Month: January 2008

Yuk[s] Factor

by digby

It’s a little bit rusty, hasn’t been out for a spin since 2004, and needs a few springs and belts replaced. But the old machine looks like it’s up and running.

The Muck is featuring this lovely story today about Roger Stone, one of the original Dick Nixon dirty tricksters, and his latest project:

So what’s Stone up to? Fortunately, he laid the whole scheme out to The Weekly Standard. It’s this simple: it’s all about the group’s acronym, which, used in conjunction with Hillary Clinton, is supposed to be irresistibly humorous. That is the beginning and the end of it. The group will not be running ads in any form and will not be making any robocalls. They’ll be making T-shirts. That’s it. You can buy them for $25 on their website:

In addition to this website being blast-emailed to hundreds of thousands of addresses that Stone and [another GOP operative] have accumulated over the years (working off over 170 different email lists of everyone from opinion-makers to political activists to industry associations), Stone is counting on T-shirt sales to further serve as “billboard education.” He figures the whole thing will end up taking on a viral nature, thanks to the yuks factor….

“The more people go to the site, the more people buy the T-shirts,” Stone explains…. “The more people buy the T-shirts, the more people wear the T-shirts. The more people wear the T-shirts, the more people are educated. Consequently, our mission has been achieved.” Though neither the word itself nor even the acronym is ever mentioned, “it’s one-word education. That’s our mission. No issues. No policy groups. No position papers. This is a simple committee with an unfortunate acronym….”

…The Standard explains that Stone is “trying to tap into deep-seated sentiments about Clinton that pundits and rival candidates can’t articulate.”

Oh I don’t know. The MSNBC boy pundits don’t seem to have any trouble articulating their deep-seated sentiments about Clinton. Of course, they use other words like “shrew” and “witch” but they’ve made themselves very clear. I’ll bet old Tucker, who features Roger regularly on the show, will be buying up a whole case of those funny t-shirts to give to all his buddies there at the network to wear under their shirts so they can giggle to themselves whenever they see a girl walking down the hallway. “Boy I bet she’d be mad if she knew I was wearing this t-shirt. Heh.”

Of course you all know about Roger, don’t you?

Update: The boyz are giving Tweety a hard time for letting those bitches push him around. The poor little guy just can’t win.

Update II: More yuks on MSNBC. They just can’t stop themselves.

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Putting His Foot Down

by digby

So here’s Greenwald with the latest on the FISA kabuki, and this time it’s so clunky and obvious it’s more like a bunch of drunk college kids singing karaoke on platform shoes:

Harry Reid — who has (a) done more than any other individual to ensure that Bush’s demands for telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping powers will be met in full and (b) allowed the Republicans all year to block virtually every bill without having to bother to actually filibuster — went to the Senate floor yesterday and, with the scripted assistance of Mitch McConnell and Pat Leahy, warned Chris Dodd, Russ Feingold and others that they would be selfishly wreaking havoc on the schedules of their fellow Senators (making them work over the weekend, ruining their planned “retreat,” and even preventing them from going to Davos!) if they bothered everyone with their annoying, pointless little filibuster. To do so, Reid announced that, unlike for the multiple filibusters from Republican colleagues, he would actually force Dodd and company to engage in a real filibuster. This is what Reid said:

[I]f people think they are going to talk this to death, we are going to be in here all night. This is not something we are going to have a silent filibuster on. If someone wants to filibuster this bill, they are going to do it in the openness of the Senate.

That is what Democrats have been urging Reid to do to the filibustering Republicans all year — in order to dramatize their obstructionism — but he has refused to make them actually filibuster anything, generously agreeing instead that every bill requires 60 votes. Instead, he reserves such punishment only for the members of his own caucus trying to take a stand for the rule of law and the Constitution, those who are trying finally to bring some accountability to this administration.

Just to make that clear, here’s a little reminder of all the filibusters the Democrats have not forced their new pals in bipartisan comity to actually do:

Read all of Glenn’s post. He features the patronizing and demeaning little script that Reid, his counterpart the unctuous drip Mitch McConnell and Pat Leahy (!) came up with to announce their bipartisan agreement to force Democrat Chris Dodd to do what Republicans only have to pretend to do.

The next president of the United States is very likely to be one of two sitting senators who are, at the moment, the two most powerful people in the Democratic Party. Either one of them could bring their star power and future institutional clout to bear on this debate if they wanted to. Will they? I don’t know. Maybe all you supporters out there should stop arguing amongst yourselves about trivia for a couple of minutes and ask them. You can go here to send a message. (And if you happen to be at a town hall meeting or a speech somewhere, how about holding up a sign or asking your guy or gal about this?)

Glenn updates his post with this, for those of you who may have forgotten what a constitutional atrocity this bill is:

For an excellent summary of just how radical and invasive these new warrantless eavesdopping powers are that Senate Democrats are about to enact, see this comment here, complete with citations. And that’s separate and apart from the fact that telecom immunity will, in effect, end any prospect of accountability for Bush officials and telecoms who deliberately violated our laws for years in how they spied on us, and, by squelching these lawsuits, will block off the sole remaining avenue even for finding out what they actually did. It will take years, probably decades, for us to learn the real story — once there’s some Church-type Commission again or the relevant documents are declassified.

We have three of the nation’s top lawyers as the front runners in the Democratic Party primary. One of them is a constitutional scholar, another has been treated to abuses by the long arm of the government in her own political life. The third has based his entire campaign on the fight for the common man against the powerful interests.

It’s unfathomable that if they all believe that this bill should not pass, that they cannot exert enough power over their own party at this moment of high drama to put a stop to it. The only thing that will happen is that the FISA law that we have been living under from 1978 through August 2007 will remain on the books unchanged. That’s it. If these three can’t figure out a way to explain that to the people, how in the hell are they going to be able to do it once they are president? They’ll be at the mercy of these same Republicans for their entire term.

Republicans don’t need a majority as long as they have an opposition that is afraid of their own shadows.

Update: D-Day has more bipartisan kumbaaya from the House today on the Bolton and Miers subpoenas over at his blog. Apparently our 28%, lame duck president is holding the stimulus package hostage. Unless the congress agrees to end all thus unpleasantness about looking into executive abuses, lawbreaking and constitutional abuses, the economy gets it. They really are like the mafia.

Update II: Here’s Emptywheel with the most absurd moment of the day: Dick Cheney appealing for bipartisanship.

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Reading Progressive Blogs Is Like Going In A Time Machine

by dday

…as Kagro X often says. The “news” doesn’t catch up until a week or so later.

More than a dozen Iraqi lawmakers, U.S. officials and former Baathists here and in exile expressed concern in interviews that the law could set off a new purge of ex-Baathists, the opposite of U.S. hopes for the legislation.

Approved by parliament this month under pressure from U.S. officials, the law was heralded by President Bush and Iraqi leaders as a way to soothe the deep anger of many ex-Baathists — primarily Sunnis but also many Shiites such as Awadi — toward the Shiite-led government.

Yet U.S. officials and even legislators who voted for the measure, which still requires approval by Iraq’s presidency council, acknowledge that its impact is hard to assess from its text and will depend on how it is implemented. Some say the law’s primary aim is not to return ex-Baathists to work, but to recognize and compensate those harmed by the party. Of the law’s eight stated justifications, none mentions reinstating ex-Baathists to their jobs.

“The law is about as clear as mud,” said one U.S. senior diplomat.

Of course, this tracks with what I wrote 10 days ago about the Iraqi de-Baathification law, which was obviously bogus from the moment it was announced.

Obviously this was something spearheaded by the Shiite majority in the Parliament, otherwise it could not get done this quickly. What I did not know until reading deeper into the reports is that the law was actively opposed by the Sunni minority who you would think would be precisely those to benefit from its implementation. And the prime movers were the Sadrists, not likely to be those interested in unity and reconciliation […]

The Sadrists had demanded that the De-Baathification Commission not be dissolved, but would accept a change in name for it. They had demanded that the Baath Party remain dissolved, and that the high-ranking members of the party be forbidden to enter the new political life or serve as bureaucrats. The Sadrists had also insisted that any high-ranking Baathists presently employed by the new Iraqi government must be fired!

The headlines are all saying that the law permits Baathists back into public life. It seems actually to demand that they be fired or retired on a pension, and any who are employed are excluded from sensitive ministries.

You didn’t have to do a lot of digging to understand the truth here. But our media decided to swallow Administration bullshit (as they have been wont to do since before the war began, on 935 separate occasions) for a week and a half and give the mindless defenders another propaganda victory. And with an opposition party standing mute, there was nobody disputing the incorrect myth of progress.

The delay from the traditional media makes it nearly impossible to convince the public that this law was useless and indeed counter-productive. The impact is that the Administration narrative becomes the first to market, and impossible to dislodge.

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An Impenetrable Din

by tristero

It’s official: Bush lied.

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

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The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

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Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell’s 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.

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“The cumulative effect of these false statements _ amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts _ was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war,” the study concluded.

No shit.

Here’s a link to the study called The War Card. Should make interesting reading. I wonder if any The Village will bother. Well, actually I don’t wonder.

It’s Baaack

by digby

It looks like we’re going to party like it’s 2002. Again. An unnecessary national security vote is being forced down the throat of a Democratic congress by the otherwise totally obstructionist Republicans, and the Democrats are anxious to sweep it under the rug so they can avoid being called cowards. Election year greatest hits: give them what they want so we can move on to “our issues.” Get ready to hear this stale old tune a lot.

Glenn Greenwald delivers the bad news:

Here we have a perfect expression of the most self-destructive Democratic disease which they seem unable to cure. More than anything, they fear looking “weak.” To avoid this, they “cave” and surrender and capitulate and stand for nothing. As a result, they are, as here, endlessly described in the media as “caving” and surrendering. As a result, they look (and are) weak. It’s a self-destructive cycle that has no end. As a result of all of this, Senate Republicans, despite their alleged “minority” status, are now refusing even to agree to a brief extension of the Protect America Act, believing — with good reason — that they can simply bully and scare the Democrats into passing a law that has everything Our Commander-in-Chief is demanding:

Intelligence and surveillance wars are going to be fought in Washington this week, and Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is at the center. . . . The original six-month, stop-gap measure from August expires on Feb. 1, and rumor is that the Democratic leadership wants to simply pass an extension of the August bill. But Bond and others on the committee say the Senate has had plenty of time to deal with the issue, and they’re going to push for action on the October bill. “Congress will have only eight days to pass a fix before our foreign intelligence surveillance law (FISA) expires,” Bond says. “To continue to stall legislation needed to help our intelligence community prevent attacks and protect American lives is irresponsible.”

They’re well on their way to forcing the Congress — again — into the most obscenely absurd posture imaginable, where they pass a major new surveillance and domestic spying bill, this time along with telecom immunity, because Republicans tell the country that unless Democrats do this, and quick, we’re going to be Slaughtered by The Terrorists.

You really have to give those Republicans credit. They don’t care how unpopular they are or how humiliating their presidential candidates are or how much they’ve screwed up the country. They just arrogantly keep going right in the Democrats’ faces and telling them to “bring it.”

As for the Dems, I would imagine they just don’t think it’s worth the trouble. If the telcoms are given immunity they’ll never know what really happened and they’ll never have to face the unpleasantness of confronting the Republicans on this issue. They are getting ready to close the book on the Bush years and, like the Republicans and the rest of the political establishment, pretend that it never happened.

So, what to do?

Well, Chris Dodd is still promising to filibuster, but is getting no love at all from his fellow Senators. But you may have heard that there’s a little primary campaign going on right now with two Democratic Senators in the news nearly around the clock. You’d think we could do a little something with that wouldn’t you?

Back when Dodd did the first filibuster, I wrote this:

Senators Clinton, Biden and Obama said they would support a filibuster. Edwards said he supported one too. If they would agree to come back to the Senate and help Dodd talk all night, it would bring much need attention to the issue and show the Democratic base that these candidates value them. Imagine if they all (including Edwards) agreed to suspend their campaigns and come back to Washington to stand with Dodd. It would be electrifying — and it would show the country that the Democrats are prepared to fight. (It would also give them a bunch of free TV time.)

Will any of them (all of them?) do the right thing or will they blow it off?

The field has narrowed a bit. But nothing else has changed. They could, if they wanted to, take their shows back to DC and do something that would show the country that the Democratic party stands together against unconstitutional usurpation of executive power and unnaccountable corporations.

Over at FDL, they are asking people to call or email John Edwards and ask him to lead the charge. You can go here for that.

Or you can simply go over to the campaign websites of our two frontrunners and ask them to do it yourself.

Obama Community

Clinton Community

Update: here’s a handy tool from our friends at CREDO to contact all the campaigns on this:

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Endorse This

by digby

I hate meta-bloggy discussions with a passion and rarely indulge in them, but because I turned off my comments to cool the rhetoric a little, others in the blogosphere are commenting and I figure I’d better say something more about it.

I’ve been doing this for five years and I’ve taken enough controversial stances to have received my share of commenter ire. I even have a couple of internet stalkers. But I’ve never had to deal with the kind of abuse to which many others have been subjected, so I’m not complaining. My regular commenters are the greatest. It just got a little bit too heated and I don’t have the inclination to referee flame war, which is what i would take.

A lot of criticism has come my way recently because I won’t “endorse” anyone and this has led to people making assumptions about my position. But the truth really is that I am not invested in any of the candidates. They are nearly identical in terms of policy, all have political gifts and bring something to the table and I find none of the various electability arguments particularly persuasive. Indeed, I believe that the fact they are so similar in all the important ways is one of the reasons everyone is at each other’s throats on this — since there’s no daylight on policy everyone is having to argue their case based on their own emotional connection to the candidate or what the candidate symbolizes, which often devolves into ugly invective. It really does become personal under those circumstances. You can see the result of this in the candidates’ own debate last night. They weren’t really fighting over anything important because they don’t actually disagree about anything important. But they had to fight. It’s an election. Somebody’s got to win.

Unlike many of you, all things being equal in the policy and electability department, I don’t actually believe that Edwards’ “fighting working man spirit” or Obama’s “post-partisan vision” or Clinton’s “hard knuckled experience” are going to be the determining factor in the success of progressive politics. I think change is going to come from the ground up not the top down, from a progressive movement that has positioned itself to leverage ANY candidate.

I agree with Robert Borosage, who wrote this piece, It Takes A Movement:

The lesson of the King years isn’t a choice between rhetoric and reality, or between experience and change. The lesson of the King years is the vital necessity of an independent progressive movement to demand change against the resistance of both entrenched interests and cautious reformers.

Since I have no dog in this primary fight (although I will join the fray in earnest once the nominees are chosen — beating Republicans is job one) I’m staying out of the daily back and forth between the candidates on the campaign trail. But I am challenging media storylines and destructive village behavior and trying to influence progressive rhetoric and strategy.

I’ve been closely following the sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton in the press — I always monitor the media narratives and this one was indisputably powerful and instructive. (Eric Boehlert has a column up about The Tweety Effect today.) And I’ve also been critical of some of Obama’s post-partisan rhetoric because I just disagree with it as a matter of strategic principle, even as I understand why he is doing it. Those two things seem to have led readers to believe that I am a biased, possibly paid, closet Clinton shill, which is what turned the comment section into a war zone.

I could try to do the “balanced” kind of reporting we deplore in the media, which requires that you always criticize both sides equally or seek out obscure examples of ill treatment of others so that nobody will claim you are biased. Or I could lie and say that I’ve backed a candidate when I haven’t, just for the simplicity of it. Finally, I could stop writing about the things I care about and concentrate on all those important issues people are always telling me I have to write about. (Say, have you heard that man didn’t actually land on the moon in 1969?) In the end, I think I’ll just keep writing my blog the way I always have and let the market decide.

As I said, I’m invested in none of these candidates, I’m invested in progressive politics, which none of them are speaking to very directly. But then we are only beginning to develop the language and themes for them to use to do that. (I do have some hope that whoever is elected will hear us, however.) And I’ll keep watching the village and the media and pointing out their arcane mores and rituals because that’s … what I do.

I’ll probably bring the comments back in bit. In the meantime, keep all those emails coming. They are illuminating.

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Just Six More Months Please

by dday

David Petraeus is bucking for a column in the New York Times.

We think we won’t know that we’ve reached a turning point until we’re six months past it. We have repeatedly said that there is no lights at the end of the tunnel that we’re seeing. We’re certainly not dancing in the end zone or anything like that.

As Andrew Bacevich said the other day, this was actually the real goal of the surge – to keep our troops stuck in Iraq for as long as possible, so the occupation could be passed off to the next President. The idea was to create enough security success in the short-term by flooding the zone with troops to offer a propaganda victory, to allow the neocon wags to sputter “We’re winning!” and forestall the inevtiable drawdown. Now, death tolls are actually rising again, and the Shiite militia cease-fire could be ending. But Iraq has moved off the front page, and the endless shouts of victory from the right have dampened any effect of this new data. And the warhawks are essentially running interference for those like Bush and Petraeus who are simply trying to prolong matters.

As for St. Petraeus, he has his own reasons for setting this trap for the next President.

Indeed, Petraeus can basically write his next round of orders. But wherever he goes, his next important campaign probably won’t be on any battlefield. It’ll be political. For the past year, the GOP has laid the groundwork to enlist Petraeus as its standard-bearer in the fairly likely event that the party loses in November to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. You read it here first. Plant your lawn signs now. Petraeus 2012: Surging to the White House.

We’re also starting to hear about Petraeus being shifted over to NATO Commander, where he could serve under the next President, as they would be unlikely or even unable to uninstall the Hero of the Surge. Like that wouldn’t be just a minefield, right? Remember when Colin Powell blocked Clinton’s effort to allow gays in the military, deeply embarrassing the President at the beginning of his term? Powell doesn’t have 1/10th the ambition of Petraeus.

This is just one of the dozens of landmines that Bush is going to put in place to make himself look better and to trip up his successor. He doesn’t much care about the future of the country, only saving his own skin.

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Dave Neiwert Hits A High Point

by tristero

Imagine if you will, an Oxford don writing a serious, carefully-researched 60-plus page critique of the lyrics to the old Batman TV theme. For those of you too old to remember, they go:

Batman
Batman
Batman
Batman
Batman
Batman
Batman
(vocalise)
Batman!

A little pointless, yes? to take something so incredibly stupid and content-free in a serious fashion. Yet it is a similar task that Dave Neiwert recently took upon himself. No, Dave’s not doing TV shows. Instead, he’s decided to review, and then criticize in exquisite detail, and without irony, perhaps the most fraudulent book on fascism that ever shamed a mainstream American publisher. It was a cynical ploy to publish this junk. equalled only by OJ Simpson’s “If I Did It” for utterly shameless, vacuous buck-raking.

Ridiculous to waste so much time on such a cruddy book, you say. Just ignore it, and its author. I’ll second that emotion. But since fascism is a subject that Dave knows very, very well, Dave’s numerous, extensive posts debunking the book are a joy to read, even if the subject is so grim. I strongly recc’d you track them down and read as many as you can. Below are a few links to get you started: Dave’s posts will connect you to all the others.

To give you an idea of how superb Dave’s writing is on the subject of fascism, here is a discussion of the history of the Klan post -“Birth of the Nation.” It’s a wonderful summary of some complex history. Short version: they took violent racism as a starting point and then branched out into violent intimidation of anyone they didn’t like, which basically meant anyone who was not in the Klan. But the details are fascinating and make for a compelling read.

Another stellar post is more archival. It’s a round-up of a group of important definitions and descriptions of fascism. Your hair will stand up as you realize how many criteria are met in modern conservative-movement ideology.

And there’s much more for you to discover. In order to illustrate one point, Dave revisits the story of Bush’s sleazy grandfather, whose wealth in part came from numerous ties to Nazis (however, the evidence, Dave is careful to point out, that Prescott Bush was himself an ideological sympathizer with Nazism is very thin: Grandpa Bush was just a greedy unprincipled, scumbag.)

His posts are truly essential reading if you think you know what fascism is. That’s because chances are good that unless you’ve actually read Paxton or Griffin or Dave himself, you don’t. I truly hope Dave takes this material, excises the references to the bad book that triggered all this splendid writing, and writes a great work on fascism, and especially his thesis that the earliest proto-fascist movement was in fact the American Ku Klux Klan, not a European movement.

This is some of the best writing of Neiwert’s that I’ve read and I’ve read quite a bit. He’s one of the best bloggers around, so don’t miss these posts. Perhaps Dave could collect all the URLs in one post for ease of use?

Bye Fred

by dday

NBC News is reporting that Grandpa Fred is out of the race.

So ends the laziest candidacy in American history. They’re showing b-roll of Fred “campaigning” on MSNBC and they literally can’t find anything more interesting than him eating a bowl of soup.

Remember, this was the “conservative choice” beloved by the Internet right, the man who the Republicans saw as a savior when he first entered the campaign.

Hilarious.

This is good news for Rudy Giuliani, who will now finish in fifth place a lot instead of sixth.

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Fasten Your Seatbelts

by digby

Global stock markets extended their shakeout into a second day Tuesday, plunging amid worries that a possible U.S. recession will cause a worldwide economic slowdown.

The dramatic declines in Asia and Europe were expected to spread to Wall Street, where stock index futures were already down sharply hours before the trading day began.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, the benchmark for Asia’s biggest bourse, was down 5.1 percent in afternoon trading after dropping 3.9 percent Monday.

Trading was halted in India when the Sensex index plummeted 9.75 percent within minutes of opening. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 8 percent by midday after diving 5.5 percent the day before.

“Unless we get some positive ‘shock effects,’ such as drastic measures from the U.S. government, there is almost no hope for a recovery in stocks,” said Koji Takeuchi, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo.

I’m thinking that calling for making the Bush tax cuts permanent isn’t going to cut it.

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