I want to thank Chris Cillizza, the Washington Post staffer who tracks politics in his online column "The Fix," for citing me as one of his favorite reporter-bloggers. As you can see here, Chris singled out five blogs written by mainstream political reporters, and what's most interesting is that four of those blogs are authored by teams of people who share the workload. On Chris' list, yours truly is the only one going it alone.
So if I post something really lousy in the future, allow me to chalk it up right now to fatigue.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
It's Jack's world, we just live in it
Caution: If you are not hooked on the TV show "24," and if you don't greet each of life's dilemmas with the thought, "What would Jack Bauer do?," then this post may not be of interest. However (as Jack might say), THERE'S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN, but all viewers of "24" are required to read to the very end, NOW! RIGHT NOW!
As someone who believes that American politics and American popular culture are inextricably linked, I can't help but wonder about the apparent sea change in the subliminal ideological thematics of "24" this season.
As any fan of the show well knows, until recently the Fox entertainment division seemed intent on mirroring the rightward tilt of Fox News, by depicting our hero Jack as a one-man torture crew who viewed the Geneva Convention as a pact for wimps; last season, he even juiced his lover's estranged husband, using wires ripped from a lamp. (The guy turned out to be innocent, but, naturally, Jack's lover has forgiven him.) I also recall, from last season, that a thoroughly meddlesome human-rights attorney from an Amnesty International-type group showed up at an inopportune moment to argue for the rights of suspected terrorists (who apparently had him on speed dial). Then there was the Arab family next door that really did turn out to be a terrorist cell, thus giving the lie to all that liberal politically-correct concern about racial profiling.
It was no wonder that veteran conservative activist, and former presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan could write so glowlingly about "24," chortling a few months ago that Jack's liberties with torture are mirrored by President Bush's priorites in the war on terror:
"The left may be right on the law (governing torture), but the people seem to be standing by Bush. Believing the character of this war, where the enemy's preferred tactic is to slaughter civilians with terror bombings, people seem to agree that we have to follow Jack Bauer's rules, not ACLU rules...one wonders what liberal Democrats of the ACLU variety would do to a real-life Jack Bauer?"
But hang on -- something new seems to be happening this year.
The entire plot appears to hinge on a neoconservative plot gone awry. A cabal of super-patriots inside the administration - embodied by White House aide Walt Cummings, who hung himself (or so we think) a few "hours" ago - hatched a conspiracy to extend American hegemony into central Asia. The idea was to manufacture an actual terrorist incident, and sacrifice Chechen rebels in the bargain, in order to give the U.S. a pretext to step in, put freedom on the march, and seize the region's oil for the next generation. The whole thing backfired, and now the Chechens (we think they are Chechens, there's always the possibility of a new Mr. Big) are retaliating by aiming their nerve gas at American targets.
In other words, this plot is about the dangers of misplaced U.S. patriotic overzealousness. And the idea of using pretexts to seize a region's oil...that's an accusation about the Bush administration that you can find on any placard at an antiwar rally.
But there's more: now we have a new character, a vice president who wants to boss around the president and circumvent the Congress at the same time. The veep wants to unilaterally declare martial law in Los Angeles, and he argues forcefully - to the point where the new conscience of America, the First Lady (who is off her meds but thinking clearly), has to remind her husband that he should not allow himself to be bossed around by the number two guy.
No need to put a shotgun in this veep's hands. We get the reference.
So I am just wondering. Is "24" mirroring the new political zeitgeist - tilting a bit leftward at a time when Bush and Cheney are down, after years of tilting rightward when Bush and Cheney were up? The only clue comes from the executive producer, Joel Surnow, who recently told the Washington Times that the show has both liberal and conservative writers. I suspect that the long-suffering camp is now in ascendence. Maybe it's just all about expanding the audience, beyond what the WashTimes calls its "conservative cult following." Whatever the shift in theme, it would appear that the new season of "24" brings a new wrinkle to the Fox notion of being "fair and balanced."
As someone who believes that American politics and American popular culture are inextricably linked, I can't help but wonder about the apparent sea change in the subliminal ideological thematics of "24" this season.
As any fan of the show well knows, until recently the Fox entertainment division seemed intent on mirroring the rightward tilt of Fox News, by depicting our hero Jack as a one-man torture crew who viewed the Geneva Convention as a pact for wimps; last season, he even juiced his lover's estranged husband, using wires ripped from a lamp. (The guy turned out to be innocent, but, naturally, Jack's lover has forgiven him.) I also recall, from last season, that a thoroughly meddlesome human-rights attorney from an Amnesty International-type group showed up at an inopportune moment to argue for the rights of suspected terrorists (who apparently had him on speed dial). Then there was the Arab family next door that really did turn out to be a terrorist cell, thus giving the lie to all that liberal politically-correct concern about racial profiling.
It was no wonder that veteran conservative activist, and former presidential candidate, Pat Buchanan could write so glowlingly about "24," chortling a few months ago that Jack's liberties with torture are mirrored by President Bush's priorites in the war on terror:
"The left may be right on the law (governing torture), but the people seem to be standing by Bush. Believing the character of this war, where the enemy's preferred tactic is to slaughter civilians with terror bombings, people seem to agree that we have to follow Jack Bauer's rules, not ACLU rules...one wonders what liberal Democrats of the ACLU variety would do to a real-life Jack Bauer?"
But hang on -- something new seems to be happening this year.
The entire plot appears to hinge on a neoconservative plot gone awry. A cabal of super-patriots inside the administration - embodied by White House aide Walt Cummings, who hung himself (or so we think) a few "hours" ago - hatched a conspiracy to extend American hegemony into central Asia. The idea was to manufacture an actual terrorist incident, and sacrifice Chechen rebels in the bargain, in order to give the U.S. a pretext to step in, put freedom on the march, and seize the region's oil for the next generation. The whole thing backfired, and now the Chechens (we think they are Chechens, there's always the possibility of a new Mr. Big) are retaliating by aiming their nerve gas at American targets.
In other words, this plot is about the dangers of misplaced U.S. patriotic overzealousness. And the idea of using pretexts to seize a region's oil...that's an accusation about the Bush administration that you can find on any placard at an antiwar rally.
But there's more: now we have a new character, a vice president who wants to boss around the president and circumvent the Congress at the same time. The veep wants to unilaterally declare martial law in Los Angeles, and he argues forcefully - to the point where the new conscience of America, the First Lady (who is off her meds but thinking clearly), has to remind her husband that he should not allow himself to be bossed around by the number two guy.
No need to put a shotgun in this veep's hands. We get the reference.
So I am just wondering. Is "24" mirroring the new political zeitgeist - tilting a bit leftward at a time when Bush and Cheney are down, after years of tilting rightward when Bush and Cheney were up? The only clue comes from the executive producer, Joel Surnow, who recently told the Washington Times that the show has both liberal and conservative writers. I suspect that the long-suffering camp is now in ascendence. Maybe it's just all about expanding the audience, beyond what the WashTimes calls its "conservative cult following." Whatever the shift in theme, it would appear that the new season of "24" brings a new wrinkle to the Fox notion of being "fair and balanced."
Friday, March 17, 2006
The modified limited hangout route
For those of you who are not as old as I am (my congratulations), the title of this post is a phrase uttered back in the '70s, during the Watergate scandal. A Nixon aide coined it as a synonym for a partial mea culpa. It sprang to mind this morning when I read David Frum's latest observations of his old boss, President Bush.
Ex-White House speechwriter Frum wrote a book a few years ago extolling Bush as "The Right Man" for the era. But now he's wrestling with that judgement. He does take note of what he calls "doubts and disappointments in (Bush's) performance," and says that performance has demontrated "the president's sometimes over-hasty decision-making, his disinclination to ask sufficiently probing questions, his aversion to detail, the overcentralization of decision-making, his often surprisingly poor personnel decisions, his unwillingness or inability to explain himself as fully and convincingly as a president ought."
But, for Frum, there's still a silver lining: "we need to remember how many of the problems of today originate in the drift and weakness of the 1990s."
Let's see...who was president during the '90s...of course! Whatever Bush's failings might be, in then end, it's all Bill Clinton's fault.
But lest anyone think that I am a reflexive Clinton defender, allow me to dispel the notion. It's not my job to build up or knock down Hillary Clinton's '08 presidential candidacy, because a journalist's first priority is to follow the facts where they go. The fact is that many Democrats are privately nervous that Hillary's past baggage might be too heavy for a future White House bid -- and this story in Editor & Publisher, a journalism magazine, demonstrates the point.
H0llywood gumshoe Anthony Pellicano, fresh from prison, has cut quite a swath in Tinseltown's seamy underside, as reported here and elsewhere. But, as E&P points out, the major media have said virtually nothing about Pellicano's long ties to the Clintons, in whose employ he cleaned up various "bimbo eruptions" during the '90s, including spreading false information about Gennifer Flowers. As E&P says, "Did the current front-running Democratic Presidential contender Hillary Clinton hire or direct any or all of Anthony Pellicano’s activities in her particular known area of interest? You have to totally lack journalistic curiosity or be brain dead to miss an opportunity like this."
Bimbo eruptions...the '90s...maybe this is what Frum meant by "drift and weakness."
Ex-White House speechwriter Frum wrote a book a few years ago extolling Bush as "The Right Man" for the era. But now he's wrestling with that judgement. He does take note of what he calls "doubts and disappointments in (Bush's) performance," and says that performance has demontrated "the president's sometimes over-hasty decision-making, his disinclination to ask sufficiently probing questions, his aversion to detail, the overcentralization of decision-making, his often surprisingly poor personnel decisions, his unwillingness or inability to explain himself as fully and convincingly as a president ought."
But, for Frum, there's still a silver lining: "we need to remember how many of the problems of today originate in the drift and weakness of the 1990s."
Let's see...who was president during the '90s...of course! Whatever Bush's failings might be, in then end, it's all Bill Clinton's fault.
But lest anyone think that I am a reflexive Clinton defender, allow me to dispel the notion. It's not my job to build up or knock down Hillary Clinton's '08 presidential candidacy, because a journalist's first priority is to follow the facts where they go. The fact is that many Democrats are privately nervous that Hillary's past baggage might be too heavy for a future White House bid -- and this story in Editor & Publisher, a journalism magazine, demonstrates the point.
H0llywood gumshoe Anthony Pellicano, fresh from prison, has cut quite a swath in Tinseltown's seamy underside, as reported here and elsewhere. But, as E&P points out, the major media have said virtually nothing about Pellicano's long ties to the Clintons, in whose employ he cleaned up various "bimbo eruptions" during the '90s, including spreading false information about Gennifer Flowers. As E&P says, "Did the current front-running Democratic Presidential contender Hillary Clinton hire or direct any or all of Anthony Pellicano’s activities in her particular known area of interest? You have to totally lack journalistic curiosity or be brain dead to miss an opportunity like this."
Bimbo eruptions...the '90s...maybe this is what Frum meant by "drift and weakness."
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Unsullied by experience
This is no big surprise, coming from the leadership team that is averse to admitting error:
The Bush administration said today that the 2002 Bush Doctrine – which argued for the right to initiate wars against imminent foreign threats - is alive and well in 2006, and unsullied by the ongoing furor over whether Saddam Hussein was truly an imminent foreign threat.
As articulated in the new National Security Strategy (a government document required by law and updated every few years), the Bush Doctrine essentially "remains the same," despite the fact that the Iraq experience has arguably demonstrated the pitfalls of initiating war on the basis of flawed WMD intelligence. As chief weapons inspector David Kay admitted two years ago, "we were all wrong."
Some of the fine print in the new document appears less assertive than in the previous document, which was unveiled in September 2002. The old document said that America reserves the right to launch hostilities against "emerging threats before they are fully formed. " The new document says that if America is facing a potentially "devastating" WMD attack, "we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize."
It seems to me that the new wording establishes a stricter rationale for a preventive attack; in practice, however, these could be distinctions without a difference.
Moreover, the administration does not believe that its failed prewar WMD claims have undercut the Bush Doctrine. The new report does acknowledge that those prewar claims were a tad off base; nevertheless, it argues that we can never be 100 percent certain about the information that is used to justify a preventive war.
As the new report puts it, "there will always be some uncertainty about the status of hidden programs, since proliferators are often brutal regimes that go to great lengths to conceal their activities."
Here's the problem with that argument, as it applies to Iraq: it's highly misleading.
Paul Pillar, who until last year coordinated Middle East intelligence for the CIA, writes in a recent Foreign Affairs article that the Bush administration decided ahead of time that it wanted to invade Iraq, and that "intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made."
Secondly, even though the new Bush Doctrine report says that brutal regimes will always seek to hide their WMD activities, it doesn't mention what actually happened in the case of Hussein. As another new Foreign Affairs article points out - it's authored by three military analysts for the U.S. Joint Forces Command- Hussein actually went to great lengths to conceal the fact that he didn't have WMDs anymore, because admitting he was weapon-free would have looked like a sign of weakness. In the author's words, Hussein "found it impossible to abandon the illusion of having WMD, especially since it played so well in the Arab world."
It's conceivable that the Bush war planners didn't know that back in 2002, when they were assessing the Hussein threat. But it's striking that the updated Bush Doctrine does not acknowledge what Hussein actually did, nor acknowledge the possibility that brutal regimes might be bluffing rather than concealing.
By the way, here's a little light reading, an article contradicting the administration's view that the doctrine lives on. It argues that there's intramural GOP skirmishing over the doctrine's future. I saw no skirmishing last weekend when GOP bigwigs met in Memphis, but that means nothing. Substantive foreign policy issues are generally the province of the wonks who work behind the scenes; most Republicans at this point are standing with Bush on Iraq; and one doubts that "Amend the Bush doctrine!" would be a catchy political slogan on the stump.
The Bush administration said today that the 2002 Bush Doctrine – which argued for the right to initiate wars against imminent foreign threats - is alive and well in 2006, and unsullied by the ongoing furor over whether Saddam Hussein was truly an imminent foreign threat.
As articulated in the new National Security Strategy (a government document required by law and updated every few years), the Bush Doctrine essentially "remains the same," despite the fact that the Iraq experience has arguably demonstrated the pitfalls of initiating war on the basis of flawed WMD intelligence. As chief weapons inspector David Kay admitted two years ago, "we were all wrong."
Some of the fine print in the new document appears less assertive than in the previous document, which was unveiled in September 2002. The old document said that America reserves the right to launch hostilities against "emerging threats before they are fully formed. " The new document says that if America is facing a potentially "devastating" WMD attack, "we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize."
It seems to me that the new wording establishes a stricter rationale for a preventive attack; in practice, however, these could be distinctions without a difference.
Moreover, the administration does not believe that its failed prewar WMD claims have undercut the Bush Doctrine. The new report does acknowledge that those prewar claims were a tad off base; nevertheless, it argues that we can never be 100 percent certain about the information that is used to justify a preventive war.
As the new report puts it, "there will always be some uncertainty about the status of hidden programs, since proliferators are often brutal regimes that go to great lengths to conceal their activities."
Here's the problem with that argument, as it applies to Iraq: it's highly misleading.
Paul Pillar, who until last year coordinated Middle East intelligence for the CIA, writes in a recent Foreign Affairs article that the Bush administration decided ahead of time that it wanted to invade Iraq, and that "intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made."
Secondly, even though the new Bush Doctrine report says that brutal regimes will always seek to hide their WMD activities, it doesn't mention what actually happened in the case of Hussein. As another new Foreign Affairs article points out - it's authored by three military analysts for the U.S. Joint Forces Command- Hussein actually went to great lengths to conceal the fact that he didn't have WMDs anymore, because admitting he was weapon-free would have looked like a sign of weakness. In the author's words, Hussein "found it impossible to abandon the illusion of having WMD, especially since it played so well in the Arab world."
It's conceivable that the Bush war planners didn't know that back in 2002, when they were assessing the Hussein threat. But it's striking that the updated Bush Doctrine does not acknowledge what Hussein actually did, nor acknowledge the possibility that brutal regimes might be bluffing rather than concealing.
By the way, here's a little light reading, an article contradicting the administration's view that the doctrine lives on. It argues that there's intramural GOP skirmishing over the doctrine's future. I saw no skirmishing last weekend when GOP bigwigs met in Memphis, but that means nothing. Substantive foreign policy issues are generally the province of the wonks who work behind the scenes; most Republicans at this point are standing with Bush on Iraq; and one doubts that "Amend the Bush doctrine!" would be a catchy political slogan on the stump.
Latest dispatch from inside the Bush bubble
At the White House yesterday, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan was asked whether the Bush administration might consider it wise, at this point, to shake up the team a bit and bring in some new blood -- in other words, to do the kind of thing that presidents generally do, especially when they are winning plaudits from only 33 percent of the American people (see the latest Pew poll, which I linked yesterday).
McClellan took great umbrage at that such an impertinent suggestion: " There's a perception out there on the part of the American people that Washington tends to get caught up in a lot of this parlor game, and they tend to get caught up in all this babble, process-oriented stuff. I think the American people want us to stay focused on their priorities."
Well, the source of that impertinent suggestion, the source of that "babble," was none other than Norm Coleman, the Republican senator from Minnesota, who had been personally recruited by President Bush to run for the Senate seat in 2002. Coleman had told the Associated Press yesterday that the White House had a political "tin ear," and that a shakeup might be wise.
But still no changes are contemplated, even though one-time Bush titans continue to get dissed by people who normally defend the administration. Witness David Brooks, the conservative commentator, who this morning described Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld thusly: "a formerly intimidating figure who now just seems pathetic."
Rumsfeld, by the way, told Congress the other day that his war-gamers are now busy scenarioizing about the theoretical paremeters of a possibly future civil war in Iraq -- a war that does not now exist, he quickly added, because nothing is happening that mirrors the severity of the American civil war.
Just wondering: since Rumsfeld isn't going anywhere, will the American experience be his sole frame of reference for Iraq?
McClellan took great umbrage at that such an impertinent suggestion: " There's a perception out there on the part of the American people that Washington tends to get caught up in a lot of this parlor game, and they tend to get caught up in all this babble, process-oriented stuff. I think the American people want us to stay focused on their priorities."
Well, the source of that impertinent suggestion, the source of that "babble," was none other than Norm Coleman, the Republican senator from Minnesota, who had been personally recruited by President Bush to run for the Senate seat in 2002. Coleman had told the Associated Press yesterday that the White House had a political "tin ear," and that a shakeup might be wise.
But still no changes are contemplated, even though one-time Bush titans continue to get dissed by people who normally defend the administration. Witness David Brooks, the conservative commentator, who this morning described Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld thusly: "a formerly intimidating figure who now just seems pathetic."
Rumsfeld, by the way, told Congress the other day that his war-gamers are now busy scenarioizing about the theoretical paremeters of a possibly future civil war in Iraq -- a war that does not now exist, he quickly added, because nothing is happening that mirrors the severity of the American civil war.
Just wondering: since Rumsfeld isn't going anywhere, will the American experience be his sole frame of reference for Iraq?
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
The donkey kicks itself again
Watching the Democrats fight amongst themselves during the past few days, I am reminded of a line uttered by Michael Corleone in the third Godfather movie: "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."
Just when the Democrats thought they were out in the clear, hammering away at an increasingly unpopular president and his increasingly anxious Republican party, now comes an incident that has pulled them back to their more familiar turf, where disunity reigns.
Their senator from Wisconsin, antiwar liberal Russ Feingold, is pitching a bill to censure President Bush for his domestic spying plan - and his Senate Democratic colleagues have responded by running so far from Feingold that you'd swear had bird flu.
They're all saying the same thing - "I haven't read the bill" - which is Washingtonese for "Get this guy and his wacko ideas away from me, before the Republicans beat us up."
Then there are the grassroots liberals, who love what Feingold is doing and who basically think that the party's Washington leaders are risk-averse wimps with no instinct for the jugular. The liberal wing believes that the timing of a censure is perfect, because Americans, as evidenced in the polls, are generally more critical than ever before about Bush's stewardship of Iraq and the war on terror.
As one Daily Kos blogger wrote today, "The atmosphere is ripe for accountability" -- while lamenting the Democratic establishment's response to the censure idea: "It's like we're watching the Boston Tea Party, with Feingold struggling to toss case after case into the water, while Democrats calmly watch from afar as they sip on their Lipton." Another liberal analyst, Matt Yglesias at the American Prospect, said: "I don't really see why Democrats would feel the need to be walking on eggshells here. An opposition party, faced with an incumbent who's sunk so low, could use a little swagger in their step."
Indeed, the new non-partisan Pew poll released today, reports that only 33 percent of Americans are pleased with Bush's performance (the lowest Pew rating of his entire presidency) -- and he's supported by only 26 percent of independents, a stat that puts him in Dick Nixon territory. It's true that Bush has roughly half the country with him on the domestic spying program, but there are still strong concerns about whether it's legal. So, says the Feingold camp, why not take a stand on principle? (It's not purely a matter of principle, actually. Feingold is interested in running for president, and the censure move is one way to warm the hearts of the antiwar liberals who dominate the early Democratic primaries. On the other hand, every move made by anybody in Washington is a mix of belief and self-interest.)
The problem, however (at least as Feingold's critics see it), is that politics is also about timing and momentum. The Democrats had the momentum last week and over the weekend, thanks to Bush's myriad woes and the worries of his followers. Feingold broke the flow and allowed the Republicans to get off the mat and crank up the old arguments about Democrats playing fast and loose with national security. Moderate Democratic blogger Joe Gandelman says we should "look at the chronology of where the White House was, what polls were showing, how Republicans were scrambling to distance themselves from the White House, amid signs that the GOP base was starting to sour on Bush, and the not-good-news-for-Bush topics of news cycles. Feingold's proposal shifted all of that..."
True, some of the Republicans' retaliatory arguments are not accurate; Bush spokesman Scott McClellan, referring to the censure proposal on Monday, said "if Democrats want to argue that we shouldn't be listening to al Qaeda communications, it's their right" -- yet not a single Democrat is on record arguing any such thing.
But clearly the Democratic leaders don't want to give the GOP any opportunity to shift the focus away from Bush and onto them. The Feingold bill has scrambled the focus. Now the Democrats can either stand with Feingold, and be forced spend valuable time defending themselves (however effectively) - or they can stay away from him, and wind up incurring fresh wrath from the liberal netroots.
There is a ray of hope here for Democrats, though. The ongoing GOP strategy is to paint the Democrats as lefty extremists, and they're trying to do it again, by linking everyone to Feingold. By doing that, the GOP then seeks to size the center and paint itself as the party of the American mainstream. But it's the independent voters who define the mainstream, and since, as Pew reports, only 26 percent are happy with Bush, that ship may have already sailed.
Just when the Democrats thought they were out in the clear, hammering away at an increasingly unpopular president and his increasingly anxious Republican party, now comes an incident that has pulled them back to their more familiar turf, where disunity reigns.
Their senator from Wisconsin, antiwar liberal Russ Feingold, is pitching a bill to censure President Bush for his domestic spying plan - and his Senate Democratic colleagues have responded by running so far from Feingold that you'd swear had bird flu.
They're all saying the same thing - "I haven't read the bill" - which is Washingtonese for "Get this guy and his wacko ideas away from me, before the Republicans beat us up."
Then there are the grassroots liberals, who love what Feingold is doing and who basically think that the party's Washington leaders are risk-averse wimps with no instinct for the jugular. The liberal wing believes that the timing of a censure is perfect, because Americans, as evidenced in the polls, are generally more critical than ever before about Bush's stewardship of Iraq and the war on terror.
As one Daily Kos blogger wrote today, "The atmosphere is ripe for accountability" -- while lamenting the Democratic establishment's response to the censure idea: "It's like we're watching the Boston Tea Party, with Feingold struggling to toss case after case into the water, while Democrats calmly watch from afar as they sip on their Lipton." Another liberal analyst, Matt Yglesias at the American Prospect, said: "I don't really see why Democrats would feel the need to be walking on eggshells here. An opposition party, faced with an incumbent who's sunk so low, could use a little swagger in their step."
Indeed, the new non-partisan Pew poll released today, reports that only 33 percent of Americans are pleased with Bush's performance (the lowest Pew rating of his entire presidency) -- and he's supported by only 26 percent of independents, a stat that puts him in Dick Nixon territory. It's true that Bush has roughly half the country with him on the domestic spying program, but there are still strong concerns about whether it's legal. So, says the Feingold camp, why not take a stand on principle? (It's not purely a matter of principle, actually. Feingold is interested in running for president, and the censure move is one way to warm the hearts of the antiwar liberals who dominate the early Democratic primaries. On the other hand, every move made by anybody in Washington is a mix of belief and self-interest.)
The problem, however (at least as Feingold's critics see it), is that politics is also about timing and momentum. The Democrats had the momentum last week and over the weekend, thanks to Bush's myriad woes and the worries of his followers. Feingold broke the flow and allowed the Republicans to get off the mat and crank up the old arguments about Democrats playing fast and loose with national security. Moderate Democratic blogger Joe Gandelman says we should "look at the chronology of where the White House was, what polls were showing, how Republicans were scrambling to distance themselves from the White House, amid signs that the GOP base was starting to sour on Bush, and the not-good-news-for-Bush topics of news cycles. Feingold's proposal shifted all of that..."
True, some of the Republicans' retaliatory arguments are not accurate; Bush spokesman Scott McClellan, referring to the censure proposal on Monday, said "if Democrats want to argue that we shouldn't be listening to al Qaeda communications, it's their right" -- yet not a single Democrat is on record arguing any such thing.
But clearly the Democratic leaders don't want to give the GOP any opportunity to shift the focus away from Bush and onto them. The Feingold bill has scrambled the focus. Now the Democrats can either stand with Feingold, and be forced spend valuable time defending themselves (however effectively) - or they can stay away from him, and wind up incurring fresh wrath from the liberal netroots.
There is a ray of hope here for Democrats, though. The ongoing GOP strategy is to paint the Democrats as lefty extremists, and they're trying to do it again, by linking everyone to Feingold. By doing that, the GOP then seeks to size the center and paint itself as the party of the American mainstream. But it's the independent voters who define the mainstream, and since, as Pew reports, only 26 percent are happy with Bush, that ship may have already sailed.
Heckuva job, Claudie
The case of Claude Allen, the former Bush domestic policy advisor who has been arrested and charged with committing fraud at least 25 times at a Target store, is basically a personal tragedy with no political resonance. Just because a guy who helped craft the State of the Union speech allegedly spent his spare time conning money out of a retail chain, that shouldn't be held against President Bush, or cited as fresh evidence of administration incompetence.
But hang on a second. The Claude Allen affair has thrown a fresh spotlight on the personnel decisions of the administration, particularly the documented ways that it frequently tries to insert its people into critical jobs for which they are not qualified.
Katrina, of course, exposed the fact that Michael Brown's qualifications to helm FEMA consisted of his previous tenure at the International Arabian Horse Association. Last month, we also had the case of George Deutsch, the NASA official who was preventing the agency's top scientists from publicly discussing global warming; it turned out that 24-year-old Deutsch's qualifications consisted of working hard on Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, and graduating from Texas A & M (wait, no, it turns out that he never graduated, despite what his resume said).
This brings us to Claude Allen.
Tracing the arc of success that brought him to the West Wing, we find this little nugget: Bush in 2003 tried to make Allen a federal judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Guess how many times Allen, as an attorney, had acted as lead counsel in a case? The answer: One time. And guess how many years he had practiced as an attorney? Seven and a half -- not even close to what the American Bar Association considers to be the minimum number of years (12) for a qualified judicial nominee. On the other hand, Allen was a born-again Christian who favored a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and who had worked as a press secretary to Senator Jesse Helms and, in that capacity, had once charged a Helms opponent as being aligned with "the queers."
The Democrats ultimately scuttled the appeals court nomination, on the grounds that he wasn't qualified.
But hang on a second. The Claude Allen affair has thrown a fresh spotlight on the personnel decisions of the administration, particularly the documented ways that it frequently tries to insert its people into critical jobs for which they are not qualified.
Katrina, of course, exposed the fact that Michael Brown's qualifications to helm FEMA consisted of his previous tenure at the International Arabian Horse Association. Last month, we also had the case of George Deutsch, the NASA official who was preventing the agency's top scientists from publicly discussing global warming; it turned out that 24-year-old Deutsch's qualifications consisted of working hard on Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, and graduating from Texas A & M (wait, no, it turns out that he never graduated, despite what his resume said).
This brings us to Claude Allen.
Tracing the arc of success that brought him to the West Wing, we find this little nugget: Bush in 2003 tried to make Allen a federal judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Guess how many times Allen, as an attorney, had acted as lead counsel in a case? The answer: One time. And guess how many years he had practiced as an attorney? Seven and a half -- not even close to what the American Bar Association considers to be the minimum number of years (12) for a qualified judicial nominee. On the other hand, Allen was a born-again Christian who favored a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and who had worked as a press secretary to Senator Jesse Helms and, in that capacity, had once charged a Helms opponent as being aligned with "the queers."
The Democrats ultimately scuttled the appeals court nomination, on the grounds that he wasn't qualified.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Quote of the day
Thank you, Jerry Falwell, for clearing that up:
"Earlier today, reports began circulating across the globe that I have recently stated that Jews can go to heaven without being converted to Jesus Christ. This is categorically untrue."
"Earlier today, reports began circulating across the globe that I have recently stated that Jews can go to heaven without being converted to Jesus Christ. This is categorically untrue."
The delusions of Deanworld
While immersed in Republican politics this past weekend, I missed another fascinating Howard Dean interview, which aired Sunday on CNN. At one point, the Democratic party chairman said this: "We are much more united than we appear in the newspapers. And I think -- as often happens -- small differences of opinion get blown up as newspaper articles."
This is the Dean equivalent of President Bush's claim that freedom is on the march in Iraq; in other words, it bears little resemblance to reality.
For instance:
1. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is on record supporting troop withdrawals from Iraq, yet her own top deputy, Stenny Hoyer, is on record opposing troop withdrawals from Iraq. I guess, under the Dean definition, that this qualifies as a "small" difference of opinion.
2. One of the top Democratic operatives, Harold Ickes, has launched his own national grassroots project - a computerized data base of rank and file Democrats nationwide - because he doesn't think that Dean's Democratic National Committee can pull it off. And he's in the process of raising $11 million or more to defy the DNC. As the Washington Post noted, in its report last week on this ambitious project, "Ickes and others involved in the effort acknowledge that their activities are in part a vote of no confidence" in the Dean operation. Asked about this by CNN, Dean replied, "I would disagree with Harold." But under the Dean definition, this too is a "small" difference of opinion.
3. The news today is that a rich antiwar liberal Democrat, cable television entrepeneur Ned Lamont, will challenge Democratic senator Joe Lieberman in a Connecticut primary this summer. Lamont will get fundraising help from the liberal netroots, which wants to purge the party of politicians it deems to be "Republican lite." The verdict on one prominent liberal blog yesterday: Lieberman is "a cruel, callow, weak little man. He needs to go." Lamont's main beef: Lieberman's support for the war in Iraq. Yesterday he called Lieberman "George Bush's favorite Democrat." He also said that, with the war issue front and center, "We're going to fight for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party."
I am old enough to remember the Vietnam war, and how it divided Democrats into hawk and dove camps. But under the Dean definition, this too is a "small" difference of opinion.
4. Check out the various Democratic reactions to antiwar Senator Russ Feingold's attempt yesterday to officially censure President Bush over the domestic spying program (Feingold: "The president has violated the law, and Congress must respond"). The liberal netroots community thinks the censure is a great idea, but the entire Washington Democratic establishment (which is loathed by the netroots) thinks that censure is a bad idea, because it might prompt moderate swing voters to think that the Democrats are acting like Bush-bashing extremists.
As Marshall Wittmann, an analyst who works at a centrist Democratic think tank, said on his blog today about the Feingold censure move, "At a time when the Democrats had seized a national security issue (the ports deal), a donkey came to the elephant's rescue with a dramatic over-reach....When will the lefties learn?"
Feingold fired back this afternoon with a swipe at all the fellow Democrats who left him high and dry: "I’m amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president’s numbers so low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and the Democrats run and hide."
Under the Dean definition, this too is just another of those "small" differences of opinion.
This is the Dean equivalent of President Bush's claim that freedom is on the march in Iraq; in other words, it bears little resemblance to reality.
For instance:
1. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi is on record supporting troop withdrawals from Iraq, yet her own top deputy, Stenny Hoyer, is on record opposing troop withdrawals from Iraq. I guess, under the Dean definition, that this qualifies as a "small" difference of opinion.
2. One of the top Democratic operatives, Harold Ickes, has launched his own national grassroots project - a computerized data base of rank and file Democrats nationwide - because he doesn't think that Dean's Democratic National Committee can pull it off. And he's in the process of raising $11 million or more to defy the DNC. As the Washington Post noted, in its report last week on this ambitious project, "Ickes and others involved in the effort acknowledge that their activities are in part a vote of no confidence" in the Dean operation. Asked about this by CNN, Dean replied, "I would disagree with Harold." But under the Dean definition, this too is a "small" difference of opinion.
3. The news today is that a rich antiwar liberal Democrat, cable television entrepeneur Ned Lamont, will challenge Democratic senator Joe Lieberman in a Connecticut primary this summer. Lamont will get fundraising help from the liberal netroots, which wants to purge the party of politicians it deems to be "Republican lite." The verdict on one prominent liberal blog yesterday: Lieberman is "a cruel, callow, weak little man. He needs to go." Lamont's main beef: Lieberman's support for the war in Iraq. Yesterday he called Lieberman "George Bush's favorite Democrat." He also said that, with the war issue front and center, "We're going to fight for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party."
I am old enough to remember the Vietnam war, and how it divided Democrats into hawk and dove camps. But under the Dean definition, this too is a "small" difference of opinion.
4. Check out the various Democratic reactions to antiwar Senator Russ Feingold's attempt yesterday to officially censure President Bush over the domestic spying program (Feingold: "The president has violated the law, and Congress must respond"). The liberal netroots community thinks the censure is a great idea, but the entire Washington Democratic establishment (which is loathed by the netroots) thinks that censure is a bad idea, because it might prompt moderate swing voters to think that the Democrats are acting like Bush-bashing extremists.
As Marshall Wittmann, an analyst who works at a centrist Democratic think tank, said on his blog today about the Feingold censure move, "At a time when the Democrats had seized a national security issue (the ports deal), a donkey came to the elephant's rescue with a dramatic over-reach....When will the lefties learn?"
Feingold fired back this afternoon with a swipe at all the fellow Democrats who left him high and dry: "I’m amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president’s numbers so low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and the Democrats run and hide."
Under the Dean definition, this too is just another of those "small" differences of opinion.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Fact versus nostalgia
On the way out of Memphis, I wrote a print column about John McCain and his embrace of old for George W. Bush, a necessary step in McCain's plan to woo the grassroots conservatives who have been hostile to him since the 2000 campaign. It's a bit of a mystery to me why those folks don't like McCain, given his overwhelmingly conservative voting record. Check out Paul Krugman's NYTimes column on that topic today. I'd link it, but he is behind the subscription wall.
Now, onto my other topic of the day:
Move, over Elvis. In Memphis this past weekend, there was another dead person who got the full hero worship treatment. Let's go right to the quotes.
Tennessee Republican party chairman Bob Davis: "Ronald Reagan once said..."
Tennessee congresswoman Marcia Blackburn: "Ronald Reagan was absolutely right..."
Ex-congressman J.C. Watts: "Ronald Reagan, in the decade of the '80s, he said..."
Virginia senator George Allen: "When Ronald Reagan was president..."
Kansas senator Sam Brownback: "I met Ronald Reagan once..."
House speaker Dennis Hastert: "What can you say about Ronald Reagan?"
You get the idea. Reagan seems more alive to these people than the guy who currently sits in the White House. It's not a good sign for the GOP, however, that they are wallowing in so much nostalgia; it means they are uncertain about the future, uncertain about how to close the gap between their convictions and their governing performance.
The problem, however, is that they spent three days worshipping the Reagan myth, not the Reagan record. They lauded Reagan as a small-government tax cutter, but there was nary a word about factual reality: Federal spending rose by 25 percent during Reagan's tenure, the size of the federal workforce actually grew, the only major agency that he managed to eliminate was the Civil Aeronautics Board, and he raised taxes in 1982.
Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, the size of the federal deficit (which Reagan denounced in his first unaugural as a threat to "our future and our children's future") actually doubled between 1980 and 1988.
The fact-challenged nostalgia encompassed a whole range of subjects. Brownback lauded Reagan as a pro-life icon (each person "is a sacred child of the living God...Reagan believed that as well"), yet nobody seemed to remember (or chose to remember) the actual truth, which is that Reagan as president never gave more than lip service to the anti-abortion movement. He never showed up at their annual rallies, preferring to phone in his greetings.
As conservatives at the time used to say, "It's not that Ronald Reagan lacks principles, it's just that he does not understand the ones he has."
Maybe the best evidence of GOP cognitive dissonance is the fact that Ronald Reagan's name adorns the Washington building that houses more federal bureaucrats (more than 5000) than any other place in town.
It's human nature to airbrush the flaws of a hero; the Democrats do this all the time with John F. Kennedy. But perhaps the Republicans could chart a more realistic future course if they adopt a more hardheaded view of their own past.
Now, onto my other topic of the day:
Move, over Elvis. In Memphis this past weekend, there was another dead person who got the full hero worship treatment. Let's go right to the quotes.
Tennessee Republican party chairman Bob Davis: "Ronald Reagan once said..."
Tennessee congresswoman Marcia Blackburn: "Ronald Reagan was absolutely right..."
Ex-congressman J.C. Watts: "Ronald Reagan, in the decade of the '80s, he said..."
Virginia senator George Allen: "When Ronald Reagan was president..."
Kansas senator Sam Brownback: "I met Ronald Reagan once..."
House speaker Dennis Hastert: "What can you say about Ronald Reagan?"
You get the idea. Reagan seems more alive to these people than the guy who currently sits in the White House. It's not a good sign for the GOP, however, that they are wallowing in so much nostalgia; it means they are uncertain about the future, uncertain about how to close the gap between their convictions and their governing performance.
The problem, however, is that they spent three days worshipping the Reagan myth, not the Reagan record. They lauded Reagan as a small-government tax cutter, but there was nary a word about factual reality: Federal spending rose by 25 percent during Reagan's tenure, the size of the federal workforce actually grew, the only major agency that he managed to eliminate was the Civil Aeronautics Board, and he raised taxes in 1982.
Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, the size of the federal deficit (which Reagan denounced in his first unaugural as a threat to "our future and our children's future") actually doubled between 1980 and 1988.
The fact-challenged nostalgia encompassed a whole range of subjects. Brownback lauded Reagan as a pro-life icon (each person "is a sacred child of the living God...Reagan believed that as well"), yet nobody seemed to remember (or chose to remember) the actual truth, which is that Reagan as president never gave more than lip service to the anti-abortion movement. He never showed up at their annual rallies, preferring to phone in his greetings.
As conservatives at the time used to say, "It's not that Ronald Reagan lacks principles, it's just that he does not understand the ones he has."
Maybe the best evidence of GOP cognitive dissonance is the fact that Ronald Reagan's name adorns the Washington building that houses more federal bureaucrats (more than 5000) than any other place in town.
It's human nature to airbrush the flaws of a hero; the Democrats do this all the time with John F. Kennedy. But perhaps the Republicans could chart a more realistic future course if they adopt a more hardheaded view of their own past.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
One of those worthless rituals
My Sunday column on the weekend's big Republican confab is here, featuring the '08 presidential hopefuls and their delicate dance with the current White House occupant.
But I didn't bother to discuss one sideshow aspect of this Memphis event (although I plan to mention it in print, and in passing, tomorrow). The Republicans held a "straw poll," supposedly designed to measure the level of sentiment for the early '08 prospects.
Oh please.
It's a nice way for grassroots activists to give a little feedback to the process; it's also inevitable fodder for the political journalists who breathe this stuff 24/7 and who are perpetually ravenous for any numbers that might measure anything. But history demonstrates that these exercises are basically a waste of time.
The term "straw poll" is apparently attributable to a 17th-century thinker named John Seldon, who wrote, "Take a straw and throw it up into the Air — you may see by that which way the Wind is." The problem is, the American straw polls seem to suggest that the wind always blows every which way.
For instance, if straw polls meant anything, we would have seen President Pat Robertson. The religious right leader won the Iowa straw poll of 1987, basically because he organized the most people to show up. (For easy identification purposes, they wore revolving lights on their heads.) Robertson wound up fading fast in the 1988 primaries.
And if straw polls meant anything, we would have seen President Alan Cranston. The charismatically-challenged Democratic senator won the Wisconsin straw poll of 1983, largely because he was a peace candidate at the height of the nuclear freeze movement. Cranston wound up as an early dropout in the 1984 primaries.
One could go on. George H. W. Bush won a Maine straw poll in 1979, and was beaten by Ronald Reagan a year later. Texas senator Phil Graham also won a Main straw poll, and never got anywhere close to the nomination.
It all comes down to who can pack the house or hand out the most goodies. Steve Forbes finished second in the 1999 Iowa straw poll (it was perhaps the high point of his '00 campaign), in part because he had the best food and the best hospitality tent. The tent, as I recall from being there, featured French doors.
So that brings us to the Tennessee straw poll last night. Maybe it's sheer unmitigated coincidence, but the first-place finisher in Tennessee was the senator from Tennessee, Bill Frist. His victory had little to do with his speech, which was easily the most tepid of all the '08 hopefuls. No, his victory can be attributed to the three busloads of loyalists who were brought in from nearby towns. So if you see the MSNBC website headline today that reads "Sen. Frist passes first test for 2008," you might want to ask, "What test? That he can pull 526 straw poll votes - 36.9 percent of the total - on his own home turf?"
But if I was compelled to annoint somebody who did well, it would be Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. He finished second (14.4 percent), in a region where he is arguably little known. That should give him bragging rights for a day or so.
But I didn't bother to discuss one sideshow aspect of this Memphis event (although I plan to mention it in print, and in passing, tomorrow). The Republicans held a "straw poll," supposedly designed to measure the level of sentiment for the early '08 prospects.
Oh please.
It's a nice way for grassroots activists to give a little feedback to the process; it's also inevitable fodder for the political journalists who breathe this stuff 24/7 and who are perpetually ravenous for any numbers that might measure anything. But history demonstrates that these exercises are basically a waste of time.
The term "straw poll" is apparently attributable to a 17th-century thinker named John Seldon, who wrote, "Take a straw and throw it up into the Air — you may see by that which way the Wind is." The problem is, the American straw polls seem to suggest that the wind always blows every which way.
For instance, if straw polls meant anything, we would have seen President Pat Robertson. The religious right leader won the Iowa straw poll of 1987, basically because he organized the most people to show up. (For easy identification purposes, they wore revolving lights on their heads.) Robertson wound up fading fast in the 1988 primaries.
And if straw polls meant anything, we would have seen President Alan Cranston. The charismatically-challenged Democratic senator won the Wisconsin straw poll of 1983, largely because he was a peace candidate at the height of the nuclear freeze movement. Cranston wound up as an early dropout in the 1984 primaries.
One could go on. George H. W. Bush won a Maine straw poll in 1979, and was beaten by Ronald Reagan a year later. Texas senator Phil Graham also won a Main straw poll, and never got anywhere close to the nomination.
It all comes down to who can pack the house or hand out the most goodies. Steve Forbes finished second in the 1999 Iowa straw poll (it was perhaps the high point of his '00 campaign), in part because he had the best food and the best hospitality tent. The tent, as I recall from being there, featured French doors.
So that brings us to the Tennessee straw poll last night. Maybe it's sheer unmitigated coincidence, but the first-place finisher in Tennessee was the senator from Tennessee, Bill Frist. His victory had little to do with his speech, which was easily the most tepid of all the '08 hopefuls. No, his victory can be attributed to the three busloads of loyalists who were brought in from nearby towns. So if you see the MSNBC website headline today that reads "Sen. Frist passes first test for 2008," you might want to ask, "What test? That he can pull 526 straw poll votes - 36.9 percent of the total - on his own home turf?"
But if I was compelled to annoint somebody who did well, it would be Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. He finished second (14.4 percent), in a region where he is arguably little known. That should give him bragging rights for a day or so.
Friday, March 10, 2006
What, you have something better to do on Sunday?
There won't be a Saturday entry, due to the workload at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference here in Memphis, where various '08 presidential hopefuls are peddling their wares. I am also scheduled to be busy eating a large amount of fried and barbecued food.
However, I am scheduled to assess the Memphis event and the GOP situation during a guest appearance on C-Span, 8:30 am EST. on Sunday morning. Tune in. Why should I be the only one getting up nearly?
However, I am scheduled to assess the Memphis event and the GOP situation during a guest appearance on C-Span, 8:30 am EST. on Sunday morning. Tune in. Why should I be the only one getting up nearly?
The marketing of fear
So the Dubai ports deal has collapsed. It is a vivid testament to President Bush's current political weakness - and the flaws in his post-9/11 rhetoric.
The White House pulled the plug because its ostensible Republican allies on Capitol Hill no longer march to Bush's command. When the deal first surfaced in the press, Bush's defense was that he didn't know about it. Then, while still apparently knowing little, he immediately told Congress to bring it on: if it moved to block the deal, he'd veto it. Congress moved to block the deal anyway, voting 62-2 in committee. Guess who blinked. In the words of a Republican consultant who writes on the conservative redstate.org website, Republicans on many issues are now treating Bush as if he was "a diseased person who is possibly infectious."
One big irony of this debacle, however, is that the United Arab Emirates is probably the most pro-western, America-loving nations in the Middle East. One factoid might be of special interest to my fellow Philadelphians: the chairman of Dubai Ports World is a graduate of Temple University who still has a yen for Philly cheesesteaks. One of my Republican contacts, strategist Rich Galen, told me recently, "Dubai looks like Disney World. It's not a bunch of terrorists running around and shooting AK47s into the air."
The problem, however, is that Bush since 9/11 never educated the American public about the distinctions among Arabs. They were all grouped together as enemies who "hate our freedoms."
There was a fundamental difference, for example, between Iraqis and the al Qaeda terrorists, but, through his rhetoric, he repeatedly allowed Americans to blur those distinctions, to the point where a substantial percentage of people truly believed that the 9/11 plot was hatched in, and financed by, Iraq.
No wonder the grassroots erupted at the news of the Dubai deal. Perhaps the fears of Americans were not justified. Perhaps Republican congressmen were not justified in their arguably kneejerk reactions to those fears. But this administration has been on record since the 2002 election season with the argument about eternal vigilance against faceless foreign enemies. It's too late now to put a friendly face on the UAE. The Bush team has reaped what it sowed, to its own political detriment.
The White House pulled the plug because its ostensible Republican allies on Capitol Hill no longer march to Bush's command. When the deal first surfaced in the press, Bush's defense was that he didn't know about it. Then, while still apparently knowing little, he immediately told Congress to bring it on: if it moved to block the deal, he'd veto it. Congress moved to block the deal anyway, voting 62-2 in committee. Guess who blinked. In the words of a Republican consultant who writes on the conservative redstate.org website, Republicans on many issues are now treating Bush as if he was "a diseased person who is possibly infectious."
One big irony of this debacle, however, is that the United Arab Emirates is probably the most pro-western, America-loving nations in the Middle East. One factoid might be of special interest to my fellow Philadelphians: the chairman of Dubai Ports World is a graduate of Temple University who still has a yen for Philly cheesesteaks. One of my Republican contacts, strategist Rich Galen, told me recently, "Dubai looks like Disney World. It's not a bunch of terrorists running around and shooting AK47s into the air."
The problem, however, is that Bush since 9/11 never educated the American public about the distinctions among Arabs. They were all grouped together as enemies who "hate our freedoms."
There was a fundamental difference, for example, between Iraqis and the al Qaeda terrorists, but, through his rhetoric, he repeatedly allowed Americans to blur those distinctions, to the point where a substantial percentage of people truly believed that the 9/11 plot was hatched in, and financed by, Iraq.
No wonder the grassroots erupted at the news of the Dubai deal. Perhaps the fears of Americans were not justified. Perhaps Republican congressmen were not justified in their arguably kneejerk reactions to those fears. But this administration has been on record since the 2002 election season with the argument about eternal vigilance against faceless foreign enemies. It's too late now to put a friendly face on the UAE. The Bush team has reaped what it sowed, to its own political detriment.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
The shelf life of politicians
As I truck on down to Memphis today (wow, I sound just like Elvis) to attend the Southern Republican Leadership Conference and hear from a slew of 2008 presidential hopefuls (oh well, so much for Elvis), I can't help but recall the last time I hung out at one of these confabs. Then, as now, the purpose was to watch GOP presidential hopefuls in action. But with a bit of perspective, it's clear these events are often a primer on the short shelf life of ambitious politicians.
I went to the SRLC meeting of 1998. We in the press, along with a thousand Republican activists, gathered at a casino hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi (that hotel no longer exists, courtesy of Katrina), ate a lot of barbecue chicken, and assessed the rhetorical efforts of the GOP notables who were thirsting to succeed Bill Clinton in the White House.
The people we heard from included:
Dan Quayle.
Steve Forbes.
Lamar Alexander.
Jack Kemp.
John Ashcroft.
See what I mean when I say short shelf life? None of those guys wound up being big players in the 2000 race. John McCain didn't show up, and nobody had an inkling about him anyway. And George W. Bush didn't show up either, and I remember a party consultant saying "he's busy running for re-election in Texas, and we want to be loved, up close and early."
So instead we had Quayle, who made Bill Clinton jokes ("The centerpiece of my anticrime policy is 'three interns and you're out!"); Forbes, the flat tax missionary, who was working on not sounding robotic while trying to pander to the religious conservatives in the hall; Alexander, who was everybody's third or fourth choice, and looked like the guy who played Patty Duke's father on the old Patty Duke sitcom; Kemp, who jabbered nonstop and ended with a lament about how he wouldn't live long enough to ski with his grandson's future children; and Ashcroft, who walked around with a sonogram photo of his future grandchild in utero. (Ashcroft dropped out not long after, went back to Missouri to seek a new Senate term, and literally lost his re-election race to a dead person.)
The point is, beware the burnout factor, and the absentee factor. But at least John McCain is coming to Memphis, to face some of the same southern Republicans who spurned him in 2000. That's a decent story. He'll try to win them over without forfeiting his maverick profile. He'll walk the line.
I went to the SRLC meeting of 1998. We in the press, along with a thousand Republican activists, gathered at a casino hotel in Biloxi, Mississippi (that hotel no longer exists, courtesy of Katrina), ate a lot of barbecue chicken, and assessed the rhetorical efforts of the GOP notables who were thirsting to succeed Bill Clinton in the White House.
The people we heard from included:
Dan Quayle.
Steve Forbes.
Lamar Alexander.
Jack Kemp.
John Ashcroft.
See what I mean when I say short shelf life? None of those guys wound up being big players in the 2000 race. John McCain didn't show up, and nobody had an inkling about him anyway. And George W. Bush didn't show up either, and I remember a party consultant saying "he's busy running for re-election in Texas, and we want to be loved, up close and early."
So instead we had Quayle, who made Bill Clinton jokes ("The centerpiece of my anticrime policy is 'three interns and you're out!"); Forbes, the flat tax missionary, who was working on not sounding robotic while trying to pander to the religious conservatives in the hall; Alexander, who was everybody's third or fourth choice, and looked like the guy who played Patty Duke's father on the old Patty Duke sitcom; Kemp, who jabbered nonstop and ended with a lament about how he wouldn't live long enough to ski with his grandson's future children; and Ashcroft, who walked around with a sonogram photo of his future grandchild in utero. (Ashcroft dropped out not long after, went back to Missouri to seek a new Senate term, and literally lost his re-election race to a dead person.)
The point is, beware the burnout factor, and the absentee factor. But at least John McCain is coming to Memphis, to face some of the same southern Republicans who spurned him in 2000. That's a decent story. He'll try to win them over without forfeiting his maverick profile. He'll walk the line.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Another bite of apple pie
There are some things in this life that you can always depend on: a fresh steroid scandal in baseball, a new Van Morrison album every year, a "Sopranos" rerun marathon on HBO, a vow from Democrats that they will soon unveil an agenda, the four-cheese pizzas at Trader Joe's...the list is long.
And here's another item for the list: the GOP's flag desecration issue. From Senate Republican leader Bill Frist's office, in a press release yesterday:
"The American flag is a proud and sacred reminder of the principles of freedom and opportunity that form the foundation of our Republic. Our flag reminds us that there is more that unites us as Americans than divides us, and a constitutional amendment will give one of our Nation's proudest and most treasured symbols the protection it deserves. It honors the sacrifice of countless brave men and women who died defending our flag and the ideals it represents. I look forward to bringing the Flag Protection Amendment to the floor at the end of June so we can debate legislation that respects one of the principal symbols of our nation, and appropriately honors the sacrifice and commitment of all those who've acted to protect it."
Yes, it's that durable evergreen, the Flag Protection Amendment. This is how we know that the springtime buds are about to bloom, and that an election season looms: the Republicans decide to go after the national epidemic of flag-burning, and dare the Democrats to demonstrate their lack of patriotism by opposing it. The Senate vote, as always, will be timed to occur somewhere around July 4.
Maybe what's different this year is that the Republicans fear they have ceded some ground on the patriotism front because of their president's port deal.
But that aside, there's nothing really new to say about the flag flap -- as evidenced by this comment from a Republican strategist named David Murray, extolling the issue's political potency: "It's real simple. Get 10 people in a room, other than ACLU types, and ask them if they'd cross the street to punch out somebody who's burning the flag. In a campaign context, anyone saying 'the right of free expression comes first' is saying, 'I'm for legal flag-burning.' Very risky."
He made that remark to me. The year was 1990.
And here's another item for the list: the GOP's flag desecration issue. From Senate Republican leader Bill Frist's office, in a press release yesterday:
"The American flag is a proud and sacred reminder of the principles of freedom and opportunity that form the foundation of our Republic. Our flag reminds us that there is more that unites us as Americans than divides us, and a constitutional amendment will give one of our Nation's proudest and most treasured symbols the protection it deserves. It honors the sacrifice of countless brave men and women who died defending our flag and the ideals it represents. I look forward to bringing the Flag Protection Amendment to the floor at the end of June so we can debate legislation that respects one of the principal symbols of our nation, and appropriately honors the sacrifice and commitment of all those who've acted to protect it."
Yes, it's that durable evergreen, the Flag Protection Amendment. This is how we know that the springtime buds are about to bloom, and that an election season looms: the Republicans decide to go after the national epidemic of flag-burning, and dare the Democrats to demonstrate their lack of patriotism by opposing it. The Senate vote, as always, will be timed to occur somewhere around July 4.
Maybe what's different this year is that the Republicans fear they have ceded some ground on the patriotism front because of their president's port deal.
But that aside, there's nothing really new to say about the flag flap -- as evidenced by this comment from a Republican strategist named David Murray, extolling the issue's political potency: "It's real simple. Get 10 people in a room, other than ACLU types, and ask them if they'd cross the street to punch out somebody who's burning the flag. In a campaign context, anyone saying 'the right of free expression comes first' is saying, 'I'm for legal flag-burning.' Very risky."
He made that remark to me. The year was 1990.
No liberal triumphalism today
It's a bad news morning for liberals everywhere. Tom DeLay, indicted but unbowed, has easily won the Republican primary in his Texas district, which means that he gets to run for re-election against a Democrat in November. Three GOP rivals were trying to knock him out of renomination (see my March 4 post), but clearly the fallen House Republican leader still retains the loyalty of the conservatives in his district who are most motivated to show up for a primary.
Those loyalists wanted to send a message to their perceived antagonists in the outside world. When I saw the vote results, I remembered something that a DeLay diehard said to me last year, when I spent a week in the suburban Houston district. Terese Raia, a feisty red-headed grandma, said: "Just the idea that the Democrats and the media will try to determine who will win or lose next year in our congressional district, that's the most frightening thing in the world. What they tried to do to President Bush, now they're trying to do it to Tom. It's pathetic."
But a triumphant DeLay (for now, anyway) isn't the only disappointment for liberals this morning. They had set up a purity test in a south Texas Democratic primary, a national test for Bush-hating bloggers and activist, but they lost big time.
In a heavily Hispanic district that stretches from San Antonio to Laredo, the faceoff pitted incumbent congressman Henry Cueller, a moderate Democrat, against a challenger, liberal Democrat Ciro Rodriquez. Grassroots liberals nationwide, using the Internet to raise money, backed Rodriguez. They wanted to knock off Cueller, who they viewed as a "DINO" (an acronym for "Democrats in Name Only)," because Cueller had worked with House Republicans on several big issues, and -- this was the worst sin of all -- because Cueller had allowed President Bush to affectionately grab his cheeks in the aisle of the House, prior to the Jan. 31 State of the Union speech.
Liberal activists had hoped to spin a Cueller loss as evidence that any consorting with Bush was political suicide, and that anti-Bush sentiment is a powerful political force. The latter might still turn out to be true in the '06 November elections. But there was no boon in south Texas last night, because political realities often foil a simple story line. There's a strong military presence in that particular district - where the heavily Hispanic electorate backed Bush in the '04 elections by six percentage points.
In this polarized era, there are still a few moderate Republicans and Democrats left in Congress, people who are willing to work with the other side sometimes. Cueller stays on that roster.
Those loyalists wanted to send a message to their perceived antagonists in the outside world. When I saw the vote results, I remembered something that a DeLay diehard said to me last year, when I spent a week in the suburban Houston district. Terese Raia, a feisty red-headed grandma, said: "Just the idea that the Democrats and the media will try to determine who will win or lose next year in our congressional district, that's the most frightening thing in the world. What they tried to do to President Bush, now they're trying to do it to Tom. It's pathetic."
But a triumphant DeLay (for now, anyway) isn't the only disappointment for liberals this morning. They had set up a purity test in a south Texas Democratic primary, a national test for Bush-hating bloggers and activist, but they lost big time.
In a heavily Hispanic district that stretches from San Antonio to Laredo, the faceoff pitted incumbent congressman Henry Cueller, a moderate Democrat, against a challenger, liberal Democrat Ciro Rodriquez. Grassroots liberals nationwide, using the Internet to raise money, backed Rodriguez. They wanted to knock off Cueller, who they viewed as a "DINO" (an acronym for "Democrats in Name Only)," because Cueller had worked with House Republicans on several big issues, and -- this was the worst sin of all -- because Cueller had allowed President Bush to affectionately grab his cheeks in the aisle of the House, prior to the Jan. 31 State of the Union speech.
Liberal activists had hoped to spin a Cueller loss as evidence that any consorting with Bush was political suicide, and that anti-Bush sentiment is a powerful political force. The latter might still turn out to be true in the '06 November elections. But there was no boon in south Texas last night, because political realities often foil a simple story line. There's a strong military presence in that particular district - where the heavily Hispanic electorate backed Bush in the '04 elections by six percentage points.
In this polarized era, there are still a few moderate Republicans and Democrats left in Congress, people who are willing to work with the other side sometimes. Cueller stays on that roster.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Shootout at credibility gap
One big reason why the Bush administration is having serious credibility problems - a new national poll reports that 55 percent of the people view President Bush as untrustworthy - is because its leaders keep contradicting each other on Iraq.
You have the happy talkers, like Bush ("we're making progress," he said again last week) and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Peter Pace (the war in Iraq is "going very, very well, from everything you look at"). But you also have the gloom and doomers, like Bush's ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, who now declares in a newspaper interview that the toppling of Saddam Hussein opened "a Pandora's box" of sectarian and ethnic tensions and violence.
Strangely, I don't recall, back in the prewar phase, that anybody in the administration was warning of a Pandora's box being opened.
Anyway, Bush also told an ABC reporter last week, "I don't buy your premise that there's going to be civil war." (Actually, that wasn't her premise, she was merely asking a what-if question, but never mind.) But whereas Bush was basically dismissing any talk of civil war, his own ambassador is now talking up that possibility.
The "potential is there," said Khalizad, and if another major incident occurs, equivalent to the bombing two weeks ago of a Shiite Muslim shrine, then "Iraq is really vulnerable to it at this time, in my judgment."
It's a sign of trouble when the Bush team's vaunted message discipline falters so blatantly.
And I'll stop here with a question:
A new argument these days, among many Bush supporters, is that anyone in the press who raises the possibility of civil war must, by definition, be rooting for civil war. Would they suggest that Khalizad shares that sentiment?
You have the happy talkers, like Bush ("we're making progress," he said again last week) and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Peter Pace (the war in Iraq is "going very, very well, from everything you look at"). But you also have the gloom and doomers, like Bush's ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, who now declares in a newspaper interview that the toppling of Saddam Hussein opened "a Pandora's box" of sectarian and ethnic tensions and violence.
Strangely, I don't recall, back in the prewar phase, that anybody in the administration was warning of a Pandora's box being opened.
Anyway, Bush also told an ABC reporter last week, "I don't buy your premise that there's going to be civil war." (Actually, that wasn't her premise, she was merely asking a what-if question, but never mind.) But whereas Bush was basically dismissing any talk of civil war, his own ambassador is now talking up that possibility.
The "potential is there," said Khalizad, and if another major incident occurs, equivalent to the bombing two weeks ago of a Shiite Muslim shrine, then "Iraq is really vulnerable to it at this time, in my judgment."
It's a sign of trouble when the Bush team's vaunted message discipline falters so blatantly.
And I'll stop here with a question:
A new argument these days, among many Bush supporters, is that anyone in the press who raises the possibility of civil war must, by definition, be rooting for civil war. Would they suggest that Khalizad shares that sentiment?
Abandoning ship..with a Ralph Reed addendum
Bill Thomas is not a household name - actually, it sounds like a name found in any household - but it's an important name in politics this morning. There's a Bill Thomas serving in Congress, a very powerful House leader who has advanced the Bush agenda since 2001, but now he has announced that he will not run for reelection in November.
What's significant is that he's merely the latest congressional Republican to announce his retirement, thereby fueling more talk about whether GOP lawmakers are starting to rush for the exits, in anticipation of a Democratic takeover on Capitol Hill in the sixth year of President Bush's increasingly embattled tenure. That's certainly what happened to the Democrats in 1994, when Bill Clinton's woeful initial performance inspired as many as 30 congressional Democrats to abandon ship (and we know what happened that November: enter the Newt Gingrich majority).
Naturally, the Democrats right now are acting gleeful about the prospect of more GOP retirements - three have been announced during the past two weeks - because retirements create open seats, and open seats (theoretically, anyway) are more ripe for the taking than seats defended by incumbents who have all the incumbent advantages, such as money and name recognition. With Thomas stepping down, there are 26 open seats -- 17 of them abandoned by Republicans. If Democrats can pick up 15 House seats in November, they take over the chamber.
But that's tougher than it sounds, even with these GOP retirements. Thus far, virtually all of the retirees hail from districts that are solidly Republican - voters in Thomas' California district gave Bush 68 percent of the vote in the '04 presidential election - so it's hardly a cinch for Democrats to turn those seats.
The future, however, may be brighter, if (as many predict) incumbent Republicans from more competitive districts decide to bail out in the months ahead. That could hinge on whether Bush's standing continues to slide, along with the prospects for succeess in Iraq, and along with the prospects for quick closure in the Jack Abramoff case.
Abramoff, the conservative idealogue who morphed into a super lobbyist and confessed felon, is still a wild card whose ties to the Republican majority may still provide fresh embarrassments -- check out the third and fourth paragraphs of this story -- for certain vulnerable incumbents. Such as Tom DeLay, who faces a competitive primary contest today (see my March 4 posting) and a tough re-election race in November.
And speaking of Abramoff: Another way to gauge his impact on GOP fortunes is keep an eye on Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition director who is trying to get elected as lieutenant governor of Georgia. To put it mildly, Reed is an ambitious guy who does not see the number-two Georgia job as his ultimate destination.
But his lucrative financial ties to Abramoff, his pal of several decades, may well trip him up.
Reed must first win a GOP primary in August, and he's facing tough competition from a state senator and fellow conservative, Casey Cagle. Cagle is raising more money than Reed at this point, and a majority of state senate Republicans sent Reed a letter the other day, demanding that Reed quit the race.
Reed hasn't been charged with any crime, but his Abramoff baggage is a big reason why his career plan might go awry; for starters, a U.S. Senate investigation has unearthed stacks of emails between Abramoff and Reed, indicating a close lobbying relationship. Moreover, Reed has been insisting for months that when he signed up in 2000 to lobby against a proposed congressional ban on Internet gambling, he had no idea that his client was an online lottery firm with ties to Abramoff. Yet now comes evidence, laid out here, which suggests that he knew all along. He's still deying it, though.
What's significant is that he's merely the latest congressional Republican to announce his retirement, thereby fueling more talk about whether GOP lawmakers are starting to rush for the exits, in anticipation of a Democratic takeover on Capitol Hill in the sixth year of President Bush's increasingly embattled tenure. That's certainly what happened to the Democrats in 1994, when Bill Clinton's woeful initial performance inspired as many as 30 congressional Democrats to abandon ship (and we know what happened that November: enter the Newt Gingrich majority).
Naturally, the Democrats right now are acting gleeful about the prospect of more GOP retirements - three have been announced during the past two weeks - because retirements create open seats, and open seats (theoretically, anyway) are more ripe for the taking than seats defended by incumbents who have all the incumbent advantages, such as money and name recognition. With Thomas stepping down, there are 26 open seats -- 17 of them abandoned by Republicans. If Democrats can pick up 15 House seats in November, they take over the chamber.
But that's tougher than it sounds, even with these GOP retirements. Thus far, virtually all of the retirees hail from districts that are solidly Republican - voters in Thomas' California district gave Bush 68 percent of the vote in the '04 presidential election - so it's hardly a cinch for Democrats to turn those seats.
The future, however, may be brighter, if (as many predict) incumbent Republicans from more competitive districts decide to bail out in the months ahead. That could hinge on whether Bush's standing continues to slide, along with the prospects for succeess in Iraq, and along with the prospects for quick closure in the Jack Abramoff case.
Abramoff, the conservative idealogue who morphed into a super lobbyist and confessed felon, is still a wild card whose ties to the Republican majority may still provide fresh embarrassments -- check out the third and fourth paragraphs of this story -- for certain vulnerable incumbents. Such as Tom DeLay, who faces a competitive primary contest today (see my March 4 posting) and a tough re-election race in November.
And speaking of Abramoff: Another way to gauge his impact on GOP fortunes is keep an eye on Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition director who is trying to get elected as lieutenant governor of Georgia. To put it mildly, Reed is an ambitious guy who does not see the number-two Georgia job as his ultimate destination.
But his lucrative financial ties to Abramoff, his pal of several decades, may well trip him up.
Reed must first win a GOP primary in August, and he's facing tough competition from a state senator and fellow conservative, Casey Cagle. Cagle is raising more money than Reed at this point, and a majority of state senate Republicans sent Reed a letter the other day, demanding that Reed quit the race.
Reed hasn't been charged with any crime, but his Abramoff baggage is a big reason why his career plan might go awry; for starters, a U.S. Senate investigation has unearthed stacks of emails between Abramoff and Reed, indicating a close lobbying relationship. Moreover, Reed has been insisting for months that when he signed up in 2000 to lobby against a proposed congressional ban on Internet gambling, he had no idea that his client was an online lottery firm with ties to Abramoff. Yet now comes evidence, laid out here, which suggests that he knew all along. He's still deying it, though.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Are we, or are we not?
While researching my weekend column about our grim options in Iraq on the eve of the third anniversary of war, I had a conversation with former Democratic Senator Gary Hart, who had stopped in Philadelphia to give a speech. Only a fragment of that interview made it into the story, so I've decided to post more of his comments here. On the issue of U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq, he raised an important point that has gotten little public attention thus far:
"Are we or are we not building permanent military bases (in Iraq)? I keep trying to get anybody (in the press) to ask about this..I'll tell you what I mean by permanent: pouring concrete and welding steel. Yes or no? Not tents and ditch latrines. Concrete bases and structures. Yes or no? They (the Bush people) have never disavowed it...You can't say you are leaving Iraq if you're also welding the steel. Any why can't we seem to find out? I know the Republican Congress will not do its job of asking questions, even though that's the job of Congress.
"What are our plans there? The neoconservatives clearly had the idea that we'd put in an Iraqi government hospitable to us, and that we'd use Iraq as our base in the Middle East for the next 100 years. That was the plan. You can't tell me they have totally given up on it. I wouldn't be surprised to pick up the paper in the morning and it says, 'Iraqi government invites us to stay,' and Bush says, 'Gee whiz, they want us to stay there.'"
Hart was pretty passionate about the bases, and he's hardly alone on that. If we do build permanent bases and house some troops there, will it really be accurate to say that we have withdrawn from Iraq? And would permanent bases perpetually inflame the home-grown insurgency that wants the U.S. to go home? Larry Diamond, senior fellow at a conservative think tank and a former consultant to the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq, has been arguing that only an unequivocal renunciation of the idea by the Bush administration will truly neutralize the insurgents' "anti-imperial passion."
There have been sporadic reports that the U.S. has been building at least four such bases; in fact, the Washington Post has already published details of a walled-off facility that features four mess halls, a hospital, a huge airstrip, a miniature golf course, a 24-hour Burger King, a Pizza Hut, a Popeye's, and a store that sells TVs and IPods. There have also been reports of a fifth base in the works, near the Baghdad airport, that, in addition to thick blast walls, would feature a gym, swimming pool, beauty shops and a food court.
When top Bush officials have been asked whether such permanent bases exist in actuality or on paper, they have never issued a blanket ironclad denial. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly said last December that "at the moment there are no plans for permanent bases," and nine months earlier he told Congress that "we have no intention at the present time to put permanent bases in Iraq."
Because they decline to engage the issue, Bush officials might be passing up the chance to state the arguably positive case for permanent bases (i.e., keeping some troops in Iraq might help shore up the Iraqi unity government - if and when it is created - and prevent the various sectarian factions from launching a full-blown civil war). But while they stay mute on the topic, the critics of permanent bases are dominating the discussion.
Here, for example, is what Democratic congresswoman and defense specialist Jane Harman said at a Brookings Institition briefing on Iraq two weeks ago: "It is critical that the administration make clear that it does not intend to keep permanent military bases there. I've made this point to every moving part of the White House, and the military side of the Pentagon, and certainly including (Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman) Peter Pace. Every time he sees me coming, he says 'I'm working on it.' But it is absolutely critical to tell the Iraqi people - most of whom don't believe this - that we are not going to be permanent occupiers."
As for Pace, he appeared yesterday on two morning shows - Fox News Sunday and Meet the Press. He wasn't asked a single question about the issue of permanent bases.
"Are we or are we not building permanent military bases (in Iraq)? I keep trying to get anybody (in the press) to ask about this..I'll tell you what I mean by permanent: pouring concrete and welding steel. Yes or no? Not tents and ditch latrines. Concrete bases and structures. Yes or no? They (the Bush people) have never disavowed it...You can't say you are leaving Iraq if you're also welding the steel. Any why can't we seem to find out? I know the Republican Congress will not do its job of asking questions, even though that's the job of Congress.
"What are our plans there? The neoconservatives clearly had the idea that we'd put in an Iraqi government hospitable to us, and that we'd use Iraq as our base in the Middle East for the next 100 years. That was the plan. You can't tell me they have totally given up on it. I wouldn't be surprised to pick up the paper in the morning and it says, 'Iraqi government invites us to stay,' and Bush says, 'Gee whiz, they want us to stay there.'"
Hart was pretty passionate about the bases, and he's hardly alone on that. If we do build permanent bases and house some troops there, will it really be accurate to say that we have withdrawn from Iraq? And would permanent bases perpetually inflame the home-grown insurgency that wants the U.S. to go home? Larry Diamond, senior fellow at a conservative think tank and a former consultant to the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq, has been arguing that only an unequivocal renunciation of the idea by the Bush administration will truly neutralize the insurgents' "anti-imperial passion."
There have been sporadic reports that the U.S. has been building at least four such bases; in fact, the Washington Post has already published details of a walled-off facility that features four mess halls, a hospital, a huge airstrip, a miniature golf course, a 24-hour Burger King, a Pizza Hut, a Popeye's, and a store that sells TVs and IPods. There have also been reports of a fifth base in the works, near the Baghdad airport, that, in addition to thick blast walls, would feature a gym, swimming pool, beauty shops and a food court.
When top Bush officials have been asked whether such permanent bases exist in actuality or on paper, they have never issued a blanket ironclad denial. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reportedly said last December that "at the moment there are no plans for permanent bases," and nine months earlier he told Congress that "we have no intention at the present time to put permanent bases in Iraq."
Because they decline to engage the issue, Bush officials might be passing up the chance to state the arguably positive case for permanent bases (i.e., keeping some troops in Iraq might help shore up the Iraqi unity government - if and when it is created - and prevent the various sectarian factions from launching a full-blown civil war). But while they stay mute on the topic, the critics of permanent bases are dominating the discussion.
Here, for example, is what Democratic congresswoman and defense specialist Jane Harman said at a Brookings Institition briefing on Iraq two weeks ago: "It is critical that the administration make clear that it does not intend to keep permanent military bases there. I've made this point to every moving part of the White House, and the military side of the Pentagon, and certainly including (Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman) Peter Pace. Every time he sees me coming, he says 'I'm working on it.' But it is absolutely critical to tell the Iraqi people - most of whom don't believe this - that we are not going to be permanent occupiers."
As for Pace, he appeared yesterday on two morning shows - Fox News Sunday and Meet the Press. He wasn't asked a single question about the issue of permanent bases.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Mea culpa politicking
John Edwards (remember him? Democratic veep candidate with the Bobby Kennedy forelock?) was on Meet the Press today, talking about his 2002 Senate vote authorizing President Bush to wage war in Iraq. See if you can spot the key word:
"I don't think I was the only one who was wrong...It was wrong...the vote was wrong and my judgement was wrong...saying that my vote was wrong is the truth...I was wrong...I was wrong, absolutely."
That's seven renditions of the W-word, all within roughly 60 seconds, and here's what it means: Edwards wants to run for president in 2008.
I'm not suggesting that Edwards doesn't sincerely regret his '02 vote and that his regrets are not substantive. But it just so happens that there will be a niche in the '08 Democratic primaries for a candidate who does a mea culpa on the war. Liberal antiwar voters want the party's pro-war senators of 2002 to show some contrition before the primaries commence. So Edwards is doing it. John Kerry actually did it before Edwards did, swapping his former Hamlet countenance for eating crow.
There has been so anxiety in Democratic circles about doing the mea culpa; as I wrote in a piece last autumn, some Democrats think that a confession of error would be tantamount to saying that they were easily duped by Bush, and therefore would be perceived as too naive for the top job. They also recall what happened in 1967 to Republican candidate George Romney, who said he'd been "brainwashed" by the military brass while visiting Vietnam, a gaffe that dashed his bid.
Nevertheless, doing the mea culpa will be good politics for any Democratic candidate who wants to harvest votes on the left during the primary season. After all, the first stop in '08 is Iowa, where antiwar liberals can be expected to vote heavily.
And maybe 'fessing up will also be spun as a character issue. Edwards took that route today, arguing that "the foundation for moral leadership is the truth." He's touting the message that admitting a wrong is an attractive trait...in contrast to a president who generally insists that he's always right.
Whether that, and an anti-poverty agenda, is enough to establish Edwards as the prime alternative to Hillary Clinton (who has yet to do the mea culpa) is another story.
"I don't think I was the only one who was wrong...It was wrong...the vote was wrong and my judgement was wrong...saying that my vote was wrong is the truth...I was wrong...I was wrong, absolutely."
That's seven renditions of the W-word, all within roughly 60 seconds, and here's what it means: Edwards wants to run for president in 2008.
I'm not suggesting that Edwards doesn't sincerely regret his '02 vote and that his regrets are not substantive. But it just so happens that there will be a niche in the '08 Democratic primaries for a candidate who does a mea culpa on the war. Liberal antiwar voters want the party's pro-war senators of 2002 to show some contrition before the primaries commence. So Edwards is doing it. John Kerry actually did it before Edwards did, swapping his former Hamlet countenance for eating crow.
There has been so anxiety in Democratic circles about doing the mea culpa; as I wrote in a piece last autumn, some Democrats think that a confession of error would be tantamount to saying that they were easily duped by Bush, and therefore would be perceived as too naive for the top job. They also recall what happened in 1967 to Republican candidate George Romney, who said he'd been "brainwashed" by the military brass while visiting Vietnam, a gaffe that dashed his bid.
Nevertheless, doing the mea culpa will be good politics for any Democratic candidate who wants to harvest votes on the left during the primary season. After all, the first stop in '08 is Iowa, where antiwar liberals can be expected to vote heavily.
And maybe 'fessing up will also be spun as a character issue. Edwards took that route today, arguing that "the foundation for moral leadership is the truth." He's touting the message that admitting a wrong is an attractive trait...in contrast to a president who generally insists that he's always right.
Whether that, and an anti-poverty agenda, is enough to establish Edwards as the prime alternative to Hillary Clinton (who has yet to do the mea culpa) is another story.
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