David Broder comes right out and admits what we all suspected:
But for all the delicacy of the treatment, the very fact that the Times had sent a reporter out to interview 50 people about the state of the Clintons’ marriage and placed the story on the top of Page One was a clear signal — if any was needed — that the drama of the Clintons’ personal life would be a hot topic if she runs for president.
Yes it was, wasn’t it? The press is putting everyone on notice that they are going to keep their noses firmly buried in Hillary Clinton’s panty drawer for the next two years. As he gazes upon her “striking appearance in a lemon-yellow pantsuit” old Dave is so aroused he can’t concentrate on her serious energy speech. Hillary and Bill are more potent than Viagra to these nasty old geezers in the Washington Press corps
Oooh. What delicious, delicious fun it is for these shriveled old crones. Finally they can write about things they really enjoy instead of all this boooring corruption, war, terrorism and political failure. Damn it’s invigorating to be back in the saddle isn’t it Dave?!
I am actually kind of impressed with Broder’s candor here. He’s not mincing any words. He comes right out and admits that the press is laying down the gauntlet: if Hillary runs, the Washington Press Corps is going to treat her like a whore. A frigid whore, of course, but a whore nonetheless. No games, no pretense. They are primed and cocked for a full-on Clenis porn-fest. It’s clear they are desperate for it.
Broder is, of course, the man who famously said the Clintons came to town and trashed the place. And it’s some fine place it is. It’s social leaders have all the style of Pyongyang combined with the sophistication of Fresno. And like busybodies in all bourgeois backwaters, when the leading denizens decide that somebody’s a little bit too human, they viciously tear them apart for pure sport.
Broder concludes:
Three times in the question-and-answer session, she referred to her husband as “Bill,” praising him for seeing that his library in Little Rock incorporated a lot of energy-saving features.
Other than that, the elephant in the room went unmentioned.
But it got a rubdown didn’t it Dave, you sick creep.
FYI, Lou Dobbs responded to Greg Sargent today about how they used that Aztlan map created by the CCC:
In response to my questions, CNN sent over the following statement from spokesperson Christa Robinson:
A freelance field producer in Los Angeles searched the web for Aztlan maps and grabbed the Council of Conservative Citizens map without knowing the nature of the organization. The graphic was a late inclusion in the script and, regrettably, was missed in the vetting process.
The network declined to go any further.
Uhm, excuse me CNN, but that is really missing the point. The problem isn’t that the map was from the CCC, it’s that the CCC is making maps about this alleged issue and you are reporting it as if it’s credible. Nobody’s alarm bells went off today when they found out that a racist organization was pimping this ridiculous notion that there is a serious movement to take over several western states? No, nothing, just regret that they didn’t pull the right map off the internet — you know, the one that didn’t have the words CCC on the bottom. The intention behind the story is just hunky dory.
I certainly hope that anyone who goes on Dobbs’ show to debate his obsession will bring this up. The mere fact that the CCC is pushing this Aztlan nonsense should automatically discredit it among decent people. There is no threat and no “movement;” seriously reporting about it is inflammatory and racist. But then Lou Dobbs is inflammatory and racist too, so there’s no surprise.
I realize that quite a few people are upset with the Democrats for joining Hastert in condemning the Justice Department for raiding William Jefferson’s capitol hill office, but I think this may be a blessing in disguise.
First of all, it really does look suspicious to me that Jefferson is the first one out of all these crooks they’ve done this too. The didn’t raid Cunningham’s office and they haven’t raided Delay’s. I can’t for the life of me think of why that would be. But regardless, this is a very dicey subject because we are dealing with an administration that has absolutely no respect for the co-equal branches of government. They believe in this unitary executive theory (aka elected monarchy) and they are not afraid to use that power against the legislature.
Now we can all say that the legislature deserves it in these corruption cases, no doubt about it. But then you have to ask yourself why of all the GOP crooks in the congress, and they are legion, the Bush justice department has only taken this unprecedented step with the one outright crook we know of from the Democratic party? The danger of the executive branch using its power for partisan purposes is one of the prime reasons why we are all so suspicious of the illegal wiretapping and the rest of this power grab. And here we have it staring us right in the face.
Which brings us to Denny. This news tonight that he is under scrutiny certainly explains why he is suddenly so all concerned about the separation of powers — something he and the rest of his boys didn’t give a damn about when the president was asserting the right throw out any pieces of the Bill of Rights they find inconvenient. That’s the silver lining. Hastert and others on the GOP side are probably just covering their asses, but this may just cause the congress as a whole to wake the hell up and recognize that the administration is out of control. There is value in that, even with the GOP Eunuch Caucus in charge.
This is one of those typical cases where until the politican actually experiences something personally, he could give a damn. You know the type: the free market privatizer who suddenly becomes concerned with government funding for Hodgkins disease when his wife gets it. Or the rightwing moralist who gets all relativistic when his son is arrested for drug dealing. It happens all the time.
Today, the congress had a taste of what it is like to have its constitutional rights walked on by this imperious executive branch and they didn’t like it. Good. Maybe they’ll get some religion on this checks and balances thing.
Update: To be clear, I’m not defending Jefferson. He’s a scumbag on many levels and he should resign. I’m also not defending the Congressional Black caucus, but I do understand that they tend to get a little defensive when their members are singled out all the time — especially during close elections when the rightwing rednecks are having problems turning out their base. They are probably wrong in this case, but I understand it.
Following up on my post below lambasting the Democrats for failing on the Michael Hayden nomination, I see that the Senate leadership is whipping the caucus into not helping out vulnerable Republicans with bipartisan legislation in an election year. This is good news.
But, that is just a defensive move and it doesn’t address what I think is the much bigger problem which is that on high profile nominations and big ticket legislation, the Democrats do not use those opportunities to publicly draw stark distinctions and call the Republicans out. Instead, when the cameras are rolling and the press is paying attention they do the big el-foldo. I don’t see how this helps us.
Look, we would have lost the Hayden nomination. They are the majority. But even if they like Hayden they should have voted against him. They could have used that vote as a show of solidarity against Bush’s executive infallibility doctrine, complained vociferously about the lack of checks and balances and set oureslves up as being in united opposition to Bush. Being seen as obstructionist against a 29% president is A GOOD THING! He does not have the country’s support. The issue itself is secondary to the optics of the Democrats opposing this administration in a high profile way.
I’m glad that Shumer and Reid are reminding the senators that helping Republicans win by giving them bipartisan cover isn’t really a good idea. (I’m a little stunned that they need to be whipped to do this, but … well. Yeah.) But that’s pretty weak gruel considering that what the country wants and needs is for the Democrats to show that they are going to do something completely different than this failed administration and failed GOP congress are doing now. They need to demonstrate this, not yammer about what we should do and what we will do if only we win. Do it now.
Straight Talk McCain unveils his secret plan to end the war:
“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.
You’ve got to love the Republicans. Their solution to everything is to say they will knock some heads together and “stop the bullshit.” Just trust them.
Bush said today that he would bring down gasoline prices by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude:
“I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply. Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot.”
How’s that working out for everybody?
It’s nice that these tough guys like to pretend that they can rule the world with their impressive codpieces, but I think we’ve had enough of this impotent GOP posturing. McCain was a very tough guy years ago, but now he’s prostituting himself to the rightwing and believing his own hype.
Woo! That’s bracing stuff! And then, after the hasty consultations with translators to make sure he actually said that, the participants would stare at him quizzically, wondering what the straight-talk solution to oil sharing, political representation, entrenched hatreds, and varying conceptions of secularism will be. So what is it? McCain demands that they “stop the bullshit.” What are his next ten words?
Exactly. It’s funny, but it’s just possible that George Bush’s failure using a faux McCain image has ruined it for John McCain. That ballsy fighter jock thing just doesn’t have the same resonance it used to have. McCain’s playing the lead in a cheap sequel of his own story.
The New York Times got scooped today on another hot sexy story about a presidential candidate. This time it’s about Bill Frist, whose wife needs to keep her hubby on a leash when he’s hanging around female Wapo reporters:
At 9:30 a.m., Frist opened the Senate, gripping the corners of the lectern, as he had the operating table. Across the city, rolling in a bed of hay, Kuja opened his eyes and grunted. The gorilla kept touching his tongue to his tooth. Something had changed inside of the beast while he slept. Frist smiled and spoke unremarkably from the lectern, reeking of silverback testosterone.
Granted, this article is about Frist operating on gorillas for National Zoo, which is nice considering his history of cat killing. But the term “silverback” is not only applied to gorillas. It’s also a slang term for sexy middle aged human males. How this applies to Bill Frist, I’m not sure, but then who can account for people’s taste in members of the opposite sex? Henry Hyde and Newt Gingrich are prime examples of this conundrum.
But I’m sure this reporter knew nothing about that silverback thing, Mrs Frist. All that hot imagery about the beast within and silverback testosterone is completely innocent. Still, it might be a good idea to have Patrick Healy look into the Frist marriage for the Times. This doesn’t look good.
Glenn Greenwald has a depressing post up about the Democratic retreat on Michael Hayden:
But by and large, what happened yesterday with Gen. Hayden’s nomination is exactly what would have happened in 2002 and 2003. Democrats are afraid to challenge the President due to their fear — always due to their fear — that they will be depicted as mean, obstructionist and weak on national security. And so, even with an unbelievable weakened President, and even with regard to the most consequential issues — and can one doubt that installing Gen. Hayden as CIA Director is consequential? — Democrats back away from fights, take no clear position, divide against each other, and stand up for exactly nothing. cimply It is quite possible that Democrats would not have been able to stop Gen. Hayden’s nomination. It is true that they are still in the minority and thus are limited in what they can achieve legislatively. But that’s really irrelevant. Gen. Hayden is a symbol and one of the chief instruments and advocates of the administration’s lawlessness. He refused to say in his testimony even whether he would even comply with the law. Opposing his nomination is both compelled by a principled belief in the rule of law as well as justified by the important political opportunity to highlight this administration’s lawbreaking. Sen. Feingold, as usual, shows how this works:
The Democrats who voted against the nomination were Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Evan Bayh of Indiana. Each cited concerns about General Hayden’s role in a controversial domestic surveillance program he ran while head of the National Security Agency.
“I am not convinced that the nominee respects the rule of law and Congress’s oversight responsibilities,” Mr. Feingold said.
In other words, there are serious questions about whether Gen. Hayden will comply with the law and whether he believes in the rule of law, so perhaps it’s not a good idea to install him as CIA Director. Is there some reason Democrats were afraid to make that clear, straightforward, critically important point?
Glenn answered that question in his first paragraph. National security has the Democrats so spooked they are paralyzed and for some reason they don’t seem to understand that every time they retreat they look like they are frightened of their shadows — and thus appear to the American people to be incapable of protecting the country. And what’s depressing is that their primary political concern can be rather easily alleviated by doing the right thing and standing up for their principles. George Bush has no credibility. Perhaps some people don’t grasp the significance of the illegal wiretapping per se, but they are certainly open to argument if someone would care to make one. It’s not as if they trust this president to make good decisions.
More importantly, for electoral purposes, the Democrats simply have to show that they are willing to fight this weakened unpopular president or people will see no point in kicking the bums out — and certainly will not believe that the Dems are capable of taking on someone of real strength. As bad as it was in 2002 and 2003, how pathetic is it that the the Democrats rubber stamping Bush when he’s at 29%? How unpopular do his policies have to get before Democrats take the side of the majority?
Glenn goes on to speculate about the future and sees that there is not likely to be a whole lot of action on these matters going forward, even if we win. And that is my great fear, too. The Democrats have the GOP snake by the neck but I’m pretty sure they don’t have the nerve to kill it. And that is a huge mistake as has been demonstrated over and over again for the last 30 years.
Here’s Robert Parry discussing the last time we had a chance to follow up and knock off the criminal element:
My book, Secrecy & Privilege, opens with a scene in spring 1994 when a guest at a White House social event asks Bill Clinton why his administration didn’t pursue unresolved scandals from the Reagan-Bush era, such as the Iraqgate secret support for Saddam Hussein’s government and clandestine arms shipments to Iran.
Clinton responds to the questions from the guest, documentary filmmaker Stuart Sender, by saying, in effect, that those historical questions had to take a back seat to Clinton’s domestic agenda and his desire for greater bipartisanship with the Republicans.
Clinton “didn’t feel that it was a good idea to pursue these investigations because he was going to have to work with these people,” Sender told me in an interview. “He was going to try to work with these guys, compromise, build working relationships.”
Clinton’s relatively low regard for the value of truth and accountability is relevant again today because other centrist Democrats are urging their party to give George W. Bush’s administration a similar pass if the Democrats win one or both houses of Congress.
Reporting about a booklet issued by the Progressive Policy Institute, a think tank of the Democratic Leadership Council, the Washington Post wrote, “these centrist Democrats … warned against calls to launch investigations into past administration decisions if Democrats gain control of the House or Senate in the November elections.”
These Democrats also called on the party to reject its “non-interventionist left” wing, which opposed the Iraq War and which wants Bush held accountable for the deceptions that surrounded it.
“Many of us are disturbed by the calls for investigations or even impeachment as the defining vision for our party for what we would do if we get back into office,” said pollster Jeremy Rosner, calling such an approach backward-looking. [Washington Post, May 10, 2006]
I urge you to read the whole article. It shows just what a massive failure it was on the part of Democrats and Clinton not to follow through. Unsurprisingly, the Republicans didn’t see this “let bygones be bygones” attitude as anything but weakness. Clinton was rewarded with a partisan impeachment for his trouble.
This issue perfectly defines the real argument between the netroots and the establishment. We want to engage the opposition head on and they simply refuse. It is not about policy, although there is plenty to discuss on that count. It is about enabling criminal, radical, undemocratic politics to go unchecked in the name of some sort of bipartisan comity that only Joe Lieberman and his friends at the Democratic Leadership Council believe still exists. It’s about not letting Lucy pull the football away again.
It’s true that we are a vanguard at the moment, but this new media technology makes it far easier for a vanguard to become a movement than it used to and we have the momentum. What is happening in Connecticut is the canary in the coal mine if these establishment types care to actually see it instead of flailing about incoherently that leftists are ruining their party like it’s 1968 and we’re all on acid.
Glenn thinks that here in our blogospheric bubble it appears that things are changing when they aren’t. I have to disagree a bit with that. It’s true that the blogospheric bubble often gives the false impression that there is more momentum on our side than there actually is. I suspect that true inside any movement or campaign where you spend most of your time with fellow travellers. But that doesn’t mean things aren’t changing. We are now a factor. They may hate us, fear us and dismiss us, but we’re here and we aren’t going anywhere. (Say it loud, I’m blog and I’m proud!)
Rick Perlstein noted in the discussion of “Before The Storm” and the conservative movement last week-end at Firedoglake that history is complicated, it moves like a battleship. Things aren’t going to turn around overnight. But we are beginning to affect the way the media sees itself and we are putting political pressure on the party. This is how change is made. We’ll ride all their asses like Zorro until they get the message. We’re in for the long haul.
A Hullabaloo reader’s letter was published in the New York Times today:
To the Editor:
Re “For Clintons, Delicate Dance of Married and Public Lives” (front page, May 23):
I’m not quite sure what to make of your report about Bill and Hillary Clinton’s marriage as provided by anonymous experts.
What I do know is that I’ll be looking forward to the same thorough reporting into the marriages of other presidential hopefuls, like John McCain and Rudolph W. Giuliani, including “interviews with some 50 people and a review of their respective activities.”
I assume that those critical investigations will be prominently placed in The Times as well; I’d really hate to miss them.
… before Lou Dobbs went full-on racist on the immigration question. Liberal Oasis has the story:
Today on “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” CNN ran a graphic sourced to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a group deemed to have a “white supremacy” ideology according to the Anti-Defamation League.
During a piece about illegal immigrants in Utah, reporter Casey Wian said, “Utah is also part of the territory some militant Latino activists refer to as Aztlan, the portion of the southwest United States they claim rightfully belongs to Mexico.”
The CCC is a well known neo-confederate group that is the direct heir to the White Citizens Councils of the Jim Crow south. Trent Lott probably would have kept his leadership post had it not been for a previous scandal featuring him and the CCC which caused quite a furor in 1999:
By Charles Pope, CQ staff writer February 2, 1999, 11:52AM. EST
The last thing Trent Lott needs is another controversy with staying power.
But floating around the Senate majority leader is a storm that has been rumbling for weeks, fueled by race, partisan politics and, most of all, the weather-makers at the Council of Conservative Citizens and its leader, Gordon Lee Baum.
The council claims 15,000 members nationally and has an active chapter in Republican Lott’s home state of Mississippi, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which studies hate groups. The law center and other critics characterize the council’s agenda as racist and white supremacist; at least one member of the Republican National Committee has called the group “unsavory.”
It is, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “the reincarnation of the racist white Citizens Councils” that became a potent political force in the 1950s in the South to fight integration. Moreover, the law center concludes the council is “shot through with white supremacist views, members and political positions.”
Baum and other leaders vigorously dispute those labels, but writings in council publications have likened interracial marriage to white genocide and suggested that Abraham Lincoln was elected by communists.
It is not the type of group to which a national politician like Lott wants to be linked. But linked he is, despite repeated efforts to distance himself from the group and claims he was not aware of their views.
When these things happen nobody, it seems, are aware of the CCC’s views. I am sure that Lou Dobbs will say the same. He’s only a credentialed journalist, after all. You can’t expect him to have nose for racist propaganda.
This certainly does bring up an interesting question for me, however. I never thought of the CCC as being a white supremecist organization in the mode of say “Stormfront” or something like that. It’s a neo-confederate group which is certainly racist but organized explicitly around hatred of African-Americans. The fact that they are touting the ridiculous Aztlan “threat” puts the lie to any claims that this immigration debate isn’t being fueled by racism. (Not that that’s a big surprise.)
When you go back to those articles I linked above to the CCC scandal back in 1999, there is a clear desire on the part of the institutional GOP to back away from any association with these people. The party was very, very anxious to shed its racist image. Some of these articles even applaud the end of the southern strategy. Yet here it comes again. This time it’s the “aliens” rather than the blacks, but it’s the same old drill.
It is a sign of Republican weakness this time. They should not have to be shoring up their base with this tired old stuff. But their racist base is restive, looking for a fight, wanting to kick someone’s ass to account for their own feelings of impotence in a complicated world. (Same old shit.) The leadership knows it is a losing long term strategy but they’re left with nothing else.
Lou Dobbs pops an aneurysm any time somebody says that this debate might just be a teensy bit racist. I would suggest that any time someone goes on his show they mention that only a racist would use information from the CCC, the progeny of the White Citizen’s Councils, and not recognize it for what it is.
Occasionally, I get taken to the carpet for my angry tone. Occasionally, the person complaining is right, but most of the time they’re not. And here’s why.
The unprincipled fuck in the video at the link gets paid to compare a Vice President of the United States to a Nazi propagandist (and notice: no one tells him he’s gone “too far,” no one tries to interrupt what he’s saying; this is considered reasonable discourse on Fox News). And why does this shithead get paid to do such a thing? It’s not because he believes it. He knows he’s spouting bullshit. No, this asshole gets paid to say things like that because he knows Gore’s argument is good and he can’t attack it on his merits.
Now, you may respond that calling this unprincipled fuck an “unprincipled fuck” simply perpetuates his sin or worse, that I don’t have any way to attack his position on its merits.
You’re 100% right about your first objection. It does perpetuate a pithecanthropic level of discourse for a very good reason: there is no possible way to avoid doing so without being a total fool. You think you can “politely engage” someone who compares an American vice-president who served his country honorably for 8 years – not to mention his previous services to America in government – to a Nazi? You can’t, or rather, you shouldn’t. Nor can you ignore it (although the vice-president should). The terms of engagement have been set by this slimeball – the rhetorical battle-field must always be level. There is no higher ground and attempts to claim it will lead to your destruction (see Daschle, Tom for details).
As for that second objection you could make, well I gotta admit it: you are right once again. I do have no way to attack his position on his merits, again for a very good reason. What he is discussing is not Gore’s ideas or global climate change. No, what he’s talking about, the only subject is, “how exactly comparable is Al Gore to Josef Goebbels” and I will not dignify this scumbag’s comparison by explaining in measured, avuncular tones why such a comparison is, and I hesitate timidly before saying it, “unfortunate?” There is no way to attack his position on the merits because there is no merit to his position. And he knows it.
If this is how the right wants to discuss Gore’s movie, I’m ready. And I’m not gonna deplore the low level they’ve set. I’ll simply meet them, tit for tat. Oh, yes, I can give people the facts, too. But this isn’t about facts, but something else. And those who come to Gore’s defense in the media over the next few weeks have to be prepared truly to engage that “something else” and do a good job of it before facts can have a chance of being heard. And yes, if Sterling Burnett’s appearance is any indication, it will be ugly, and not in a good way.*
*And no, I’m not simply referring to Burnett’s Hot Or Not? prospects: that would be cruel. I’m referring only to what he said. On that basis alone, he would score a 0; his rugged manly (if you’re a chickenhawk) looks could only raise his hotness quotient.
[Edited slightly after original posting. Spelling error in Burnett’s last name corrected (thank you HC in comments). Spelling of “pithecanthropic” corrected (thak you “u…” in comments. )]