Bayh said there are legitimate grounds to criticize President Bush’s approach to fighting terrorism, but until Democrats establish more credibility on the issue, many voters won’t listen.
“Many Americans wonder if we’re willing to use force to defend the country even under the most compelling of circumstances,” Bayh said. “The majority of Democrats would answer that question that, yes, there is a right place and a right time. We don’t get to have that discussion because many people don’t think we have the backbone.”
And the best way to deal with that is to vigorously endorse whatever insane, bullshit war the Republicans want to wage. Because it’s worked out so well so far.
In a major victory for the White House, the Senate early Friday voted 77-23 to authorize President Bush to attack Iraq if Saddam Hussein refuses to give up weapons of mass destruction as required by U.N. resolutions.
The president praised the congressional action, declaring “America speaks with one voice.”
I guess even though more than half the Democrats signed on to that cock-up, we still should have been even more enthusiastically running off the cliff with old George. What utter nonsense. If DLCer Evan Bayh thinks that we’ll build credibility on national security by screaming “War On Terror” louder and shriller than the Republicans, he’s nuts. Even they know that slogan has outlived its usefulness.
Might I suggest that the reason Democrats have no credibility on national security is not because we allegedly refuse to defend the country, but because bedwetters like Evan Bayh run all over the country validating the Republican’s patented talking points that Democrats refuse to defend the country?
It’s true that the American people think we have no backbone. But let’s just say the reasons have less to do with our national security policy and more to do with our leadership. We will have credibility on national security when we have a credible national security policy — and when we show the country that we aren’t so afraid of Tom DeLay and Karl Rove that we’ll scurry to the front of the line to sign up every time they say boo.
Speaking of which… via Crooks and Liars I see that both Little Ricky and Novakula had hissy fits on the air today. Ricky resorted to gay bashing right away. I suspect that Novakula will be buying himself a nice new SUV very soon.
Via Talk Left, I see that Murray Waas and Joe Wilson were on Democracy Now. Waas obviously has some informed contacts and he said a couple of things that caught my eye:
MURRAY WAAS: Fitzgerald keeps his cards close to his vest. There was some interesting action in the last couple days before the Grand Jury. Two of Karl Rove’s aides came before the Grand Jury, an assistant and another top aide. We’re not sure what they said. We’re not sure why they were called. But that would indicate some intensification or moving toward some kind of closure, which way is a little bit difficult to tell, but Fitzgerald does seem stymied still by the lack of testimony by Judith Miller.
[…]
So, we’re not sure exactly where things are going. One other interesting possibility, if there isn’t — if there aren’t indictments brought, there is the option for special prosecutors to issue a public report. So, Fitzgerald can potentially put out everything that he knows in the public record. But he is kind of a man who is impervious to public opinion, who doesn’t see his role necessarily as one of informing public opinion, but simply prosecuting crimes. So, he has had discussions with people in the Department of Justice, and some people have urged him to take that course, but we hope we can find out what actually happened here. If there are indictments, there would be trials, and if there were no indictments, because the evidence doesn’t reach a level beyond a reasonable doubt to bring people to trial, that maybe there would be a public report. And lastly, interestingly, there’s a movement by Nancy Pelosi, the majority leader — Democratic leader in the House now, to get behind a Democratic resolution of inquiry by Congress to get to the bottom of this, when Fitzgerald is all done. So hopefully someday we’ll learn the truth, we’ll learn all of the facts.
I can’t tell you how much it’s going to chap my hide to see Karl Rove and his buddies skate because Judith Miller is covering for them. After watching them willfully and credulously print every smear that scumbags like David Bossie could dream up about Bill Clinton, the NY Times makes a fetish of protecting the Bush administration. Our paper of record has seriously lost its way. It is now little more than a Republican plaything; its reputation is being used as a vehicle to mislead the public; its ethics and standards are being manipulated to cover up corruption. Something is very rotten at the Grey Lady. (Here’s Gene Lyons’ latest take on the matter. He’s an expert in the perfidy of the NY Times.)
And I think we know why the republicans are being very ginger in their treatment of Fitzgerald and why Senator Pat Roberts backed off his threat to hold hearings about the investigation. They don’t want to piss Fitzgerald off and force him to offer a public report in order to clear his own reputation.
Everybody’s sitting tight.
Update: I see that Talk Left has yet another post on this matter in which she wonders why (Rove’s lawyer)Donald Luskin is no longer talking and speculates that his law partner Benjamin Ginsberg might be involved:
Is Ginsberg serving as an ex-officio, behind the scene counsel to Rove? Don’t forget, Ginsberg both represented the Bush campaign during the 2000 Florida recount and served as counsel to the Bush 2004 re-election campaign.
I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised. The post links to an interesting interview in Legal Times with Richard Sauber, Matt Cooper’s lawyer:
LT: From all that you’ve heard and all of the people you have spoken to, what do you think Fitzgerald is aiming for?
RS: I spent a lot of time on the phone [with Fitzgerald] and in person. He was so careful not to give away anything — even with body language — any indication of what he was looking at or where he was going. It was quite astonishing how uncommunicative he was. So the short answer is, I don’t know.
But the only clue is that he submitted some fairly extensive material under seal. Every judge who has commented on that [has said] how impressive the showing is and how important this case is to national security. All I can surmise is that he has a substantial amount of evidence to continue a fairly robust investigation. And it does involve classified material.
The ratfucking operation in the GOP is getting awfully sloppy these days. They just don’t seem on their game. And it’s not just that Rove is sweating bullets wondering if he’s going to have a fun new roommate named Roscoe pretty soon. I think it’s because the true masters of the game are getting old — and the younger generation of ratfuckers are like so many children who inherit great fortunes — spoiled and worthless.
Consider the fact that the Republicans create a “voting irregularity” front group to counter the charges that they are fixing elections. Fine. I would expect no less. This is what they do.
But, by God, I never thought they’d be dumb enough to use nationally known Republican operatives to do it. Jim Dyke was the communications director for the RNC during the 2004 campaign, ferchistsake. He was all over television. And now six months later he’s working with a 501c “non-partisan” group that released a report claiming “Democrat operatives” are stealing elections. Please. Any good GOP sleaze artist knows that you create at least a couple of degrees of separation between the party and the ratfucking. Roger Stone must be shaking his head in disgust. I suppose it’s what happens when you lose the hunger for power.
Bradblog has even more on the rightwing blogs little orgasm over this “non-partisan” report.
I think Kevin asks the right question about this story that John Roberts did pro-bono work on a gay rights case:
It’s probably a sign of my slow deterioration into political senility that I’m less interested in the actual story here than I am in the meta-story. Why did Serrano write this piece? Who suggested it to him? And why did they suggest it?
Was it to make Roberts look less doctrinaire and therefore more palatable to liberals? Or was it designed to plant seeds of doubt about his doctrinal trustworthiness among conservatives? Or to insinuate that maybe Roberts is gay after all? Or what?
This sounds like a job for Arianna to me.
If I had to guess I’d say that it came from the liberal side which looked over his statement to the Senate of pro-bono cases he’d worked on and saw that he’d left out one important case. But who knows?
It certainly does seem odd to me that a staunch Republican and Catholic like Roberts, who we know by now is a winger’s right winger, would work on a gay rights case like this one. This was no arcane legal issue like one of the two pro-bono cases he descibed in his statement. Nor was it on behalf of the poor like the other one, which one could say is easily reconcilable with his religious beliefs. This was a landmark gay discrimination case. He could have begged off, I’m sure.
I can’t guess what went on, but I do think it’s odd that he didn’t mention it, if what he wants to do is present himself as a non-ideologue for the purposes of a smooth confirmation. It would have been a perfect example of his “open-mindedness.” On the other hand, it might stir up discomfort among the religious extremists who are demanding perfect fealty these days. But then, he really is a super ideologue, so why was he defending gay rights in the first place? He couldn’t do his pro-bono work for causes that didn’t offend his religious beliefs?
Steve Soto deconstructs the GWOT-GSAVE flippity-flop and Tim Grieve over at Salon reminds us that this isn’t the first time they’ve done it. Seems the leader who says “Aah’m a leader who knows how ta lead cuz aah’ve led” is a teensy weensy bit inconsistent on this issue.
But I have to say that I never thought he’d really give up the “war.” After all, who is George W Bush?
I’m a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind. Again, I wish it wasn’t true, but it is true. And the American people need to know they got a president who sees the world the way it is. And I see dangers that exist, and it’s important for us to deal with them.
He’s a war preznit for the culture ‘o life. He’s nothing without that.
Gary Farber has been writing about a very interesting follow-up to the story from last night about the Iraqi General who was killed with the novel “beating with a rubber hose while tied up in a sleeping bag” interrogation technique. I was unaware that this was only uncovered because of another honorable whistleblower:
For Sgt. 1st Class Michael Pratt it would have been far easier to look away. If war is hell, after all, there are going to be some demons. And since hooking up with the Colorado-based 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq in early 2003, the Utah National Guard soldier had learned it was simpler to ignore questionable actions than report them.
But the guardsman couldn’t look past what he had seen in the Al Qiem Detention Facility. Not after the death of an inmate whom he believed had been abused by a senior officer. Not even as the Army announced that the prisoner had died “of natural causes.”
Army records show that apparent abuses of inmates at the makeshift prison, known as the Blacksmith Hotel, may have been ignored had Pratt not reported his concerns to Utah Guard officials, outside the chain of command of the unit to which he was temporarily assigned. The documents, transcripts from testimony given by Pratt in a closed hearing last March, also detail the soldier’s struggles to do what he felt was right in the face of pressure to remain silent.
The record also illustrates a disturbing charge: That the unit with which Pratt found himself in Iraq was little interested in hearing an enlisted soldier’s complaints and concerns about the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.
Contacted by The Salt Lake Tribune, the Bountiful native declined to speak about the matter, saying he wanted to ensure any further testimony would not be tainted by public comment. Maj. Mark Solomon of Fort Carson, Colo., the commander of 3rd Cavalry troops not currently deployed – including four soldiers implicated in the inmate’s death – said he could not comment on any of Pratt’s allegations.
But a 38-page transcript of previously secret testimony details what Pratt claims to have seen at Blacksmith – and why he ultimately decided that he could not remain silent.
[…]
A soldier with a squeaky-clean record and reputation during his 18 years in the Utah National Guard, Pratt was apparently unprepared for what he found in his first few months with some of the regular Army soldiers of the 3rd Cavalry.
Among the allegations made in his testimony: That he had witnessed a soldier shoot a 14-year-old boy in the back during a raid – as the boy was running away. That matter, he claimed, was never thoroughly investigated, though fellow soldiers assured him that the rules of engagement had been followed when the teen was shot.
Later, when he learned that unqualified soldiers were conducting interrogations, Pratt again logged a compliant. In response, he testified, he was investigated – and told by other soldiers it was for blackmail purposes.
The final blow came when Pratt reported that a group of combat engineers had confiscated a large stash of currency from an Iraqi family who intended to use the money to send their daughter to Jordan for an operation. When he reported the matter to an officer in his chain of command, Pratt said, “he told me I was getting too close to the Iraqis. He accused me of losing my objectivity.”
“After that incident,” Pratt said. “I realized that it was pointless to report anything.”
[…]
Still, Pratt said he confronted the senior soldier after he watched another officer pull a sleeping bag over an inmate, immobilizing the man with cord before slamming him to the ground. When the inmate began to pray aloud, Pratt said, the officer poured water into his mouth and cupped his hands over the inmate’s face.
Welshofer, the unit’s “subject matter expert” on interrogation techniques, told Pratt “the sleeping bag technique” was authorized, though only certain soldiers were allowed to use it, according to Pratt’s testimony. In the following days, the record states, Pratt watched as Welshofer himself applied the technique on another inmate, sitting on the bound man’s chest and stomach as he asked him questions.
“I could tell by the way he was sitting, if I was in the detainee’s position, I would have had a hard time breathing,” Pratt said, adding afterward: “I’m surprised that it didn’t kill him.”
This guy was finally heard when he left Iraq and reported what he knew to an officer from the Utah National Guard stationed in Kuwait. It’s likely that this whole story would have been swept under the rug if this man had not come forward as he did.
He is a hero, to be sure, as are others, which I wrote about the other night. It’s quite clear that torture, beatings, abuse and sexual humiliation were standard operating procedures from 2002 – 2004 at least, in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. I won’t even hazard a guess about what happened to the ghost prisoners they considered to be real threats and kept in various offshore prisons or rendered to friendly despots who would happily torture them for us. One of them says they sliced his genitals — but then we are told that they are all liars, so what do I know? (I thought the tales of menstrual blood in Guantanamo were ridiculous too — until they turned out to be true) Considering what was done to those who were considered low level, I’m not sure we ever want to know the details. Apparently, at least for a time, people at high levels ordered our military to behave like barbarians. And gosh, it’s really worked out so well.
I know that war is hell and all, but it’s really important to keep in perspective one particular thing. We invaded Iraq; it didn’t attack us. We weren’t invited in either. We just did it. And as we now know, the reasons we gave for doing it were false. And when we got there we were so unprepared that we allowed the country to immediately devolve into chaos. Out of that chaos an insurgency developed. Our reaction was to “take the gloves off” — in a country we had allegedly just liberated — the same way we “took the gloves off” with al Qaeda.
The vast majority of Iraqis were not Saddam’s bitter-enders, not insurgents and certainly not terrorists. They had just spent 30 years under the thumb of a totalitarian dictator. And yet we were rampaging through their homes, “hunting insurgents” and treating them as if they were an enemy. We sent in too few troops and those we sent were untrained and inexperienced. And we let the CIA and other unacountables have a free hand.
Again, these were Iraqis, the people we claimed to be liberating — not a country of terrorists who threatened our way of life. And yet I think many of our troops did not understand this. And why would they? The president of the United States constantly made it sound as if they were one in the same. He evoked 9/11 in the same breath as Iraq over and over again. Many of our troops believed that the Iraqis were responsible for the terrorist attacks. And with the instructions to “take the gloves off” they took out their rage against those they believed were responsible.
This is why the chickenhawks should be forced go to war. It’s not that they must be willing to die for their country; nobody’s dying for America over there — they are dying for George W. Bush. It’s because if young (and not so young) men and women are going to be forced to have blood on their hands like this; to be involved in the killing of innocents and torture and abuse due to political incompetence, then the political supporters of this war should have to share in their nightmares and their guilt. Let them be the ones fending off nervous breakdowns and suicide, let them have this on their consciences. The chickenhawks who support “taking the gloves off” in an unjust war should be forced to be the ones who do this barbaric dirty work on behalf of the man they see as the great deliverer of freedom and democracy.
I sincerely hope that George W. Bush’s God exists. Because if he does, he’s sending that SOB straight to hell.
Farber has been posting on this for several days. Here he discusees an earlier story from the Denver Post.
Update: For another excellent analysis of the full story read this post and the next one down from Marty Lederman at Balkinization.
Armando points to this WaPo article in which we find that John Roberts does not believe in a right to privacy. Now, I realize that this is really an arcane legal debate, but I wonder how it plays politically?
According to this Gallup Poll (pdf)from 2003 (when we were in high GWOT “fear-up) this is how the American people saw it:
Tell what makes you feel free?
36.
Next I am going to read some basic American rights. For each one, please indicate whether this is crucial to your own sense of freedom, very important but not crucial, somewhat important, or not important at all.
Protection against unreasonable searches/seizures 40 39 16 2 2
Freedom of the press 36 37 22 4 1
The right to keep and bear arms 30 26 27 15 2
Interesting, don’t you think? It would appear that a rather large number of Americans not only believe they have a right to privacy, they believe it is more crucial than freedom of the press and the right to bear arms.
I think that this is one of those big ticket “superjumbo” items that Democrats should begin to stake out. This issue is not just one that applies togovernment, but business as well and with companies selling our personal information to the highest bidder and the government and religion encroaching into our private lives, this issue is becoming more and more salient.
The Republicans are always introducing constitutional amendments and bills that have no chance of passage in order to stake out their position on constitutional issues. We should do this too. And our elected representatives should say loud and clear that we believe in a right to privacy. Let the Republicans explain why they don’t.
This seems like a no brainer to me. Guys like Rick Santorum are now just coming right out and saying that they don’t believe in a right to privacy and we are about to put a new justice on the Supreme Court who believes that the Bill of Rights does not imply such a freedom. Ok. Let’s amend the constitution and make it explicit, then. 91% of the public are with us. And I suspect they are going to be a bit surprised to learn that there are big thinkers out there in the GOP who believe that this very important, crucial right doesn’t exist at all.
I keep reading in the mainstream press about the terrible rift between the DLC and the left and how Democratic candidates are going to have to thread the needle in 06 and 08 to deal with it. We are all told how desperately the party needs to stop being a collection of issues and come together around some big ideas that we can all endorse and win mainstream support with.
This is all true. Democrats squabbling amongst themselves is an old story and it is certainly the case that the grassroots (which I think are erroneously referred to and perceived as far left) are more restive than I’ve seen them in years. We will undoubtedly have some arguments over the next couple of years about the direction of the party and what it’s going to take to win.
It’s interesting to me however, that there is another similar story building about which the mainstream media seem to be mostly oblivious. Indeed, many Democrats seem oblivious as well, certainly those of the Washington persuasion.
Yesterday, the president of the United States once again declared himself in favor of teaching the religiously based propaganda campaign called “intelligent design” as science. He’s done this before, back in the day, coming out in favor of teaching creationism. (It’s actually quite amazing coming from the son of the president who once called the religious right “the extra-chromosome set.”) This is, and has been for some time, the sort of pander that nobody really took all that seriously. After all, the religious right was quite a docile community that could be manipulated for votes without ever having to deliver. But that may be changing. We are beginning to see some big tensions building around the radical religious right and its symbiotic relationship with the Republican Party.
After last night’s squeaker in Ohio, people are sure to be wondering what the salient issues were that made this race so unexpectedly close. Certainly we had an attractive candidate and a Republican party in disarray. The war was an issue and it’s becoming more and more unpopular. But one of the things that struck me strongly in watching Jean Schmidt was just how extreme she was. She’s definitely a member of the extra-chromosome set. Her shrill views on abortion we’ve become used to, but what about this stuff about living wills and stem cell research? (And what in God’s name was a woman from Ohio going on about the minutemen for?)She represents the far right of the GOP and it looks to me from the election results that her extremist agenda may be coming up against resistence in her own party.
There’s a reason why Bill Frist just did a Sistah Soljah on stem cell research. And I think that the reason is examined in some detail in this very interesting article in USA Today:
CANTON, Ohio — Pastor Russell Johnson paces across the broad stage as he decries the “secular jihadists” who have “hijacked” America, accuses the public schools of neglecting to teach that Hitler was “an avid evolutionist” and links abortion to children who murder their parents.
“It’s time for the church to get a spinal column” and push the “seculars and the jihadists … into the dust bin of history,” the guest preacher tells a congregation that fills the sanctuary at First Christian Church of Canton.
That is his mission. Johnson leads the Ohio Restoration Project, an emergent network of nearly 1,000 “Patriot Pastors” from conservative churches across the state. Each has pledged to register 300 “values voters,” adding hundreds of thousands of like-minded citizens to the electorate who “would be salt and light for America.”
And, perhaps, help elect a fellow Christian conservative, Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, as governor next year. That has alarmed some establishment Republicans who back rival contenders and warn that an assertive Christian right campaign could repel moderate voters the party needs.
Evangelical Christian leaders nationwide have been emboldened by their role in re-electing President Bush and galvanized by their success in campaigning for constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage, passed in 18 states so far.
Now some are organizing to build on last year’s successes. They want to solidify their role in setting the political agenda and electing sympathetic public officials.
The Ohio effort isn’t unique. Johnson’s project — which he says has signed up more than 900 pastors in Ohio during its first 10 weeks in operation — has helped spawn the Texas Restoration Project in Bush’s home state. The fledging Pennsylvania Pastors’ Network has signed up 81 conservative clergy so far. Similar efforts are beginning to percolate elsewhere.
“It’s maturing as a movement within the evangelical Christian community,” says Colin Hanna of Let Freedom Ring, a Pennsylvania-based group that teaches pastors how to be involved in politics.
John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron, calls the networks a new chapter in an effort to organize conservative clergy that began with the Moral Majority a quarter-century ago, then faltered.
“This generation of evangelical pastors is much more open to this type of activity,” says Green, who studies Ohio politics and religious conservatives. “There isn’t the kind of hostility to involvement in public affairs you would have found among evangelicals 25 years ago.”
[…]
But the unyielding focus by many conservative Christian activists on such issues as abortion and gay marriage worries Republican loyalists who have other priorities. Economic conservatives want to lower taxes, for instance; small-government conservatives want to limit the intrusion of government on daily life. For many voters, jobs and education are top concerns.
“This is a 50-50 state,” almost evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, state Auditor Betty Montgomery says. She and Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro are the other Republicans now in the gubernatorial race. “We are a crossroads state and very diverse. We’ve never really elected anyone too far to the right or too far to the left, too liberal or too conservative, and that could make it difficult for Ken to win in the fall.”
Montgomery and Petro are proven vote-getters and known statewide; each received more votes than Blackwell in their respective contests in 2002. But Blackwell can claim a base among Christian conservatives — he’s featured in “Ohio for Jesus” radio spots and regularly speaks from pulpits across the state — while the other two divide the party’s more moderate ranks.
Some establishment Republicans want either Petro or Montgomery to drop out and allow a one-on-one contest against Blackwell. (Both insist they’re in the race for good.)
Neil Clark, a former chief operating officer for the Ohio Senate Republican Caucus and one of the best-connected lobbyists in Columbus, the state capital, says he and other moderate Republicans are worried about the state “going back to the Stone Ages of Salem.”
[…]
State Republican Chairman Bob Bennett, who is neutral in the primary, predicts “a very tough year” for whoever wins the gubernatorial nomination. Investigations into financial improprieties have engulfed the Taft administration and touched other officeholders.
He says the odds are against Republicans uniting behind any one candidate — and against having a primary that doesn’t leave scars. “They’ll be out to kill each other,” he predicts, “and they’ll have $10 to $15 million each to do it with.”
[…]
First, though, there is next year’s gubernatorial primary — no sure thing, and a test for the emerging network of Christian conservatives.
Petro, 56, has raised the most money and gotten the most endorsements from state legislators. His hometown of Cleveland gives him a stronghold in a Democratic part of the state. Sitting in an office suite lined with portraits of his predecessors, he says he has a “record of accomplishment” in state office that Blackwell can’t match.
But Petro’s positions on social issues have caused controversy. After being endorsed in 1998 by the National Abortion Rights Action League, he announced two years later that after reflection he had decided to oppose abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. While he opposes same-sex marriage, he also opposed the constitutional ban last year because he said as written it could have unintended consequences, including undercutting laws on domestic violence.
Montgomery, 57, has been the state’s top vote-getter in the past two elections; she was the first woman elected auditor in Ohio and, before that, attorney general. She backed the gay-marriage ban but is anathema to many conservative Christian leaders because she generally supports abortion rights.
The focus on that issue to the exclusion of all others exasperates her. “If you get somebody who is with you 100% of the time and can’t win an election, isn’t it better to have somebody who is with you 80% of the time and can win?” she asks, sitting in a conference room at her campaign headquarters. Boxes of campaign literature are stacked along the walls. She says she was raised “not to wear your religion on your sleeve.”
I think there is a good possibility that this is going to be played out all over the country in the next few years. This 50/50 electorate is not confined to Ohio. And despite the RNC’s attempts to demonize Move-On as the modern Weathermen, the face of radicalism today is not Democrats who were opposed to the war in Iraq — the Republicans themselves are trying to distance themselves as fast as they can from that debacle. (Perhaps the DLC could take notice and stop flogging the GWOT, too. It’s been officially decreed as last year’s color.) No, the face of radicalism is guys like this pastor who are insisting that abortion is like kids murdering their parents and saying that the “secular jihad” should be pushed into the dustbin of history. Moderate republicans are getting nervous about this crap at long last.
Unsurprisingly,Paul Weyrich is quoted in that article saying that “Ken Blackwell ‘believes God wanted him as secretary of State during 2004’ because as such he was responsible for voting operations in a critical state during a critical election.” Weyrich added: “It is difficult to disagree with that proposition.” Paul Weyrich obviously has a sense of humor. He, along with a a cadre of movement conservatives (that includes our boy Karl Rove) have been building an evangelical political machine for more than two decades. It’s the red state version of Tammany Hall. “God” placing Ken Blackwell in charge of counting the votes is one of his proudest achievements.
It is, therefore, in our best interest to separate these people from the rest of the Republican party. I certainly do not believe it’s impossible. They are beginning to be difficult to control and are pushing the party farther to the right than the country can accept.
The conventional wisdom yesterday was that Hackett needed a low turnout in order to get close in this very conservative district. The turnout was phenomenally high for a special election and Hackett did very well. I haven’t been able to find any breakdown of the electorate yesterday, but the campaign clearly managed to engage Democrats in larger numbers than expected (there are many fewer of them in the district), suppress turnout among Republicans or persuade a fair number of Republicans to vote for him. It was probably some combination of the three. Whatever it was, it’s clear that Jean Schmidt’s extreme politics and Paul Hackett’s “man of the people” approach was perceived very differently in 2005 than the Bush-Kerry race was in 2004. I’ll be curious to see whatever extrapolations people come up with.
Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that we become hostile to religion. Nor am I suggesting that we run as the libertine Girls-Gone-Wild party. But I do believe that the zeitgeist is changing. I think we need to help drive this wedge between the radical religious right and the moderate Republicans.
I like the way Hackett put it: “I don’t need Washington to tell me how to live my personal life, or how to pray to my God.”
Update:
Via Maha in the comments, I see that Fafnir has weighed in about “the democratic party an its terrible internal divisions an stuff.”
In a telephone interview late Tuesday, Perkins said Frist wasn’t invited because he had participated by videotape in the group’s previous event. The main reason the event is being held in Nashville, he said, is that it is easier to line up country music stars there to perform.
So I guess country stars, many of whom spend months at a time on the road, are so committed to the cause that they will only perform if the event is held in their home town. That’s very inspirational.