Month: October 2009

Counting Coups

by digby

So today the famous Floyd Brown, (now of World Net Daily) makes the first call for Obama’s impeachment. I wonder what took him so long?

And last week we had a Newsmax columnist calling for a military coup. Newsmax took it down after being called on it, but it turns out that this wasn’t a one-off outlier. Jonathan Schwarz noted in an email to me that there has been quite a bit of this at the teabagger rallies:

It puts this in a whole different light, doesn’t it?

Six House members on Friday sent a letter to the president of the Honduran Congress warning that the Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and his travel delegation to Honduras do not represent the views of the White House or Congress, but are mere members of the “minority party.”

“We understand that you received visitors from our Congress who represent the minority party, the Republican Party, who have expressed views that differ markedly from those of President Obama’s administration and the Democratic Majority in the U.S. Congress,” they wrote.

DeMint’s trip to Honduras has drawn fire from Democrats, who are concerned because of his position on the government coup. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry blocked his mission this week. But the trip was then approved by Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

(It sheds a light on this too, now that I think about it.)

This seems like crazy fringe stuff, I know. But during the Clinton years these wild ideas all started on the fringe and then became mainstream when the Republicans took the congress. Congressman Bob Barr actually called for an official House impeachment inquiry before the Lewinsky affair was revealed.

It’s highly unlikely that events will follow the same course, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. And needless to say, this throwing around the idea of a military coup is exceedingly dangerous. With that teabagger sentiment running the way it is, DeMint going down to Honduras and declaring his own position is contrary to the US Government’s official position and that the coup was a legitimate constitutional function of the Honduran government should be something that gives everyone pause. This stuff is right in their wheelhouse.

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Second Thoughts

by digby

I don’t think the Republicans can possibly do a U-turn on health care reform at this late date, especially after they’ve ginned up their crazies over the specter of death panels and the like, but it did occur to me that by hauling out the elders, Dole, Frist etc, they might be making a play to get back in the game. After all, their biggest failure was actually proving to the White House that there was no chance in hell that they would ever vote for a bill, thus taking all bipartisan cover away from Obama and making him negotiate only within his own party.

It was truly a big mistake because the Republicans’ best hope is a health care reform bill that doesn’t work. And without them involved in the negotiations to ensure that it will be a clusterfuck of epic proportions, it might just end up working despite the Dem corporate lackeys’ best efforts. After all, even the Senate Democrats are now talking about what kind of public option to have, not whether to have one at all.

If the Republicans were still on the field, the Dems wouldn’t go near there for fear of blowing the whole thing up at this late date. And Obama probably wanted a bipartisan bill more than anything in the whole world. After all, his real raison d’etre is to “change the way Washington works.” If they would have thought clearly (and controlled Boss Limbaugh) they would have kept just enough skin in the game to screw up the legislation in just the right ways that it would fail perfectly, thus ensuring a big win for them. There’s nothing they like more than to see Americans suffer and blaming it on the government.

I think it’s too late now, but the bizarre emergence of Frist especially, with his coached, yet incoherent style, makes me think there might be some move to restore the bipartisan vision. But the Republican Party no longer venerates its elders. It’s not a conservative party anymore. It’s the party of Glenn Beck. And Dole and Frist are among those responsible for creating that monster.

Update: Looks like they’re going to give it the old college try now that the death of the public option turns out to have been wildly overstated. Good luck with that.

h/t to Sleon

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Independents

by digby

I was listening to all the gasbags drone on all day yesterday about how the “independents” are all unhappy with Obama and are probably going to vote for the Republicans again when just a couple of years ago they were all unhappy with Bush and voted with the Democrats. This was interpreted as a signal that Obama needs to tack right immediately to recapture them.

Does that make sense? Isn’t the answer more logically that independents just habitually dislike whoever is in power and think that both parties are incompetent? Why else would they identify as independents in the first place?

I realize that the villagers think there is some sort of “median” moderate voter who believes that the answer to all of our problems lies somewhere between the positions of the two parties. But that’s not necessarily the independent’s position. They don’t like either party true, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that they yearn to split the difference. In fact, I suspect that a large number of them are apolitical people who don’t really understand politics at all and simply reject whoever is in power when things aren’t going well, without regard to party. (In fact, there is great social utility in rejecting party politics and proclaiming yourself unhappy with the whole set-up. Who can’t relate to that on some level?) Many independents ideologically fall far enough outside the two parties that they can’t consider themselves members of either — libertarians, greens etc.

The number of independents out there is quite large and all national politicians need to reach them in elections in order to win. But the knee jerk assumption that they are always more moderate than everyone else is probably wrong. They might just be more cranky, more cynical, more uninformed, more skeptical or more impatient. There are a lot of reasons why someone might be an independent in American politics but I suspect that ideology is at the bottom of the list.

Update: To clarify, I did say that I can understand why people hate both parties and that some independents are actually liberatarians, greens, etc. I should have made clearer that there are, of course, independents who are thoughtful and engaged and who reject both parties in favor of … well, something else. It is not an indictment of all of them to say that many of them are not ideological and may be driven by reasons that are more emotional than intellectual.

I can’t help but note that people reveal an awful lot about their own insecurities when they read any criticism of “independents” as a criticism of them personally. Perhaps they need to look at what the word “independent” actually means. It would seem to me that it logically would include a lot of different kinds of people and that one can’t extrapolate from that designation any kind of ideology or that they are inherently moderate —which is the point of this post.

Update II: Via Steve Benen, I see that Kaiser Foundation did a study of independents and came up with sopme specific designations. It’s interesting.
It certainly doesn’t follow that all of those people can be determined to be “moderates.”

Atrios weighs in here.

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Trying To Find The Exit

by dday

Andrew Sullivan, 15 years after the fact, kinda sorta apologizes for Betsy McCaughey but not really, calling it not his finest hour but saying that he was somehow roped into publishing it:

I do not think it’s professional to air the specifics of internal battles after the fact, and I take full responsibility for being the editor of the magazine that published the piece. I accepted an award for it. I stood behind it. In my view, it had many interesting points and as an intellectual exercize in contemplating the full possible consequences of Hillary Clinton’s proposal, it was provocative and well worth running. But its premise that these potential consequences were indisputably in the bill in that kind of detail was simply wrong; and I failed to correct that, although all I can say is that I tried. One key paragraph – critical to framing the piece so it was not a declaration of fact but an assertion of what might happen if worst came to worst – became a battlefield with her for days; and all I can say is, I lost. I guess I could have quit. Maybe I should have. I decided I would run the piece but follow it with as much dissent and criticism as possible. I did discover that she was completely resistant to rational give-and-take. It was her way or the highway […]

Again, I take responsibility.

This is taking responsibility? Who else but the editor of the magazine should be responsible for its content? Who was Sullivan fighting with, as the editor of the magazine, that forced him to label the piece as fact instead of as one woman’s opinion? Martin Peretz? Betsy McCaughey herself, as he seems to intimate here? Who was in charge? As Kevin Drum says, he surely owes us the rest of this story. As much as Sullivan tries to discount it, the piece was crucial to killing health reform:

But look: it was one piece in a magazine. It’s being treated as if it were a turning point in history. Please. There’s one reason the Clinton healthcare bill failed and it isn’t Betsy McCaughey. It’s Hillary Clinton.

Sullivan is offering the “innocent bystander” theory of journalism, where journalists have no effect on public opinion. In this case, it’s mixed in with his visceral hatred of Hillary Clinton, which is nonsense. But the original “No Exit” had huge implications for the health care debate in 1994, not least of which because of its impact on OTHER JOURNALISTS. They figured that McCaughey had some kind of authority and took her claims as important ones, which they subsequently disseminated across the media. That’s how opinion leaders get their information, and that dribbles down into the public at large. There is no question that the article hurt health care reform, and Sullivan doesn’t want the responsibility, so he tries to wriggle off the hook. In fact, he was defending the article a couple years ago before McCaughey resurfaced. Sullivan’s mistake actually has affected the health care debate TODAY, 15 years later, by making McCaughey’s claims viable, at least to conservatives who knew how to use them. And he doesn’t come out of this exchange looking good.

When an editor publishes something that he admits that he knew at the time to be false–“[McCaughey’s] premise that these potential consequences were indisputably in the bill in that kind of detail was simply wrong; and I failed to correct that, although all I can say is that I tried”–there should be consequences.

And I think there should be consequences for the Atlantic Monthly, and for other publications that continue to employ Andrew Sullivan.

As Ezra Klein says, that Sullivan won’t defend McCaughey anymore shows how toxic she is, though she still manages to get on the teevee at will. But this is a very weak effort to bury the past.

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Get Out The Smelling Salts

by digby

It seems Miss Mellie’s corset is cinched way too tight:

Let us start with Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), who took to the House floor last week to say that the Republican health care reform plan is to have people “die quickly.” It was an over-the-top, outrageous comment that has no place in civil discourse.

But, of course, it was not the first. Let’s review the bidding on House floor statements on this specific subject.

Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.) said the House Democrats’ bill “essentially said to America’s seniors: drop dead.” Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) said on the floor in July that the public insurance option in the Democrats’ plan “is gonna kill people.” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) suggested the Democrats’ plan might “put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government.” Ouch, ouch and ouch. And let’s not forget a double-extra ouch for Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R-S.C.) outburst on the House floor during President Barack Obama’s speech to the joint session on health care reform.

The House response to Wilson, after he refused to apologize on the floor, was to vote to chastise him formally, a mild punishment that sadly did not get the support of the Republican leadership, although several of the best House Members on the GOP side of the aisle courageously voted in favor. Predictably, Grayson’s bad behavior generated outraged calls from Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his Republican colleagues for Grayson to apologize. Predictably, he refused. And sadly, predictably, the Democratic leaders closed ranks behind Grayson.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) at least did not support or endorse the Grayson remark and called on all miscreants to apologize. She is right — but we deserve more from the Speaker than a response that if one apologizes, all should apologize. It is up to the Speaker to rise above the partisan fray and put her own colleague on the spot, even if it is unfair to let the others off the hook. The only way to stop this nonsense is to create some level of shame for those who perpetrate it.

That’s so true. And if the Republicans actually had any shame it might work. Unfortunately, this is yet another call for Democrats to “take the high road” where they always end up being rolled and left in the gutter.

I am more convinced than ever that Grayson’s move was the right one. First of all, I don’t actually think there is any need for politicians to be delicate little debutantes when they are making floor speeches. Certainly, they don’t need the village to behave like a bunch of spinster chaperones reminding them to watch their manners all the time. Politics requires passionate rhetoric to move people. It always has. Pretending like it’s supposed to be a tea party is selling it short.

However, the patented Republican hissy fit depends upon the asymmetrical application of fiery rhetoric and faux outrage when the other side does the same. And that assymetry has led to some disastrous consequences for the country, from the Impeachment to the Swift Boating to the General Betrayus condemnation, these things serve to cut off debate and require rigid conformity of thought and action. It’s the use of political correctness (which in their case is anything connected to religion and the military) to create a controversy calling the opposition’s fundamental character into question if they deign to oppose the prevailing conventional wisdom.

But the Democrats are starting to use this against the Republicans to good effect, which, hopefully, in the long term will make the Republican hissy fit obsolete. Just today, Debbie Wasserman Schultz did a great job on MSNBC in pointing out that the nasty Republican talking poinst about General McChrystal putting Nancy Pelosi “in her place” were sexist. In the past the Democrats wouldn’t have gone there, preferring instead to focus on the fact that they were being disrespectful of the civilian rule (that we used to hold dear before the Republicans fetishized the military to the extent that any disagreement with a General in the field is deemed traitorous. See: betrayus) They wouldn’t win that argument even though it’s terribly important. They would instead be accused of, you guessed it, failing to support the troops.

So Wasserman Shultz and the Democrats wisely called the Republicans on the sexism, which took it out of the realm of the military and into the realm of nasty Republican politics, where it can be exposed. It’s a Democratic form of the hissy fit, a sort of deflection to put the Republicans on the defensive. And in this case, it’s not even faux outrage — they really are sexist jerks and deserve to be called out for it.

Perhaps someday we will all have polite politics like we had when the gasbags were all coming up and Tip and Ronnie used to put their differences aside at the end of the day and go out whoring and get drunk together. (Or whatever …) But until then, the best we can hope for is to put an end to the manipulative tactics that the right has been using to stifle progress for the past thirty years.

Taking the high road is what got us to this place. What we need now are some smart political tacticians who know how to change the terms of the debate and put an end to this asymmetrical rhetorical war. I’m sorry that gives the Village ladies sewing circle and manners society a fit of the vapors, but the country just doesn’t have the time to waste playing the Republicans’ game anymore.

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Such Sweet Sorrow

by dday

You may have noticed that a story of mine, about Senate liberals pushing back and demanding Harry Reid put a public option in any bill that hits the Senate floor, popped up on Firedoglake today. There’s a good reason for that.

I’ve accepted a position with Firedoglake running a new site over there that will be called FDL News. The site has not yet gone live bit will come into being in the next couple weeks; in the meantime I’ll be posting on the main site over there, starting next Monday (today was kind of a preview). It’s an opportunity to do a mix of breaking news, analysis and some original reporting. Firedoglake has some fine bloggers in their stable and I’m excited about the opportunity.

Unfortunately, the downside to all this is that I will be unable to continue here at Hullabaloo, at least in the short term. I’ve been posting here for close to two years now, and there is absolutely no way I would have ever had an opportunity to blog full-time were it not for Digby taking a chance on me and letting me play in the sandbox over here. I couldn’t be more grateful and thankful to her for doing so. And I’m not just a colleague, but a fan, so I’ll miss most of all the experience of sharing the stage day after day with someone who consistently drills down to the truth of our politics on a daily basis. Not to mention Tristero and everyone else who hangs out here.

I also want to thank the audience here. Our commenters are certainly not meek and they often give me a thorough going-over, but I actually appreciate that greatly. It has certainly made be a better writer and forced me to challenge assumptions on several occasions. To those who have read me in the past, I hope you’ll come over to FDL and give me a read sometime. To those others who constantly scan through the bylines flipping past the “by dday”s while heading straight to the “by digby”s, I’m eliminating that minor nuisance from you! You’re welcome!

It will be very hard to step away from this perch, which I still consider the best platform in the whole blogosphere. But this is a chance I just couldn’t pass up. My last posts here will be on Friday; I’ll be sure to let you know a short time afterwards where precisely you can find me at FDL. Thanks so much to everyone.

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Powerful Incentives

by digby

I wrote a post excoriating “the man of the people,” Dick Gephardt, for lobbying for Goldman Sachs. Mike the Mad Biologist wrote in to say that I wasn’t factoring in one of the greatest incentives for political prostitution and he’s right:

It’s about life after politics. One of the dirty secrets about many, if not most, congressmen and senators is that they like Washington, D.C., rhetoric notwithstanding. They want to stay in town after they leave (or lose) office. Once you’ve tasted the Capital of the Free World, do you really want to go back to Pierre, South Dakota? (Tom Daschle comes to mind…). It’s funny how many politicians, having made a career out of bashing War-Shing-Tun, don’t…seem…to…ever…leave. I can’t blame them: I moved to Boston, and would be very happy to stay here. Places do grow on you. The problem comes, for politicians, when they have to find a job. For an ex-politician, there aren’t that many ‘straight paths’ to getting your next job: lobbyist and corporate board member are the easiest and the most lucrative. But if you get a reputation as someone who opposes large business interests, what chance do you have of getting either of these types of jobs? Sometimes, the quid pro quo is very crude and direct (e.g., Billy Tauzin), but the Village’s political culture makes it clear what is acceptable. One should not be ‘populist’, or, heaven forbid, liberal. The narcissistic motivation is far more subtle. Many ex-politicians are invited to join think tanks or, at least, be participants on panels and round tables (which often pay a decent stipend for ‘marquee’ names, such as an ex-senator). This allows them to, once again, for a brief, shining moment, walk into a room and have everyone treat them as a Very Important Person. And you get to blather on about policy without having to the heavy lifting of politics and politicking. Yet if you’re tagged as the ‘wrong sort’, you won’t get these perks either. So, I think we’re missing the big picture on corruption: it’s the retirement, stupid.

Dick Gephardt as a former majority leader with more than 20 years under his belt makes 80% of his highest salary which was about $195,000 in pension. Plus a 401k, social security and the congressional health care system. They were given these generous benefits for a reason:

S.Rept. 79-1400 (May 31, 1946) stated that a retirement plan for
Congress:”would contribute to independence of thought and action, [be] an
inducement for retirement for those of retiring age or with other
infirmities, [and] bring into the legislative service a larger number of
younger Members with fresh energy and new viewpoints concerning the
economic, social, and political problems of the Nation”.

Yeah, that worked out.

And apparently that and everything that’s come since is such a pittance that a man just has no choice but to whore himself out to Goldman Sachs.

I agree with Mike, but I think it’s more than money. It’s about staying in the game, being a player. And in American culture, being a real player means being paid huge sums of money. How can anyone possibly be respected otherwise?

It’s the culture of power in general in this country that creates these incentives. And I’m still not sure what to do about it except pick up a pitchfork and get busy.

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The Non-Existing Condition

by dday

Valerie Scaglione’s story is almost comical:

Monthly premiums for Blue Cross coverage for them and their three daughters have soared over the years to almost $2,000, Scaglione says.

She estimates that in the past six years, the family has spent more than $140,000 on premiums and co-payments.

Yet when she tried to switch from the family’s expensive individual insurance to a Blue Shield group plan that’s more affordable, she said, she and her oldest daughter were denied coverage. She said neither of them has the medical conditions that were listed as reasons for being denied – bronchitis and a skin ailment.

“I have three children,” said Scaglione, 47. “We have to have insurance. Stitches may be required. A broken bone may have to be set. We have no chronic diseases. We’re a normal family. This is crazy.”

Consumer advocates consider their story emblematic in many ways of complaints that plague the entire health insurance industry.

“We’ve seen people denied for things as minor as heartburn,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a statewide health advocacy coalition. “It gets to the point where living is a pre-existing condition.”

Mrs. Scaglione’s health insurance coverage costs three times as much as the family’s MORTGAGE. And she can’t get out of it and into a group plan, because Blue Shield flat-out invented reasons to deny the coverage. She has demanded to see the medical records that show her daughter having bronchitis and her having a skin condition called rosacea, but the health insurer refused the request.

As the debate continues, the Scagliones remain among California’s 3 million consumers in the pricey individual insurance market.

“I wonder how many other families are like ours,” Scaglione said. “What’s the option, to be uninsured? This forces me to stay with our same plan. Premiums will go up and up and up. What, do we not feed the kids? It gets to the point of being absurd.”

Blue Shield of California can be reached at (866) 256-7703. You might want to ask them what health care ailments they think you have of which you’re unaware.

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“We Can’t Pay Our Bills”

by digby

..Blanche Lincoln that is:

We’ve actually been picking at Lincoln since last July when the first ad went out, constantly annoying her in every TV market in the state off and on. She’s up for reelection next year and her numbers are down. There is now talk of a serious Republican challenger. normally, that would be bad news for progressives, but Arkansas is pretty much a one party state — the party of money. So, it’s hard to see that there would be much of a loss for progressives.

At this point, I think it’s clear that Lincoln is going to vote against any plan that includes a public option. She’s a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Cross, which control over 80% of the state of Arkansas’ health market. They will not stand for any competition. (That would be un-American.)

She can do that if she wants as long as she sticks with the party to break a Republican filibuster and allow an up or down vote. It’s not too much to require that these sell-out Democrats buck their corporate lords to do that much. They can go home and run on their record of stabbing their own constituents in the back if they like but they should not expect the party to lift a finger to help them keep their seats if they can’t even stand with them to allow a majority vote.

In that case, Lincoln needs them more than they need her. As Howie points out, her polling is very shaky, even according to Rasmussen:

…it’s still worth noting that they are another firm, even if a compromised one, showing that Blanche Lincoln is likely to be looking for a new line of work next year.

Arkansas’ Blanche Lambert Lincoln trails all four of her leading Republican challengers in the first Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 survey in the state. Lincoln fails to get 50% of the vote in any of the match-ups, and any incumbent who falls short of that level is considered vulnerable.

The party shouldn’t hesitate to threaten to cut her loose either — there’s no point in having a 60 vote majority if you can’t break a filibuster. In fact, it makes you look far weaker than you would otherwise. You’ve got nothing on which to blame your failure except your inability to lead your own party.

After all, if Obama and Reid can’t even hold their party together to break a Republican filibuster of the most important progressive legislation in more than 50 years then … well, I guess we know, don’t we?

As always, you can donate to the Blanche campaign here.

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Settling Along The Dividing Line

by digby

Polling is showing that people have come back down from their teabagger highs:

The latest Associated Press-GfK poll has found that opposition to Obama’s health care remake dropped dramatically in just a matter of weeks. Still, Americans remain divided over complex legislation that Democrats are advancing in Congress. The public is split 40-40 on supporting or opposing the health care legislation, the poll found. An even split is welcome news for Democrats, a sharp improvement from September, when 49 percent of Americans said they opposed the congressional proposals and just 34 percent supported them.

That doesn’t sound great, but what’s within the poll is fairly encouraging. First of all, some seniors seem to be coming to their senses, at least the liberal ones:

Among seniors, opposition fell from 59 percent in September to 43 percent now. Almost four in 10, 38 percent, now support it, compared with 31 percent in September. Retiree Sandi Murray, 65, of Hesperia, Mich., said she doesn’t have any concerns her Medicare coverage will suffer. “I think it will be A-OK,” she said.

Independents are coming around too (sort of):

The poll found that 68 percent of Democrats support the congressional plans, up from 57 percent in early September. Opposition among independents plunged from 51 percent to 36 percent. However, only 29 percent of independents currently support the plans in Congress.

There is one group, however that remains adamantly opposed:

Republicans remain solidly against the congressional health care plans, with four out of five opposed. However, even 13 percent say they support the bills in Congress, a contrast with the mood of GOP lawmakers, who are all but unanimously opposed.[…]
Andrew Newcomb, 28, who works in sales and lives near Destin, Fla., said he doesn’t think taxpayers should have to take on the costs of covering the uninsured. “I don’t want my tax money to pay for some pill-popper to fake some injury and go to the hospital when I don’t ever go to the hospital,” said Newcomb, adding he can afford to go to the doctor and pay $60 for a checkup.

Lovely people.

The August silly season was brutal this year, but things seem to have calmed down. The country is divided on HC reform, but then — it’s always divided. In fact, being divided is a defining characteristic of America — we even had a civil war over it. The only thing that’s new is that the political parties have finally cleanly divided along the ideological (and regional) fault lines that have always been there. That’s just the way it is now and I would think the sooner the country understands that this is the new political terrain the better off we’ll be.

More than ever before, elections should have consequences. It may take a while to make the political establishment understand this, but eventually the American parliamentary style (such as it is) should become accepted and we’ll fight this stuff out without having to battle the conventional village wisdom that everything has to be bipartisan or it isn’t legitimate.

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