Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

The Decider vs The Extreme Left

by digby

Tony Snow just said:

This is a defining moment in some ways for the Democratic Party. I know a lot of people have tried to make it a referendum on the president. I would flip it. Indeed it is a defining moment for the Democratic party whose national leaders have made it clear that if you disagree with the extreme left in their party they’re going to come after you.

I think it’s worthwhile to trace through the implications of that position because it is clearly going to be one of the central issues…One of the positions is that we leave Iraq on a timetable and we need to do it soon…

[blah, blah, blah, democracy, terrorists, blah blah, Taliban, war on terror, blah blah, Iran, North Korea, democracy…]

Some of the leadership of the Democratic Party believe that the proper way to address this is to point a finger at the United States and counsel walking away. The view of the president is that this is a challenge but it is also an opportunity and let me outline that part.

Democracies operate on different principles than totalitarian states. In a Democracy you have to respond to the will of the people. In a democracy within the United States whether it be Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont competing for votes in Connecticut or on the local level dealing with the needs for people to have safe streets, good schools and services they can depend upon. Those are the things you respond to — the stated desires of the people.

That’s was a nice little lesson, Tony. Thank you very much.

Poll: 60 percent of Americans oppose Iraq war

Wednesday, August 9, 2006; Posted: 6:00 a.m. EDT (10:00 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sixty percent of Americans oppose the U.S. war in Iraq, the highest number since polling on the subject began with the commencement of the war in March 2003, according to poll results and trends released Wednesday.

And a majority of poll respondents said they would support the withdrawal of at least some U.S. troops by the end of the year, according to results from the Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted last week on behalf of CNN. The corporation polled 1,047 adult Americans by telephone.

According to trends, the number of poll respondents who said they did not support the Iraq war has steadily risen as the war stretched into a second and then a third year. In the most recent poll, 36 percent said they were in favor of the war — half of the peak of 72 percent who said they were in favor of the war as it began.

Sixty-one percent, however, said they believed at least some U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year. Of those, 26 percent said they would favor the withdrawal of all troops, while 35 percent said not all troops should be withdrawn. Another 34 percent said they believed the current level of troops in Iraq should be maintained.

It would appear that the people stated their desires quite clearly — both in polls and in elections. I suppose they can keep claiming that 60% of the country is “extreme left” but I don’t think anyone will believe them.

Snow was virtually incoherent this morning. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the white house is rattled. As well they should be.

Here’s my favorite Snow line:

In the totalitarian states the despot alone has the opportunity to declare what he or she wants to do. And frankly, they are much more warlike.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

“I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I’m the decider, and I decide what is best.”

Here’s some video of Snow today. And Think Progress has more on Snow’s bizarre performance, here.

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Refocus

by digby

It feels great to win one and I’m very enthusiastic about the fall. But let’s keep one thing in mind: the Republicans aren’t Joe Lieberman even if Joe Lieberman is a Republican. They run really good campaigns. Indeed, it’s the only thing they do well. It is not going to be easy.

As for Joe, it looks like he might be getting some of that very special help:

Can Karl help Joe?

According to a close Lieberman adviser, the President’s political guru, Karl Rove, has reached out to the Lieberman camp with a message straight from the Oval Office: “The boss wants to help. Whatever we can do, we will do.”

But in a year where even some Republican candidates are running away from the President on the campaign trail, does this offer have any value to Lieberman? Still smarting from all that coverage of “the kiss” at last year’s State of the Union, the Lieberman camp isn’t looking for an explicit endorsement. That could create more problems than it solves.

The White House might help Lieberman by putting the kibosh on any move to replace the weak Republican candidate, Alan Schlesinger, with a stronger candidate.

And it might be able to convince Schlesinger to drop out of the race and endorse Lieberman in the final week or two, when it’s too late for another candidate to fill the GOP slot. A quiet White House effort to steer some money in Lieberman’s direction is another possibility.

This is a tricky dance for Lieberman. He needs to figure out a way to get the benefits of Bush support — some votes from loyal Republicans — without turning off the independents and moderate Democrats he needs to win. The safest course may be a polite “thanks but no thanks” to the White House offer.

I think it’s quite likely that Joe will publicly “reject” this “offer” as a way to prove his independent bonafides. But as far as I’m concerned, as long as Joe Lieberman remains in the race he is doing Karl Rove’s bidding anyway.

I also wouldn’t be surprised to see the Republicans try to help get Joe elected, either as a Republican outright or as an independent who will caucus with them. I don’t know how far gone Lieberman actually is but I think it’s at least possible he’d think about it. Last night he was more defiant than I’ve ever seen him. (Where, oh where was all that energy in 2000, I wonder? Of course, Joe kept his senate seat as a back-up so maybe he didn’t feel quite so passionately about fighting to the bitter end and he does now.)

But Lieberman is actually old news whatever he does from here on in. He’s left the Party and in a two party system that really means he’s jumped. As of today we are no longer waging a painful civil war, brother against brother. We are once again fighting the Republican Borg. Get ready for swift boating and race baiting and charges of being traitors and crazed, smelly “piewagons.” We’re back to dealing with the ruthless, feral GOP again. And they are dangerous, wounded beasts…

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Meanwhile

by tristero

Congratulations to Ned Lamont. And let’s not forget: Every sentence written and read about Lieberman’s general election challenge is a distraction from the real issue

A U.S. Army helicopter crashed in Iraq’s western Anbar province, leaving two crew members missing and four injured, while hundreds of Iraqi and U.S. troops poured into the capital in a desperate bid to stem sectarian violence that is threatening to ignite a civil war.

In Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, four people were killed and 16 wounded in a U.S. airstrike late Tuesday, police said. There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials, but a mosque and nearby houses in the city were heavily damaged in the blast.

Four U.S. service members were injured when the UH60 Blackhawk helicopter crashed Tuesday with six people on board during a routine flight to survey the area, the U.S. command said in a statement Wednesday. The four injured troops were in stable condition, and it did not appear the crash was due to hostile fire, the U.S. said.

Of course not. It was just an accident. Who would be cynical enough to suggest the Pentagon would classify a shoot-down as an accident in order to keep the combat deaths stats artificially low? Not me.

More reality:

A series of bombings and shootings killed at least 33 people Tuesday, most in the Baghdad area, as more American soldiers patrolled the streets of the capital in a make-or-break bid to quell sectarian violence.

Nearly 60 people were wounded in the blasts, police said. The explosions began when three bombs went off simultaneously near the Interior Ministry in central Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding eight, police Lt. Bilal Ali Majid said.

Two more bombs ripped through the main Shurja market, also in central Baghdad, killing 10 more civilians and wounding 50, police Lt. Mohammed Kheyoun said.

At least 13 other people were killed or found dead Tuesday, most in the Baghdad area, where tension between Sunnis and Shiites runs the highest.

The violence underscores the security crisis facing Baghdad, which prompted American commanders to send more U.S. soldiers to the capital in a renewed bid to curb sectarian killings and kidnappings.

“Sectarian killings and kidnappings” is just Newspeak for “civil war,” of course.

Well, you can’t fault Iraq for disobeying Crawford’s Own Churchill. As His Eminence commanded, they’re bringing it on. Big time.

Whew!

by digby

We won. I forgot what that feels like. It feels good.

The Republicans are happy too:

Following up: A senior Republican official in Washington confirms that the party might encourage Republicans and others to support Sen. Lieberman if he runs as an independent. There’s no sense, just yet, about what those signs and signals might look like. Says the GOP official: “I just think there will be folks who want to support – regardless of what we think. And, we don’t think that’s a bad thing.” And Kevin F. Rennie reports that some GOPers in CT are thinking about ways to financially support Lieberman’s independent bid…

Fine with me. Take Marty Peretz and Lanny Davis with you, Joe.

I’m kind of excited about taking on the Republicans, aren’t you? Bring it on.

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Viva La Mont

84% 87% of precincts reporting, Lamont ahead 52-48. Keep tabs if you wish at tigre’s place. Her first link does the job. Lieberman’s fate should be known about ninety minutes from now, if not sooner.(Note: FDL seems to be down; I’m sure Jane’s corner of the ever-expanding blog Universe came to visit her all at once.)UPDATE: Turn out the lights, the party’s over!

“Who Fucking Cares?”
by poputonian
“Who fucking cares?” better describes the President, because “What, me worry?” is just too playful and harmless.Froomkin today:

A vacationing President Bush briefly suited up and faced the media hordes yesterday morning to outline his administration’s vision for an eventual cessation of hostilities in Lebanon. Then he high-tailed it back to his sprawling country home, leaving Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to do the heavy lifting.

Bush was generous with the familiar talking points (see yesterday’s column ), but didn’t exactly give the impression of someone who feels any sense of personal urgency to stop the killing.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Bush administration’s foreign policy of culture conquest. This passage from Norman Mailer’s Why Are We At War? threads nicely with that notion, but says it much more eloquently than I did, and perhaps even allows for some benefit of the doubt with regard to the administration’s intent. Mailer delivered these comments in a speech to The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, just days before the Bush Tribe launched its invasion of Iraq.

Because democracy is noble, it is always endangered. Nobility, indeed, is always in danger. Democracy is perishable. I think the natural government for most people, given the uglier depths of human nature, is fascism. Fascism is more of a natural state than democracy. To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad. Democracy is a state of grace attained only by those countries that have a host of individuals not only ready to enjoy freedom but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it.

The need for powerful theory can fall into many an abyss of error. One could, for example, be wrong about the unspoken motives of the administration. Perhaps they are not interested in Empire so much as trying in good faith to save the world. We can be certain at least that Bush and his Bushites believe this. By the time they are in church each Sunday, they believe it so powerfully, tears come to their eyes. Of course, it is the actions of men and not their sentiments that make history. Our sentiments can be flooded with love within, but our actions can produce the opposite. Perversity is always looking to consort with the best motives in human nature.

David Frum, who was a speechwriter for Bush (he coined the phrase “axis of evil”), recounts in The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush what happened at a meeting in the Oval Office last September [2002]. The President, when talking to a group of reverends from the major denominations, told them,

You know, I had a drinking problem. Right now, I should be in a bar in Texas, not the Oval Office. There is only one reason that I am in the Oval Office and not in a bar: I found faith. I found God. I am here because of the power of prayer.

That is a dangerous remark. As Kierkegaard was the first to suggest, we can never know where our prayers are likely to go nor from whom the answers will come. When we think we are nearest to God, we could be assisting the Devil.

“Our war with terror,” says Bush, “begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end … until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.” But, asks Eric Alterman in The Nation, what if America ends up alienating the whole world in the process?

Mailer continues with the money quote from Bush and notes the very special conservative tool who vouched for its accuracy:

“At some point, we may be the only ones left,” Bush told his closest advisers, according to an administration member who leaked the story to Bob Woodward. “That’s okay with me. We are American.”

Yeah, who fucking cares? We’re Americans. May the best men win. Heh-heh-heh-heh …
Now, watch me bike!

Blowing In The Wind

by digby

Lanny Davis, the latest “Democrat” to take to op-ed swamp of the Wall Street Journal quotes a handful of obscure anti-semitic blog commenters and indicts the whole blogosphere for McCarthyism. Par for the course. But this is beyond ironic:

A friend of mine just returned from Connecticut, where he had spoken on several occasions on behalf of Joe Lieberman. He happens to be a liberal antiwar Democrat, just as I am. He is also a lawyer. He told me that within a day of a Lamont event–where he asked the candidate some critical questions–some of his clients were blitzed with emails attacking him and threatening boycotts of their products if they did not drop him as their attorney. He has actually decided not to return to Connecticut for the primary today; he is fearful for his physical safety.

First of all, poor little Richard Goodstein (who this obviously is) has no reason to be in fear for his physical safety but I guess portraying him on the pages of the macho WSJ editorial page as a whimpering little baby is something his friend thought was useful. Hey, if Dick doesn’t mind, then I guess I shouldn’t. But really, he should be a man and go back to Connecticut. Republicans are laughing at him.

But that’s not what’s astonishing about this piece. It’s that Richard Goodstein came to the attention of journalists and observers in Connecticut during the Ted’s Burger joint stunt where a bunch of Lieberman supporters ambushed Lamont in a small restaurant. What made Goodstein stand out was that he was screaming “Are you a Sharpton Democrat or a Clinton Democrat” over and over again. That’s called race baiting, folks.

But he wasn’t alone. This was a campaign talking point. Lieberman himself said it. You have rich white guys from Washington in white Connecticut neighborhoods saying there’s a difference between an “Al Sharpton Democrat and a Bill Clinton Democrat” and demanding to know which side Lamont was on. There’s only one reason to use Sharpton rather than, say — Michael Moore, and we know what that is, don’t we? (Lamont, to his credit, said “I’m both.”)

This was cheap racial politics especially after Lieberman played such a martyr over the blackface graphic that called him out for being two-faced on race — a fact which he then had his pal Richard Goodstein go out and demonstrate with no sense of self-awareness at all.

The blogs later found out that Goodstein was a DC lobbyist, but they weren’t the ones who made him famous. It was the local press who happened to be at the event and quoted Goodstein on the front page the next morning.

“It was supposed to be a laid-back event and (they) ruined it.” “We’re just using our right. We’re just exercising our rights to enjoy a burger,” said Lieber­man supporter Alex Hoffman of Boston. Supporters of each candidate debated outside on the side­walk while many Lieberman supporters continued to badger Lamont, who acknowledged most questions. Richard Good­stein, one of the most vocal Lieberman supporters, repeat­edly shouted, “Are you a Bill Clinton Democrat or an Al Sharpton Democrat?” Lamont calmly said he supported both.

This particular line seemed to be Goodstein’s specialty, since he showed up at a rally the next day with a sign that said “Lieberman = Clinton, Lamont Weicker = Sharpton.” He was taped giving an interview to the local press in which he said “Lieberman has the support of Bill Clinton who speaks for inclusion and Ned Lamont has the support of Al Sharpton who speaks for divisiveness.”

You’ll notice there was not a bit of irony in his voice, by the way. Nor did it seem to occur to him that Joe’s black constituents might just find such a statement a tad provocative since it was given to an all white crowd. It would seem that at this point, Lieberman either must have given up the african american vote or he assumed that no black person would see this white middle aged jerk publicly dissing Sharpton like he was Willie Horton. Either way, the man was playing a low-down game.

As for Lanny, well, nobody takes him seriously. He was the single most inept Clinton defender ever. When he would show up on Fox or MSNBC back in the Lewinsky days I would cringe knowing that whatever blond former prosecutor harpy they had on would rip him to shreds. (I swear, he must have uttered the words “deplorable” and “reprehensible” at least 15,000 times.) I knew they hired him for just that purpose and I have heard that there is no love lost between him and the Clintonistas, which doesn’t surprise me. He’s still at it. In the course of his usual ineffectual non-defense he’s managed to make both his friends Joe and Dick look like hanky wringing losers which is fine by me.

And, make no mistake, Lanny Davis is a Bush fan, just like Joe. He’s a frat brother who, just days after the recount was settled, wrote an opportunistic brown nosing op-ed in the NY Times attesting to Bush’s good character. (Talk about rubbing salt in the wound. I’ll never forgive him for that.)

I, for one, am thrilled to finally have him pitching for a different team than mine. I hope the WSJ gives him a regular spot in the rotation. He only hurts the ball club.

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Bingeing and Purging

by digby

I know the chatterers are all atwitter at the prospect of Democratic voters “purging” a Senator who doesn’t represent their views by voting against him in an election. Many seem particularly upset at what they perceive as a doctrinaire leftist demand for ideological purity and a rigid view about the Iraq war.

And yet:

The Heritage Foundation has never been known as an intellectually adventurous place. For decades, its policy briefs and studies have closely tracked Republican talking points. So did the opinions of the think tank’s senior foreign policy analyst, John Hulsman. In his Washington Times op-eds and Fox News appearances, he cheerfully whacked Howard Dean, John Kerry, the French, and other enemies of the cause.

But all these years of fidelity to the conservative cause couldn’t spare Hulsman from suffering the wrath of his comrades. On July 7, his boss, Kim Holmes, sent a note to the Heritage staff wishing Hulsman “the very best in his continuing career.” No one at Heritage was fooled by Holmes’s euphemistic send-off–least of all Hulsman. “After getting fired,” he says, “I was a walking corpse.”

Following Holmes’s lead, the official line from Heritage is that Hulsman left his $90,000-a-year job of his own volition. Indeed, two Heritage spokespeople initially denied to me that Hulsman was shown the door. When I pressed them, both then told me that the think tank doesn’t discuss its “human resources policies.” The reasons for Hulsman’s departure, however, are perfectly evident. “At Heritage,” says Chris Preble of the Cato Institute, “anything that smacks of criticism of Bush will not be tolerated.” And, as the Iraq war faltered, Hulsman grew increasingly bold in criticizing the administration’s foreign policy in essays and conversations with reporters. In September, he will co-publish a book with the New American Foundation’s Anatol Lieven titled Ethical Realism, a scathing indictment of the neoconservative worldview. With his firing, Hulsman joins Bruce Bartlett, the economist who was dismissed from a right-wing think tank for his criticisms of Bush, in the ranks of the conservative purged.

And in the coming months, their ranks will likely grow even larger. Conservative recriminations over Iraq are igniting all across Washington, with opponents of the war loudly assaulting its leading champions (see Francis Fukuyama v. Charles Krauthammer and George Will v. William Kristol.) But what the Hulsman incident reveals is that the war’s supporters aren’t about to passively absorb criticism and issue public apologies. They are going to fight back against their critics–and an ugly debate will become much uglier.

[…]

“If the midterms go badly, the civil war in the GOP starts the day after,” Hulsman says. “The neocons and Kristol will say that Bush is incompetent and the neocons are not to blame.” Maybe then it’ll be Hulsman who leads the next purge.

Oh my goodness, it sounds like this whole “war” thing might just be a little bit more politically complicated than Cokie and her pals are letting on, doesn’t it? And here I thought this was all about George Mcgovern and the summer of love. What gives?

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Kaffe Kampf

by digby

Jonathan Schwarz alerts me to yet another rightwing neurosis: irrational fear of coffee cups. I don’t see how these people can leave the house in the morning.

Schwarz writes:

I guess what I’m saying here is, I’m perfectly happy to let Ms. Nunez put whatever quotes she wants on Starbucks coffee, if in return she will cede me control of corporate America, the media, the military, and all three branches of the US government.

Sounds like a good Republican-style bipartisan compromise to me.

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Fighting For Your Life

by digby

Ezra has an original take on the blogosphere’s role in the Connecticut race:

The phase of this race bearing significant implications for the Democratic Party already happened, and whether Lamont wins or loses tomorrow is almost entirely immaterial to the political triumph of the netroots. Their scalp was claimed, mounted, and hung on July 7th, the day Joe Lieberman, an affable, popular incumbent who’d been his party’s celebrated vice-presidential candidate only six years earlier, was forced to mount a stage against some nobody named Ned Lamont and defensively debate his right to call himself a Democrat. Or maybe the seminal instant occurred four days earlier, on July 3rd, when Lieberman admitted that he would gather signatures to enable an independent run, a sign he feared defeat in the primary. Either way, the point is the same: The netroots won the moment Joe Lieberman felt fear.

With the netroots having proved they can generate an existential challenge to a safe-seeming incumbent, actually defeating Lieberman would be little beyond icing on the cake. Moving forward, a Lieberman victory would do nothing to blur the traumatic memory of his near-loss. And that gives the netroots an extraordinary amount of power, vaulting them into a rarified realm occupied by only the strongest interest groups.

Now the netroots will join that category. But, as evidenced by their choice of target — Dianne Feinstein and Herb Kohl, while war supporters, face no primary challenges — they will demand something altogether different. Rather than requiring submission to a certain set of policy initiatives, they’ll demand unity in certain moments of partisan showdown. What so rankled about Lieberman was his willingness to abandon ship when steady hands were most necessary — he was always the first to compromise on judicial nominees, or flirt with Social Security privatization, or scold critics of the Iraq War. His current plight is evidence that such opportunistic betrayals will not, in the future, go unpunished. On July 7th, being the Democrat who criticizes Democrats ceased being safe.

I think one of the things that few observers recognize is the lesson many of us took when the Democrats stuck together on the social security debate (no thanks to Joe Lieberman.) They shut down the Karl Rove juggernaut in no uncertain terms simply by hanging together and not allowing the GOP to claim any kind of bipartisan cover. It’s the most successful thing the Democrats did during the Bush administration and the netroots pressure of both the blogosphere and groups like Move-on were instrumental. It gave us hope that these people could be defeated if we stuck together.

Party unity does not mean orthodoxy. It is simply a recognition that when you are dealing with the modern Republican Party it is almost always a zero sum game. That’s how they see politics. If that’s going to change it’s going to have to come from them. They are the ones who have institutionalized excessive partisanship and they are going to have to wring it out of their political culture before they can be trusted to keep their word.

Dealing with these fanatical people (and the bizarre inability of the press to properly report it) has undoubtedly been difficult:

The party’s skittishness, Mike Tomasky has argued, was analogous to the legendary “learned helplessness” experiments where dogs “were administered electrical shocks from which they could escape, but from which, after a while, they didn’t even try to, instead crouching in the corner in resignation and fear.” The media, the pollsters, the consultants, and, occasionally, the voters seemed to punish the very act of being a Democrat, just as the researchers had turned on the shocks for the very act of being a dog. The result was a Democratic Party filled with cowering corner-dwellers.

The netroots have deployed Pavlov’s principles in the opposite direction. Call it learned aggressiveness — they’ve rewarded Democratic backbone (Howard Dean, Ned Lamont) and attacked its absence (Henry Cuellar, Joe Lieberman). And just as the researchers didn’t need to kill the dogs to teach the lesson, neither do the netroots need to defeat Joe Lieberman to make their point. The only question for tomorrow is whether the voters of Connecticut feel differently.

I would say that aggressiveness is what naturally happens to normal people when they realize they are fighting for their lives. At some point, the shocks became lethal — I suspect it was the 2000 election, although others may differ. But in 2006, it is a matter of life and death for the Democratic party to fight back. The other side is ruthless and dishonorable and they want to reduce the Democratic party to a symbolic opposition for them to run against and rail against while ensuring they have no real influence on politics. They have been remarkably successful at this considering they have never had even close to a national mandate. They are now in the inevitable process of blaming their failures on us. We aren’t going to let it happen this time.

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