Month: October 2009

Stockholm Syndrome

by digby

Matt Yglesias observes that we liberal purists are getting a lot of advice that we need to be pragmatic and agree to drop the public option. He cites this nauseating piece by the industry bootlicking Al From as an example. It truly is beyond insulting to be lectured to about pragmatism from millionaire whores, but I guess that’s just the way politics are practiced these days. Everybody’s got to make a living.

But Yglesias asks the question that always goes unasked when these little advisories are passed around:

But what these exhortations to practicality always miss is that this is a two-way street. If you think the public option isn’t that big a deal and it’s not worth spiking health reform over it, then you ought to think that it’s not worth spiking health reform in order to kill it either. So far there’s been basically no pressure in the media on members who take this position to justify their extreme level of opposition. I get, for example, that Kent Conrad supports the Finance Committee version of health care and opposes adding a public option to it. But suppose a public option does get added. Does that suddenly take a vast package of reforms that he played a key role in crafting and turn it into a terrible bill? Why would that be? Surely Conrad is as aware as anyone else in congress that in order to pass a large, complicated health reform bill many senators are going to have to vote “yes” on a bill that contains some provisions they oppose. After all, the health reform bill contains hundreds of provisions! Are moderate members really so fanatically devoted to the interests of private health insurance companies that they would take a package they otherwise support and kill it purely in order to do the industry’s bidding on one point?

Everyone says that Obama has to pass health care reform or the agenda is sunk. But why should they assume that the liberals are the ones who will have to do a gut check and decide if they can actually kill the bill? Does everyone just naturally believe that these jackass centrists will deliver their president a death blow in his first term but the liberals won’t? It certainly seems that way.

Of course, they are likely making the assumption that the president agrees with the centrists, which may very well be true. But that doesn’t change the political dynamic. Somebody’s going to have to eat shit and there’s no real reason why it should be the majority of the Democratic caucus. After all, the Republicans are off the field.

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Impatient Blogger Types

by digby

This guy needs to get out of his pajamas and realize that governin’ in a divided country is hard work before John Harwood and the administration take him to task. Oh wait, he’s not a member of the “internet left” is he? In fact, he’s one of Harwood’s colleagues, a true blue member or the NY Times op-ed page, paid big bucks by important and serious people and everything.

Let’s hope he brushes the Cheeto crumbs off his tie the next time Harwood runs into him at the watercooler.

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Reviewing Insanity

by digby

Following up on my post from earlier today about the dangers of American bullyboy tactics, here’s a real jaw dropper:

The Pentagon is reviewing the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemptive military strikes with an eye to modifying or possibly ending it. The international environment is “more complex” than when President George W. Bush announced the policy in 2002, Kathleen Hicks, the Defense Department’s deputy undersecretary for strategy, said in an interview. “We’d really like to update our use-of-force doctrine to start to take account for that.”

As I wrote in that earlier post, the Bush Doctrine and the other primitive policies of violent aggression adopted over the past decade made America less safe.

And I’m confident that was one of the main reasons why a majority of Americans and pretty much the rest of the planet were vastly, overwhelmingly relieved when Barack Obama was elected. It’s why he earned the Nobel Peace Prize. The whole world was destabilized by America becoming a rogue superpower run by a bunch of nuts who declare they have a right to invade any country that looks at them sideways. The repudiation of that policy was intrinisic to Obama’s victory.

Am I the only one who’s surprised that this “review” is even necessary? Is there actual doubt that Obama has reversed that doctrine? Really?

Let’s hope this is just some pro forma exercize that will result in a whole new doctrine of sanity being laid out before too long. Because if it’s actually possible that Obama will formally endorse the Bush Doctrine then the primary rationale for his presidency in my mind will be gone. I’m cynical about campaign promises, but changing that insane doctrine was the one thing I assumed he would do once in office — and think the rest of the world did too.

Naturally, Very Serious People who thought we should invade Iraq, believe that Obama should fudge this:

Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the non-partisan Brookings Institution in Washington, said “the clear challenge for this administration is to find a balance between retaining the right, in extremis, to preempt, while avoiding association with the Bush administration.” “The only solution is to try to downplay this option and say it will be reserved for the most extreme cases and even then pursued only with as much international backing and legitimacy as possible,” O’Hanlon said.

Right, just paper it over with patent bullshit and pretend like Americans and the rest of the world are dumb as doormats. It’s what works on the Village, after all.

This one is non-negotiable. Obama must say that American will abide by International Law, which defines preemption as an imminent threat, not some “gut” feeling by a bunch of throwback neocon psychos and silly Chicken Littles like O’Hanlon. I’m shocked that the Bush Doctrine is still in effect at all. Actually endorsing it, no matter how many promises that he will be super-duper careful, is completely unacceptable.

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First, Do No Harm(an)

by digby

To the few of you who don’t know, Dday has moved over to FDL and is posting on a new blog called News Desk. And he’s writing up a storm.

Today, he’s written a great piece about one of our local congressional Reps, Jane Harmon, who sent a very interesting signal yesterday:

Traditionally hawkish Congresswoman Jane Harman surprised many at a Brookings Institution event yesterday by coming out against escalation in Afghanistan.

Harman, a longtime Intelligence Committee member, told a Brookings Institution gathering today that any further increases “wouldn’t be well received” on Capitol Hill. Harman’s view is that the Obama administration should deal with government corruption, and build up Afghan forces, before Congress is asked to pay for more U.S. troops. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U,S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has asked for 40,000 additional troops. Harman also blasted the administration, as well as international nongovernmental groups, for not doing more to prevent the fraud that marred the Aug. 20 presidential election in Afghanistan. “I would call it a total fiasco,” she said.

Some commentators have suggested that this displays a newfound skepticism on Capitol Hill for the Afghanistan mission. That may be, but the shift here is more likely rooted in local politics.

Dday goes on to discuss the primary challenge against Jane Harman from Marcy Winograd, who got a pretty substantial 38% when she ran against Harman in 2006. Winograd is a true blue liberal and her candidacy obviously has Harman running scared.

But I don’t think it’s only the primary challenge that precipitated Harman’s comments. I do think there is also a pervasive feeling on the Hill that this McCrystal escalation is politically radioactive. And for good reason. The war, after all, has been going on for 8 years already and nobody knows how much it’s going to cost in terms of blood and treasure. Most of all, nobody knows what “victory” would look like or how any of this actually pertains to American national security anymore.

More prosaically, the country isn’t behind it and these Democrats have to face their constituents next year and explain to them why we should spend many more billions on this quagmire when we are simultaneously being told that we can’t expand the deficit by further helping Americans in this moribund economy. It’s going to be a very hard sell and not just for those like Harman who have a primary opponent.

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Glory Days

by digby

It would appear that the days of the single, old country blogger like myself are definitely on the wane. I would guess that within just a few years there won’t be more than a handful of the sole proprietor, uncredentialed bloggers of today even cited anymore, although there may be a few who survive with communities and a large readership.

I’m not surprised. The form is cheap and immediate and big media are desperately trying to find ways to stay relevant. It was only a matter of time before they co-opted the scene. But the barriers to entry are so low that it’s hard to imagine that there won’t inevitably be somebody crashing the party with something different. There’s always an appetite for a new voice or a new format. But in the end, the blogosphere will probably end up dominated by corporate media and big money financed entrepreneurial projects. Same as it ever was.

Update: It should be noted that these ranking are based upon recent incoming links. I’ve always been rather dependent on links for traffic, so a drop in links actually means something. Others like Atrios never have been. In fact, there is still no greater traffic generator than an Atrios link, even today, and that includes a link from the NY Times or the Politico or any other blog. It’s all in how you look at it.

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Giving In To Blackmail

by digby

Here’s some good news about a terrible thing. The British High Court decided that it did not believe the threats from both the Bush and Obama admnistrations that the US would refuse to share intelligence with the UK if their government released evidence of the horrible torture of prisoner Binyam Mohammed:

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, acted in a way that was harmful to the rule of law by suppressing evidence about what the government knew of the illegal treatment of Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who was held in a secret prison in Pakistan, the high court has ruled.

In a devastating judgment, two senior judges roundly dismissed the foreign secretary’s claims that disclosing the evidence would harm national security and threaten the UK’s vital intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US.

In what they described as an “unprecedented” and “exceptional” case, to which the Guardian is a party, they ordered the release of a seven-paragraph summary of what the CIA told British officials – and maybe ministers – about Ethiopian-born Mohamed before he was secretly interrogated by an MI5 officer in 2002.

“The suppression of reports of wrongdoing by officials in circumstances which cannot in any way affect national security is inimical to the rule of law,” Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones ruled. “Championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, is the cornerstone of democracy.”

The summary is a CIA account given to British intelligence “whilst [Mohamed] was held in Pakistan … prior to his interview by an officer of the Security Service”, the judges said. The officer, known only as Witness B, is being investigated by the Metropolitan police for “possible criminal wrongdoing”.

What’s most insane about this case (aside from the hideous violence done to this man, of course) is the fact that the two countries blithely colluded to portray the United States as a gangster country that would threaten its oldest ally with a promise to withhold evidence of a terrorist attack in the future.

How in the hell is that supposed to make us safer? The US has spent decades building up an unparalleled intelligence and military behemoth that costs more than all other countries combined. It is the unquestioned leader of the world in spy technology and warmaking. And acting like a mafia thug (or acting in collusion with the “victim” as a pretense) is dangerous as hell.

It seems we always come back to this. The US is the world’s superpower and, by its own design, the world’s policeman. (Not that its people were ever consulted about that, I might add.) And it seems bent upon making the world think it’s a drunken, psychotic, brutal cop. During the Bush years, it was clear that this was intentional — the old Friedmanesque calculation that the world needed to believe that our guy was just as crazy as their guy. But Obama was supposed to change this dangerous formula and convince the world that its self-designated policeman was an evolved, responsible actor that could be counted on to use its power wisely. Somehow, I don’t think that “threatening” our oldest ally with terrorist attacks helps that happen.

The British High Court was skeptical of America’s seriousness and they’ve actually helped American foreign policy greatly by publicly repudiating the threat. The US needs to stop playing these bully games. They are needlessly provocative and if they don’t watch it at some point the rest of the world is going to join with those who already have concluded that we are a malignant force for evil and collectively decide that the US is too dangerous to be tolerated. Trust has already broken down terribly and its only going to get worse unless Obama takes the opportunity we’ve been given to take a different path.

Greenwald has documented the whole Binyam Mohammed saga today for those who haven’t followed it in detail. It’s a stomach churning story. Releasing these documents is absolutely necessary to confront these awful deeds and repudiate them.

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Your Daily Grayson

by digby

On Bill Maher:

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The War On The War On Christmas

by digby

Will the liberals of this country stop at nothing in their quest to destroy this country? Here’s the latest:

Please read the email below. It’s important to all Christians.

Subject: Pastor’s Removal From Television

Read the below all the way through, please…

Pastor Removal from Television

Removal of Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Charles Stanley, David Jeremiah and other pastors from the airwaves.

An organization has been granted a Federal Hearing on the same subject by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in Washington , D.C. .

Their petition, Number 2493, would ultimately pave the way to stop the reading of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, on the airwaves of America .. They got 287,000 signatures to back their stand! If this attempt is successful, all Sunday worship services being broadcast on the radio or by television will be stopped.

This group is also campaigning to remove all Christmas programs and Christmas carols from public schools! You, as a Christian, can help!

We are praying for at least 1 million signatures. This would defeat their effort and show that there are many Christians alive, well and concerned about our country…. As Christians, we must unite on this.

Please don’t take this lightly. We ignored one lady once and lost prayer in our schools and in offices across the nation. Please stand up for your religious freedom and let your voice be heard. Together we can make a difference in our country while creating an opportunity for the lost to know the Lord.

Turns out the latest is actually one of the earliest.

But I guess it’s like an old standard. No matter how many times it’s covered, it still sounds good.

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Chutzpah Award

by digby

You have to give them credit:

Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers.

That takes some brass.

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No Option

by digby

I don’t think anybody who follows the teabaggers closely is surprised by this, but I’m guessing there will be some chatter among the gasbags about this:

On a conference call with reporters just now, Democracy Corps’ James Carville, Stan Greenberg and Karl Agne went over their focus group study of Republican base voters and their worldview that President Obama is out to destroy the country — and the pressure this puts on Republican voters to make no compromises with the Obama administration.

“I don’t know if we’ll say we were startled,” said Carville, “but if you take the position that these Republican voters take, it’s easy to see why it leads to this, but they really believe that Obama has a secret agenda here. And our view is this is a dominant view in the Republican Party.”

They are truly out of their minds. From the study:

The self-identifying conservative Republicans who make up the base of the Republican Party stand a world apart from the rest of America, according to focus groups conducted by DemocracyCorps. These base Republican voters dislike Barack Obama to be sure – which is not very surprising as base Democrats had few positive things to say about George Bush – but these voters identify themselves as part of a ‘mocked’ minority with a set of shared beliefs and knowledge, and commitment to oppose Obama that sets them apart from the majority in the country. They believe Obama is ruthlessly advancing a ‘secret agenda’ to bankrupt the United States and dramatically expand government control to an extent nothing short of socialism. While these voters are disdainful of a Republican Party they view to have failed in its mission, they overwhelmingly view a successful Obama presidency as the destruction of this country’s founding principles and are committed to seeing the president fail.

Carville actually seems to be surprised by this which indicates to me that he’s been spending too much time in the village. After all, these are supposed to be the “Real Americans,” the people to whom everyone is supposed to to defer because they have “Heartland Values” and represent the backbone of Middle America. And it turns out they’re a bunch of nuts. Whodda thunk?

But the truth is that counting on Obama’s failure isn’t just a function of the paranoid fringe (also known as the Republican base.) Just today in the NY Times the GOP poobahs were saying they think obstructing Obama’s agenda entirely is good politics:

“I just don’t think that there’s a downside to voting no — I really don’t,” said Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota. “That’s quite aside from whether you should or shouldn’t, or whether the country needs it or doesn’t need it. The basic rule is you rarely pay a price at the polls for being against something.”

Republican incumbents “have far more to lose,” he said, “by having the Republican base conclude that they’re just throwing in the towel and compromising on a big-government agenda.”

So, they’re going to do the full Gingrich and count on the country being so sour, angry and depressed that everyone but the freakshow will stay home in 2010.

From the tone of Greenberg and Carville’s comments, I’m guessing they are thinking that strategy will rebound badly on the GOP. Perhaps it’s because of this:

Agne said that this attitude about Obama among independent voters, especially those who might lean somewhat conservative, is very different. “They harbor doubts, there’s no doubt, but they want to see the president succeed, they want to see the country move forward,” said Agne.

I don’t think the Republicans have much choice here to tell you the truth. Their base is batshit insane and their political establishment is completely discredited due to Bush and Cheney’s incompetence. What choice do they have but hope the country is in such deep, deep trouble that they will vote out the Democrats even though they know the Republicans are … batshit insane and incompetent. It’s all they’ve got.

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