Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Chutzpah!

by digby

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said he had not read it either and wasn’t inclined simply to scold the president.

“I’d prefer to see us solve the problem,” Lieberman told reporters.

Yes. Joe doesn’t believe in scolding presidents does he?

The implications for our country are so serious that I feel a responsibility to my constituents in Connecticut, as well as to my conscience, to voice my concerns forthrightly and publicly. And I can think of no more appropriate place to do that than on this great Senate floor.

[…]

To begin with, I must respectfully disagree with the president’s contention that his relationship with Monica Lewinsky and the way in which he misled us about it is nobody’s business but his family’s and that even presidents have private lives, as he said.

[…]

But there is more to this than modern media intrusiveness. The president is not just the elected leader of our country. He is as presidential scholar Clinton Rossiter (ph) observed, and I quote, “the one man distillation of the American people.” And as President Taft said at another time, “the personal embodiment and representative of their dignity and majesty.”

[…]

In this case, the president apparently had extramarital relations with an employee half his age and did so in the workplace in the vicinity of the Oval Office. Such behavior is not just inappropriate. It is immoral…

[…]

The president’s intentional and consistent statements, more deeply,may also undercut the trust that the American people have in his word. Under the Constitution, as presidential scholar Newsted (ph) has noted, the president’s ultimate source of authority, particularly his moral authority, is the power to persuade, to mobilize public opinion, to build consensus behind a common agenda. And at this, the president has been extraordinarily effective.

But that power hinges on the president’s support among the American people and their faith and confidence in his motivations and agenda, yes; but also in his word.

As Teddy Roosevelt once explained, “My power vanishes into thin air the instant that my fellow citizens, who are straight and honest, cease to believe that I represent them and fight for what is straight and honest. That is all the strength that I have,” Roosevelt said.

Sadly, with his deception, President Clinton may have weakened the great power and strength that he possesses, of which President Roosevelt spoke.

[…]

Mr. President, I said at the outset that this was a very difficult statement to write and deliver. That is true, very true. And it is true in large part because it is so personal and yet needs to be public, but also because of my fear that it will appear unnecessarily judgmental. I truly regret this.

[…]

But the president, by virtue of the office he sought and was elected to, has traditionally been held to a higher standard. This is as it should be because the American president, as I quoted earlier, is not just the one man distillation of the American people, but today the most powerful person in the world. And as such, the consequences of his misbehavior, even private misbehavior, are much greater than that of an average citizen, a CEO or even a Senator.

That’s what I believe presidential scholar James David Barber (ph) in his book “The Presidential Character” was getting at when he wrote that the public demands quote, “a sense of legitimacy from and in the presidency. There is more to this than dignity — more than propriety. The president is expected to personify our betterness in an inspiring way; to express in what he does and is, not just what he says, a moral idealism which in much of the public mind is the very opposite of politics.”

[…]

… the transgressions the president has admitted to are too consequential for us to walk away and leave the impression for our children today and for our posterity tomorrow that what he acknowledges he did within the White House is acceptable behavior for our nation’s leader. On the contrary, as I have said, it is wrong and unacceptable and should be followed by some measure of public rebuke and accountability.

[…]

Let us as a nation honestly confront the damage that the president’s actions over the last seven months have caused, but not to the exclusion of the good that his leadership has done over the past six years, nor at the expense of our common interest as Americans. And let us be guided by the conscience of the Constitution, which calls on us to place the common good above any partisan or personal interest, as we now in our time work together to resolve this serious challenge to our democracy.

I thank the chair. I thank my colleagues. And I yield the floor.

Man, to hear him talk you would have thought the president had blatantly defied the law and illegally spied on American citizens without a warrant or something.

Lieberman, with his usual political tin ear, thought that he was being Barry Goldwater or Howard Baker by stepping across party lines to condemn a president of his own party. Unfortunately for him the citizens of this country don’t find blow jobs to be quite the threat to the Republic that he does.

The day Al Gore picked that insufferable, sanctimonious gasbag as the Democratic nominee for Vice president was one of the lowest of my life. That speech was the single most disloyal public political act of my lifetime. The Republicans were shrill, shrieking hyenas, foaming at the mouth, circling in for the kill — and that preening showboater stepped into the well of the senate and used his image as a moral exemplar to try to validate their bullshit partisan witch hunt. It was unforgivable. But he got lots of fawning press coverage from the Republicans and the beltway establishment and it evidently got into his blood. He can’t stop doing it.

Needless to say, after that loathsome performance, I have never expected Liebermann to do the right thing and he’s never disappointed me. Today is par for the course. (Jane reports that even his pro choice cred in in tatters since he supports the right of catholic hospitals to deny emergency birth control to rape victims. How … unsurprising.)

But regardless of the high-stepping strategists fluttering around cautioning the Democrats not to “make trouble,” the meme of Republican perfidy and ineptitude is starting to hum below the surface and I believe it will rise in volume over the next two years to a deafening howl. How do I know this? Their talking points sound lamer every day:

Cheney said Monday, “The outrageous proposition that we ought to protect our enemies’ ability to communicate as it plots against America poses a key test of our Democratic leaders.”

“The American people already made their decision,” Cheney added. “They agree with the president.”

If that’s their best argument, it’s probably best to say “Americans think it’s a good idea.” Associating policies with the president is a sure loser. Americans don’t trust him, respect him or like him. At 60% disapproval, saying that Americans agree with the president on anything is the kiss of death.

Ned Lamont is giving Joementum heartburn. Turn up the heat.

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Fair Assumption

by digby

Drudge is reporting that Ben Bradlee has confirmed that Richard Armitage was Woodward’s souce on Plame:

THE WASHINGTON POST’s famous Watergate editor Ben Bradlee claims that it was former State Department Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage who was the individual who leaked the identity of CIA official Valerie Plame.

In the latest issue of VANITY FAIR: “Woodward was in a tricky position. People close to him believe that he had learned about Plame from his friend Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s former deputy, who has been known to be critical of the administration and who has a blunt way of speaking. ‘That Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption,’ former WASHINGTON POST editor Ben Bradlee said.”

‘I had heard about an e-mail that was sent that had a lot of unprintable language in it.'”

For why this is meaningless, here’s a post I did last year on the subject.

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Tweety

by digby

If you feel like punishing yourself, tune into Tweety today if only to see Tony Blankley’s vomitous shirt and tie combo.

Tweety said that Frist had called Feingold’s (alleged) bluff and that Harry reid looks nervous about this censure motion. Blankley replied smugly that Reid looks nervous about a lot of things these days. Tweety nodded sagely. He’s still high from the wingnut kool-aid he spent the weekend swilling down in Memphis.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth 2006, Bush is down to 36% in the latest Gallup Poll and Democrats are ahead by 16% in the generic poll.

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Start The Hum

by digby

I wrote a post a while back that made a lot of people mad, called “learning to lose well.” It is a difficult argument to make and I failed at making it. I’m going to try again.

We are a minority party with almost no institutional power and a majority that sees no margin in bipartisanship, even as their president is failing quite dramatically. The port deal controversy was pretty much solely a Republican deal (although Shumer and some others were fairly high profile.) The intelligence commmittee, which was formed out of the atrocities uncovered by the Church investigation as a rare bi-partisan entity, has been taken over by an irresponsible partisan shill (who should be remembered by his fellow Kansans as the man who sold his balls and the constitution to that callow little man, George W. Bush.) This modern Republican party consciously governs by scant 51% majority by design, in order to ensure that no compromises with the opposition are required. (See Off Center by Hacker and Pierson.) Bipartisanship has been dead for almost a decade. Democrats failed to accept this and that failure left them floundering for a strategy.

It’s not impossible for an opposition party to function in that environment; it means that their only choice is accept that they are irrelevant to actual governance. That’s the simple reality in this quasi-parliamentary system the Republicans have rigged up. What that means is that you have to take every opportunity to make your argument clearly and concisely over and over again. You use whatever institutional levers you have at your disposal to put the other side off balance, expose their real agenda and get them on the record doing unpopular things. Everything is about setting up sharp distinctions and preparing the ground for the next election.

I’ll lay a little Sun Tzu on you for emphasis:

On hemmed-in ground, resort to stratagem. On desperate ground, fight.
-Sun Tzu

The Dems have been hemmed in since 2002. And at times they have been desperate. But since they failed to understand that they were in a partisan political war instead of a deliberative democratic body, they did not take advantage of their opportunities. The good news is that this system also made it impossible for the Democrats to impede Republican hubris (not that Joe Lieberman isn’t trying.)

To be fair, 9/11 was a traumatic experience and many people lost their heads. The Democrats, afraid of being tarred once again as soft on national security — and perhaps just afraid — failed to raise the kind of arguments early on that might have ripened before the 2004 election. In fact, they didn’t make them in time for them to have ripened even now, which was a mistake. We have seen such terrible foolishness as the Gang of 14 and the lackluster political skills of the intelligence committee. But it isn’t too late. The Republicans are in free fall, but the Democrats need to step into the breach. Russ Feingold is doing that today.

Now, I think we all know that the Republican Senate is not going to censure their president. In fact, they are probably going to rise up like wounded animals and roar like mad. Here’s Bill Frist from yesterday:

George, what was interesting in listening to my good friend, Russ, is that he mentioned protecting the American people only one time, and although you went to politics a little bit later, I think it’s a crazy political move and I think it in part is a political move because here we are, the Republican Party, the leadership in the Congress, supporting the President of the United States as Commander in Chief, who is out there fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and the people who have sworn, have sworn to destroy Western civilization and all the families listening to us. And they’re out now attacking, at least today, through this proposed censure vote, out attacking our Commander in Chief. Doesn’t make sense.

Expect more of this hysteria. It might even bring their base back into the fold. (Which is an inevitability in any case.) But take a look at the poll numbers. Revitalizing the GOP base will only stop the bleeding from the jugular vein. From the Democracy Corps memo (pdf) called “Cracks In The Two Americas”

The most important shifts are taking place among the world of Republican loyalists, which will have big strategic consequences. It is reflected in the most recent Democracy Corps poll where defection of 2004 Bush voters to the Democrats is twice the level of defection of Kerry voters to the Republicans. Only 31 percent of voters in blue counties (those carried by Kerry) are voting Republican for Congress, but 41 percent of red county voters are supporting the Democratic candidate. The combined data set shows major shifts in the Deep South and rural areas (even before the most recent controversies), blue-collar white men, and the best educated married men with high incomes….

But this problem is where the action is:

The other big shifts are taking place across the contested groups that form the swing blocs in the electorate. That is bringing big Democratic gains among older (over 50) non-college voters, the vulnerable women, practicing Catholics and the best-educated men. It is as if the entire center of the electorate shifted. This is why independents are breaking so heavily for the Democrats in each of our polls.

This is an election about throwing the bums out and Democrats need to make a clear statement of fundamental values, not policy differences. Some strategists insist that Democrats must adopt the religious code words that Republicans use to signal character and values to evangelical voters. I would suggest that all Americans, religious and secular alike, share a language that is full of words that describe character and values. How about we start using some plain English words like unethical, dishonest, unfair, untrustworthy, dishonorable and lies. I think everybody can understand what those mean.

E. J Dionne wrote the other day:

The stories about the Democrats are by no means flatly false — Democrats don’t yet have a fully worked-out alternative program — but they are based on a false premise, and they underestimate what I’ll call the positive power of negative thinking.

The false premise is that oppositions win midterm elections by offering a clear program, such as the Republicans’ 1994 Contract With America. I’ve been testing this idea with such architects of the 1994 “Republican revolution” as former representative Vin Weber and Tony Blankley, who was Newt Gingrich’s top communications adviser and now edits the Washington Times editorial page.

Both said the main contribution of the contract was to give inexperienced Republican candidates something to say once the political tide started moving the GOP’s way. But both insisted that it was disaffection with Bill Clinton, not the contract, that created the Republicans’ opportunity — something Bob Dole said at the time.

The Republicans worked very, very hard to stoke that disaffection with Bill Clinton. The consequence was that, except for a brief demoralizing period between 2001 and 2002, the Republicans have controlled both houses of congress for 12 years. They won because the tide was with them, Clinton had only won by a plurality, and the economy had not yet picked up steam. And they won mostly because from the moment he came into the White House the Republicans had relentlessly and mercilessly attacked his character.

It is past time for elected Democrats to begin laying out the case that the leader of the Republican party, the man to whom the congress has blindly followed at every turn for the past five years, is dishonorable. They must begin to create a low hum that reverberates throughout the body politic that says “the Republican party is unethical, untrustworthy, inept and dishonorable.” Make people hear it in their heads before they go to sleep each night.

Russ Feingold has just taken the first step to doing this. His censure motion will not pass, of course. But he’s started the hum. The press is listening. They are shocked, it can’t be, how can he say that? But Feingold is saying outloud, for the whole nation to hear, that the president defied the law and broke his oath to defend the constition.

As the magnificent helmeted Cokie Roberts once said, “it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, it’s out there.” In this case, it’s true. And now it’s out there. Take a moment and hum this tune in your senators ears today. It’s time they get used to hearing it.

Go over to Firedoglake, where Jane and ReddHedd and the whole Firedog Brigade have all the information you need to make a couple of calls. Remember, we will lose it —- but we will “lose it well.” All that means is that sometimes losing a skirmish is in service to winning the longer war.

Update: CNN just reported that Bush’s numbers are down to 36% in the Gallup poll. Dems now have a 16 point lead in the generic ballot.

Update II: Ed Henry just reported that Frist is trying to move this vote up to tonight because he thinks he has around 85 Senators to vote against it. They still don’t get it. Bush just hit a new low in the Gallup Poll, they are 16 points ahead in the generic — it’s time to take a fucking risk. Voting for this motion will not hurt them in the fall but it changes the stakes. 15 Democrats is not good enough.

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Call Yer Senators

by tristero

Feingold’s censure resolution. As Atrios says, if you don’t know how, just Google their names. Call today. Now. Urge them to support it. Now.

The Ineluctable Consistency Of George W. Bush

by tristero

There will be some who surely will accuse Lonsesome Cowboy Bush of flip-flopping now that he has apparently been converted to the joys of multi-lateralism. But they are quite wrong. There is no flip flop, and there will be no change in the behavior of the Bush administration.

Early indicators make it clear that Bush will be as thoroughly incompetent at multi-lateralism as he has been at everything else.

Interview With Barbara Forrest

by tristero

Recently, I had a chance to meet Barbara Forrest, one of the most important witnesses in the so-called Scopes 2 trial. (Ultimately, I think history may judge the Dover trial far more important a defense of scientific inquiry. For one thing, the good guys won this time). Her book, co-authored with Paul Gross, called Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design is a compellingly written history of the “intelligent design” creationism movement and I cannot reccommend it more highly. I wrote a detailed review of it here which led to a correspondence with Dr. Forrest and our delightful discussions about Darwin and music over a fine Italian meal. She is interviewed here about the Dover trial and it is well worth reading. Barbara is a Louisiana native, through and through, born and raised there. She is also a card-carrying member of ACLU, a member of American United for Separation of Church and State and most importantly, as one would expect from someone with such credits, she is wickedly smart and articulate. If you have a chance to hear her speak, go.

After Judge Jones’s decision in the Dover trial, it is hard to imagine that “intelligent design” creationism will ever legally recover. True, they can change the name again, but Jones’s decision made it pretty clear that the courts were not going to tolerate such underhanded tactics to sneak a cheap, cult theology into science classes (or any other kind of theology). But as Barbara makes clear in the interview, these people are not going away. The fight to undermine science will continue as it is part of even a larger war. As hard as it may be to believe, “intelligent design” creationism is, in fact, the wedge – the opening tactic – of an elaborate strategy to establish an American theocracy. It is well-funded by some of the wealthiest names on the extreme right.

The overarching objectives behind ID and its influences are still little-understood by the larger public, or even by those of us who are involved in mainstream politics. Hopefully, in the next few days I’ll be able to post some of the results of some recent research I’ve been doing.

A Bit More On Knee Jerking

by tristero

[UPDATE: pastordan in comments supplied the following links to those interested in a progressive religious response to the religious right. I’ve only glanced at them, but they look like they might have something of interest:

United Church of Christ

Talk To Action

Street Prophets ]

Digby’s spot on here to object to Amy Sullivan’s aside about the “knee jerk left’s” utterly mythical objection to devoutly religious candidates. For a long time, Sullivan has been a strong advocate of increasing the amount of God Talk among candidates for high political office. This is a terrible idea, primarily because it is irrelevant and will solve nothing. The real issue is quite clear and it’s not a religious one at all, but simply a strategic one.

God is not a card-carrying Republican.

Republicans have been claiming a God monopoly for well over 30 years, and national Democrats as well as liberals have let them get away with it. That is very, very stupid. If a cheap scumbag like Santorum keeps saying, as he has, that John Kennedy wasn’t really a Catholic president, then Catholic Democrats should wrap that canard around Santorum’s slimy little neck. But that’s not all. And then they should chase Santorum back into his church and refuse to concede that his perverted political philosophy has anything to do with the real practice, let alone the pressing concerns, of true American Catholics.

And then you let Santorum hang himself explaining why his “Catholic faith” comes before his Americanism.

It might seem that by calling for Democrats to confront Republicans on religion, I’m somehow agreeing with Amy Sullivan. Not so. I’m not suggesting Democrats out-God Republicans. They already have, people! Since when did Christ call for tax cuts on the rich or abandoning the poor to the flood waters? No, what I’m suggesting is that Democrats and liberals make it impossible for Republicans to cynically work the God angle without a serious fight.

Politicians that advocate the legal murder or mutilation of poor women should be ashamed, not proud, to tout such immoral “beliefs” in public. It is outrageous to claim that death by coathanger is God’s Will. Making this point (or a similar one in more politically attuned rhetoric) doesn’t mean shilling for a particular religious practice. But it does mean that you have to be quite comfortable with politcal arguments over religion, and quite confident that Bible thumpers can be confronted on their multiple hypocrisies, and lose.

They’re Killing Me

by digby

I just watched Press The Meat on Tivo. Oh my god.

George Allen is like one of those frighteningly stupid right wing callers on C-Span. Is the Republican Party really going to insult our intelligence once again and foist another dimwitted blockhead on this country?

SEN. ALLEN: It’s going tough. Some progress, but obviously when they used the burning-of-the-Reichstag tactic of hitting that mosque in Samarra and trying to create this religious violence back and forth, that was, that was a setback. But things seem to be calming down.

Is he accusing the Shiite political leaders of engineering this bombing to disable democracy and give themselves the power to issue laws by decree? If so, it’s quite a bombshell, particularly since he then goes on to say approximately 178 times that the Iraqis need to form a unity government.

Or, like those idiot C-Span callers did he just hear something like this in passing from an equally stupid person at a cocktail party and parrot it on the air?

The point of the matter is, is we need to pressure and try to get others in that region, as well as other countries outside of the region, to really tell them what the stakes are. And I think they recognize what the stakes are, but, but action needs to be taken. There’s going to need to be concessions from various points. And then ultimately, this government – they can get a unity government, but there’s going to need to be some credibility, particularly in the security forces, the secretary, so to speak, of the interior, to make sure that law enforcement and military actions are, are fair and just and not based upon any sort of religion or, or ethnic biases.

Huh?

And then there’s this:

MR. RUSSERT: Something else happened this week, Senator Allen, in South Dakota. And this is how The New York Times reported it: “Governor Michael Rounds, the Republican Governor of South Dakota, signed into law the nation’s most sweeping state abortion ban. … The law makes it a felony to perform any abortion except in a case of a pregnant woman’s life being in jeopardy.” No exceptions for rape, incest, health of the mother. Would you like to see that law, the law of the United States of America?

SEN. ALLEN: Well, first of all I respect and support the right of the people in the states to pass laws that reflect their values and their desires. For the country, I think each state ought to make those decisions. Personally, I think that there should be exceptions for rape and incest because I look at the person. There is a victim of a crime, and if they so choose they ought to have that option.

MR. RUSSERT: But you would outlaw all abortion except in cases of rape, incest?

SEN. ALLEN: Oh, I don’t think the federal government ought to be making such laws. I think the laws ought to be determined by the people in the states. If South Dakota wants a law like that, they can have that. If South Carolina wants a different law, that’s up to South Carolina or Virginia or California.

MR. RUSSERT: And if a state said unlimited abortion on demand, you would abide by that?

SEN. ALLEN: Well, I don’t agree with that approach.

MR. RUSSERT: But you said states should determine…

SEN. ALLEN: But the, but the — if a state did that — I can’t imagine too many states or any state having one that allows abortion for all nine months for any reason or no reason at all. But that would be the right of the people of the states. And for those — but if a state like South Dakota wants a law like that, even though it’s not exactly what I would think is appropriate, that does reflect the will of the people. This is a representative democracy and I think that’s appropriate approach.

MR. RUSSERT: It would means that Roe vs. Wade would have to be overturned, which you would support?

SEN. ALLEN: I think Roe vs. Wade has been interpreted in such a way that it precludes the rights of the people to decide their laws. When I was governor, we passed the law on parental notification. I think parents ought to be involved if a girl who’s 16, 17 years old…

MR. RUSSERT: So you say overturn Roe. You hope Roe is overturned.

SEN. ALLEN: Well, Roe — if you need parental notification for ear piercing or a tattoo, they certainly ought to be involved with it. And so I think Roe vs. Wade has been interpreted in such a way as to restrict the will of people. Moreover, that decision was from the early 1970s and medical science has advanced a great deal. We know a lot more and of course, unborn children have an earlier stage of development.[???]

MR. RUSSERT: So overturn?

SEN. ALLEN: The point is, rather than arguing on a legal term, the point of the matter is the people in the states ought to be making these decisions. And if that’s contrary to the dictates of Roe vs. Wade, so be it. Because the way that Roe vs. Wade has been interpreted is taking away the rights of the people in the states to make these decisions.

We haven’t heard that argument put quite that way since around 1860.

He clearly doesn’t know what he is saying because this is a killer with the neanderthals: “I can’t imagine too many states or any state having one that allows abortion for all nine months for any reason or no reason at all. But that would be the right of the people of the states”

Ooops. Wrong answer George. Mistress Dobson has some remedial work ahead of him. And so does the anti-forced childbirth movement — we need to get the press to start asking the right questions. This bozo is incoherent getting soft balls about “overturning Roe.” He got visibly uncomfortable when confronted with the idea that a state might legislate “abortion on demand” and he blew his dismount. Imagine his eyes rolling back in his head when someone asks if he thinks the states ought to have the right to institute the death penalty for teenage girls who get illegal abortions. Or why he thinks it’s wrong to kill innocent babies unless they were conceived in the course of a crime. (I have a feeling he’ll be fine with it as long as the parents are notified, which seems to be a thing with him.)

He’s so stupid that he even brought this up:

… Again, let’s recognize how difficult that is. In this country, if we had to get two thirds of the Congress to agree who our president would be, for example, we, we’d still be fussing through the 2000 election.

Don’t go there…

The really scary thing about Allen is that while he was talking he looked and sounded like he thought he was making sense. He is quite fluently dumb. But it’s like a little girl making mud pies. She’s imitating all the moves of a baker — her mother or dad or Emeril or whomever. From a certain angle she looks just like them. But her “pies” aren’t really pies at all. They are piles — of mud. Much like George Allen’s answers.

I’m begging you, Republicans. Beg-ging you. Give the world a break. Whatever you do, don’t nominate another fuckwit meathead just because your base likes a leader who is just as thick as they are. I realize that you probably want to elect him just because it will drive me insane. But please, think of the children.

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Vote!

by digby

I just realized that the Koufax awards are closing tomorrow. Go over and vote for your favorite blogs (click on the logo in the left column to go to the whole list) but also use the opportunity to check out all the blogs that you’ve been missing. There is gold in every category. The contest is fun, of course, and it’s great to be nominated, but the real benefit is that it keeps the community vital by making sure people get a chance at least once a year to check out new sites and celebrating superior blogging.

Also, send a couple of bucks Wampum’s way if you can spare it. It costs them a lot of money and time to do this for the liberal blogosphere every year.

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