Month: June 2008

Only Vindication

by dday

This latest gaffe by John McSame is really the same gaffe as the “100 years” comment that he disavowed and claimed was twisted around.

He’s saying that leaving Iraq is not the priority, that as long as we reduce casualties the troops can remain there indefinitely. But he’s also said that he would add as many troops as necessary to reduce those casualties. That’s a prescription for endless war. And so he’s disavowed this comment, too, but the fundamental truth of his words remains – he doesn’t care if American troops are in Iraq forever. In fact it’s central to his “victory” strategy.

“The Obama campaign is embarking on a false attack on John McCain to hide their own candidate’s willingness to disregard facts on the ground in pursuit of withdrawal no matter what the costs. John McCain was asked if he had a ‘better estimate’ for a timeline for withdrawal. As John McCain has always said, that is not as important as conditions on the ground and the recommendations of commanders in the field. Any reasonable person who reads the full transcript would see this and reject the Obama campaign’s attempt to manipulate, twist and distort the truth.”

Well, it’s always a distortion, isn’t it. We might need to start using what they used to say about George Romney, that the most prevalent line in news stories written about him was “he later clarified his remarks.”

Look, this isn’t that hard. McCain was asked about withdrawal and he said that wasn’t as important as making sure there weren’t any casualties. He was asked the day before about sending troops back in to reduce casualties and he said that he would add as many troops as needed to do so. He will keep troops in there forever until casualties stop, and he’d keep troops there afterwards in a support role. He thinks withdrawal means losing as opposed to the only hope in Iraq for stability and reconciliation between the factions. He wants to be vindicated for his catastrophic mistake of cheerleading the invasion. So he can never leave and admit fault.

The voters don’t want us there anymore. The Iraqis don’t want us there anymore. The only people in the world who do are John McCain and George Bush, and those with fragile egos who were wrong to begin with and want to protect their own perceived superior judgment.

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Beavis And Butthead

by digby

… are Republicans.

It’s an old saw that wingnuts have incredibly lame senses of humor, but with rare exceptions (Dennis Miller definitely not excepted) it’s true nonetheless.

Here’s James Taranto in the WSJ making what he apparently thinks is a joke:

She’ll Release Her Delegates in Exchange for Dropping the Charges
“Clinton Woman Is Facing Three Felonies”–headline, Clinton (Iowa) Herald, June 7

Just link the link and you’ll see how puerile and dumb this thing really is. No blogger in the world should ever be that desperate for material. And this guy writes one for the Wall Street Journal.

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Takes One To Know One

by digby

The bloviators are having a lot of fun with this story that Ken Starr is going to be defending the town of Malibu against the paparazzi on behalf of local residents who are living in a fishbowl. They shared some laughs and talked about how Ken Starr is a respected jurist and dean of Pepperdine Law School, the local University. Jack Cafferty, doing his increasingly tiresome curmudgeon act, scolded them about doing unimportant stories. (I’m not kidding.) But nobody brings up the fact that bringing in Ken Starr to defend the right to privacy is like bringing in OJ to testify against spousal abuse.

This, after all, is the guy who put this on the internet on the day it was submitted to congress:

… she and the President kissed. She unbuttoned her jacket; either she unhooked her bra or he lifted her bra up; and he touched her breasts with his hands and mouth. Ms. Lewinsky testified: “I believe he took a phone call . . . and so we moved from the hallway into the back office . . . . [H]e put his hand down my pants and stimulated me manually in the genital area.” While the President continued talking on the phone (Ms. Lewinsky understood that the caller was a Member of Congress or a Senator), she performed oral sex on him. He finished his call, and, a moment later, told Ms. Lewinsky to stop. In her recollection: “I told him that I wanted . . . to complete that. And he said . . . that he needed to wait until he trusted me more. And then I think he made a joke . . . that he hadn’t had that in a long time.”

He and his staff wrote that prurient little narrative and called it a “report” which the highly moral Republicans insisted on being put on the internet on the same day it was submitted. Privacy obviously isn’t something he understands.

The Paparazzi are amateurs compared to him. They simply stake out the front gates of celebrities’ homes and chase them down the highway to get a shot. Starr used the full force of the US government to coerce this sleazy, tabloid story under threat of prison and then gave the details to the entire world to drool and snicker over. He’s the Uber-Pap. Malibu is the perfect place for him.

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Obama vs Expired Dog Food

by digby

I’ve posted a number of emails from a friend of mine who works in Democratic circles, whom I call “Deep Insight.” Today he does an overview of where we stand as we move into the general election. Here is an excerpt:

Maybe 2008 will be the last election in “Nixonland,” the title of Rick Perlstein’s recent book. Nixon was a genius at turning his personal resentments and humiliations (there were more than a few) into political touchstones. He gave us the “Southern strategy, and perfected the politics of white backlash introduced by Strom Thurmond and George Wallace. During his whole career, he promoted the Democrats as the “elite.” They were variously branded “wimps” who would not stand up for America and represented the party of “acid, amnesty and abortion.” The “silent majority” of the non-union white working class has been a mainstay of the GOP Presidential coalition since 1972. While Republican economic policies have put stress on the economic fortunes of working class families, the rhetorical repetition of “family values” was constant.

As Kevin Philips points out in his new book, the government has been cooking the economic numbers for years. The inflation rate, as it affects most Americans, has been understated. The unemployment rate, which just had the biggest one-month jump in 22 years, also underestimates real joblessness. The size of the Federal deficit has been hidden behind the Social Security surplus.

With current gas prices, healthcare costs, flat wages and the decline in housing prices, many Americans are in an economic vise. So we will see if GOP distraction on race and “values” works this year. There are two problems for the GOP with this tack. The Democrats now lead the GOP on handling the “economy” 56% to 24%, and as the party more aligned on “moral values” 50% to 35%…

The Republicans will try and make this the race between Maverick McCain and Reverend Wright. Obviously, Obama will run against George Bush’s record. Mr. Bush has done such damage to the GOP brand name (a 58% negative rating in the recent CBS/ NYT poll) that John McCain will run far and fast from the GOP label. As Republican Tom Davis said in an internal Republican memo, the GOP brand has the appeal of “expired dog food.” The mainstream media is assisting McCain in this distancing effort by pointing out how unpopular he is with conservatives.

Some movement conservatives in the GOP do not care if McCain loses. They can rebuild their grassroots money machine and go back to what they enjoy the most – obstructing progress. But Republicans in Washington and major corporate interests who have grown rich with the GOP spoils system will fight to keep the gravy train running. This is one of the reasons McCain’s campaign is crawling with lobbyists for both some odious foreign regimes and corporate special interests. The resignations of five lobbyists from the upper echelons of the campaign just underscores the inside Beltway nature of his campaign. Former Senator Phil Gramm, who helped give us Enron and now is a lobbyist for UBS, is listed as a chief economic advisor. Gramm, a rightwing ideologue, would be particularly unsuited to deal with our current economic woes.

Senator McCain’s age will also be an issue. This may be especially true of his age cohort, a group most resistant to Mr. Obama’s candidacy in the primary. Close to half of the voters in both Pew and New York Times polls said that they were less likely to vote for candidates in their 70s. Only atheists fared worse. There is also the question of McCain’s health. Dumping his health records out for a four-hour review the Friday before Memorial Day may not have answered all of the questions.

The Obama campaign with its Internet base and decentralized structure has taken Presidential politics to new places. His quarter of a billion dollar fundraising effort, fueled by small on-line donations, is revolutionary. The social networking and volunteers inspired by his candidacy are remarkable. Certainly his campaign infrastructure will be a formidable plus in the fall. McCain will use the public money ($90 million) and the hierarchical RNC in an attempt to equalize the money. The RNC ($40 million currently) has 10 times the cash on hand as the DNC. McCain will get on his high horse about accepting public money and the editorial boards will applaud, but his campaign will effectively use the RNC. The bigger money will find its way to rightwing 501c4, c6s and 527s. It is naive to think a great deal of conservative “independent” negative advertising will not be dropped on Senator Obama. There is very little “independent” advertising currently planned by progressive groups to define John McCain.

The Obama campaign has to expand the electoral map so the GOP cannot devote undue resources just to defend Ohio. This is what the Bush campaign was able to do in 2004, as its base states were secure. Though it is a stretch, Obama can win without Ohio. Florida does not look very promising now for Obama, and the DNC primary mess there hurt. Many 2004 red states – Colorado, Nevada, Iowa, Virginia and North Carolina – must be seriously contested. Winning Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico along with the rest of the 2005 Kerry states results in a 269 electoral vote tie. The House could then determine the outcome in a fitting coda to 2000 and the Supreme Court decision. Obviously, it would be far better to run up over 300 electoral votes.

Current polling indicates a close race between Senators McCain and Obama. But the underlying dynamics of the race still favor the Democrat. The Electoral College math may be difficult, as the popular vote total will work against Obama. He will need a clear popular vote victory, as he appears competitive but not over the top in many traditional GOP states. He will run up the numbers in many “blue” states. This could be an election where we wish there were a national popular vote instead of the relic of the Electoral College.

Senator Obama needs a different composition in the electorate from that of 2004. Turnout was up sharply from 2000 to 2004, and it has to grow considerably in 2008. One difficulty is that on the progressive side in 2004 over $150 million was committed to persuade voters and to increase turnout. Additional money went into voter registration. To date, the independent side has only raised at best about 25% of the 2004 total. So this effort has to be better funded to help bolster the type of turnout needed in November. While the Obama campaign will make up for some of this through grassroots organizing and enthusiasm, it will be a serious problem if the progressive NGOs are poorly funded.

We have all talked a lot about the fantastic machine that Obama has built and what it means for the future. My friend here doesn’t think it’s going to be quite enough on its own and that some “independent” work is needed to supplement, both with the 527s beating back the wingnut attack ads and with GOTV.

I tend to agree, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I believe that allocating power across all levels of politics usually results in better outcomes. Obviously, any candidate wants to control as much as possible during his campaign. Too many cooks spoil the gazpacho and all that. But in these two cases, I think independence could be helpful. Certainly McCain is going to “repudiate” these groups for as long as it takes them to be fully aired in the free media. Obama should have that option as well. And you just can’t have too many people helping to register and get out your vote in the fall.

I’ll be interested in your thoughts.

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The Enthusiasm Gap

by dday

I know that Digby has on more than one occasion suggested that the hard right, with social conservatives foremost among them, would come back to the GOP nominee in November, because there are tribal forces that keep these Republicans, who feed more than anything on hatred of their opponents, coming back for more. And that is probably true. But there’s more that the fundies and the hard-right conservatives did to win elections for George W., for example, beyond voting. We’re five months out and this is entirely subject to change, but there are warning signs that John McCain has huge problems with just the kinds of voters who volunteer and do the ground work for practically every Republican campaign.

I don’t know if it’s longstanding suspicions or the unceremonious dumping of John Hagee and Rod Parsley, but McCain has serious problems with the evangelical community and the religious right, and his campaign is not doing a whole lot to alleviate those problems.

You represent some of the nation’s most powerful evangelicals. What do those leaders say about McCain?

This is one guy’s perspective, but I am surprised by how little I’ve seen or read in conservative circles about McCain since February. I don’t think I’ve gotten one email or letter or phone call from anybody in America in the last four months saying anything about this election or urging that we unite behind John McCain and put aside whatever differences we have. Back in the fall and winter, you’d get several things a day from conservatives saying, “The future of the Supreme Court is at stake. We have to stop Hillary Clinton. Get behind so and so—or don’t’ go with this guy.” It’s just very quiet. It could meant there’s a real sense of apathy or it could mean they’re’ waiting for the general election to begin. But it’s a surprise, given the way email networks work now.

That apathy is being reiterated again and again. These voters are unlikely to man the phone banks, stuff the envelopes, knock on the doors, and bug their neighbors to vote in November the way they did four years ago. Not to quote Novakula but he usually has good sources in conservative circles, and he’s hearing the same thing. Dumping Hagee, who had ties to the Bush White House and a larger base of support than previously considered, has definitely caused some resentment. And if you needed even further confirmation, Pastor Dan at Street Prophets has it:

The Barna research indicates that the Christian community in the U.S. has largely shifted its loyalty to the Democratic nominee in this year’s race. In the 2004 election, 81% of evangelicals voted for the Republican incumbent George W. Bush. Currently, 78% of the likely voters who are evangelical expect to vote for Sen. McCain. Evangelicals represent 8% of the adult population and just 9% of all likely voters.

But the big news in the faith realm is the sizeable defection from Republican circles of the much larger non-evangelical born again and the notional Christian segments. The non-evangelical born again adults constitute 37% of the likely voters in November, and the notional Christians are expected to be 39% of the likely voters. Among the non-evangelical born again adults, 52% supported President Bush in 2004; yet, only 38% are currently supporting Sen. McCain, while 48% are siding with Sen. Obama. Although notional Christians voted for John Kerry in 2004 by an 11-point margin, that gap has more than doubled to 26 points in this year’s election. Protestants and Catholics have moved toward the Democratic challenger in equal proportions since 2004.

And they probably don’t even know about McCain dumping the first wife yet.

And while Obama, as Tristero notes, holds views that the Dobsonites will view as a threat to their attempt to re-fashion a theocracy, he is most certainly going after voters of faith, most notably young voters through his Joshua Generation Project, which offers a different spin on religious values and how to manifest them in public policy instead of allowing the Bible to stand in for the Consttitution.

Here’s the problem for McCain. He can’t do the kind of dog-whistle outreach to these communities that Bush preferred because he was never seen as one of them. And if he presents himself as a hard-right social conservative more overtly, he ruins what is his only ace in the hole – the blurring strategy that allows independents to believe he’s a moderate on all issues (Brave New Films destroys that myth today). Every religious right voter he attracts equals a moderate voter he loses. That’s why it’s so smart of Obama to play up this bind by constantly describing McCain as representing Bush’s third term (which is true), and forcing McCain to disavow it, which just depresses his base even more.

And this is not limited to religious voters, but across the spectrum of the conservative right. Alarm bells should have been raised when McCain was still losing 25-30% of the vote in primaries three months after all his opponents dropped out. But the signals are coming into view. The Texas GOP is pissed off, thinking along with many of their colleagues that whoever wins, conservatives lose. Bush donors are hesitant to give a dollar to McCain. Tom DeLay said today that his wife is voting for Bob Barr. The Republican National Committee has signed up just one-sixth of the amount of volunteers for their convention as the Democrats have for theirs.

Part of this is the exponential growth of Democratic activism online, with which Republicans have thus far failed to compete:

According to the Congressional Management Foundation’s recently released report on Congressional communications, 44% of Americans contacted a member of Congress in the last five years, a significant bump from 2004 and a number that far outstrips the total count of online donors. The report also goes on to point that the internet has become the primary vehicle for learning about and interacting with Congress, even though most people don’t think that Congress is listening. The gist of the report is not just that people who are connected vote, and people who vote tend to be connected, but that connectivity is driving increased political interaction with decision-makers.

This will only increase in the years ahead, and frankly, if Obama didn’t exist in this race, the country would invent him. Actblue’s exponential growth – from less than a million in the 2004 to its current base – shows that the country is hungry for change and that a leadership base of committed organizers are running for office using new tools. Looking a bit beneath the surface of the Obama juggernaut, as Vargas did, shows that this army of people is real, and that it isn’t just money they are giving. The 10 million people (at an extremely high end) who may donate to Obama, while extraordinary, is dwarfed by a rough factor of ten by the 44% of the country who have contacted Congress in the last five years.

The country is strengthening its flabby civic muscles, and learning how to be a committed and engaged citizenry. We haven’t seen anything like this for a hundred years, if not more. And that’s not even counting the younger generation, who grew up on this stuff.

But it’s more than that – there’s a noticeable enthusiasm gap for these particular candidates at this particular historical moment. It makes McCain’s Vice Presidential pick both a huge opportunity and a huge gamble, again going back to the vice grip that conservatism has put itself in over the past few years. Tim Pawlenty may be able to deliver millions of evangelicals into the fold, but as that becomes noticed by independents wary of the influence of the religious right, he’d lose ground there, and a 2004-era base strategy doesn’t have enough voters in it for McCain to win. Then again, a strategy which ignores the base doesn’t either.

It’s more than whether or not individual GOP voters will come out. Enthusiasm matters. It finds the voters that don’t always cast a ballot. It drives cars so that those with special needs can get to the polling place. It helps knock down the inevitable scandals and furors that come with a national campaign. And all of that enthusiasm is on the Democratic side. I don’t want to sound complacent, but that’s a tremendous advantage.

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Trapped By The Case We Made

by digby

The other day I wrote about the foreword that John McCain wrote for an edition of The Best And The Brightest in which he claimed (among other things) it would be criminal to continue a war that wasn’t backed by the American people.

Brendan Nyhan has another example of a similar statement:

As I noted last December, he said something similarly ironic about the US presence in Lebanon back in 1983:

The fundamental question is “What is the United States’ interest in Lebanon? It is said we are there to keep the peace. I ask, what peace? It is said we are there to aid the government. I ask, what government? It is said we are there to stabilize the region. I ask, how can the US presence stabilize the region?… The longer we stay in Lebanon, the harder it will be for us to leave. We will be trapped by the case we make for having our troops there in the first place. What can we expect if we withdraw from Lebanon? The same as will happen if we stay. I acknowledge that the level of fighting will increase if we leave. I regretfully acknowledge that many innocent civilians will be hurt. But I firmly believe this will happen in any event.

Won’t anyone ask McCain about this one either?

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Bad Boyfriend

by digby

They always say that when you break up with someone it’s best to do it in a public place so they can’t break down and go violent or hysterical on you. But I’m not sure anyone thinks this is even close to being appropriate:

“On a Sunday in midsummer, George W. Bush accompanied Karl Rove to the Episcopalian Church Rove sometimes attended,” writes Alexander. “They made their way to the front of the congregation. Then, during their time in the church, Bush gave Rove some stunning news. ‘Karl,’ Bush said, ‘there’s too much heat on you. It’s time for you to go.’”

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Moral Equivalent Of War

by digby

So, yesterday I quoted John McCain saying that Barack Obama “wants to take us back to the 60s and 70s.” Today, he said that Obama was “running for Jimmy Carter’s second term.” I think we see a theme emerging.

First, this is obviously a way of subtly playing up racial themes by evoking the turbulent racial issues of the time among the older folks. And it’s an attempt to tie the “new” guy with the “old liberalism.”

But it’s mostly a play to his base, the gasbags. Nothing is more an article of faith among them than the fact that Jimmy Carter was the worst president in their lifetimes. (It’s also an interesting way to deflect from the Bush legacy, from which the gasbags have not yet figured out a way to disassociate themselves.) With his recent forays into difficult areas of Israeli-Palestinian politics, Carter is even relevant again on his own terms and McCain is trying to tie Obama to that as well.

Recently, Obama made the comment that people were going to have to get used to conserving energy. The bloviators gasped. OMG! Just like Jimmy Carter! Asking for sacrifice is crazy, unAmerican!

But ask yourself if voters in 2008 would react that way to Carter’s speech today:

Sounds about right. Too bad we had to wait 30 years before anyone acknowledged it. But that was no accident.

As the reader who sent me the Youtube link wrote:

My recurrent thought again goes back to Ronald Reagan tearing down all of the alternative energy modifications Carter had installed in the White House, and then immediately stepping up the political and legal attacks on any meaningful energy resource development and or conservation, not unlike Cheney’s closed door policy meetings at the beginning of this current corrupt administration.

There are villains in all this and Jimmy Carter isn’t one of them. It isn’t 1979 anymore and everyone knows it but GOP operatives and their braindead sycophants in the media. It’s not going to work. History has proved them to be asses.

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The Bad Pennies Return

by tristero

No, not again:

I’m not saying that war or conflict with Iran is imminent. In fact, I don’t think America, even under Bush, will strike Iran first — but I do think that there is an increasing chance of a trigger event driving a fast escalation of higher and higher consequence military options. This trigger could be a mistaken signal, a ship collision, an event engineered by the Israelis, or by the IRGC Al Quds force, or by some other splinter terrorist operation wanting to exploit regional tensions and the current fragility of affairs…

Whereas David Wurmser allegedly (though he does deny it) said that Vice President Cheney felt it important to “tie the President’s hands” when it came to Iran and to generate an event that would undermine the diplomatic track — the worry now is that the crowd in power is really talking about tying the next President’s hands. . .tying perhaps Barack Obama’s hands.

This will be an… interesting year, to say the least.

Hand-Tying

by dday

People are wondering why the Bush Administration effort to install permanent US bases in Iraq (oh, I’m sorry, not permanent US bases, but military bases that the US rents permanently, which of course is a huge difference) would tie the hands of a future President.

I guess the first answer to that is that we live in a political era where a substantial amount of Democrats voted to authorize the war, most of them have authorized funding for it again and again, and even after being given a mandate to end the war, they have expended little real effort to do so. A permanent agreement can become yet another justification for a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress to continue the occupation, fearful still of being seen as soft on terror and security. Those of us who have seen this movie don’t want to give any opportunity to have it re-run. With the working conservative majority in the Congress it’s not at all clear that there will be any bold moves on Iraq no matter who is the next President. I don’t think a President Obama would pledge to send unlimited troops to Iraq the way John McCain did yesterday, but he might feel constrained by events on the ground and wary of a unilateral disarmament. So there are constitutional realities, that a new President can break an old treaty, but there are also political realities, that suggests no President would want to see the troops airlifted off the roof of the Saigon embassy.

In addition, if there is a legally binding framework mandating that the US must come to the aid of Iraq should they come under attack, it would be very hard to ignore, both politically and legally. It appears that this is part of Administration demands. We know that they are discussing the use of 58 bases, as well as this:

Leading members of the two ruling Shiite parties said in a series of interviews the Iraqi government rejected this proposal along with another U.S. demand that would have effectively handed over to the United States the power to determine if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq. Lawmakers said they fear this power would drag Iraq into a war between the United States and Iran […]

Other conditions sought by the United States include control over Iraqi air space up to 30,000 feet and immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops and private military contractors. The agreement would run indefinitely but be subject to cancellation with two years notice from either side, lawmakers said.

Two years notice. So Obama could cancel the agreement but be required under international law to follow it for 24 months, at which point he’d be hammered by Republicans throughout as we begin a long and slow withdrawal. The one way to get around this is to state that the agreement absent Congressional approval is not binding and illegal, because it goes beyond the confines of a status of forces agreement. That is what leading Democrats are doing, but in a fairly muted way.

Also, if both George Bush and Michael O’Hanlon say it wouldn’t tie the next President’s hands and we shouldn’t worry about it so much, I immediately get worried.

What we know is that the strongest force pushing against this key Administration goal is the Iraqi people, and they have been steadfast enough that they could scuttle the whole plan.

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is conceding for the first time that the United States may not finish a complex security agreement with Iraq before President Bush leaves office.

Faced with stiff Iraqi opposition, it is “very possible” the U.S. may have to extend an existing U.N. mandate, said a senior administration official close to the talks. That would mean major decisions about how U.S. forces operate in Iraq could be left to the next president, including how much authority the U.S. must give Iraqis over military operations and how quickly the handover takes place.

The official said the goal is still to have an agreement by year’s end. And the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said he feels no pressure from the U.S. political calendar, and that Dec. 31 is “a clear deadline.”

Still, Crocker also said last week, “My focus on this is more on getting it done right than getting it done quick.”

Protests in the streets have a little more import than strongly worded letters. The Iraqis are fighting for their survival. Whether they can overcome the threat of blackmail of $50B in foreign reserves remains to be seen.

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