Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

So Much For The Indispensible Nation

by digby

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the United States should stay out of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, according to a CNN poll conducted and released Wednesday by Opinion Research Corp.

Sixty-five percent of 633 American adults responding to the telephone poll said the United States should not play an active role in attempting to solve the issue.

Yet respondents were much more closely divided on whether they would favor the presence of U.S. ground troops as part of an international peacekeeping force on the border between Israel and Lebanon.

Forty-five percent said they would favor such a measure, and 42 percent said they would oppose it. Thirteen percent had no opinion.

One might assume on first glance that this is incoherent. How can 65% believe that the US should stay out of it while 45% favor sending in peacekeepers? But if you think about it, it likely reflects a natural and healthy reluctance to give the Bush administration permission to pursue some mad plan to fight WWIII, which is what they are hearing from the wingnuts on TV.

The neocons have achieved the opposite of what they set out to achieve. Instead of an empire their failed experiment is turning the American public isolationist. There was a time not so long ago when it would have been assumed that the US would play an active role in solving any serious foreign policy crisis. After the cock-ups of the last few years, people are no longer so sanguine that we will actually help the situation rather than make it worse.

As we survey the situation tonight, it seems as if the Bush administration is living in an alternate universe. In a week, after Israel has “defanged” Hezbollah, Condi is slated to fly in and sing kumbaaya. Either that or we are going to officially begin WWIII. Or Armageddon is imminent — oh happy day, the Bridegroom is on his way. These are what the big thinkers on the right are offering us right now. Of those choices the Bush administration has, so far, opted for the first scenario. They are going to wait until the Israelis shoot all the bad guys and then they’ll ride in and hold a town meeting.

David Ignatius wrote today:

There is an attitude among policymakers in the United States and Israel that I would call “Prospero’s temptation,” after the wizard of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Prospero thinks that with his magic powers he can do anything — subdue the wild Caliban and the other denizens of his haunted island and bend them to his purposes. This temptation was evident in Ariel Sharon’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982; it was clear in America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. In each case, Israel and America were encouraged by their Arab allies to think that they could alter the fundamentals in a way that the Arabs themselves could not. You can hear echoes of that same thinking today, as Israeli analysts talk of how the Sunni nations — Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan — are privately thanking them for breaking Shiite power.

I’m not sure why anyone is surprised by this:

”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

That is what’s known as magical thinking and it is the hallmark of this administration. Again, maybe the public really has the right of this. We’ve seen ample evidence over the last six years that these are not the people you want in charge during a crisis.

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To The Right Of Trent Lott

by digby

Ben Adler over at TAPPED asks why Ben Nelson is being given a pass on his morally repugnant vote against stem cell research today. I honestly can’t answer that. I and others often make the argument that Red State Senators have to answer to their conservative constituents, so they must be given latitude. But this vote is odd because, as Adler points out, even Trent Lott voted for it. And according to this article, 70% of Nebraskans are in favor of stem cell research:

Statewide poll shows support for fetal cell research
courtesy of Nebraskans for Research

Findings of a statewide poll released today shows more than two-thirds (70 percent) of Nebraska registered voters support fetal cell research at UNMC. Nearly three-quarters of the registered voters contacted also indicated support for embryonic stem cell research should it be conducted in the future at the University of Nebraska. The poll was commissioned by Nebraskans for Research (NFR).

“After two-and-a-half years of public debate, voters in Nebraska have reached a consensus on this research — they support it overwhelmingly,” said Sanford M. Goodman, volunteer executive director for NFR, “and they favor a continued state role in it.”

“I am very pleased that the majority of Nebraskans understand and value the stem cell research that is carried out by the world-class research teams at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. It is most gratifying to me and all the other researchers at UNMC, that the people who pay the bills, the taxpayers, understand and acknowledge that we are responsible stewards of the public trust.”
Thomas Rosenquist, Ph.D., vice chancellor for research

The poll, conducted from June 20-23 by Decision Research, Inc., also found that 66 percent of voters think the Nebraska Unicameral should continue to allow fetal cell research to be conducted at state facilities using state funds. Only one quarter of the voters would support a ban in Nebraska on such research and resulting treatments.

It’s honsestly quite hard to believe that any Democrat would vote against stem cell research because of their own personal beliefs — it’s way outside the mainstream and you have to wonder why such a person would run as a Democrat in the first place (although when you look at Nelson’s record it’s hard to find a good reason for him to be a Democrat at all, frankly.)

Does anyone out there from Nebraska know what to make of this particular vote?

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Heckuva Job Karen

by digby

Isn’t Karen Hughes the undersecretary of state for Public Diplomacy? Wouldn’t you think someone in that position would at least appear in public once in a while? Or at least when the midle east is blowing up and public diplomacy might be called for?

From John Brown:

In recent days, Karen Hughes, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, whose job is to explain US policy abroad, has remained silent. The Spinstress of the Decider, known for her garrulity and love of being in front of a camera, has chosen to be out of the media limelight. With many in the Arab world blaming the United States for the situation in the Middle East, she has said nothing about American goals in the region. Gone, at least for now, are her vapid proclamations about US “transformational public diplomacy.” Nor has she uttered another saccharine word about the need to foster common interests and values throughout the world. And – surprise! – she has not gone on another so-called “listening tour” in the Middle East.

Why is Ms. Hughes silent? One can only speculate about this, as answers are not forthcoming from the State Department, whom I contacted in preparation for this piece. A Mr. Justin Wilson said “right” when I noted that Ms. Hughes had said nothing on the situation in the Middle East, then transferred me to an employee whose answering machine said he was out of the office until July 24. I am still waiting, at this writing, for answers to the two messages I have left to other State functionaries. Silence reigns. Talk about ’round-the-clock public diplomacy, rapid reaction to breaking events! There seems to be, in Ms. Hughes’s shop, no sense of urgency to the public-diplomacy dimension of the situation in the Middle East.

Maybe she’s busy handling the Katrina … er… Beirut evacuation.

It appears that the last anyone has heard of Karen was back on June 26th when she gave a speech to the US-Arab Economic Forum in Houston. It was very inspiring:

Our opponents want closed minds. They say their way or no way. Death to anyone who disagrees with them, no matter what faith or what religion. Together we must confront the violent extremists and their ideology of tyranny and hate. They seek to portray the West as in conflict with Islam, because that’s the window into which they recruit. They can only flourish in environments that foster anger and misunderstanding. Yet their world view is wrong. Islam is a part of America. As an American government official, I represent almost seven million American Muslims who live and work and practice their faith freely here in our country. Together we must undermine the extremists by providing platforms for debate, by empowering mainstream voices of tolerance and inclusion, and by demonstrating our respect for Muslim cultures and contributions to our society and to world society.

And as soon as she picks up her messages, she’s going to get right on that.

Brown continues:

[M]aybe what’s really behind Ms. Hughes’s taciturnity is that the administration has decided, as it did so efficiently during Bush’s first term, to stay “on message” – the message being, in the case of US policy toward Israel’s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon, practically no message at all, except that Israel can do just about everything that it wants to “defend itself.”

One of the most intelligent commentators on the Middle East, Marc Lynch, puts it this way in his blog: “American public diplomacy has been virtually invisible on [Israel’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon], at a time when it is more urgently needed than ever. I can understand this – you have to have a policy if you want to try to explain or defend it, and right now the Bush administration doesn’t seem to have any policy at all beyond supporting Israel and issuing calls for ‘restraint,’ which Israel promptly and publicly rejects. And what administration official wants to subject him or herself to tough Arab questioning on live TV right now?”

But really, let’s think about this. Do we really want someone like Karen Hughes out there sticking her large foot in her mouth? Look what happened when Junior was let off his leash for five minutes. Even Condi Rice, who thinks that any thought the US might have contributed to current unrest with our ill-fated Iraq invasion is “grotesque,” tends to make things worse. Maybe it’s actually better not to have the Bush grown-up team in public. This is serious business.

How much is Karen getting paid, do you think? More than Brownie? Seriously, he was a screw-up, but he showed up at least. Karen has completely taken a powder. Does she have an important PTA meeting or something? A long planned river rafting trip?

Where in the world is Karen Hughes?

Update: According the TPM Mucraker, this criticism of the Katrina …. er… Beirut evacuation is all wet. The state department is in touch with the 25,000 or so Americans in Lebanon via their web site. Yeah, I know.

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May I Puke?
by poputonian
Would it be a violation of human dignity if someone dropped a five-hundred pound laser bomb on your head? I thought so.

This must be the most ironic statement in history:

“Like all Americans, I believe our Nation must vigorously pursue the tremendous possibilities that science offers to cure disease and improve the lives of millions. Yet, as science brings us ever closer to unlocking the secrets of human biology, it also offers temptations to manipulate human life and violate human dignity. Our conscience and history as a Nation demand that we resist this temptation. With the right scientific techniques and the right policies, we can achieve scientific progress while living up to our ethical responsibilities.”

George W. Bush, July 19, 2006 veto statement.

What a sick and confused bastard.

Apology To Marc Lynch And Some Others

by tristero

In a previous post, I questioned the credentials of the members of the Foreign Affairs roundtable on “What to do in Iraq.” Some members of that panel clearly are qualified, eminently so, to have an opinion appear under the auspices of the journal that promotes itself, by way of a quote, as “The Bible of Foreign Policy Thinking.”

In particular, Marc Lynch of Abu Aardvark wrote to Hullabaloo: “…in addition to being a liberal blogger (www.abuaardvark.com), I do speak and read Arabic, write about al-Jazeera and the Arab media all the time, and published an op- ed opposing war with Iraq in the Christian Science Monitor in July 2002.” Marc’s clearly one of the Serious People who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to Iraq; his opinions on the mess in Iraq are invaluable. Marc, a full and complete apology. I haven’t read your blog in anthing resembling a regular fashion and that has been truly my serious loss.

And I’d like to apologize to other panel members who have garnered high-level credentials similar to Marc’s. Your comments, too, were helpful, even if I disagreed with them…no especially if I disagreed with them.

Indeed, Digby’s right: It could have been worse, much worse. And one should count one’s blessings that Gingrich wasn’t involved. As panels go, it sure beats the Sunday blarney-fests handsdown when it comes to gravitas. That said, I wonder if that says more about how alarmingly poor public serious discourse on foreign policy has become. Yes, I’m grateful that a panel under Foreign Affairs’ auspices wasn’t entirely dominated by utterly unqualified right-wing ideologues living in a fantasy-world and even had some real experts on it. And that’s rather sad, to settle for the mediocre.

I still can’t help but wonder how why there were no Muslims included in the roundtable. Imagine, for a moment, a roundtable discussion of “What to do about Israel” with, say, Prince Bandar, the editor of the Danish newspaper that printed the anti-Muslim cartoons, Cardinal Egan of New York, James Wallis, Arianna Huffington, and anyone else you can think of who might have an opinion about Israel. Except for Israelis or American Jews.

Similarly, the exclusion of women and people of color is utterly shocking, but not because of some notion of “political correctness.” Let’s be clear about this: when expertise is involved, I simply want to hear from qualified experts and if none of them are men (or women), I couldn’t care less. But genuine expertise wasn’t one of the major prerequisites for this panel. There was some other standard that trumped genuine knowledge because some of the panel members – not all – could only have reached their opinions from studying secondary sources. They’d never been to Iraq, or they couldn’t even speak the language, some had had minimal if any contact with the culture or government policies, and so on. So that does raise the question as to what was the standard for choosing roundtablers. And being white, being male, and not being Muslim – those criteria suddenly seem to loom very large in how Foreign Affairs came to make their choice.

As I mentioned in the original post, I’m not saying the people on the panel were stupid. I’m sure that even the least expert member follows the news from Iraq more than the average lay reader. But if I am to learn something I don’t already know about Iraq, and I mean really learn something, then I need to hear from an entire panel of experts. Period. As good as some of the panelists were, as great as some others were, that’s not good enough by half. We’re living through a rather difficult time, after all; simply being smart, verbal or having your heart in the right place should not qualify you for inclusion at such a level.

Which brings up one further point. I would be the last person to claim that I have unique expertise in any aspect of foreign policy. I’m smart, I read a lot, I’ve talked to a lot of people who are experts, but I don’t. Here’s the thing: my lack of genuine knowledge wouldn’t prevent me from participating in the next Foreign Affairs roundtable on, say, “What To Do In Tuva.” Why not? I like throat-singing quite a bit and I can find Tuva on a map. I’m sure I could read enough in a month to know whatever I’d need to perform admirably in a roundtable. That may be good enough for Tuvan/American relations – although I doubt it. That’s not good enough for Iraq.

So I fully apologize to the experts on the Foreign Affairs panel. At the same time, I cannot urge Foreign Affairs and other similar institutions to provide the rest of us not merely with intelligent people, but with knowledgeable people, and only deeply knowledgeable people, who can help the rest of us understand an extremely complex world situation. A situation that – partly because of the lack of expertise in high places – seems poised on the edge of a precipice.

Blogosphere Day

by digby

July 19th is blogosphere day in which bloggers are asking their readers to contribute to Ned Lamont (and other worthy candidates.) Chris Bowers at MYDD explains, here, what it’s all about:

Our message is simple. No longer will candidates be considered unelectable for holding progressive views. No longer will the establishment take its supporters for granted. No longer will Democrats get away with boosting their own national image by facilitating the conservative movement and distancing themselves from their own party.

I do not have many complicated messages to give you when it comes to this race. We have already written more about this election on MyDD than any single election since the 2004 Presidential election. You can read you extensive archives on Ned Lamont, Joe Lieberman and CT-Sen. It should suffice to say that I believe this election represents nearly everything that the netroots is fighting for in our struggles to reshape the Democratic Party.

I don’t have an Act-Blue page set up for my readers, but there are many great blogs that do. Just check in with your favorites today and if you feel the urge, send along a couple of quarters.

I think my readers know that I care a great deal about this race. I have been a pragmatist my whole life and am temperamentally disinclined to support windmill tilting just for the hell of it. But I am also an unreconstructed liberal who believes, like FDR, that experimentation and risk are necessary to progress. I supported the DLC concept years ago when I thought it made sense to try something new to accomplish liberal goals. That was a different time and we faced a different Republican party. It is now time, again, to try something new.

We are in a brutal partisan era that cannot be “fixed” by any more capitulation to the rightwing agenda. The Democratic party has hit a wall and can go no further if it cares to remain true to its principles. Joe Lieberman has proven that he is incapable of holding that line, even in such fundamental areas as social security and equal rights. If bi-partisanship is to be reborn, it must come from the other side moving back toward the center.

Grassroots Dems understand that we cannot hold every Democrat rigidly to this standard. Some come from regions and states that are conservative and turning those attitudes around will require a long term committment to persuade those voters that their traditions and beliefs will actually be better protected by a Party that believes in democratic institutions than one that answers to corporate lobbyists. That means that right now we cannot spare any safe Blue seats to accomodate Joe Lieberman’s ego. Turning back this conservative juggernaut requires that every Democrat who hails from a progressive state must carry his or her weight. Lieberman has not only failed to do that, he has gone out of his way to give weight to the other side.

So, check out your favorite blogs and if they ask for a contribution to Ned Lamont today, consider giving. This is an important moment for the Democratic party. We may just be deciding if this party is answerable to the people or if the people answer to the party. There is a considerable difference between those two things and at the end of the day it may be the most significant thing that separates us from the Republicans.

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Huckleberry Howler

by digby

How can the paper of record write a lengthy puff piece about the brave, maverick integrity of Senator Huckleberry Graham and make no metion of the fact that he and his pal Jon Kyl inserted a fraudulent 12,000 word colloquey into the congressional record to fool the US Supreme Court and were caught red-handed. The Supreme Court merely noted this in the footnotes of the Hamdan decision, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued an unusual order rejecting their amicus brief alone, although they accepted five others. As John Dean wrote: “No one familiar with this remarkable behavior by Graham and Kyl can doubt why the court did not want to hear from these senators.”

This was not a small thing. Huckleberry and Kyl wrote an entire script of a debate that never happened in order to create a false legislative history that they then cited in an amicus brief for the government in the Hamdan case. They defrauded the court and they did it with the express purpose of bolstering the government’s argument that the Senate had intended that the Supreme Court be stripped of jurisdiction in the Hamdan case.

This is remarkable not only because it features two Senators outright lying to the Supreme Court. It is also remarkable because the decision in that case is the one the NY Times says Huckleberry is now bravely defending against the wishes of his own party. I would have thought the reporter might have asked old Huck about where he actually stands on this issue.

This is the thing about Graham and why he is one of the most untrustworthy members of the Republican party. He is the guy who is out there portraying himself as the voice of reason, the man who thoughtfully entertains the whole range of opinion and settles on the reasonable middle ground. The truth is that he pretends to do all that while he ruthlessly advances the Republican agenda — even to the point where he would outright defraud the US Supreme Court while claiming to be a strict adherent to the rule of law.

The media love those they deem “mavericks” because they believe this silly trope that if both sides are mad at you, you must be right. The problem is that they fail to see that the modern Republicans — the most disciplined political party in American history — never seem to get really angry at Huckleberry. You’d think they’d wonder why. The reason is that he’s a slick political operator who manages to advance the Republican agenda while convincing the gullible press he’s bucking it.

He is going to go far in the post Bush universe. The market for “men of integrity” on the GOP side is going to be huge. Graham and his soul mate John McCain, every reporter’s dream duo, are going to be the beneficiaries of the rebranding of the “real conservative.” And the NY Times will be there to cheer them on — ignoring all the evidence of their opportunism and political calculation to advance the new narrative of the brave Republicans who saved America. Again.

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Democrats Then and Now

by poputonian

So Ralph turns to clay in Georgia.

Meanwhile up in Ohio (from Reuters):

Megachurches build a Republican base

It’s not Sunday but Fairfield Christian Church is packed. Hundreds of kids are making their way to vacation Bible school, parents are dropping in at the day-care center and yellow-shirted volunteers are everywhere, directing traffic. In one wing of the sprawling church, a coffee barista whips up a mango smoothie while workers bustle around the cafeteria. “There are people here from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day — sometimes later,” senior pastor Russell Johnson says as he surveys the activity. The 4,000 members of Fairfield Christian are part of the growing evangelical Christian movement in middle America. In a March survey, a quarter of Ohio residents said they were evangelicals — believing that a strict adherence to the Bible and personal commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ will bring salvation. The fastest-growing faith group in America, evangelical Christians have had a growing impact on the nation’s political landscape, in part because adherents believe conservative Christian values should have a place in politics — and they support politicians who agree with them. In that March survey, more than 82 percent of the Ohio evangelicals who attend church at least once a week said they approve of bringing more religion into politics. “Christians stepped back too far. I prayed in school but my kids can’t pray in school,” said volunteer Lisa Sexton, 42, a Bible school volunteer. “I should have spoken up earlier.” Political analyst John Green said evangelical growth has had a major political impact in Ohio, a key swing state that narrowly decided President George W. Bush’s election victory in 2004. “Evangelical Protestants have become much more Republican in recent times, although 40 or 50 years ago more of them were Democrats,” said Green, director of the University of Akron’s Bliss Institute of Applied Politics. …
“I appreciate the fact that the church is politically involved,” said Kyle Hatfield, a 30-year-old father of two who believes the separation of church and state has gone too far. “It was not our forefathers’ intention to prevent churches from being involved,” he said. “Our forefathers did not want to force people to belong to a church, but that has been tweaked to mean churches cannot be involved.”

So let’s go back forty or fifty years. Here’s Susan Jacoby quoting JFK in her book Freethinkers:

In his celebrated speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy declared unequivocally that he believed …

“… in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute–where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote–where no church or church school is granted any public funds for policy preference–and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.”

Kennedy went on to make it clear that he regarded the Jeffersonian wall of separation not as a flexible metaphor but as the foundation of the American system of government. He reminded his audience, composed heavily of evangelical Protestants, that Jefferson’s relgious freedom act in Virginia was strongly supported by Baptists who had endured persecution both in England and in America. With a nod to the non-religious, the candidate also expounded his vision of America as a nation “where every man had the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice.”

My how the landscape has changed.

Hovering And Wheedling

by digby

Modo has an entertaining column on Georgie’s Big G8 Adventure. I thought this was particularly good:

He treated Tony “As It Were” Blair like the servant in “The Remains of the Day,’’ blowing off his offer to help with the Israel-Lebanon crisis, and changing the subject from substance to fluff at one point, noting about his 60th-birthday Burberry gift: “Thanks for the sweater. Awfully thoughtful of you.’’ Then he razzed the British prime minister, who was hovering and wheedling like an abused wife: “I know you picked it out yourself.”

(I’m pretty sure the servant to whom she’s referring was the one played by Emma Thompson, not Anthony Hopkins. Like her, Blair has such expressive hands.)

She didn’t mention Bush’s obsession with pig meat. I think it was a matter of space. There were just so many outrageous behaviors on this trip that it takes more than one column to cover them all.

Update: I had vaguely remembered this and finally tracked it down. Bush has always had such bad manners that he couldn’t be trusted to behave properly in the White House when his father was president.

Even as an adult, George was so out of control that his mother, then the president’s wife, removed her eldest son to the opposite end of the table at a state dinner for the Queen of England. Although sober by then, the First Son had introduced himself to the Queen as “the black sheep of the family.”

George W. Bush was then 44 years old.

He’s almost 60 now.

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Ralphie, We Hardly Knew Ye

by digby

So Ralph Reed, the darling prince of the Christian Right, top Bush administration advisor,ratfucker extraordinaire, coveted election night analyst and infamous college Republican couldn’t win the Republican primary for Lt Governor of Georgia. Wow. How the mighty have fallen. This was supposed to be his first step toward the presidency.

Reed has always been a phony and his criminal association with Abramoff finally brought him low. His Christian Right fans weren’t impressed with the fact that he was making millions promoting gambling and forced abortions. And they particularly didn’t like the fact that he refused to repent. (There’s a lesson in that, strategists, if you care to look.)

I think the thing I’ve always found most interesting about Ralph is the fact that he’s seen as a real evangelical when it’s quite clear that he became one purely for political reasons.

[In 1981]At the College Republican Natipnal Committee, Abramoff, Norquist and Reed formed what was known as the “Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate.” Upon Abramoff’s election, the trio purged “dissidents” and re-wrote the CRNC’s bylaws to consolidate their control over the organization. Reed was the “hatchet man” and “carried out Abramoff-Norquist orders with ruthless efficiency, not bothering to hide his fingerprints.” Abramoff promoted Reed in 1983, appointing him to succeed Norquist as Executive Director of the CRNC. (Nina J. Easton, Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Crusade, page 143)

In the spring of 1983, Reed was accused of rigging the election of ally Sam Harbren as his successor as president of the College Republicans at the University of Georgia. Promising a keg party, Reed recruited a number of new “members” to vote in the election, submitting their membership paperwork on the last night before the deadline for the election. The defeated presidential candidate, Lee Culpepper, wrote to the College Republican National Committee calling the election a sham. The CRNC investigated the matter, reprimanded Reed and ordered a new election. However, in the meantime, Culpepper “led an angry exodus” out of the UGA College Republicans and into a newly formed Young Republicans of Clarke County club. Harben admitted later, “We ran a dirty election.” (Nina J. Easton, Gang of Five, page 129–130)

Reed has said that, on a Saturday evening in September of 1983, he had a religious experience while at Bullfeathers, a upscale pub in Capitol Hill that is popular with staffers (and, to a lesser extent, members) of the House of Representatives. Regarding the experience, Reed said “the Holy Spirit simply demanded me to come to Jesus”. He walked outside the pub to a phone booth, thumbed through the yellow pages under “Churches,” and found the Evangel Assembly of God in Camp Springs, Maryland. He visited the next morning and became a born-again Christian. (Nina J. Easton, Gang of Five, pages 201–202)

In March 1985, Reed organized members of Students for America and College Republicans to picket the Fleming Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the nearby home of its founder, a Dutch-born doctor. Clinic staff reported that protestors “screamed epithets and intimidated patients with mock baby funerals.” Reed was arrested after bursting into the waiting room of the abortion clinic. He signed an agreement promising to stay away from the clinic and was not prosecuted. (Nina J. Easton, Gang of Five, page 205)

In 1989, Reed and Pat Robertson formed the Christian Coalition out of the ashes of Robertson’s failed presidential campaign.

Ralph has always been a sleazy Republican operative who pretended to be a Christian. The party’s full of people like him (Ann Coulter says she goes to church!) but he was the face of the Christian Coalition for many years so the revelation of his worldly corruption was particularly ruinous.

Oh, and by the way, Ralph has always had a lot of friends in high places. one of them is Joe Lieberman:

July 12, 2002

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein and Republican strategist Ralph Reed were talking on the phone, shortly after announcing the launch of Stand for Israel, a campaign to mobilize Evangelical Christian political support for Israel.

Few political operatives have as much access to the White House these days as Reed, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and former executive director of the Christian Coalition. But when Senator Joseph Lieberman phoned on the other line, Eckstein, 51, was happy to take the call from an old friend.

Old allies and pioneers in the push to build bridges with conservative Christians, Eckstein and Lieberman had not spoken since the senator’s ascension to the Democratic presidential ticket in August 2000.

“He said that he had just seen The New York Times piece about Stand for Israel, wanted to tell me how proud he was, and encouraged me to do more,” Eckstein told the Forward, recounting his conversation with Lieberman. “He also told me that, finally, after 25 years, my work has been vindicated.”

Joe and Ralph and the Rabbi had worked together in the past on a project called the Center for Christian and Jewish Values:

In 1994, when the ADL issued a scathing report blasting fundamentalist evangelicals, and Robertson’s Christian Coalition in particular, as a grave threat to Jewish life, Eckstein leaped to defend his allies. He convened a meeting in Washington between evangelical and Jewish leaders, and convinced the ADL’s director, Abe Foxman, to invite Robertson’s master tactician, Reed, to issue a call for reconciliation at ADL’s annual conference….According to Eckstein, “Reed made a wonderful impression.”

Eckstein capitalized on his successes by forming the Center for Christian and Jewish Values in Washington. Co-chaired by Orthodox Jewish Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and evangelical Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., the now-defunct center, according to Eckstein, “brought together disparate groups to find common ground on issues of shared concern.” While Eckstein did bring people of different faiths under one roof, their ideological leanings were mostly uniform. The center was made up almost entirely of right-wing evangelicals like then Family Research Council director Bauer, Southern Baptist Convention executive director Richard Land and the dean of Robertson’s Regent University’s school of government, Kay James. (James is now director of the Office of Personnel Management under Bush.) Also involved were neoconservatives such as Abrams, William Kristol and William Bennett. The center was essentially a command post for the culture war.

I would imagine Joe felt a little frisson of fear tonight when he heard his old ally in the culture war went down in a primary. Ralph was a superstar of the conservative movement and plenty of people believed that he was headed for the white house.

Something’s in the air.

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