on this.

posted by ReddHedd @ 3/07/2006 05:45:00 AM

Late Nite FDL: We Get Letters

Mike Stark sent an email to Andrew Wilkow letting him know he was making him famous in the blogosphere with his radio call-in clip about saving the 2 year-old child vs. the 5 blastulae in the burning fertility clinc (which quite deservedly got links on Atrios and Kos as well).

Mike got a response:

Mike ya know I thought you were a good person to bounce things off of. But you really a little baby. You sit home all day and call talk radio. Then you take you pathetic excuse for a "win" and you go running around beating your drum. Dude...you're a loser. Anyone can plan to get someone hot under the collar. Fine, maybe you did that...whoopee. In the real world you lost that asinine argument. Don't ever contact me either by phone or e-mail. Take as a way to tell your 5 friends that you go to me.

-Andrew

Andrew won that one like he won the spelling bee but everyone is entitled to his own opinion, I suppose.

And Laura E. writes:

Here's an extension of the 5 blastulae or the 2-year-old question. Do first responders, like fire fighters, have training and equipment to rescue petri dishes? Would they run into a burning building to save them even if there weren't any 2 year olds? Do they have protocols? Will they need to train in South Dakota? What are the emergency evacuation policies in fertility clinics?

And then there's the classic from Yes, I'm Crazy on the topic of naturally conceived embryos that are flushed out in a woman's normal menstrual cycle:

Personally, I'm not going to be happy until we create little cemetaries for all the sanitary napkins carrying what's left of all those fertalized eggs Dr. Opitz talked about. We'll call the cemetaries Kotex Necroblastocropoli and they'll have teeny-tiny angel statuary which we make out of match sticks and pipecleaners and hangers. I can hardly wait!

It will be dark but yes, there will be much South Dakota humor.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/06/2006 09:07:00 PM

That Bulge In My Pants? It's Just My Wallet

Somebody needs to get ahold of the people who book Meet the Press and throttle them.

When their normal Republicans-only schedule is occasionally peppered with Democrats it's either the henpecked James Carville who won't say a thing against the Vice President (and as Digby has noted this sure didn't hold true for Mary Matalin during the Clinton years), Joes Klein or Lieberman who spews GOP talking points so Tim won't have to, token "liberals" like Doris Kearns Goodwin who tell knee-slappers about the Van Buren administration while John Meecham's grenades against Howard Dean go unanswered, or people like Joe Biden and John Edwards who are so busy running for president they won't utter anything even slighly contentious about the administration.

But they should at least do some due diligence about the people they invite on to discuss a particular topic. Jack Kemp was in full-throated support of the Dubai Ports World deal yesterday. But as Arianna notes, there's quite a bit he left out:

"It's the right thing to do," he said, calling the UAE a "valued ally" and reiterating the claim that canceling the deal would, as he put it in his column, "weaken our own national security and our chances for peace and liberation throughout the Middle East and Africa" (Shades of Andrea Mitchell, another die-hard member of the establishment, who suggested on Hardball that killing the ports deal could lead to rioting in the Muslim world).

What Kemp didn't say is that the UAE has invested millions in Free Market Global, an energy-trading company that he chairs.

You think all those zeroes might have had some influence on his opinion? Maybe not. But I'm pretty sure that a disclosure of his financial connection to those he was so fulsomely praising would have had some influence on the opinions of those watching.

Especially if viewers learned that Gen. Tommy Franks, whom Kemp used as his debating trump card -- quoting both in print and on Meet the Press the General extolling the Emirates -- is on the advisory board of Free Market Global, and stands to profit from maintaining good relations with the oil-rich emirs.

I called Kemp to ask him why he hadn't mentioned this intersection of interests, but I haven't heard back, even though I said why I was calling. Or perhaps because I did.

If Meet the Press was anything more than the New Pravda, they'd open the next show by saying "last week, we invited Jack Kemp on to speak on the UAE ports deal, and he did not disclose his close financial ties to the owner of Dubai Ports World. We apologize."

Don't worry, I know it's not going to happen. But it should.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/06/2006 07:03:00 PM

Unintended Consequences

Digby, via email:

I just realized that those nuts in South Dakota might be having an unanticipated effect. I am working today and this guy said to me over lunch, "I can't believe that these people are really serious." He's a bit of a putz and he admitted that he'd believed women were exaggerating the threat. I said "I hope you're ready to be daddies, boys. Last time abortion was illegal they didn't have DNA testing" and they all looked stunned.

These are the new totals for Ciro Rodriguez's Act Blue pages:

$25535.15 firedoglake
$25054.44 Eschaton
$21474.06 Netroots Page

Remember what Democratic consultant Steve Elmendorf said to the Washington Post?

"The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left."

We're now the number one blog fundraiser for Ciro Rodriguez, and that money is 100% pro-choice (not that the others are not, BTW). These totals speak in a language so simple even Elmendorf can understand it -- if candidates want to harness our energy and our money, they better have their pro-choice credentials in order.

Bob Casey need not apply.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/06/2006 05:33:00 PM

First We Kill the Media

Alex at Wonkette writes today about web sites that are being blocked by military computers in Iraq, as opposed to those that are deemed "acceptable":

Wonkette - blocked
O'Reilly -- OK
Air America -- blocked
Limbaugh -- OK
ABC News "The Note" -- OK
Al Franken Show -- blocked
G. Gordon Liddy Show -- OK

And despite this 72% of US troops want out of Iraq within the year. You have to wonder what those numbers would look like if they weren't being blocked from alternative news sources.

Update: I'll be on the Young Turks radio show tonight at 5:05pm discussing Russert Watch.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/06/2006 03:48:00 PM

Unchristened Embryos, Destination: Hell

I brought up one of my favorite forced birth conundrums the other day, guaranteed to make wingnut "life begins at conception" heads explode. If a fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you can only save a petri dish with five blastulae or a two-year old child, which do you save?

We just love Mike Stark, who takes this stuff to the streets. He called Andrew Wilkow's radio talk show and put the question to him, and Wilkow's head did, in fact, explode. He was reduced to a sputtering rage, screaming that he would not, in fact, save the two year-old child. Mike hung right in there with him and the results are predictably hilarious. You can just feel Wilkow's listeners flipping the channel and saying "fuck that noise, that guy's insane." It's a brilliant little sound clip.

Over at our new blog (which we will be populating any day now, we just have some graphics issues that we're addressing) I put up a test of my old "Is Heaven Filled With Blastulae" post, where I mention that that between 60 and 80 percent of all naturally conceived embryos are simply flushed out in a woman's normal menstrual cycle in the first 7 days after fertilization. One anxious commenter does a Jesus' General and takes internal wingnut logic to its natural conclusion:

Is Heaven Filled With Blastulae?

My God, you don'’t understand fundamentalists at all, do you, Ms. Hamsher? Any fundy will tell you that Heaven is most definitely NOT filled with blastulae. The fires of Hell, on the other hand, are smoking with the little fellers, along with all the other unchristened souls whose bodies never uttered the magic phrase, "“Jesus is God".

I apologize for my error, Bullgoose is absolutely right and as a minister's daughter I should've remembered this fine point of fundamentalist theology. The fundies have always conveniently kept swarthy people out of heaven by insisting that if you have not accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior that you will not be able to enter the gates of heaven. When others (such as my 12 year-old self) would argue that this is unfair to those in non-western countries who might never have been exposed to the gospel, those concerns were dismissed as "God's will," because God in his infinite wisdom would've managed to get the word to them if he wanted them in heaven.

So. Unless embryos are a lot more chatty than we have been given to believe, Bullgoose is right, in vitro fertilization produces embryos that will only suffer the eternal hellfires of damnation.

I thank you for the opportunity to amend my faulty headline.

Update: We crashed Mike's server so the clip is now hosted at C&L.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/06/2006 01:21:00 PM

From the Department of Pissing My Tax Dollars Away

Well, great. Just great. The President and his huge freaking personal White House staff can't even request a simple absentee ballot properly, so guess who is taking Air Force One out for a spin just so he can vote in the local primary in Crawford, Texas?

Bush hasn't missed a GOP contest since he started voting in Crawford in March 2002. An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, indicated Saturday that White House staff had slipped up on the paperwork for requesting a mail-in ballot this time.

And how much is this going to cost out of my pocket and yours? Who the hell knows, because the White House refuses to publish costs for these little jaunts.

But when you consider the cost of fuel, staffing, security, overtime costs, food, overhead and everything else that goes into this hastily thrown-together little jaunt...and you add in the additional cost of a trip to the Gulf region for some CYA -- also hastily arranged -- so it's not all about the fact that George Bush is too much of a dumbass to follow-up with his staff about his absentee ballot request...well, that's a whole lot of cash, isn't it?

Especially when you think about it in terms of what it would have cost had Bush filled out his little form and sent it in: some minimal postage and a few minutes to mark the ballot and put it back in the envelope.

The cost of continually failing to pay attention to the details? Astronomical. And who is paying for these failures -- repeatedly? The American public.

Look, I know Bush has a lot on his plate, what with the abysmal Katrina response and the fact that even Republicans in Congress are calling him a "failure of leadership," and the blossoming civil war potential in Iraq, along with the fact that he and his Republican leadership cronies in Congress and lots of members of his own Administration staff are under investigation currently for corruption, bribery, espionage and lots of other criminal activity. Then there's the whole blossoming federal deficit, the Dubai ports deal, and the fact that Bill Kristol just called him incompetent.

But this is one little, tiny thing -- and you are telling me that the President and his enormous staff of minions couldn't fill out a form, put a 39 cent stamp on it and stick it in the mail? And because Bush and his staff can't do even the simplest thing properly, we end up footing the bill -- to the tune of a buttload of cash -- just to fly him to his vacation home for the day so he can vote?

Here's an idea: how about since Bush screwed up, he has to pay for the trip out of his own pocket?

(Hat tip to reader Punaise for the heads up on this. Via Salon.)

posted by ReddHedd @ 3/06/2006 10:52:00 AM

Demanding Accountability

Professor Foland has it absolutely right in the comments on the issue of lack of accountability and the Bush Administration:

Several times in the past week the question has come up: was the King badly informed, OR actually lying?

Why choose? His job is to make the right decisions.

If he runs his ship in such a way that subordinates feel free to hide things from him, and he's not asking questions to get the right information, then he's a failure in making the right decisions.

If he's getting the information and then lying about it, he's a failure at making the right decisions.

The King has failed to do his job. How exactly this came to be is of interest as an educational moment for others who come after him. But it is of no interest as a political matter.

He failed to treat Tillman with honor. He failed to make the right call on Iraq. He failed to help New Orleans. He failed to uphold the fourth amendment. He failed to keep the name of a CIA counter-proliferation agent secret.

As far as accountability is concerned, these were his calls to make, and he failed.

No OR's about it.

Just a reminder to everyone that the vote on the illegal domestic NSA surveillance will be held in the Senate Intelligence Committee tomorrow -- and it is past time the Bush Administration was held accountable for its decisions and actions. Bill Frist and his Republican leadership cronies cannot be allowed to prevail with their smarmy back-door tactics and threats.

Please take some time to contact your Senators and Representatives in the House and let them know that you expect them to do their jobs -- that Congress is vested with the responsibility of oversight, and you expect them to do it. If they will not, then come November, they can expect to be out of a job. No more rubber stamps. Period.

Glenn Greenwald has a good review of the issues involved today, and I urge you to read his piece and please contact your elected representatives. If you have time, please call in to a local talk radio broadcast or post a note on a public discussion board for news organizations -- anything to keep the fact that Republicans are trying to cheat their way out of doing their jobs to protect the Constitution in front of the public and our elected officials.

According to the Washington Times, NSA whistleblower Russell Tice has offered to testify to the committee regarding what he sees as an illegal program which specifically violates the Fourth Amendment. Let's try to give him a chance to testify. (And thanks to reader ck for the heads up on the article.)

It's time for some accountability in Washington for a change. As voters, it is our right to demand that our elected officials do their jobs -- take a few minutes to demand some accountability.

(Graphics love to Oliver Willis.) [NOTE: Although I am informed that this may have originated with Billmon. Either way, I needed this giggle this morning. And whomever was first with the genius on this, kudos.]

posted by ReddHedd @ 3/06/2006 09:40:00 AM

Lies and Propoganda, and the Dishonoring of a Hero

Pat Tillman gave up a $3.6 million dollar NFL contract to fight for his country in the wake of 9/11. You can't make up a better recruiting poster than a former NFL star turned Army Ranger, can you? I mean, really, you couldn't write fiction like that and make it believeable.

But then Pat Tillman was killed, in a "friendly fire" incident in Afghanistan, while fighting with his unit in April of 2004. Why write about old news? Because the case is back in the headlines -- the Army has decided to re-open the investigation of Pat Tillman's death to investigate possible criminal conduct on the part of personnel who were involved in the shooting. According to the WaPo (which has done exceptional reporting on this case from day one, btw):

Col. Joseph Curtin, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said the Army will open an investigation to examine whether soldiers violated military law when they failed to identify their target before opening fire on Tillman's position.

Although there have been several military investigations into the Tillman shooting, this will be the first criminal investigation. A defense official said that it will probably focus on potential charges of negligent homicide, which means investigators will try to determine whether soldiers fired recklessly without intending to kill their fellow soldier.

"We want to do the right thing for the family," Curtin said. "We owe it to the family. We owe them the truth."

Here's the rub, though: the Army only re-opened the investigation after Tillman's family had to publicly complain. The Tillman's lost their son, were lied to initially about their son's death -- they were told that "enemy fighters" had shot him, and the military used Pat Tillman publicly as their poster boy hero killed by al qaeda and the Taliban. Except this was not true -- and they knew it at the time, hushing the Rangers who had been with Pat at the time of his death.

Tillman was killed in a barrage of gunfire from his own men, mistaken for the enemy on a hillside near the Pakistan border—perhaps, we will soon learn, criminally. "Immediately," the Post reported, "the Army kept the soldiers on the ground quiet and told Tillman's family and the public that he was killed by enemy fire while storming a hill, barking orders to his fellow Rangers." Tillman posthumously received the Silver Star for his "actions."

The military investigation, exposed by the Post, "showed that soldiers in Afghanistan knew almost immediately that they had killed Tillman by mistake in what they believed was a firefight with enemies on a tight canyon road. The investigation also revealed that soldiers later burned Tillman's uniform and body armor."

As if that weren't bad enough, the Army then continued to lie to the Tillmans and stonewall up the chain of command after the initial investigation was concluded. Their questions were not answered, the Army continued to spin out its propoganda for public consumption.

Think about the timing of Pat Tillman's death for a second. April of 2004 was in the thick of the Presidential campaign. One of the bits that struck me most in Greg Mitchell's great review of this matter in E&P was the fact that George Bush delivered a taped message to Pat Tillman at an Arizona Cardinals game:

Mary, the mother, complained to the Post that the government used her son for weeks after his death. She said she was particularly offended when President Bush offered a taped memorial message to Tillman at a Cardinals football game shortly before the presidential election last fall.

The crassness of this just goes beyond my ability to express anger. Either George Bush knew that he was taping a message filled with lies to bolster the patriotic feeling about Pat Tillman, and by association George Bush, right before the election in Arizona, OR the Pentagon brass were lying to the President about the facts, but there is no evidence that any consequences have occurred among the upper level brass.

The only thing that has occurred in terms of accountability at this point is that the military is now pursuing a criminal investigation into lower level enlisted soldiers in an effort to fob off responsibility for lying to the Tillman family, to the American public and to the press, and to provide convenient scapegoats for all the decisions that came after Pat Tillman's death: having his uniform and armor burned, hushing up soldiers who were at the scene, lying to the Tillmans, parading the President around and having him deliver a taped message at an NFL game just prior to the election.

What won't these people use? I mean, honestly -- is nothing at all sacred to them?

Of course there needs to be a thorough investigation into Pat Tillman's death. We owe that to his family, and if gross negligence was involved, those responsible need to be held to account. That goes without saying.

But those responsible for spinning out the lies to a grieving family -- lies that they also fed to the public and the press in a close campaign season -- need some exploration as well. Who gave the orders to silence the Rangers on the ground? Who gave the orders to burn Tillman's gear? Who gave the orders to falsify information contained on Tillman's Silver Star citation -- because it now appears that some of the information in the chain of events does not match up with later stories? Who fed Tori Clark the information she spewed from the press podium at the DoD? Who fed it to Donald Rumsfeld? Did Rumsfeld order this to be propgandized -- or did that come from the President's campaign staff, including from Karl Rove?

Who gave the orders to start all of this ass covering -- up the line to the President of the United States?

And who made the decision for the President to use Pat Tillman as a campaign prop in Arizona -- when the taped message the President gave was a lie? And did the President know at the time that his lovely public words about a fallen American hero were nothing but lies -- and gave the taped message anyway? If not, has anyone been held to account for feeding the President false information that he publicly stated about the Tillman matter -- and if so, who has been held to account and by what means?

This feels just like the manufactured story they used for Jessica Lynch, a story which she lived to correct, much to her credit. But Pat Tillman is not here to speak for himself today -- he was killed in the line of duty, in our nation's uniform, and then had his government lie outright to his family -- repeatedly through four separate botched investigations into his death.

"The Army's public release made no mention of friendly fire, even though at the time it was issued, investigators in Afghanistan had already taken at least 14 sworn statements from Tillman's platoon members that made clear the true causes of his death.

"But the Army's published account not only withheld all evidence of fratricide, but also exaggerated Tillman's role and stripped his actions of their context. ... The Army's April 30 news release was just one episode in a broader Army effort to manage the uncomfortable facts of Pat Tillman's death, according to internal records and interviews."

Now the Army is going after soldiers who presumably pulled the triggers at the scene. There is no evidence that it is looking at its own high-level cover-up.

"Maybe lying's not a big deal anymore," Tillman’s father told the Post last year. "Pat's dead, and this isn't going to bring him back. But these guys should have been held up to scrutiny, right up the chain of command, and no one has."

Who will stand up and speak for Pat Tillman? What is the truth behind all of the lies -- not just the ones that the military and the Bush Administration want to pin on convenient scapegoats?

USAToday has an editorial about this entitled "Army Dishonors War Hero." But it's not just the Army -- and what I want to know is who decided to use a dead war hero as a campaign prop for George Bush? The buck stops on the desk of the Commander in Chief. Let's see some accountability all the way up the chain.

Pat Tillman and his family deserve to know the whole truth -- not just the bits that are convenient for the Administration. For once, can they just be completely honest and forthcoming? I doubt it, because lying seems to be the modus operandi of the Bush Administration, but isn't there some person with some sense of decency out there who will tell this family the truth about what happened on the ground in Afghanistan and with the whole web of lies that followed?

Who will speak for Pat Tillman?

UPDATE: Speaking of using people in uniform, Josh at TPM has been doing some great work the last couple of days on the Republican party having military personnel appear in uniform at campaign events. This is directly in violation of military regs. A soldier can be court-martialed for it, although the politician who asks them to take that risk doesn't put their ass on the line, and I doubt that the politicians are informing the enlisted folks they are using as props that they can be cashiered out of the military via the UCMJ.

This is severely detrimental to the purpose of a military separate and distinct from the political process, which is the whole point of the rule in the first place. As Josh points out:

The existence of this ban and the enforcement of it are hugely important both to good order and discipline within the military and to preserving our democratic republic. The military can't be made into an arm of one or the other political party. Nor can the executive be allowed to enlist members of the armed forces, either individually or en masse, willingly or not, as soldiers in his domestic political battles.

This is about having a professional military -- and not using them as props for a photo op is a part of that. Bob Novak reported this would be a Republican campaign strategy for the 2006 elections -- someone ought to tell those soldiers that the thing most on the line is their own butt, BEFORE they appear at the campaign event. Anyone want to bet that the GOP has left that little bit of information out of the invitations?

posted by ReddHedd @ 3/06/2006 07:30:00 AM

Late Nite FDL: And The Winner Is...

I know you must all be gripping the edges of your seats, shivering with anticipation. So without further ado, by popular vote, the winner of the most irrefutably stupid Joe Klein quote of all time is:

13. "People like me who favor this [NSA wiretapping] program don't yet know enough about it yet. Those opposed to it know even less -- and certainly less than I do."

The prize goes to SanGuevara who went dumpster diving into Klein's ouevre and brought it forth for the benefit of us all. We owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude.

But this was only part of the glory. The Charles P. Pierce Award for Excellence in Klein Snark, chosen by Mr. Pierce himself, goes to Wesgpc for a comment on Klein Quote #6:

"I'm a so-called journalist

[irrefutable confirmation that he did write one thing containing an empirical fact]

who views his job as doing the legwork

[showing his great care and precision - he did not say headwork or investigation, did he?]

and then calling them as I see them.

[Credit him with brutal honesty. He specifically said "them." And how does he see them? Well the Democrats are old out-of-it chumps, losers, very "industrial age", and fun to use for some wordly-wise cynical cred, by beating up on them with stereotyped, canned, pre-cooked snark. Democrats are also earnest and frumpy, so clearly good target for calling hypocrites. The Republicans are kewl, very "information age"” "with-it"” innovative hipsters who are fun to hang with if you'’ll play. He was careful not to say "“call IT as I see it" because that would falsely imply that he was talking about, you know, out-of-it "industrial age"” unhip things with old person smell, like facts and stuff.]

And I'm tired of civilians of the left and the right who, in their infinite wisdom, spew vituperative nonsense instead of asking substantive questions when they have the opportunity.

[I can'’t figure this out at all, but it sounds like something, you know, real deep, so it must be profound and very hiply wise-ass and immensely knowing, in a knowing sort of way. So, points for style on the landing -he nailed it going to the radical center and hit the bulls-eye, not a jitter not a half step. What a dismount! The word "civilians" is genius, it implies some deep socio-philosophical subtext that we would hesitate to admit we do not get -almost worthy of the NRO]

As Charles says, "The Tim Daggett-ish 'What a dismount!' put it over the top." A superb effort.

But we are also awarding honorable mentions. One comment by Thesaurus Rex didn't make it in under the wire last night but was definitely worthy of note nonetheless:

"Calling George Bush a minimalist is like calling a potted palm an environmentalist."

Another goes to Bullgoose, who maintains that the Klein Snark award deserves to go to Klein himself:

I vote for take-your-pick, and nominate the master, Joe Klein himself, to be the recipient of the first annual Charles P. Pierce award. No one is more deserving of the maiden Snarky than Joe. His work speaks against itself with an immediacy and authority that no third-person invective could ever hope to achieve. It stands on its own, as writing that is not merely bad, but blatantly, shockingly, grotesquely bad. Its inherent ugliness flies in your face like a handful of shit out of a baboon cage. And just as surely as it is unnecessary to crawl up a baboon's ass with a suppository to be covered in baboon shit, it is unnecessary to probe deeply into Klein's work in order extract analytical evidence that he is a bare-assed stupid, shit-slinging baboon. The evidence is clear the moment his work is put on display. Piss on it, if it makes you feel better, but you will only improve it by dilution. Dump on it to your heart's content, but your most vicious shit only serves to sweeten the stink of Joe's best. To give the Pierce prize to anyone other than the creator of this steaming pile would be as unfair as to honor the chumps at the cage for the shit on their faces, rather than the shit-slinging baboon with the unerring aim. Give Vogon Joe Klein his prize. Give it to him as undiluted and unsweetened by thoughtful commentary as he gave his dreck to us. Klein bows to no one in the domain of the Vogonsphere. We are unworthy.

Yet another goes to Dover Bitch, for her efforts to channel the altitudinally and follically challenged Klein over comment #3 and the anguish of Dick Cheney:

"I am an abysmal judge of character of epic proportions. I contracted mononucleosis from kissing my sister in seventh grade and missed the week when our English teacher taught the rest of my classmates the meaning of the word "irony." I never even considered, in the absence of such a word, the occurrence of hilariously incongruous events and statements. My conversations with combat veterans have made me an expert in the field of distinguishing between the trauma that comes from war and the agony of having to talk to Brit Hume."

And Bentley Stanforth III, for oh so many quotes, but who can forget:

This isn't just wrong. It's wrongness encased in incoherence and swathed in bullshit.

And then of course the memorable "Joke Line."

Thanks to everyone who took the time to participate, who waded through the swamp of Kleiniana, were willing to momentarily pollute their eyeballs such that we could drag Joe onto the shore and create some context and awareness of way he represents "Democrats" on a daily basis. Thanks also to Charles P. Pierce for officiating the snark contest. Both SanGuevara and Wesgpc will be taking home copies of the DVD of Action, so please send me your emails and I will send them off to you soon.

You are all great Americans.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/05/2006 08:42:00 PM

Oscar Open Thread

I have to say I'm liking the glamor/train fashion redux but Naomi Watts looks like she just took a stroll through the cobwebs of Peggy Noonan's mind. Jessica Alba, on the other hand, looks fab.

Generally I hate writing about Hollywood so I defer to people like David E., John Rogers and and James Wolcott who do it and do it well. Wolcott says:

[T]he 'Hollywood doesn't reflect mainstream America' argument is one of the oldest and phoniest in the playbook, with Michael Medved making the same case that Catholic organizers did in the 30's to push for a decency code. The truth is that Hollywood has almost never reflected heartland values, from its birth it's reflected urban energy, cosmopolitan taste, social conscience, and pagan fascination, and when it's conformed to conventional pieties, as during the dreariest stretches of the postwar period, when disillusionment and subversion had to sneak in through the shadows of film noir as the topline product stayed shiny, bright, and chipmunk cheerful. Do you really think the racy, wisecracking, night-owl-edition, socially conscious crime dramas and comedies of Warner Brothers in the thirties reflected heartland values? Or those Lubitsch comedies with their flirty innuendos and musky intrigues so redolent of Paris and Budapest? Or the Astaire-Rogers "white telephone" musicals, with their French farce plots and Manhattan-skyline sparkle? MGM manufactured an enduring neo-Victorian mimicry of smalltown America in the Andy Hardy movies and others, but that didn't so much reflect heartland values as reflect the immigrant vision of what the white-picket-fence country they imagined lay east of the Hollywood hills.

Think of the movies now considered classic (or semi-classic) from the great grunge stretch of the late Sixties and Seventies, movies such as Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, The Last Detail, Five Easy Pieces, Blazing Saddles, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, A Clockwork Orange, on and on--do these movies speak to the pieties and platitudes that William Bennett holds dear? Even back then during all the noise and excitement I remember sweet old ladies wondering why they didn't make nice movies like The Sound of Music anymore, and they're still asking that same question today. It may be the same old ladies, having gone through two generations of floral muu-muus. Get over it, grandma! They're not going to make movies like Sound of Music anymore, they barely made them back then.

Amen.

The only thing I have strong opinions about are the best documentary category. Love love love Murderball, love Street Fight (gave Marshall an ad in the sidebar, please click), and I absolutely LOVED “The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club” (nominated for best short documentary). That was some of the most remarkable storytelling I've seen in years, I was on the edge of my seat and I'm pulling for Dan Krauss.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/05/2006 05:29:00 PM

Timmeh

I'm on Russert Watch over at the HuffPo for Arianna this week while she covers the Oscars.

John Edwards fans: don't bother.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/05/2006 03:51:00 PM

Frist Gets Rooted

The fact that Bill Frist is threatening to neuter the Senate Intelligence Committee is probably a pretty good sign that he doesn't have enough votes on March 7 to keep them from looking into the illegal NSA wiretaps. His actions (buried in the weekend news cycle) are no doubt meant to put pressure on wobbly Republicans like Hagel and Snowe.

Kyle Michaelis at The New Nebraska Network blog is urging Nebraskans to contact Hagel's office as part of the Roots project:

Glenn Greenwald provides a full rundown on Frist's supremely partisan maneuvering, which might well include stripping the Senate Intelligence Committee of the 30 year-old safeguards intended to prevent precisely these sorts of abuses of intelligence for political gain. Taking a page from Tom DeLay's playbook in the House, Frist might even resort to removing any Republican Senator from the committee who won't do his bidding.

That leaves Committee member Chuck Hagel, Nebraska's Republican Senator, in the spotlight and perhaps even in the crosshairs of his own party's leadership. To be honest, Hagel's been uncharacteristically quiet about the situation, so he obviously doesn't think it's ripe for the type of media attention that he seeks. What the situation is ripe for, though, is proving that Hagel is the independent-minded patriot he tries to present himself as to the American public -doing what's right, not what he's told.

Kyle has all the contact info for Hagel's office, so everyone who's concerned about the future of these proceedings -- and I've heard from a lot of you, so I know the numbers aren't small -- please click through and help Nebraskans urge their Senator to do the right thing.

Therisites2 has contact info for Olympia Snowe and Pat Roberts as well, and Josh from Thoughts From Kansas reports that he thinks our Roots Kansas action has been getting to Pat Roberts.

That's pretty cool.

posted by Jane Hamsher @ 3/05/2006 12:45:00 PM

Look, Up in the White House...It's Splatman

Crooks and Liars has some video clips up from today's Sunday morning gabfests. All I can say is "ouch."

First, there is this clip from Rep. John Murtha's appearance on Face the Nation:

The public is way ahead of what’s going on in Washington. They no longer believe it. The troops themselves, 70 percent of the troops said we want to come home within a year. The only solution to this is to redeploy. Let me tell you, the only people who want us in Iraq is Iran and al-Qaeda. I've talked to a top-level commander the other day, it was about two weeks ago, and he said China wants us there also. Why? Because we’re depleting our resources, our troop resources and our fiscal resources.

Murtha comes across as not only very credible, but also as caring about the lives of our troops, the consequences of the horrible choices made by the Bush Administration, and as having some serious sources at high levels in the military who are having the same concerns. Perhaps because all of that is true -- you can really feel the anger on behalf of the nation and its men and women in uniform coming off Murtha in waves, can't you? Boo yah.

Crooks and Liars also has a clip from David Gergen's appearance on Reliable Sources this morning, and it is really a doozy. (Thanks to Nate for the heads up on this -- I e-mailed John Amato to see if he could pull the clip, and he was already working on it. I swear, how did we survive before C&L?) Anyway, Gergen said the following:

This administration has engaged in secrecy at a level we have not seen in over 30 years. Unfortunately, I have to bring up the name of Richard Nixon, because we haven't seen it since the days of Nixon. And now what they're doing -- and they're using the war on terror to justify -- is they're starting to target journalists who try to pierce the veil of secrecy and find things and put them in the newspapers.

Now, in the past what the government has always done is go after the people who leak, the inside people. That's the way they try to stop leaks. This is the first administration that I can remember, including Nixon's, that said -- and Porter Goss said this to Congress -- that we need to think about a law that would put journalists who print national security things to...bring them up in front of grand juries and put them in jail if they don't -- in effect, if they don't reveal their sources.

Given the stories on the White House efforts to go after leakers who make them look bad or expose illegal activites on the part of the President -- but selectively fail to really take their own selective leaking seriously (hello -- Dick Cheney can declassify whatever the hell he feels like, even though that's not what the law says?) -- I'd say that's certainly a topic worth some serious public discussion.

See more at the WaPo and the NYTimes. Glenn also discusses this issue on his blog this morning, and it is worth a read as well.

Can someone explain to me how the Bush Administration expects anyone to take them seriously on this matter when Karl Rove still works in the West Wing with his security clearance intact after admitting to discussing Valerie Plame Wilson with two reporters?

When you use the laws to punish your critics -- even to the point of abusing this to try to silence whistleblowers -- yet you fail to punish your allies for illegal behavior that violates national security regulations...well, you don't really expect to have any credibility at all, do you? And to threaten journalists with jail for printing true information on how the Bush Administration may be breaking the law -- well, all I can say is that Stalin would be awfully proud, wouldn't he?

It's getting ugly in Washington for George Bush. And its about damn time -- if ever a President earned scorn and disgust, it is this one.

(As a kid, I loved Wile E. Coyote and his Acme gadgets of doom. His repeated failures were funny in Saturday morning cartoons -- but the repeated failures and poor choices of the Bush Administration aren't so funny. Thought everyone could use a laugh this morning. Chuck Jones was a genius, pure and simple.)

posted by ReddHedd @ 3/05/2006 10:35:00 AM

Election Jitters -- Or Inter-Administration Sniping by Proxy?

ThinkProgress made a great catch from this morning's Fox News Sunday, and I wanted to take a moment this morning to talk about the potential implications of Bill Kristol's pronouncement of the Bush Administration as incompetent.

Here's Kristol's quote:

I think it’s become in people’s minds an emblem of the administration that just isn’t as serious about the competent execution of the functions of government as it should be. And even — I’m struck talking to conservatives and Republicans — they agree with the president on basic political philosophy, the they agree with his basic policy agenda, but they are worried that they just don’t seem to be able to execute as well as they should be. (emphasis mine)

That Kristol was saying this on Fox this morning is telling of a couple of things: the Republican party establishment is now worried that President Bush has become a drag on the entire party, and that he poses a serious problem for them in the upcoming mid-term elections in the Fall; and that someone has sanctioned Kristol talking about this on air on Fox.

Which leads me to a whole host of questions:

-- Is this evidence that Dick Cheney is not going quietly into the night but, instead, is using Kristol as pushback by proxy against Rove's attempt to throw him under the bus as an Administration sacrifice to the possibility of better poll numbers via a new VP nomination? As close as Kristol has been with Cheney's neocon cabal, it's certainly possible. But Cheney's power is at a low ebb at the moment, and I have to wonder if Kristol -- who has been opportunist in the past -- would stick his neck out for Cheney against Rove, without some reasonable expectation that Cheney had an ace up his sleeve. (Or that, perhaps, Rove might be looking more closely at an indictment than we've publicly heard. Or something to that effect.)

-- Is this some Rovian machination to distance the President from Congress and the Republican party while his popularity is so far down, in an effort to salvage every vote they can for the mid-terms to try to maintain the Republican strangle-hold on Congress? And, if so, wonder what the President thinks of Turdblossom having a surrogate call him incompetent on Faux News as a political ploy? Ego versus tactics -- wonder which one wins out in Bush's mind?

-- Is this Kristol expressing fears of members of Congress and the Republican party, rather than having anything to do with the Administration? Are members of Congress and old guard Republicans -- including the money that backs the party's machine -- ready to throw Bushie under the bus? In other words, has he gone from lame duck status straight to political road kill?

-- Is Kristol just not getting the Administration love any longer, and he's decided to take it out on them by smacking them around while the President is out of town? I mean, really, everyone else is smacking him around these days, why shouldn't Kristol get in a swipe to build up his "honest broker" credentials (**cough**)...after all, there's another election coming up and Kristol needs to keep that pundit gig.

-- Is this another salvo of the Team McCain in 2008 campaign?

Judd makes a great point in his post:

Kristol is right, and it’s a dynamic that makes policy debates almost irrelevant. Even if the administration were to stumble onto a policy that would improve things, it’s highly unlikely the people in charge would be able to execute the policy effectively.

Maybe the Katrina video is resonating in the internal Republican polling numbers more than we thought. In any case, whatever the answers to these questions, it's stacking up to be an interesting week.

posted by ReddHedd @ 3/05/2006 08:35:00 AM

Sunday Morning Talking Head Thread

Here is the Sunday Talking Head Show line-up for today:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY (WTTG), 9 a.m.: Gen. Peter Pace , chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. David Johnson , director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Michael D . Brown , former Federal Emergency Management Agency director.

THIS WEEK (ABC, WJLA), 9 a.m.: Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark and comedian Stephen Colbert .

FACE THE NATION (CBS, WUSA), 10:30 a.m.: Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC, WRC), 10:30 a.m.: Former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.), former representative Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and Pace .

LATE EDITION (CNN), 11 a.m.: Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf , United Arab Emirates Economy Minister Sheikha Lubna al- Quasimi , Gen. James Jones , NATO supreme allied commander, and Iraqi parliament member Adnan Pachachi.

Fox News Sunday looks like it could get fiesty with Michael Brown on the line-up, and Brit Hume in the Karl Rove Memorial Administration Apologist Chair. Wonder if they'll ask Gen. Johnson from NOAA how the research on global warming is being ignored by the Bush Administration? Probably not.

This Week might be worth it for Gen. Wesley Clark and especially Stephen Colbert. I'm guessing Susan Collins and Duncan Hunter are going to publicly smack the Bush Administration around a little more for their pitiful Katrina response (Collins) and the failure to do adequate due diligence on the Dubai ports deal (Hunter, who appears to have a big thorn in his paw about this issue.)

Face the Nation looks quite interesting with Lugar and Murtha. I'm guessing we'll be seeing a Murtha clip or two today, because I would bet they'll be talking about the mess in Iraq.

Press the Meat has Edwards and Kemp -- who will be discussing the findings of their US-Russia committee study, no doubt nuclear issues will come up -- wonder what Kemp thinks about Bush giving away the nuclear weapons oversight in India for some mango concessions? (Well, they are tasty, I suppose...) Gen. Pace will be on here as well, no doubt trying to explain why civil war in Iraq is...well, who am I kidding, things are going swimmingly and the violence is in its last throes. **rolling eyes**

Late Edition looks like it's trying to make some sense out of the Bush foreign policy strategy. (They have a strategy? I thought Condi Rice just focused on having a good work-out.)

A note about the Koufax Awards this morning:

First, thanks so much to everyone who nominated Jane and me for any of the awards. We're nominated in the company of some exceptional bloggers, and I urge you to check out the awards threads and take a peek at some truly great writing and insight. There are some enormous brains working on the issues of our day -- but as you read, you'll discover some even bigger hearts. So, thank you for including Firedoglake in their company.

We're nominated in the following categories: Best Blog (non-professional), Best Series (for our Traitorgate coverage), Best Expert Blog (for our legal and journalism coverage), and Best Group Blog. I've also been nominated for a Best Writing Koufax -- to be included with Digby and Wolcott and so many other amazing writers is incredible, and I thank the reader who nominated me in that category. It's truly an embarassment of riches this year for our blog.

It's going to be really tough to select where my votes will go -- the talent and thought behind so many of these blogs is so impressive that it's going to be difficult to narrow the vote down to just one per category. Please, explore the Koufax nominees, and cast your votes -- everyone on the list works very hard at what they do, and the recognition is hard earned and very well deserved.

Thanks again for including FDL among them.

(Today's picture is a Carolina Wren. I have a nesting pair that have been hanging out at my bird feeders, hopping around and twittering to each other, and feeding each other tidbits for the last week. I'm hoping they select our yard for their nest -- little wrens are awfully cute.)

posted by ReddHedd @ 3/05/2006 06:15:00 AM