Pam And Tommy
by digby
Jane’s tending to her sick pup so I’ve got a post up over at FDL this afternoon. That is if anyone’s interested in a little more Broder bashing (with a sprinkling of Chris Matthews squealing like a blushing schoolgirl.)
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V For Victory
by digby
Give a big shout out to Move-On and Matt Stoller for successfully turning out grassroots support for net neutrality. It just passed the House judiciary committee 20-13.
This was a real grassroots victory — until recently, it seemed like an easy gimme to the wealthy telcos. This is good news for us intrepid bloggers, but it’s good news for the internet in general. Much like the FEC regulations that we managed to stave off earlier my support for net neutrality not based upon a general disdain for regulation. Regulation is often a necessary thing. But this medium is just too new, too important and too democratizing to allow corporate interests to sneak in the back door with phony concerns designed simply to enhance their profits at others’ expense.
If the internet needs regulating in some presently unimagined way, I’m sure we will all see it. Right now, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
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Moving Past It
by digby
I don’t live in DC and I’m sure it’s not nice of me to be derisive about its culture. After all, I live in the biggest glass house in the world — LA — where high culture is defined by fake breasts and “the zone” diet. But still. I can’t help but feel that there is something really wrong with a place that elects themselves a “wise man” like this:
From A Tiny Revolution:
Perhaps you’ve already seen this column by David Broder, Dean of the Washington Press Corps, in which he explains what he’s interested in:
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.
Now, here’s the Broder on Meet the Press last December, explaining what he’s NOT interested in:
MR. RUSSERT: David Broder, is it possible for official Washington–the president, Democratic leaders, Republican leaders–to arrive at common ground, a consensus position on Iraq?
MR. DAVID BRODER: It’s possible, Tim, but they won’t get there by arguing about who did what three years ago. And this whole debate about whether there was just a mistake or misrepresentation or so on is, I think, from the public point of view largely irrelevant. The public’s moved past that.(more)
There you have it. The public has moved past all that ugliness about whether the president lied about a war that’s killing thousands of people and draining the treasury at a mind boggling pace. But they can’t get enough of 60 year old Bill and 58 year old Hill’s bedroom habits.
This man really needs to leave the beltway more often. I would advise him to come out here to California and spend some time in Malibu. Maybe he’ll even catch a glimpse of Angelina and Brad. They could be worth fantasizing about (although I think he should keep his sexual thoughts off the pages of the Washington Post. It’s kind of trashy, don’t you know.)
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Kenny Boy, We Hardly Knew Ye
by digby
So Kenny Boy Lay went down today. Let’s hear if for the justice system.
But let’s also hear it for the White House press corps who after eight long years of invetigating every transaction that members of the Clinton administration ever made, never really gave a damn about Kenny Boy’s very intimate connection to George W. Bush and apparently still don’t.
Now that we have the guilty verdict, let’s revisit what we know of that relationship, shall we? From Consortium News, 2002:
George W. Bush is trying to rewrite the history of his and his family’s relationship with Enron Corp.’s disgraced former Chairman Kenneth Lay. So far, Bush has enjoyed fairly good success as the U.S. news media has largely accepted the White House spin.
But the reality, as established by a wealth of historical record and recent disclosures, is that Lay and Enron were instrumental in Bush’s rise to power – and Bush played an important behind-the-scenes role in advancing Enron’s aggressive deregulation agenda, which helped the energy trader ascend to its lofty perch as the seventh-biggest U.S. company.
The Bush-Lay coziness earned the Enron chief a nickname from Bush as “Kenny Boy.” But more importantly for Enron, Bush pitched in as governor and president whenever the energy trader wanted easier regulations within the U.S. or to have U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for loan guarantees or risk insurance for Enron’s overseas ventures.
The Bush-Lay relationship helped Enron extend its reach across the globe, with the appearance of a successful company, as it pulled in billions of dollars in investment money from tens of thousands of unwary investors.
Now, in trying to insulate Bush from the spreading Enron scandal, White House aides have emphasized that administration officials rebuffed Lay and other Enron executives who sought a federal bailout to save their corporate skin. But the documentary record paints a different picture, showing that the administration did what it could last year to help Enron, until the Houston energy trader’s collapse was so far advanced that its deceptive bookkeeping could no longer be kept out of public view.
[…]
With Enron’s ignominious collapse over deceptive accounting, Bush began to act as if he barely knew Lay. On Jan. 11, Bush told reporters that Lay “was a supporter of Ann Richards in my run in 1994.” Bush implied that he had gotten to know Lay as a Richards holdover appointee to a Texas business council. The impression Bush sought to create was untrue.
The Bush-Lay relationship can be traced back at least a half decade before the 1994 race. It grew out of the Houston social circle where oil tycoons have long rubbed shoulders with political players – and where Ken and Linda Lay had grown close to George H.W. and Barbara Bush in the 1980s. Since 1988, when Lay backed the elder George Bush in his run for the White House, Enron and its executives have written big checks for one Bush initiative after another.
Besides the political financing, Lay has supported private and charitable activities of the Bush family. Lay joined one of Barbara Bush’s charities to promote literacy as he served as the honorary chairman of the Celebration of Reading at Houston Wortham Theatre Center. [The Guardian, Jan. 30, 2002]
A trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation, Lay has donated $50,000 as a patron as well, the New York Daily News reported. In 1999, the Lays chipped in $100,000 for the Andersen Cancer Center at Texas A&M University in a fundraising drive led by then-Gov. George W. Bush and his wife, Laura.
During the Republican presidential primaries in 2000, Enron corporate jets were made available eight times to Bush’s campaign staff and his parents, with the future president sometimes personally arranging the flights. [New York Daily News, Feb. 3, 2002]
[…]
In 1985, Lay created Enron by merging his company, Houston Natural Gas, with one of the largest pipeline companies in the world, Nebraska-based InterNorth. Lay named the new company, Enron, and set its sights high. Political allies would be critical to Enron’s growth.
In his first major venture into politics, Lay went to work raising money and organizing support for then-Vice President George H.W. Bush’s campaign for the Presidency. Bush, who built his own fortune in the Texas oil fields, was appreciative as he battled through a tough Republican primary and then defeated Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis.
In the weeks after the 1988 election, Lay may have gotten his first dividend on his investment in the Bush family. Enron had joined the bidding for a contract to build a $300 million pipeline in Argentina. The government appeared close to choosing between two other companies — one from Italy, Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi, and the other a partnership between Argentine firm Pérez and America’s Dow Chemical.
Argentina’s Minister of Public Works, Rodolfo Terragno, later told Mother Jones that he considered Enron’s one-page project outline “laughable.” He also noted that Enron “wasn’t well established in Argentina.” [Mother Jones, March/April 2000]
But Enron apparently was getting well established in the power corridors of the U.S. A few weeks after the 1988 elections, Terragno said the president-elect’s eldest son, George W. Bush, called to check up on “the slow pace of the Enron project.”
[…]
George Bush ran a hard-hitting campaign, suggesting that Richards was soft on crime. Critical to the campaign was getting his message out, and critical to that effort was money. Bush turned to his father’s old political benefactor, Ken Lay. Enron and Lay contributed $146,500 to the Bush campaign, seven and a half times more than they contributed to the Richards campaign. Lay also publicly endorsed Bush. [Texans for Public Justice]
[…]
n the 2000 campaign, Lay was a Pioneer for Bush, raising $100,000. Enron also gave the Republicans $250,000 for the convention in Philadelphia and contributed $1.1 million in soft money to the Republican Party, more than twice what it contributed to Democrats. [www.opensecrets.org]
Lay and his wife then donated $10,000 to Bush’s Florida recount fund that paid for Republican lawyers and operatives to ensure that a full recount of Florida’s ballots never occurred. To this day, Bush has refused to release an accounting of how that recount fund money was spent.
After Bush took the White House in January 2001, Enron Corp., Enron’s President and Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Skilling, and Ken Lay contributed $100,000 each for a total of $300,000 to the Bush-Cheney Inaugural Fund.
These contributions cemented Lay’s standing with the White House. From the beginning of the administration, Lay advised on policy and personnel. The Enron chief was on the short list for two Cabinet posts, Energy and Treasury, though he ultimately stayed in the private sector.
Starting in late February 2001, Lay and other Enron officials took part in at least a half dozen secret meetings to develop the Bush’s energy plan. After one of the Enron meetings, Vice President Cheney’s energy task force changed a draft energy proposal to include a provision to boost oil and natural gas production in India. The amendment was so narrow that it apparently was targeted only to help Enron’s troubled Dabhol power plant in India. [Washington Post, Jan. 26, 2002]
Other parts of the Bush energy plan tracked closely to recommendations from Enron officials. Seventeen of the energy plan’s proposals were sought by and benefited Enron, according to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., ranking minority member on the House Government Reform Committee. One proposal called for repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which limits the activities of utilities and hindered Enron’s potential for acquisitions.
Besides listening to Lay’s advice, Bush put the corporation’s allies inside the federal government. Two top administration officials, Lawrence Lindsey, the White House’s chief economic adviser, and Robert Zoellick, the U.S. Trade Representative, both worked for Enron, Lindsey as a consultant and Zoellick as a paid member of Enron’s advisory board. [http://www.public-i.org/story_01_011102.htm]
Bush also named Thomas E. White Jr., an 11-year veteran of Enron’s corporate suites, secretary of the Army. White had run a key subsidiary, Enron Energy Services, which is now the focus of allegations about accounting irregularities. After taking office in May, White vowed to apply his Enron experience to privatizing utility services at military bases. White’s subsidiary had been responsible for selling energy services and Enron was eager for contracts with the U.S. military.
Public Citizen, a liberal watchdog group, has demanded that White fully explain 29 meetings and phone calls with senior Enron officials after White became Army secretary. White says the conversations were with “personal friends” about “Enron’s deteriorating financial conditions.” [Washington Post, Jan. 27, 2002]
At least 14 administration officials owned stock in Enron, with Undersecretary of State Charlotte Beers and chief political adviser Karl Rove each reporting up to $250,000 worth of Enron stock when they joined the administration.
Those are just a few of the many highlights. Bush’s career had in many ways been enabled by his relationship with Kenny Boy — and Enron’s scams had been helped along by Kenny’ Boy’s relationship with George W. Bush.
That story was never of any interest to the press corps. (Perhaps if Kenny Boy had worn a striking yellow pantsuit things would have been different.) The fact that the biggest campaign contributor to the occupant of the white house was in charge of the biggest corporate ponzi scheme in history should have been news. It wasn’t.
Kenny Boy’s going to jail. Let’s hope he ends up rooming with Karl Rove. There would be a very nice symmetry to that.
Update: Here’s a first person account from one of the many tens of thousands of people whose lives were adversely affected by Lay, Skilling and Bush in the Enron debacle. It’s journlaistic malpractice that the press never made this clear.
Is He Serious?
by digby
Jacob Weisberg says:
Bush doesn’t worry about being politically correct or care what other people think of him. He likes to listen to white guys singing country and rock and doesn’t care if Jerry Falwell objects to some of the lyrics.
Right. He’s a real maverick:
He flew halfway across the country in a vain effort to save her life, but in the week since, President Bush has retreated back to his ranch and remained largely out of sight as the nation wrestled with the great moral issues surrounding the fate of Terri Schiavo.
The president has said nothing publicly about the bitterly contested case since Wednesday, when reporters asked about it and he said he had exhausted his powers to intervene. On Saturday, as he used his weekly radio address to express condolences to the victims of a school shooting in Minnesota and extol a “culture that affirms life,” he did not mention the most prominent culture-of-life issue in the public eye.
The juxtaposition of racing through the night in Air Force One to sign legislation intended to force doctors to reinsert Schiavo’s feeding tube and choosing not to use his bully pulpit to advocate for her life afterward demonstrates how uncomfortable the matter has become for the White House. For years, Bush has succeeded politically in stitching together the disparate elements of the conservative movement, marrying the libertarian and family-values wings of his party. Now he faces a major Republican rupture.
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The General And The Giant Ape
by tristero
Reporters en route to Arizona on Air Force One last week opted to watch the movie “King Kong” in the press cabin. Not so Tony Snow, the new White House press secretary and former Fox News commentator, who told reporters that he spent the flight in the staff cabin watching Gen. Michael V. Hayden’s confirmation hearings to be the new C.I.A. director — on CNN.
Okay, once you’re back from the dental surgery room and had your jaw returned to its proper place, let’s state the obvious:
In a country with a rational press, any reporter on that plane who was watching “King Kong” instead of the Hayden hearings would be fired within 1 hour of the publication of Bumiller’s story. Including, apparently, Bumiller herself.
Like I just said, no one was fired, as far as I know. And the farce of an open press continues – not that anyone other than the press itself believes it.
And there’s also an obvious question here: What the hell was Bumiller thinking? She couldn’t have possibly realized that she portrayed herself and her pals as exactly as lazy and dangerously incompetent as we thought they were. If she had, she never would have let that paragraph see the light of day.
Now, because I think there are a few important but easily overlooked issues at stake in this seemingly minor incident, I’d like to mull it over a bit. It’s another one of those “yeah, it’s oh-so-telling, but cmon, it’s trivial” things that really isn’t trivial at all. Let’s start by trying to figure out what got Bumiller motivated to write this clearly embarassing if not potentially self-destructive lead in the first place.
I’m pretty sure Bumiller started out with this. She wanted to stroke Tony Snow, telling him – but more importantly, his masters – that he takes his job seriously. If you read the rest of the article – a sniffy, snooty account over the tussle to have something other than extremist propaganda available to watch in the press cabin – you learn that at an earlier time, poor Tony overstepped his bounds as press secretary and was gotcha’d by a former colleague at Fox (now, that’s trivial, imo). And then, it becomes explicit that Bumiller was buttering Snow when she writes:
Mr. Snow, who is at the White House by 5:30 a.m. to start plowing through his briefing books…
and she continues, clucking sympathetically (did I just mix metaphors? Butter Snow? Clucking? Nevermind) over the dilemma poor Snow faces being fair – but not too fair – to his tv ex-station. (Nothing about being balanced, tho.)
But here in the lead, she just wanted to be humorous and light in her praise. So Bumiller used somewhat self-deprecating humor but basically standard office joshing and jocularity in a passive-aggressive effort to be charming as in, “Ha! Here we are enjoying a new movie but Tony, you can’t do that anymore, can you? Nose to the grindstone, you poor guy, hope you really enjoyed watching those hearings ‘stead of Naomi Watts! (grin) “
But by doing so, in writing up the lead, it simply never occurred to Bumiller that the true subject was not the workaholic Snow but her pals. She hadn’t thought to consider -was she drunk?- that she was calling herself and her colleagues lazy, incompetent, and willfully, deliberately ill-informed and disinterested in their jobs. From her point of view, it’s was just, “Hey! We work really hard, we need to unwind like everyone else, what’s the big deal? And besides, it our job to report the White House, not hearings of White House appointees. Can I get some more sherbert, please?”
In other words, The White House press corps is so utterly corrupt and inept that it doesn’t even know what working, nevermind working as a reporter, means. Bumiller wasn’t arrogantly flaunting her laziness and incompetence. She couldn’t even see it. Nor is it likely she could ever be taught to see it. Otherwise, it would have been utterly impossible to have written anything like that for her boss to see. “Tough day, Mr. Keller? Not me, I was catching up on my movies during the Hayden hearings! Gosh, I’m sleepy, gotta turn in now. Kiss-kiss bye bye!”
It’s almost as if the press corps clowns are preparing for a return engagement of the infamous March of Folly press conference.
For reasons that I’m sure say much about my mechnanisms for association, I was reminded of Temple Grandin’s efforts to make conveyor belts leading animals to their death in the slaughterhouse as stress-free as possible, by keeping them ignorant of the dreadful fate that will soon befall them. And then I thought, yeah, and I’m on that conveyor belt, too, but y’know, fellow beasts:
I’d really really appreciate it if I got just a teensy bit of the good skinny on what is happening right now, and why. My distressingly imminent fate may be to wind up as a tub of glue, but even so, I wouldn’t mind being apprised of the glue factory’s conditions.
If it’s not too much trouble, of course.
But seriously, who cares? Bob Somerby notes the mordant humor in it, but finds more important things to focus on. And he very well may be right. But I do care about this one (and the others, too, duh). If only because as a symbol of the rot at the heart of American mainstream journalism, I would care. This story makes its point in the most direct and devastating way: Congress is getting bamboozled yet again by the Bushites, and the press is boggled by bouncy KIng Kong and his paw candy. It’s let ’em eat cake for the Wired Age.
But it’s more than a starkly obvious symbol. There are two realities here that bear taking a moment to tweeze out.
First of all, the time to express outrage is before things get so bad there’s a second March of Folly. People got killed – lots and lots and lots of innocent people, thousands of people – in good measure because the American, and especially the Washington press corps, were mesmerized by the sight of an earlier eight hundred pound gorilla – the Bush administration’s shock and awe propaganda of 2002 and 2003.
Dammit, those bozos should be fired now, not later when they’ve done -yes, done as in Judy Miller done – major damage. So I’ll object loudly now, when it’s seemingly trivial. It may not make any immediate difference, but it just might straighten up a few toes when it gets serious.
The second issue is the other main subject, besides fluffing Snow (that a better metaphor?), of Bumiller’s column. CNN is not very good, but it is a news outlet, not a 24/7 source of extremist propaganda (well, not yet anyway, even if that CCC graphic is truly scary). It should be a matter of grave concern that this is not only the main source of information for the Bush/Cheny administration but that the administration went to ridiculous lengths to make sure that rightwing propaganda, and only rightwing propaganda, be broadcast to the press corps when traveling with the president. How ridiculous were those lengths? They were so extreme that it was only by asking the question publicly, and very carefully by pre-emptively insisting that the question was entirely serious, that anything changed. Before that, all attempts to get the situation changed were rebuffed.
C’mon! Isn’t it just a matter of opinion, that Fox is what you call “extremist propaganda?” After all, American officials nicknamed CNN the “Communist News Network.” Different strokes is all. And since it’s just opinion, it’s silly and trivial.
No.
Saying that Fox News [sic] is extremist propaganda may not have the same value as an assertion of fact, as say, the claim that all life has common ancestry and evolved over billions of years. However, the ungodly extent of Fox’s lies, distortions, and far right boosterism has been objectively documented over and over again. These aren’t “mistakes” or nuances resulting from differing perspectives. This is deliberate radical activism with a particular goal: to advance an extreme right agenda. There is nothing comparable at CNN or at any other national television outlet. None. Only Fox would permit a scoundrel to compare a vice president of the United States to Goebbels and not so much as even make a token objection. Or even take note of it.
To demand that the American press subject itself to extremist indoctrination whenever the administration had the opportunity to manipulate what they could watch was not immature behavior for a presidency, but scandalous behavior by a government working hard to emulate a tinpot dictatorship. It’s also telling. And very ominous.
Of course, does this really need to be said? – it’s only a trivial incident when compared to the slaughter, torture, misery, and corruption the Bush administration has perpetrated. But just as it obviously isn’t the worst by a long shot – for my money, the 9/11 intelligence failure, Iraq, the war on science, and Katrina are the worst, so far – the dangers of a US government all but compelling a literally captive audience of reporters to watch propaganda should not be minimized or ignored.
“Right! “‘All but,’ you said it yourself! They may be sometimes strapped in but they can do what they want! The press don’t have to watch TV, y’know, they can read a book and actually learn something, hunh.”
Ok, very slowly now. It is a simple fact that Americans mostly get their news from television. At the very least, it behooves a responsible press corps to watch a fair amount of televised news. At the very least. On the other hand, there simply is no reason for the press to watch a steady diet of extremist propaganda unless someone wants them to take it seriously as fact. It is outrageous that the administration was trying to pass off one as the other and offer it with a straight face. It is outrageous that the press apparently permitted them to do so for so long.
(Insert boilerplate here that reading books is also a good idea for the press to do more often than they have. Oh, and it’s also a good idea to wear socks much of the time.)
(Edited slightly after initial posting.)
The Elephant In His Pants
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.
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Regrettable
by digby
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.
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It’s All About Me
by digby
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.
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Just Do It
by digby
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.
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