Month: February 2010

Arguing From Scratch

by digby
 
Is Susan Collins being blackmailed by a teabagger or something? How else to explain her suddenly rabid pro-torture, unconstitutional position on terrorist suspects? I suppose this could be the Republican leadership putting the screws to her to make the face of torture more moderate, but whatever it is, she’s become some kind of zealot on this subject.

Dday wrote up her appearance on Andrea Mitchell today, in the wake of the news that the FBI has gotten excellent intelligence and cooperation using legal, humane methods:

Mitchell started by asking Collins if this approach to interrogation wasn’t more favorable than declaring Abdulmutallab an enemy combatant and using torture. Collins claimed that she received testimony from the Director of National Intelligence, Homeland Security Director and the head of the National Counter-Terrorism Center that they were not consulted on the Miranda decision. She also said that there was a long six-week gap between when Abdulmutallab returned to cooperate and provide intelligence, and we lost time-sensitive information.

And Mitchell, who was actually prepared, oddly enough, responded that DNI, DHS and the NCTC all participated in a national security briefing on Abdulmutallab and did know about the Miranda rights decision. She noted that the Nigerian family members would not have helped earn cooperation from Abdulmutallab if he did not have access to a lawyer and was being treated well (ensuring that the intelligence is actually decent instead of a way to get captors to stop torturing him). She said that the Bush Administration proceeded in exactly the same fashion with respect to Richard Reid. And she said that even under military procedures, Abdulmutallab would have had a lawyer.

Collins, shocked that she actually had to defend her moronic talking points, evaded the questions she didn’t want to answer, and replied that the military detainee system provides “more flexibility” – yeah, I’ll bet it does – and that, in fact, Jose Padilla was held as enemy combatant (what a model case!).

Eventually, Collins resignedly said that yes, she’s glad Abdulmutallab is cooperating now, but 5-6 weeks of “time-sensitive information” was lost because the intel wasn’t provided immediately. And the security officials may have known about the Miranda decision, but weren’t consulted enough. Or something.

After the intense debate over torture in the last few years, you’d think we would have finally gotten beyond this argument, but evidently it’s going to be as if it never happened and you have to start all over again educating the “24” addled public about the principles behind the fourth amendment and our constitution, not to mention the sick immorality of torture. (What do these people tell the children, anyway?)

If you need some refreshing on the bullet points, here’s a good start.

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It’s All They Know

by digby

I know you’re not supposed to say that the American people are stupid, so I won’t. but can we at least say they have been brainwashed to the point of being intellectually crippled?

Half of Americans (50%) believe government should do less to regulate business. The rest are divided between saying things are about right (23%) and that the government should regulate more (24%). The majority (57%) are worried that there will be too much government regulation of business.

That is an epic failure of liberal politics. You can’t blame them, if nobody ever told them otherwise.

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The Phony Human

by digby

The Washington Post says that Obama is having trouble relating to middle class worries and concerns because he’s an elitist who travels in a helicopter and his own airplane. (I hear he has his own private chef too!)

And now he is affecting a fake regular guy accent to fool people into believing that he is one of them, taking cues from his (respectively) frank and sensitive predecessors, Bush and Clinton. But it probably won’t work. There’s just something (presumptuous?) about him:

It is a tough sell for any president who lives inside what Obama refers to as “the bubble,” but tougher still for Obama. His first year in office was defined in part by a paradox. He is a rare president who comes from the middle class, yet people still perceive him as disconnected from it. As he arrived in Nashua, nearly two-thirds of Americans believed that his economic policies had hurt the country or made no difference at all; almost half thought he did not understand their problems.

Hey, half the Republicans believe he’s a Kenyan usurper and the rest think he’s a Marxist terrorist sympathizer, so that takes care of the crazies. What about the normal people?

So it was little surprise in New Hampshire that, after Obama visited one manufacturing business, he was introduced at his town hall by the owner of another manufacturing business. Obama answered six questions from the crowd at a packed high school gym, referring to “folks” 13 times before aides indicated he had run out of time.

He lingered afterward for five minutes, shaking hands, slapping backs and exchanging hugs while his assistant, Reggie Love, followed to collect business cards and phone numbers. At 3:30 p.m., less than three hours after he landed in New Hampshire, Obama peeled away from the crowd, pointing apologetically at a cadre of aides and Secret Service agents who were suggesting it was time to go. The moment for direct connection had passed. Now it was back to the motorcade, onto his 166th flight aboard Air Force One and off to the White House — back to a life apart.

There’s just something different about him, something that makes the Washington Post believe he isn’t like all those Real Americans he’s trying to woo. I wonder what it is?

This narrative has been out there since the campaign as I’m sure you recall, but it’s lately resurfaced. Maureen Dowd’s demented scribblings gave it the imprimatur of village conventional wisdom. But the polls don’t bear this out at all:

“Warm and friendly”: 77%
“Cares about people like me”: 64%

Of course, it must be noted that Sally Quinn definitely feels that Obama is anything but warm and friendly and doesn’t care nearly enough about people like her. If he wants to change this narrative it’s going to take some concerted ring kissing of the Real Americans who live in the Village. When it comes to CW, they’re the only ones who count.

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Instinctive Hypocrisy

by digby

Dr Krugman puts to rest some of the misconceptions about deficits. Meanwhile, in Obama’s snooze inducing Q&A with Democratic Senators, Evan Bayh helpfully reanimates the monster just to make sure that the President doesn’t get carried away with any plans to actually improve the economy for regular people and keeps his eyes on the prize: wealthy investors.

The Guardian helpfully blogged the Q&A and makes the excellent point that the Democrats might have thought through this event a little bit and at least come up with good questions. Obviously, they just winged it and it wasn’t very edifying:

11.00am: Harry Reid says time for one or two questions. Next up is Patrick Leahy – and he too has a question about how those Republicans are being so awful and blocking stuff (judicial nominees in this case).

Why are the Senate Democrats so intent on portraying themselves as powerless? What do they think they’ll gain from this?

Obama notes that the Democrats in the minority pulled many of the same stunts, although he thinks they were more discriminating.

I’m all for Republican bashing, but this approach of whining about obstructionism has rapidly diminishing returns. If the Republicans are perceived as dominating and strong even from the minority, there’s a good chance people will think it makes sense to put them in charge. Americans like winners and the Democrats are making themselves look like losers.

I think that what may have happened is that the Democrats think they can adopt the same tone of victimization as the Republicans and reap the same rewards. But the right has a highly developed, centuries-in-the-making chip on their shoulders that makes them able to seen as both strong and victimized at the same time. They whine and complain with an accompanying smirk to let people know that they are only adopting the tone in order to make the other side look bad, not because they truly believe the other side has beaten them. The Democrats are just complaining.

I worry a little bit about these complicated strategies to “trap” the Republicans and make them look bad by forcing them to reveal their true selves. It’s one thing to straightforwardly attack the other side on ideological grounds and educate the public. That would be the beginning of a very long campaign that goes way beyond next November and I can’t think of anything that would be more useful. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as if the party has gotten the memo on that if this morning’s meeting is any indication. But these clever ideas about “forcing” the Republicans to govern etc, are a little bit too clever for our Democratic party. It’s not that Republicans are smarter, it’s just that they have been at this stuff for a long time and they have an instinct for this sort of politics.

I also think that Democrats really don’t like to govern because it makes them feel exposed. They have prostituted themselves to business and adopted neo-liberal principles, but they have to pretend that they are representing working people and the poor. They haven’t developed the skills the Republicans have for that kind of inconsistency and they just seem confused and weak.

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Naming Names

by digby
 
So Palin is calling for Rahm to be fired because he called liberal activists “fucking retarded,” back in August, saying such comments were “heartbreaking.”  It’s the first time I’ve ever agreed with her on anything,

Rahm has apologized to for his remarks, however, and I’m sure he’s very sincere.  He would never knowingly insult the developmentally handicapped by comparing them to liberals.

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan points out something I hadn’t heard before about Palin:

Does anyone actually believe that Palin’s name for the child of miraculous provenance was found by her deep knowledge of ancient Norse as she claims in her magical-realism novel, “Going Rogue”?

 […]

The medical term for Down Syndrome is Trisomy-21 or Trisomy-g. It is often shortened in medical slang to Tri-g.

She did give him the middle name Van as a tribute to Van Halen  and named her first son Track because  she likes track and field sports, so anything is possible.

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The Nucleus Of Our Society

by digby

As I surmised yesterday, the administration has in fact decided to debate the Republicans on the basis of ideology (when they aren’t joining hands with them to make deficits the biggest threat to America since Osama bin Laden.)

Orszag’s criticism of Ryan on Tuesday is part of a sustained White House strategy to use Ryan as a foil. He took similar shots over the weekend while previewing the budget and on Monday when it was released.
Ryan fired back at the White House in a gaggle with reporters.

“The primary reason [for the attacks] is that they don’t want to talk about their own approach,” Ryan said. “It’s an embarrassment.”

The White House effort appears aimed at taking on GOP lawmakers who have portrayed the Democrats’ proposed Medicare cuts in healthcare reform as a attempt to cut benefits for seniors. By attacking high-profile GOP plans as devastating to seniors, the White House could counter that criticism.

Far from running away from a fight with the president, Ryan has embraced it. On Tuesday, he responded to Orszag’s criticism with a five-minute defense.

“We simply believe that the nucleus of our economy and our society is the individual, not the government,” he said. “And we believe we ought to have a safety net, to help people who cannot help themselves, are down on luck. But we don’t want to turn that safety net into a hammock.”

So, if you are over 65, unless you are “down on your luck” (definition TBD), you’d better get your lazy old butts out of that social security and Medicare hammock and get to work — if you can find a job. And everybody else had better get rich and stay healthy or plan on working until you’re in your grave. That’s how Real Americans stay strong.

I think the White House has hit pay dirt. This guy’s going to be completely honest about what conservatives really believe in. Let’s roll.

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The Money Dilemma

by digby
 
Dday has the latest on the increasingly inexplicable Senate banking reform negotiations:

Sen. Chris Dodd appears obsessed with getting a bipartisan financial reform package through the Senate Banking Committee, no matter if it makes a mockery of reform, no matter if it includes virtually nothing to protect consumers or deal with the problem of “too big to fail” financial firms. He’s already seeking to drop the Volcker rule put forward by the White House that would limit proprietary trading from banks:

However, Shelby said he expects to hold a meeting with Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) regarding the way forward on regulatory reform in two weeks time. A Democratic banking committee staffer confirmed that the meeting between Dodd and Shelby will be critical as Dodd needs to determine the level of bipartisan agreement and the timing of bringing the bill through committee and on the Senate floor.

With the election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate, the Democrats no longer have the necessary 60 votes to force through a Regulatory Reform package, and any bill will need at least some Republican support to pass. A Dodd staffer said the senator is likely to quietly drop or modify many of the recommendations in the Volcker rule to ensure Republican support for regulatory reform.

“Chris is retiring so he wants to end his career with an important regulatory reform bill and he wants to make the bill bipartisan,” the staffer said. “He is not going to risk bipartisan support to make the White House happy.”

A spokeswoman for Dodd denied that he would drop the Volcker rule, eventually stating that the Chairman supports it. That’s positive, that he’s walking back these reports after a host of criticism. But it’s not just Dodd. Mark Warner (D-VA) is also out there attacking the Volcker rule.

One hates to be cynical about this, but Dodd is leaving.  And he’s going to need a job.

At this point you really do have to wonder if they aren’t going to play into GOP hands and give them a nice “bipartisan” victory on a toothless financial reform bill (which they will combine with a nice bipartisan vote on the war) thus allowing the Republicans to call themselves the Party of Yes.  I would think that this would be a time to force the Republicans to make some tough votes, not easy ones.

On the other hand, this is really about something else altogether isn’t it? Here’s William Greider from a year ago:

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Spyers And Liars

by digby
 
A new book by Eamon Javers reveals that the CIA allows its operatives to moonlight on Wall Street to supplement their poor incomes.  The chatter is that the administration will have to put a stop to it, but I would guess there’s no chance of that.  After all, these people are so vital that they can’t even be held responsible for breaking the law. In fact, we’ve been told that if anyone even launches an investigation they will just stop protecting Americans and let the terrorists kill us in our beds. What makes anyone think that they will allow the government to dictate how much money they can receive and from whom?

I’ve drawn the parallel before between that behavior and the behavior of the masters of the universe as they threatened to purposefully take down the entire financial system if they aren’t allowed to keep their bonuses.  It’s an interesting mindset: let me get away with anything I choose or the country gets it.  I guess that’s why the right reveres them so much — their patriotism.

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American Parliament

by digby

James Fallows has written a post called “why bipartisanship can’t work” that should be required reading for every political pundit and every reporter and editor. I don’t know why this isn’t common knowledge either, but it isn’t and it takes someone of Fallows’ stature to penetrate the media establishment.

This is just an excerpt, which features an email sent to him from a political friend. I urge you to read the whole thing and pass it around:

“Bipartisanship in the American sense means compromising on legislation so that a sufficient number of members of Congress from BOTH parties will support it, even if (as is typically the case) a few majority party members defect and most minority party members don’t join.  Bipartisanship consists of getting ENOUGH members of the minority party to join the (incomplete) majority in voting for major legislation.  It can’t happen if the minority party members vote as a block against major legislation.  And that can happen only if the minority party has the ability to discipline its ranks so that none join the majority, which is the unprecedented situation we’ve got in Congress today.

“The way parliamentary parties maintain their discipline is straightforward.  No candidate can run for office using the party label unless the party bestows that label upon him or her.  And usually, the party itself and not the candidate raises and controls all the campaign funds.  As every political scientist knows, the fact that in the U.S. any candidate can pick his or her own party label without needing anyone else’s approval, and can also raise his or her own campaign funds, is why there cannot be and never really has been any sustained party discipline before — even though it is a feature of parliamentary systems.

“The GOP now maintains party discipline by the equivalent of a parliamentary party’s tools:  The GOP can effectively deny a candidate the party label (by running a more conservative GOP candidate against him or her), and the GOP can also provide the needed funds to the candidate of the party’s choice.  And every GOP member of Congress knows it.  (Snowe and Collins may be immune, but that’s about it.)

“I’ve missed almost all the punditry this past week… but what I’ve seen seems almost like a lot of misleading fluff designed to fill the void that should follow an understanding of the foregoing, at least on the subject of ‘why no bipartisanship?’  There’s really nothing more to be said about “why no bipartisanship,” once one recognizes the GOP party discipline.  On this issue, it’s absolutely astounding to blame Obama or even the Congressional leadership (although Pelosi and Reid leave much to be desired otherwise).  It’s doubly astounding that the GOP did it once before, less perfectly, but with a very large reward for bad behavior in the form of the 1994 mid-term elections.  Yet no one calls them on it effectively, and bad behavior seems about to be rewarded again…

A lot of this could be fixed if we did one little thing: eliminate the filibuster. That one supermajority requirement makes it impossible for our two party system to function under conditions such as this. Obviously, the Republicans have no need to eliminate it because they have achieved this party discipline while the Democrats, also obviously, have not. (And frankly, I’m not sure we should want them to, considering that their policies would be very unlikely to be progressive if they did.)

The administration  has constructed a strategy to, I don’t know, shame the Republicans into breaking with their party? Can it work? Maybe.  But I maintain the the most useful aspect of that strategy is that it could actually inform the people of the differences between the far right policies of the Republicans and the merely centrist policies of the Democrats. (At this point, I would consider it a victory if the people knew that the wingnuts’ plans were as reasonable as a bunch of terrorist demands.) Actually getting Republican support is impossible, IMO.

But as long as the Republicans get rewarded for this behavior — and I see a very grave danger that they will succeed in portraying Obama as a failure for being unable to compromise enough to “bring them over” (and there is no compromise that can bring them over)— this will continue.

Update: This post by Meteor Blades illustrates in living color how this works in practice.

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Fantasies

by digby

Greenwald, finds the very serious Michael O’Hanlon opining on the lifting of DADT:

Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institute said the real test will be in the barracks, with the rank-and-file members of the military.

“We can talk about this delicately or we can just be fairly direct,” O’Hanlon said. “There are a lot of 18-year-old, old-fashioned, testosterone-laden men in the military who are tough guys. They’re often politically old-fashioned or conservative; they are not necessarily at the vanguard, in many cases, of accepting alternative forms of lifestyle.”

Glenn makes three excellent points about this comment: O’Hanlon sounds like the moral majority circa 1980, his arguments are the same as those used against racial integration and as a leading chickenhawk he is not in a position to argue with the military leadership, who are now supporting the lifting of the ban.

I just wanted to add one more point: when was the last time he talked to an 18 year old? Young people are far less likely to be homophobic than anyone else in society, not more and I don’t see why the 18 year olds in the military would be substantially different. Here’s a polling memo from the Pew Trusts:

Young Americans show strong levels of support for tolerance and equality toward homosexuals, and majorities say gays and lesbians should be able to form legal civil unions and get legally married, according to a new national survey of 15-25 year olds. And young people overwhelmingly support equal protection when it comes to housing, employment, and hate crimes. By six-to-one margins, American youth support gay rights and protections related to housing, employment, and hate crimes and those sentiments are held by all ideological, partisan, racial, geographic, and religious groups. One out of two respondents said they know someone who is gay; knowing a gay person has a significant impact on attitudes.

“The breadth of overall support demonstrates that young adults are doing more than showing simple support for fairness and tolerance toward homosexuals,” according to a report on the survey issued by Lake Snell Perry, which conducted the survey. “For them, these values transcend the realm of gay issues and have become part of their larger view of the way America should look.

[…]

Contrary to conventional wisdom, African American and Latino youth are more supportive of extending equal protections to gays on housing, employment, and hate crimes than whites. And majorities of these young people, although less intense, support civil unions, marriage, and adoption.

Majorities of Republican, conservative, and Born-Again Christian youth also support protections on housing, employment, and hate crimes, although they oppose gay civil unions, marriage, and adoption.

“These findings compliment other research we’ve done showing that young people are more socially tolerant than older generations,” said Peter Levine, CIRCLE’s Deputy Director. “This survey adds clear and detailed evidence that the DotNet Generation is the most tolerant and respectful of diversity in American history.”

It would seem that O’Hanlon’s dreamy “18-year-old, old-fashioned, testosterone-laden men in the military who are tough guys” are actually very unlikely to  hate gays. He’s just going to have to figure out how to think about those young warriors in a way which doesn’t require them to be straight and homophobic.

If the head of the joint chiefs believes that this is wrong and finally says that it’s time for the military to adjust, the 18 year olds are going to be the least of his problems. And thank gawd for that.

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