Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Stupid Explained – The Flag Conservatives

by poputonian

Norman Mailer differentiates between two types of conservatives, and articulates about pseudo-Christians. In doing so, he labels the inferior of this class as the Flag Conservatives, who, unfortunately, also happen to be running America:

There is just this kind of mad-eyed mystique in Americans: the idea that we Americans can do anything. So, say flag conservatives, we will be able to handle what comes. Our know-how, our can-do, will dominate all obstacles. They truly believe America is not only fit to run the world but that it must run the world. Otherwise, we will lose ourselves. If there is not a new seriousness in American affairs, the country is going to go down the drain.
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On the other hand, conservatism has its own deep ditches, its unclimbable walls, its immutable old ideas sealed in concrete. But lately, there are two profoundly different kinds of conservatives emerging, as different in their way as the communists and the socialists were before and after 1917, yes, two types of conservatives in America now. What I call “value conservatives” because they believe in what most people think of as the standard conservative values—family, home, faith, hard work, duty, allegiance—dependable human virtues. And then there are what I call “flag conservatives,” of whom obviously the present administration would be the perfect example.

I don’t think flag conservatives give a real damn about conservative values. They use the words. They certainly use the flag. They love words like “evil.” One of Bush’s worst faults in rhetoric (to dip into that cornucopia) is to use the word “evil” as if it were a button he can touch to increase his power. When people are sick and have an IV tube put in them to feed a narcotic painkiller on demand, a few keep pressing that button. Bush uses evil as his hot button for the American public. Any man who can employ that word 15 times in five minutes is not a conservative. Not a value conservative. A flag conservative is another matter. They rely on manipulation. What they want is power. They believe in America. That they do. They believe this country is the only hope of the world and they feel that this country is becoming more and more powerful on the one hand, but on the other, is rapidly growing more dissolute. And so the only solution for it is empire, World Empire. Behind the whole thing in Iraq is the desire to have a huge military presence in the near-East as a stepping stone for eventually taking over the world. Once we become a twenty-first century version of the old Roman Empire, then moral reform will come into the picture. The military is obviously more puritanical than the entertainment media. Soldiers can, of course, be wilder than anyone, but the overhead command is a major pressure on soldiers, and it is not permissive.
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You see, behind flag conservatism is not madness but logic. I’m not in accord with the logic. But it is powerful. From their point of view, America is getting rotten. The entertainment media are loose. They are licentious. The kids are getting to the point where they can’t read, but they sure can screw. Morals are vanishing. The real subtext may be that if America becomes again a military machine that is huge in order to oversee all its new commitments, then American sexual freedom, willy-nilly, will have to go on the back burner. Commitment and dedication will become necessary national values (with all the hypocrisy attendant on that.) Flag conservatives may see all this as absolutely necessary. In the last decade, there have been many blows to the psychic integument of conservatism. And the last half-year has been horrific. We have all had to recognize the outsize chicanery and economic pollution of the corporations, we have had to deal with the great blow the Catholic Church took, not to mention 9/11, which was a shock, if not an outright chasm at our feet. I think Americans took a hit that is not wholly out of proportion to what happened to the Germans after World War I when inflation came and wiped out the fundamental German notion of self, which was that if you worked hard and saved your money, you ended up having a decent old age. It is my belief Hitler could never have come to power ten years later without that runaway inflation. By the same measure, I think 9/11 did something comparable to the American sense of security.
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The point I want to make is that—let me do it in two parts: First, there was a fierce point of view back when the Soviet Union fell. Flag conservatives felt that was their opportunity to take over the world because we were the only people who knew how to run the world. And they were furious when Clinton got in. One of the reasons he was so hated was because he was frustrating what they wanted. That world takeover, so open, so possible from their point of view in 1992, was missed. How that contributed to intense hatred of Clinton! This attitude, I think, grew and deepened and festered through the eight years of the Clinton administration. I don’t know if White House principals talk to one another in private about this, but the key element in their present thought, I suspect, is that if America becomes an empire, then of necessity, everything here that needs to be strengthened will be affected positively. By their lights! If America grows into the modern equivalent of the Roman Empire, then it will be necessary to rear whole generations who can serve in the military in all parts of the world. It will put a new emphasis again upon education. Americans, who are famous for their inability to speak foreign languages, will suddenly be encouraged and over-encouraged to become linguists in order to handle the overseas tasks of empire. The seriousness of purpose will be back in American life. These are, I suspect, their arguments. They are not mine. I am not for World Empire. I can foresee endless disasters coming out of that.
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One of the messages that the flag conservatives are trying to send to China is, I expect: Hear this! You Chinese guys are obviously very bright. We can tell. We know! Because your Asian students in our universities get better marks than our people do. They are more serious. They were born for technology. People who have led submerged lives love technology. They don’t get any pleasure anyway, so they do like the notion of personal, right-at-your-desk power. Technology is ideal for them. All right, goes the unspoken message of the flag conservatives, you guys can have your technology, but you had better understand, China, that you will be the Greek slaves to us Romans. We will treat you well because you will be most important to us, eminently important. But don’t try to rise above your future station in life. The best you can ever hope to be is Greeks.
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Flag conservatives are not Christians. They are, at best, militant Christians, which is, of course, a fatal contradiction in terms. They are a very special piece of work, but they are not Christians. The fundament of Christianity is compassion, and it is usually observed by the silence attendant on its absence. Well, the same anomaly is true of the Muslims. Islam, in theory, is an immensely egalitarian religion. It believes everyone is absolutely equal before God. But the reality, no surprise, is something else. A host of Arab leaders, who do not look upon their poor people in any way as equals, make up a perfect counterpart to the way we live with Christianity. We violate Christianity with every breath we take. So do the Muslims violate Islam. Your question, is it a war to the end? I expect it is. We are speaking of war between two essentially unbalanced inauthentic theologies. So, it may prove to be an immense war. A vast conflict of powers is at the core and the motives of both sides are inauthentic which, I expect, makes it worse. The large and unanchored uneasiness I feel about it is that we may not get through this century. We could come apart—piece by piece, disaster after disaster, small and large.

It’s frightening to think how many followers of the Bush/Cheney flag conservative administration have no idea they are being deceived, that what they are following is exactly as Mailer describes. All those flags and all the yellow ribbons. If people only knew. They bought the simple logic: we’re for Good and they’re for Evil.
Here is another clip from Mailer, this one again is from his book, Why Are We At War?, which was published in 2003, several months after the interview above. This anectdote seems a good summation of the present state of affairs with regard to the flag and to the future of America:

We had a parade in Provincetown on the Fourth of July, 2002. A rather nice looking, pleasant fellow — he looked to me like a young liberal lawyer — came up to me and handed me a small American flag. And I looked at him and just shook my head. And he walked on. It wasn’t an episode in any way. He came over with a half-smile and walked away with a half-smile. But I was furious for not saying, “You don’t have to wave a flag to be a patriot.” By July of 2002, it bothered me a good deal. Free-floating patriotism seemed like a direct measure of our free-floating anxiety.

Take the British for contrast. The British have a love of country that is profound. They can revile it, tell dirty stories about it, give you dish on all the imperfects who are leading the country. But their patriotism is deep. In America it’s as if we’re playing musical chairs, and you shouldn’t get caught without a flag or you’re out of the game. Why do we need all this reaffirmation? It’s as if we’re a three-hundred-pound man who’s seven feet tall, superbly shaped, absolutely powerful, and yet every three minutes he’s got to reaffirm the fact that his armpits have a wonderful odor. We don’t need compulsive, self-serving patriotism. It’s odious. When you have a great country, it’s your duty to be critical of it so it can become even greater. But culturally, emotionally, we are growing more arrogant, more vain. We’re losing a sense of the beauty not only of democracy but also of its peril.

Democracy is built upon a notion that is exquisite and dangerous. It virtually states that if the will of the populace is freely expressed, more good than bad will result. When America began, it was the first time in the history of civilization that a nation dared to make an enormous bet founded on this daring notion–that there is more good than bad in people. Until then, the prevailing assumption had been that the powers at the top knew best; people were no good and had to be controlled. Now we have to keep reminding ourselves that just because we’ve been a great democracy, it doesn’t guarantee we’re going to continue to be one. Democracy is existential. It changes. It changes all the time. That’s one reason why I detest promiscuous patriotism. You don’t take democracy for granted. It is always in peril. We all know that any man or woman can go from being a relatively good person to a bad one. We can all become corrupted, or embittered. We can be swallowed by our miseries in life, become weary, give up. The fact that we’ve been a great democracy doesn’t mean we will automatically keep being one if we keep waving the flag. It’s ugly. You take monarchy for granted, or a fascist state. But democracy changes all the time.

The Stupids: Episode 4,577

by digby

A geography teacher put on paid leave for refusing to remove Mexican, Chinese and United Nations flags from his classroom will be allowed to return to school today after district officials backed down.

But Eric Hamlin, who teaches seventh-graders in Jefferson County, hopes his experience will inspire a backlash against a Colorado law that restricts display of other nations’ flags.

“This hasn’t been a teacher-versus-school- district issue,” Hamlin said. “This has been a teacher taking on the state statute, with the school district stuck in the middle as the enforcer.”

Carmody Middle School principal John Schalk put Hamlin on paid leave Wednesday after the teacher refused three orders to take the flags out of his classroom.

The school district cited a state law prohibiting the display of any flag but the American, Colorado or local flags on public buildings, including schools. Temporary displays for instructional or historical purposes are exempt, but the school principal did not consider Hamlin’s display temporary enough.

District officials agreed Thursday that Hamlin could keep the flags up for six weeks, then exchange them with other flags from his collection of more than 50. The district said he could keep his next set of flags, 25 of them from Middle Eastern nations, up for 12 weeks.

Former state Rep. Carl Miller, who sponsored legislation in 2002 strengthening a 1971 law restricting foreign flag displays, said the school was right to put Hamlin on leave and should not have let him return so soon.

Miller, a Democrat from Leadville, disagreed with Jefferson County Superintendent Cindy Stevenson, who said the outcome was a “win-win situation.”

“The only win-win I see is that Mr. Hamlin wins, China wins, Mexico wins and the United Nations wins,” he said.

The Stupids: Episode 4,578

Littleton schools take down foreign flags

A Littleton middle school removed 30 flags from the gym today, fearing they violate a Colorado law against displaying foreign flags in state buildings.

Goddard Middle School Principal Amy Oaks said students will express the same message of diversity by creating banners that symbolize the foreign nations.

“Perhaps I have a much more cautious interpretation of the law than other people,” Oaks said. “I have no idea. I just know that we certainly wouldn’t want to be in violation of the state law…

“We don’t want it to be anything that anybody would say, ‘Do you realize you’re violating the law on the wall of your gym? We don’t want that.”

State law allows flags as part of a temporary display for educational purposes, provided the flags are not permanently affixed to the building. The Goddard flags have been up since the 2003-04 school year.

“It kind of feels permanent to me,” Oaks said.

Oaks pulled down the flags after a teacher in Jefferson County was placed on administrative leave over a flag controversy in his classroom.

The 30 flags at Goddard, including a U.S. flag, represented the nationalities of Goddard students, including some from as far away as Mongolia and Eritrea.

Oaks said she and an art teacher will oversee creation of the banners, using paint on artists canvas.

These are the educated people.

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Re-Runs

by digby

I am getting so tired of this nonsense. I read today from Avedon Carol that the wingnuts are attacking feminists again for not being sufficiently exercized by the plight of women under Islamic theocratic regimes:

Another re-run being linked by right-wingers is this crap about how western feminists are uninterested in condemning Islamic extremism. Of course, we do – all the time – but no one listens. We condemned Bush for leaving Afghan women high and dry after bombing Kabul, where the Taliban is now having a resurgence. We condemned the neocon plan to invade Iraq, thus unleashing extremist Islam in what had been a secular country. And we don’t like the way Bush’s policies have interrupted what had been a gradual weakening of extremism in Iran. Not one thing Bush-Cheney has done in the Middle-East has improved the lot of women, and in Iraq they have made things dramatically worse. The last thing the Islamic world’s women need is more of this kind of help.

And by the way, where were the wingnuts before 9/11 on this subject? I don’t remember them saying anything at all. But I do remember the Feminist Majority’s Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan:

October 21, 1998

Lenos Announce $100,000 Contribution to Raise Awareness of Gender Apartheid in Afganistan

Mavis and Jay Leno today presented a gift of $100,000 to the Feminist Majority Foundation to expand its Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan and to restore women’s rights to work, education, healthcare and freedom of movement. Mavis Leno will chair the national effort.

“Our contribution kicks-off an expanded organizing drive to mobilize public support and increase visibility for our Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid,” said Mavis Leno. “We are determined that every American know about what is happening to women and girls in Afghanistan. We must not remain silent. Jay and I are challenging others to lend their help and support.”

“Two years ago women in Afghanistan could work, be educated, and move about freely,” explained Leno. “Then the Taliban seized power. Today women are prohibited from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative and are forced to wear the burqa – a head-to-toe shroud. Girls and women are banned from schooling. . .even home schooling. Male doctors are forbidden to examine women. Women doctors are no longer allowed to practice. No healthcare. . .no education. . .no freedom of movement. This nightmare is reality for 11.5 million women and girls in Afghanistan.”

[…]

Smeal and Leno were joined at today’s the press conference by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) who has been leading efforts in Congress to stop gender apartheid, Zohra Rasekh, MPH of Physicians for Human Rights which has just completed an important study of the condition of women living under the Taliban, Jan Goodwin who has traveled extensively in Afghanistan and written on gender apartheid, and Sima Wali, an Afghan woman working in the U.S. to end gender apartheid.

Every couple of years some idiot rolls out this dipshit canard and everyone has to spend hours rebutting it. It’s ridiculous on its face, the same way it’s ridiculous that the rightwing claims that liberals, gays, women whomever are in league with the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. If there are any Americans who have a basic sympatico with these most conservative of social conservatives it’s the … American social conservatives.

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Blind Cruelty

by digby

Glenn Beck is “driven out of his mind” by little signs in braille outside offices that tell blind people which office they’re entering. Apparently, this “political correctness” interferes with wingnut freedom to not have to look at little plaques they dislike … or something:

MILANO: Well, “Dare to Ask,” Glenn, like my book, I Can’t Believe You Asked That!, is — it’s a chance for people to ask those kinds of taboo cultural questions that we all wish we could ask but we’re so afraid of offending in this P.C. world that, you know, we — we dance around it, as you were saying earlier.

BECK: OK. I have one. I have one. I’m going to get to some of the questions that have already been asked, but I’ve got one that drives me out of my mind. I work at Radio City in midtown Manhattan, and up by the doors, you know, like where the — you know — the office kitchen is, in Braille, on the wall, it says “kitchen.” You’d have to — a blind person would have to be feeling all of the walls to find “kitchen.” Just to piss them off, I’m going to put in Braille on the coffee pot — I’m going to put, “Pot is hot.” Ow!

It’s downright cruel that society is so “politically correct” that they restrict the freedom of good and decent poeple like Beck from exercizing his god-given right to commit acts of physical violence against people with physical handicaps, too. Where will all this political correctness end, I ask you?

The good news is that CNN is making sure that men like Beck have a national forum from which to educate and entertain the people with commentary such as this.

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Here We Go

by digby

When I wrote about the Duelling PageantsI never imagined that it would come to pass so literally. The cable nets are hammering Ray Nagin for his foot in mouth comment that it took New York five years to rebuild a hole in the ground so a reporter from NY ought to cut New Orleans some slack. Typical Nagin nonsense.

But it has provoked a case of the vapors among certain excitable folks that seems just a tad out of place considering the horrors that both cities underwent. Most officials of Louisiana and New York have respnded in measured tones like this:

The chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency created to oversee the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site and downtown Manhattan, said that tremendous progress has been made in lower Manhattan, with the Freedom Tower, a transportation hub and a memorial to the nearly 3,000 attack victims under construction.

“We understand how difficult rebuilding a city after such destruction can be,” chairman Kevin Rampe said in a statement.

The guy who seems to be stoking the story is none other than Rep. Peter King (R-Asshole), who went on radio and TV and went nuts on Nagin today. This is, the same Peter King who commented during the Katrina crisis:

“The main problem in obstructing the relief operation – it’s almost like a Mogadishu-like gang situation that’s prevailing in New Orleans,” Rep. Peter King told WABC Radio’s John Gambling.

“It’s hard to get federal troops in to bring about order when the local police have broken down,” he added. “I just think the situation would have gone a lot better if there were a Rudy Giuliani down there – someone who could have set a firm tone from day one.”

King has always had a little problem with New Orleans and I think we can guess why. This was, you’ll recall, the prevailing view of many critics like King during the crisis last year. The “problem” was all the lawlessness. Mogadishu in America. The natives were running wild. This was later shown to be simply the fevered rumormongering you tend to find in crises where communication is down. But King and the rest of the hankie wringers naturally assumed the mob was taking over despite the fact that there were cameras all over the city and no one captured the crazed marauding beasts doing anything other than liesurely looting a local Wal Mart. Their bedwetting fearmongering did more to delay the response than any other single reason.

King isn’t alone today in his disdain for Ray Nagin and his constituents. Here are some nice comments from the CBS web site on its story about the Nagin comment:

Give me a break Nagin. More Kill Whitie, Poor Black People Garb! Hate to break it to you people, but the era of MLK is over. You have your equal rights. The only racism going on here today is that of Affirmitive action, and you cries over “racial profiling.” You have more liberties that the 30 year old white male today and Ray Nagin is another black trying to use the poor race card to get his 15 minutes of fame. Do the job you are hired to do Ray and rebuild the city which you have been given the funds already to build. But then again, maybe you are doing your job, maybe this kind of rhetoric is your base.

Nice.
Posted by ttennison at 03:38 PM : Aug 25, 2006
+ report this comment

……………………………………………………………………….
I was in NO & Gulf Coast in Sept & Oct as a volunteer trying to help make a difference in some small way; a lot of us that came in from all over the country did more for NO than their mayor ever will, because we were doing it to serve others; the only thing Nagin serves is himself.
I was there and heard a press conference he gave to a large group of contractors. His words were “this is our time”; that and other things he said meant they were going to cash in for a lifetime. He accused a lot of “outside” contractors of being carpetbaggers; the biggest carpetbagger in Louisiana is sitting in the Mayors office.
And I saw parking lots full of school buses and city bises, sitting parked with water up to the windows; totally destryed and useless that could have been used to evacuate “his chololate city” before the worst hit.
Nagin is a first class jerk and I still can’t believe he scraped enough absentee voters to put him back in office

Posted by kancan71 at 03:32 PM : Aug 25, 2006
+ report this comment
……………………………………………………………………….
Nagin is one the the biggest idiots of our time, not too mention a racist as well.
Posted by z3pr at 03:31 PM : Aug 25, 2006
+ report this comment
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It’s time for the citizens of NO to face the truth and stop blaming the government for the life they chose to live and where they chose to live it. Grow up and accept responsibility for your own life. It should be pointed out to Nagin that New Yorkers were on their way work or at work when the unthinkable event occured. After the attack New Yorkers dug themselves out from underneath the distruction and strangers helped strangers. On the other hand the people of New Orleans were sitting at home on the front porch waiting for someone to tell them what to do. After Katrina every one sat on their butts and grew angry that no one is helping us. BooHoo!
You cant compare NO to NY and you sure as heck cant compare Rudy to Nagin.
Posted by Terrys1955 at 03:29 PM : Aug 25, 2006
+ report this comment
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Being from Florida I’m very familiar with hurricanes. Hurricanes do not just happen spur of the moment. Comparison to ground zero is absurd. Maybe if there was less whining and these folks got their lazy behinds off their waterlogged couch things would be better. But that’s a lot to expect from the kind of people who would vote for Nagin. You got what you deserved. Maybe if we’re lucky a couple more canes will head your way and NO can become a great scuba diving spot. “See the ruins”.

Check ou the story yourself and you’ll see that these kind of comments are, by far, the majority.

Here’s a typical one from Free Republic:

I gave much more than I could really afford to give. It looks like it all went into someone’s pocket. There was a tremendous amount of money given to the red cross and other charities by people just like me. The residents of N O sucked up the “FREE” money like there was no tomorrow but they will not go to work and rebuild their own city. They are having to import Hispanics to get any work done and then they bitch about the change in population. I think the property should go to those who are willing to work to clean up the mess. If you won’t work to restore you own property then you should not get one dime from the government or private charities. One thing is for certain, they will not get another penny out of my pocket!

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The guy is a typcal “Jessie-Al” con artist…we can outsmart these white boys. New (old) New Orleans has garnered more money out of this tragedy than all the other affected states tgether…they still want to milk it for all it’s worth…All the Incometents.. Mayor, Governor, Senators, Congressman..all together now…”It’s Bush’s fault”…and the Democrats will play this up in the November elections…but it may backfire when they do…Us white boys know what is going on…. and will react accodrdingly,. Jake

If anyone is stil wondering why we have had trouble creating a decent safety net in this country, you need look not further. The benefits always seem to go to the “wrong people.”

Rove is hoping to tap into these primitive feelings to shore up his base and mitigate the perception of Republican incompetence in dealing with the most catastrophic American natural disaster in our lifetimes. So far, the news media seems more than willing to help him.

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Never Trust The King With The Army by poputonian
As John Bonifaz described in his 2003 book Warrior King: The Case For Impeaching George W. Bush, the vote to authorize the Iraq war violated the War Powers clause of the U.S. Constitution:

“In drafting the War Powers Clause of Article 1, Section 8, the framers of the Constitution set out to create a nation that would be nothing like the model established by European monarchies. This is why they made the momentous decision of whether or not to send this nation into war a matter to be decided solely by the people, through their elected representatives in Congress.”

Before suggesting that it was Congress who made the choice for war, consider another example from Bonifaz. He says:

“Imagine this: The United States Congress passes a resolution which states: “The President is authorized to levy an income tax on the people of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to pay for subsidies to U.S. oil companies.” No amount of legal wrangling could make such a resolution constitutional. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution grants the power to levy taxes solely to Congress.”

But this is old stuff. Glenn Greenwald has the latest on who should make the call on war with Iran. Glenn’s post contains his normal extraordinary insight, coupled with Federalist gems that remove any ambiguity about who can make war.

Comment Of The Day

by digby

Dover Bitch responding to the JC Watts inanity on Plan B:

Yesterday, they said life begins with conception.

Today, they say life begins with intercourse.

Tomorrow, they will tell us life begins with dinner and a movie.

Dover Bitch blog

CNN Political Analyst

by digby

Just shoot me and put me out of my misery. I can’t take it any more:

BLITZER: Joining us now in our “Strategy Session,” radio talk show host Bill Press and CNN political analyst, former Republican Congressman J.C. Watts.

In this Plan B decision, the morning-after contraception pill, in effect, Hillary Clinton came out with a strong statement: “While we urge the FDA to revisit placing age restrictions on the sale of Plan B, it is real progress that millions of American women will now have increased access to emergency contraception.”

Women 18 and older can just go in and buy the pill. Seventeen- year-olds and under have to get a doctor’s note.

J.C. WATTS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well…

(LAUGHTER)

WATTS: … Wolf, I don’t know what is the difference in, you know, harming the child the night or the day after. I still don’t think that changes the debate. Those…

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: You think this is abortion?

WATTS: I do. I think — I still don’t think it changes the debate one bit.

I think those who are opposed to abortion are going to be opposed to this. Those who support abortion, they will like this decision, as — as Senator Clinton said. It’s abortion the day after.

So, it doesn’t change the debate any. And I do. I agree that the FDA has made a huge mistake in this ruling.

BLITZER: The other side, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women of — For America, says, “The FDA’s irresponsible action today takes those rights out of a parent’s hands and gives them to ill-intentioned perpetrators.”

Clearly, they’re very unhappy with this FDA decision.

BILL PRESS, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, you know, that’s too bad, Wolf. I think this is a major breakthrough for American women.

And, J.C., it’s hypocritical to be against abortion and to be against Plan B. We heard Sanjay Gupta, who knows more about this than you and I do, at the top of the show, say, if a woman is already pregnant, this does nothing. This is not an abortion pill. It’s a contraceptive pill. It has been used safely by European women for years. It has been held up in this year only for — in this country only for political reasons.

And what this pill is going to result in is fewer unwanted pregnancies and fewer abortions, which I thought — is certainly my goal — I thought was your goal, too.

WATTS: Well, it’s ironic, Wolf, that we say it’s a contraceptive, but you take it the morning after.

PRESS: So what?

(LAUGHTER)

PRESS: You take one pill the day before. You can take one the morning after.

(CROSSTALK)

PRESS: It’s a medical breakthrough.

WATTS: The morning after.

PRESS: It’s a contraceptive.

WATTS: It’s…

PRESS: And it’s not funny.

WATTS: It…

PRESS: Three-and-a-half — no.

WATTS: Bill, the bottom line is…

PRESS: It’s…

WATTS: … your mind is not going to be changed by this decision. Nor — and nor is mine.

(CROSSTALK)

WATTS: I believe it’s abortion. I believe it takes the life of a — you don’t. So…

PRESS: No, but I…

WATTS: … that’s the issue.

PRESS: … would hope…

WATTS: That’s the issue.

PRESS: But I would hope people who have strong beliefs would listen to the experts and listen to the facts.

As Sanjay said, three — and he’s the medical expert here, not you, not me — three-and-a-half million unwanted pregnancies in this country. One-half of them could be eliminated because of this pill. I would think you would say…

BLITZER: All right.

PRESS: … it’s about time.

WATTS: But you want to listen…

BLITZER: All right.

WATTS: … to the experts on abortion, but you don’t want to listen to the experts on the war that says that evil people are trying to kill us.

BLITZER: All right.

WATTS: But you don’t want to do anything about that.

And then there are the Teen Sex Cults.

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Slippery Flyboy

by digby

I understand that some alleged liberals are getting all tingly at the notion of John McCain as the next president. As Yglesias said, “And why shouldn’t he? A handful of additional wars and steep cuts in vital retirement security programs would be a small price to pay for minor alterations to the campaign finance system.” Not to mention that JJ, the manly fighter pilot, is just soooo dreamy.

The truth is that McCain is actually more hawkish and deceitful than Bush. The only difference in their rhetoric on national security is that McCain pretends he didn’t cheer every single move Bush made until it started to go wrong. Senator Straight Talk is very, very slick, I’ll give him that. Take this exchange on Press The Meat from 2005:

R. RUSSERT: Let me show you something that John McCain said describing a war situation: “And we have a horrific strain on the men and women in the military. We can’t keep our pilots. We’re lowering our recruiting standards. It’s a very serious situation. And to have another one of these extended, unending burdens placed on the men and women in the military has some consequences. All I’m saying is: Let’s develop a strategy overall and let’s also then develop an exit strategy for this particular situation.”

That was February 14, 1999, Kosovo. That’s exactly what the Democrats are saying about Iraq.

SEN. McCAIN: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: Aren’t they saying things that should be said and should be listened to?

SEN. McCAIN: Mm-hmm. Well, I guess this is true confessions. I was wrong about Kosovo. I was right about Bosnia. We did the right thing in Kosovo by going in there and stopping ethnic cleansing. And we haven’t done what we should be doing in Darfur and some other parts of the world, by the way. But I–if there’s a strategy for withdrawal, it is success. It is the formula that the president described last week and the one I just described to you. I’m not for keeping troops there forever. I hope–I wish we could take them out tomorrow. It’s not a question of whether we want to withdraw or not. We all want that. The question is: Will conditions on the ground dictate whether we withdraw or not and when we withdraw, or will it be some arbitrary date? I say conditions on the ground.

He successfully deflects the logical charge that he’s an opportunistic partisan flip-flopper by just saying — “oh yeah, my bad” and then just blathers incoherently. Because Russert yearns to service him, he lets it pass. The fact is that McCain was screeching for more troops in Kosovo too, which may explain why nobody listens to him. No matter what, we never seem to be committing enough troops to fight the big land war that he thinks we should be fighting:

Tuesday, Apr 20, 1999

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today was joined by Senators Joe Biden (D-DE), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Joe Lieberman (D-CT), Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) in offering a Senate resolution on Kosovo. The text of McCain’s floor speech follows:

“As my colleagues know I am concerned that the force the United States and our NATO allies has employed against Serbia– gradually escalating air strikes – is insufficient to achieve our political objectives there – the removal of Serb military and security forces from Kosovo; the return of the refugees to their homes; and the establishment of a NATO led peacekeeping force. I hope this resolution, should it be adopted, will encourage the Administration and our allies to find the courage and resolve to prosecute this war in the manner most likely to result in its early and successful conclusion. In other words, I hope this resolution will make clear Congress’ support for adapting our means to secure our ends, rather than the reverse.

In exactly the same way, McCain began agitating for more troops in Iraq in August of 2003. And because the war actually was a dud this time, his arguments for more troops were taken up by just about everybody and have successfully framed the argument for many Iraq war supporters by implying that the war would have been a “day at the beach” if only they had sent in more troops when McCain wanted to.

But McCain knew that this was nonsense. The fact is that we have never had enough troops to do what he belatedly thought should be done and unless the administration was willing to institute the draft or pull troops from other vital missions (besides Afghanistan, where we’d already pulled them), we never did. The key to the mission that McCain and Bush sold was always to have large a multi-national force, which Codpiece and Unka Dick did everything but spit in the world’s face to avoid. McCain knows this very well but continued to argue publicly that we could just easily conjure up a larger military to “fix” Iraq and just slides on through like the oily political conman he really is.

It has certainly set him up nicely for a presidential run, though. He gives speeches more stirring than anything Michael Gerson ever dreamed of about liberty and freedom. He made the argument before Bush did that “some say” arabs can’t govern themselves, but he begs to differ! Remember, he’s Mr “National Greatness” which is all about the Glory That Is Imperial America. And somehow he manages to convince people that he would have magically won this stupid war and we’d all feel better about ourselves today if he’d been in charge — even though he backed Bush’s cock-up every step of the way and only came along later to carp about troop levels once it was already too late.

Here’s a good example of his weaselly ways, from this past July

KING: We have an e-mail for you, Senator McCain, from Heather in Epsom, New Hampshire and it says, “Larry, I would like to ask Senator McCain if there is any hope that, if he were president, he would take a new approach to securing peace in the Middle East?” What would you do differently?

MCCAIN: I’m not sure, Larry, and for me to articulate something different obviously might be a criticism and I’m not sure right now that I’d like to criticize this administration because I think they’re doing the very best they can.

I would have done things differently in Iraq, as you know, even though I continue to support our effort there. I think this is a very difficult situation.

Heather, as you know in the past, Henry Kissinger or Jim Baker or whoever was secretary of state could shuttle from one capital to another that basically controlled the fighting and that’s much more difficult when you’ve got terrorist organizations that are doing the fighting and so it’s much more complicated.

Slicker than owlshit, as my father always says.

John McCain is no better than George W. Bush on national security and foreign policy. This is best exemplified by their similar views of how to deal with the complicated issues in the mid-east. You’ll recall that Dubya was caught on tape recently saying, “What they need to do is to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit.” But that’s downright Churchillian compared to McCain’s view. From Steve Benen we have this report:

Jason Horowitz reports in the New York Observer that John McCain met with an exclusive audience of very wealthy Republicans in New York late last week, shortly after getting booed relentlessly at the New School’s commencement ceremony. The students weren’t terribly impressed, but apparently McCain “saved some of his best material” for the elite crowd that gathered behind closed doors in the back of the Regency Hotel.

In a small, mirror-paneled room guarded by a Secret Service agent and packed with some of the city’s wealthiest and most influential political donors, Mr. McCain got right to the point.

“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit,'” said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

Oh, so that’s what we need from the Oval Office. I’m sure the Iraqis will find this immediately persuasive and lay down arms thanks to the power of McCain’s personality and his desire to see the two sides get along. Somewhere, Bush is slapping his hand against his forehead, saying, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Or, as Brendan Nyhan put it, “So honest! So bold! What an innovative diplomatic concept! If only John McCain were president, we’d have peace in Iraq!”

Well, yes. That’s what the McCain would have you believe and there are plenty of people who want to believe it. As Benen pointed out:

It’s worth noting, however, all sarcasm aside, McCain’s audience ate this up. DioGuardi, the wife of former Republican congressman Joseph DioGuardi, said McCain was “fantastic” and has “a vision for what should happen to this country.

And if anybody thinks that McCain is more sane on some of the other foreign policy challenges, think again:

“The greatest single threat that we are facing right now to our national security is Iran,” he said. “If they get that weapon, and they have the capability to deliver it, put yourself in the position of the government of the state of Israel. This could be one of the most unsettling and difficult challenges that we have ever faced.”

Brilliant.

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Club Mad

by digby

The governor of Alaska, Frank Murkowski, came in 3rd in the Republican primary on Tuesday, and although it has widely been interpreted as a revolt over local issues, there can be no doubt that it sent a chill down the spines of DC incumbents, particularly the Senate majority.

Frank Murkowski isn’t just some obscure Alaskan nobody — he was a US Senator for 22 years, a member of the most exclusive club in the world, from one of the most reliable red states. In small (population) states like Alaska, he should have been an iconic figure who stayed in office until he was forced out by term limits or death. For years he had the backing of the most important industries in the state as well as the religious right, the NRA and the Alaska GOP. And yet, he couldn’t get over 20% in the Republican primary this year. And the woman who won ran against the Republican establishment.

This is the fourth incumbent, two Republicans, one Replieberman and one Dem who have lost their primaries since August 8th. Lincoln Chafee is facing a very tough go from the big money Club For Growth challenge on his right. All of this is highly unusual.

I just heard Jeff Greenfield say that it’s coincidence. Perhaps so. But if this is a “throw the rascals out” election, which it appears to me to be, let’s just say there are a lot more Republican rascals than there are Democrats in national office these days. And even their own voters don’t like them.

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