Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Can This Marriage Be Saved?

In the post below I criticized the attitude I saw among liberals toward unions on The TPM Labor site. I wish that instead of characterizing the attitudes of the new Yorkers who criticized the stadium deal I had let the posters on the thread speak for themselves:

My question is what have the unions done for me lately? Union membership is waning. Fewer and fewer workers are members of Unions, and I have to question their utility in the modern economy.

A union is certainly useful when you have large numbers of poorly educated and unsophisticated manual laborers who may be subject to economic coercion in the form of employer-determined wages. But what good is a union when the laborers involved are individuals with a bachelors degree or graduate work who do mental work, i.e. not physically taxing work, all day and receive relatively high compensation and benefits?

I’m all for reforming workplace association laws. We need to provide people the freedom to engage in such activities if they see fit. I just don’t think they will.

You should also consider that unions can’t possibly claim to be universally progressive or liberal. A significant portion of union members are Republicans. And unions alone won’t deliver the votes necessary to put Democrats back in the White House or in control in the Senate.

[…]

We aren’t living in the economy of the 1930s or 40s or 50s, or even the 1980s. Our society is different now, and employment often requires more skill than the ability to swing a hammer. In the early part of the 20th century, jobs didn’t demand much more–the labor ‘market’ was broader and employers could easily force down wages. While there are plenty of manual laborers out there still, we must recognize that many college educated workers have the ability to demand more from their employers due to the simple fact that they have more skills and there aren’t as many people who can do that work.

If anything we need to invest in adult education and worker training in order to make more laborers fungible so that they can trade up in employment. Give people the skills necessary to have a better job, and they will make more money.

Why are unions necessary to do that?

[…]

Free Trade facilitates the evolution by applying competitive pressures that force different economies to focus on industries in which they have a comparative advantage. Industries where they lack such an advantage suffer and many people are laid off. But the productivity gains are enormous, and this enhances growth and, in the long run, employment.

Certain workers, however, do loss jobs. Therefore, labor unions oppose free trade. Unions oppose the general will of society in favor of parochial interests. Teacher unions demand tenure for bad teachers and rigid pay structures that discourage our best and brightest from becoming teachers.

I support workers rights to collectively bargain and join unions. But I’m very suspicious of the demands they make of government. And I don’t think you can ride labor to electoral victory without supporting them on thinks like the jets’ stadium, protectionism, and tenure, which I’m unwilling to do.

[…]

What’s the advantage to the community, to the government, to the company itself of unionized labor? Is it true that wages pushed up by union membership will stifle job growth? If not, why? If so, who suffers from this and how can unions work to remedy it? Call this a concession to the capitalist pigs if you like, but that’s the current climate, and it ain’t likely to roll back to the 40’s and 50’s.

[…]

“At the height of their power, unions were unable to match the negotiating power of a non-unionized knowledge worker acting alone, and so the belief that unions are effective at achieving their goals is in doubt.”

[…]

I don’t see, and didn’t hear, any argument for how a progressive or liberal could have supported this stadium project on its merits.

But you know what? The construction unions were solidly behind it, for obvious reasons — their own jobs. They threw their support behind Bloomberg and threatened any pol who wouldn’t go along. And so, you see, these unions were interested in only one thing: their own pockets. Broader progressive politics be damned.

I don’t think this was an isolated incident. At least, my impression of unions is, they often are looking only for what’s in the immediate pecuniary interests of their members, and what’s in the immediate power interests of the union bosses. I don’t think I’m alone in that impression, either. If I’m wrong, I hope that you’ll educate me otherwise, and that’s one of the reasons why I look forward to your joining this blog. But to the extent I’m right, then I think it’s unions who are as much to blame as anyone else for their exclusion — if they can’t see the broader forest rather than the trees of their own pocketbooks, they’re not entitled to be considered part of a broader progressive movement.

You can actually feel the condescension dripping from those voices.

I am, as a general rule, against all these stadium boondoggles and I assume that the Jets deal was as fucked up as they all are. I certainly take the word of New Yorkers like Steve Gilliard that the unions were unhelpful to the community and uninterested in the greater concerns of the residents. It does not, however, surprise me that at certain times there are going to be clashes between unions and other Democrats just as there are clashes between religious folks and secularists or pacifists and hawks, workers and environmentalists. Coalitions sometimes have competing interests. That doesn’t mean that unions aren’t “entitled” to be part of a broader progressive movement.

That attitude is absolutely lethal. Working people often think about their pocketbooks above the broader progressive movement. They have to. They don’t have a lot of money. And if people aren’t “entitled” to be part of the broader progressive movement because they worry about their jobs over other concerns then we have a very serious problem, indeed. The idea that unions’promotion of the “pecuniary interests” of their members somehow makes them greedy is to play right into the hands of WalMart and other corporations that consider cheap labor the backbone of their business plans.

Last year, here in southern California we had a long and painful grocery worker strike. It came about because Wall Street was demanding that the national chains involved lower their labor costs for bigger profits at the same time that WalMart was attempting to move into the area and undercut them. The workers were in danger of losing much of their health care and seeing entry level workers denied much of the job protections and benefits they had for themselves. There weren’t a lot of easy answers.

When the workers went on strike a surprising thing happened. Customers abandoned those stores and shopped in much more expensive ones that were uninvolved with the strike. It cost a little bit of coin to do that and quite a bit of inconvenience. The clerks that we usually saw everyday stocking the produce section were walking picket lines on the sidewalk and we all honked and cheered as we drove past. It went on for several months. But maybe it was because we interact with these folks all the time or that they are middle class workers, but customers actually seemed to see the human side of this union and most of us supported them. And it was a beautiful thing.

Contrary to what some of those posters I quote above seem to think, grocery clerks and hotel maids and construction workers and teachers and cops are not obsolete. They are still quite necessary to civilization, even here in the first world USA, and as long as people have attitudes such as those expressed in that thread, unions are more important than ever.

Furthermore, as I wrote below, political parties need outside institutional support. The republicans very wisely worked the conservative evangelical churches and have turned them into an electoral machine. The K Street lobbyists are more powerful and numerous than ever before, basically turning the government into an arm of big business. If we do not embrace labor, we are sunk. You cannot get out the vote with blogs.

The Republicans have been very successful lately at convincing people that their economic interest lies with the owners and the most important thing that government does is control the culture’s moral climate. That’s awfully convenient for the people who make all the profits isn’t it? But it isn’t actually true and we have been failing, big time, to make the right arguments to convince these people which side their bread is really buttered on. I remember hearing a guy say on Rush one day that he was really rooting for his boss to get a tax cut because that meant he might get a raise. Rush, of the 250 million dollar contract, applauded his good sense. Clearly, we are failing to properly argue for these people’s interests if that is what they are reduced to believing.

Nathan Newman says in his article to which the above comments are linked:

You can talk about a range of issues — whether child care or health care or whatever — and the bottom line is they cost families money. And conservatives have a simple message: they’ll cut your taxes so middle class families can afford more of all of it.

Once upon a time, progressives had an even simpler alternative. Support workers rights to demand higher wages and they’ll have even more money and benefits for everything they need to take care of their families.

I know we are supposed to appeal to people’s better natures and all, but really, that’s only a part of the picture. You also need to offer people a better deal than the other guy. For many working people, unions offer a better deal. For all working people, unions raise the bar on wages, benefits and workplace safety. If we want to win elections we’d better start realizing that.

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Which Side Are You On, Boys?

There’s an interesting internecine debate over onTPM’s Labor Blog about whether the Democrats should actually give a damn about labor. I’m not kidding.

There’s quite a bit of back and forth about “what has labor done for me lately” (presumably besides clean your house, fix your food, build your buildings and raise your kids.) And there’s quite a bit about how labor seems to, you know, challenge the proper role of the meritocracy and what have you.

Why should Democrats support labor? I’ve got one word for you.

Arnold.

If you want to know what happened to Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, it’s that he fucked with the public employees unions and they’ve fucked him back. Hard.

Here’s Arnold’s answer to the challenge:

During the course of the short call one of Schwarzenegger’s media advisors outlined the team’s plan to create a “phenomenon of anger” that would turn voters against employee unions, which have sharply criticized the governor for his budget cuts to education and health care programs.

A representative from Wells Fargo advised the governor’s team to focus its ire on public employee unions to avoid angering labor unions for private industry, and a representative from Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. urged the governor to announce his support for a ballot initiative that would make it harder for unions to use member dues to support legislative lobbying.

These are middle class American workers who have not, contrary to Republican lies, become lazy, fat and opportunistic with their huge salaries that pay oh, 50k a year. These are cops, firemen, nurses and teachers who are trying to work in increasingly difficult circumstances without any hope of ever getting rich. Indeed, many of these people chose their jobs because they actually give a damn. And they tend to support Democrats for a reason — because Democrats support them. You don’t have to have a Phd from MIT to understand how this thing works.

And by the way, this plan of Arnold’s to create a “phenomenon of anger” so far has only driven him further into a ditch. People are angry all right. They’re angry at him.

The change of fortune for Governor Schwarzenegger is broad-based. Perhaps not surprisingly, 83% of Democrats and 88% of Liberals say they are not inclined to support his reelection bid. But solid majorities of non-partisans and other party identifiers (61%), and ideological moderates (60%) now say they are not inclined to support Schwarzenegger’s reelection bid. Close to one quarter (23%) of Republicans, and almost a third of Conservatives (30%), admit they are not inclined to support Schwarzenegger in 2006. Women are more opposed to Schwarzenegger’s reelection than men (63% of women not inclined to support his reelection, 51% of men), and Latinos are strongly opposed as well (72% not inclined to support him).

From what I gathered in the TPM Cafe thread, a lot of new Yorkers are awfully disappointed in labor’s position on the new stadium. Apparently, needing work is just not a good enough reason to inconvenience the residents with traffic and parking problems. It was a slap in the face to the fine liberals who support their tawdry pecuniary concerns and it won’t be soon forgotten. O la dee da.

Maybe Democrats in the blue enclaves (like mine here in LA also) forget what it takes to put together a winning coalition, but somebody obviously needs to remind them, quickly. Labor is the only existing liberal institution that we have that can be mobilized for issues and voting. I love the netroots as much as the next person, but let’s face facts. We’re a long way from being able to rival the evangelical lock step machine that the right has built over the last 25 years. Even the unions are a pale imitation of what they used to be — but let’s not throw the baby out with bath water. The institution of labor unions is one of our best and most useful constituencies. To even contemplate the idea that we should abandon the working class to ivy league Republican blather about meritocrisy and expect workers to care about rich people’s traffic congestion over their own ability to put food on the table is incredibly myopic.

And I won’t even go in to the clear moral obligation we have to fight for those at the bottom end of the income scale — many of whom in places like Los Angeles are gaining a modicum of dignity and financial security through the hard work of unions who are organizing the service industry — the single biggest employer of poor people in this country, many of whom are women and immigrants. (Ask yourself why the restaurant industry is one of the biggest Republican contributors out there.) And interestingly, when they become unionized, they also become politically active. They vote.

No political party can afford to abandon a huge slice of workers because those workers need things that the rich don’t care about. Like financial security, for instance. Republicans are offering them a phony dream and a place in the afterlife. It’s our job to offer them something a little bit more tangible right here on earth.

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Nothing Left To Lose

I’m getting a lot of traffic today from Professor Bainbridge who calls me a freaking out liberal and Patterico who calls me a fringe leftist for being angry that the Dems apparently got punked (again) by the Gang of 14 compromise.

First I should point out to Patterico that when I referred to “all the executions and war crimes” in regards to Gonzales, I was talking about the unusually large number of executions he summarized in a paragraph or two for his boy to sign off on between naps, when he was Governor of Texas. The war crimes are the white house counsel advisories saying that the president didn’t have to follow the law during wartime, the abrogating of the Geneva Conventions and the fact that he agreed that “interrogation methods” that didn’t rise to “the level of pain accompanied by organ failure or death” were not torture, among other things. Just wanted to clear that up. I suspect that Mr Gonzales will be one of those guys who won’t find it very healthy to travel to countries that have war crimes laws when he gets old, if you know what I mean.

I do think both of my critics have a fair complaint about me, though. I am, in fact, a crazed fringe leftist, freaking out liberal. In fact, I am dangerous. And I was hotheaded when I wrote that post, mostly because it was all too predictable that we would get had in that deal once the Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse got confirmed — which set the bar for “extraordinary circumstances.” Professior Bainbridge sees the deal as a good one for the Republicans and indeed it was.

I’m really not all that surprised that the Gang of 14 let some extremists on the federal appeals courts. After all, Republicans actually believe that because Landslide Bush barely won an election that Clarence Thomas must, therefore, be a mainstream supreme court justice. And the “centrist” Dems figured that if they gave in on that, the right would not insist upon an extreme conservative on the Supreme Court. Now they are stuck. But that’s fine. I knew it would be so.

What Patterico fails to understand is that I want that nuclear option, I need that nuclear option. I’m fucking dying to have that fight. We so-called freaking out liberals have been pushed to the wall. We’re accused of being traitors at every turn, of wanting to give terrorists therapy, of being unamerican. People are making millions selling books saying that everything I believe in is treason. There are pick-ups all over the country that have “liberal hunting licence” bumper stickers on them. Being called a “fringe leftist” these days is actually kind of cute. How about terrorist sympathizer? Now there’s a descriptive insult with some meat on it!

I am the last person who is afraid of Bill Frist going nuclear. Like a cornered animal, I’ve got nothing to lose. In fact, it’s my fondest wish. If we could score a knock-out on Bush we might actually open some eyes in this country. And even if we don’t, so what? When you go out of your way to rub your rivals noses in the dirt,particularly when they comprise an army as big as yours, don’t be surprised when they start to see mutually assured destruction as an alternative.

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It’s Their World

We just live in it. Might I just point out that when a political party openly admits to routinely using derision and ridicule, when they repeatedly insult, demean and deride their political opponents, and particularly when they hold the nation hostage for months with hearings and debates about semen stains, fellatio and cigar dildos for political purposes, they have given up any claim to “dignity and respect?” They wanted to play hardball. Now we play hardball.

Just as an illustration, take a look at the “insider’s poll” (pdf) by National Journal in which members of congress are polled for their opinions. This one is about setting a timetable for Iraq withdrawal. Unsurprisingly, all Republicans in the poll were against it and so were the vast majority of Democrats. Where the difference lies is in the anonymous commentary. Quite a few of the Republicans talk like thugs. Here are a couple of examples of the kind of thing that the republican “insiders” say:

“Setting a timetable would be irresponsible. No wonder the dems are pushing it.”

“Even the Democrats know this is a dumb idea. They are just so politically opportunistic that they are willing to put their short-term partisan interest ahead of the long-term national interest. Timetables merely reinforce the enemy’s belief that America’s political elite lacks the will to win a protracted struggle against a determined and vicious enemy.”

“The constant barrage of anti-Americanism by our own politicians is unconscionable and serves to aid the enemy. We are at war, not setting a convenient schedule for self-serving political purposes.”

The Democrats do not naturally engage in this ad hominem and do not constantly question the patriotism, motives or loyalty of the administration when they criticize the war.

These are not ralk radio show hosts saying this crap. These are members of the House and Senate. This, apparently, is just how they think. So, please spare me any calls for “respect.” The Republican Party gave that up a long time ago when they decided to send people who think and act like teen-age gangbangers to Washington.

Update: Of course it’s helpful to remember that many of these officials’ constituents are people who sport “Liberal Hunting Licenses” on the back of their pick-ups. Remember to laugh at stuff like this or you’ll be accused of not having a sense of humor. If you can get out a chuckle with a boot stepping on your throat, that is.

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All American Dissent

As I read yet another one of these vacuous and ill-informed reactionary screeds that inevitably turn up every independence day, I find that as the years go by they make me more patriotic rather than less. It’s comforting to know, I suppose, that some things never change. It’s even more comforting to know that things do.

I don’t subscribe to the chauvanistic notion that says we must hail America as the greatest country the world has ever known, despite the fact that I love America as much as I love my family. And that’s mainly because, as with family, I don’t see that as actually being much of a compliment considering all the countries the world has ever known. Talk about faint praise. The problem in my mind is not one of country, culture, religion or ethnic identity; it’s one of species. The human species to be exact. There can be no “greatest” country as long as a country is comprised of imperfect and flawed human beings. That doesn’t mean I don’t love it. But I see it with my eyes wide open.

If we’re lucky, we muddle along, taking two steps forward, one step back and eventually make some progress. And to that extent, America has done pretty well, particularly seeing as we started out with the greatest hypocrisy imaginable — a country whose essence is defined by the concept of freedom was founded as a slave nation. If people want to say we are exceptional, that’s one of the most exceptional things about us, that’s for sure.

But, there is one thing that has been present from the very beginning and it’s the thing that has saved us and will continue to save us. It is the freedom of speech. It often comes under seige during war and from the beginning there has been tension about what level of dissent was acceptable. But perhaps because we were a country formed out of a revolution, there is always a surprisingly strong attachment in the body politic to tolerance of free speech, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time.

Today, Ellen Goodman describes those of us who are against Bush’s policies in iraq as the “silenced majority,” made mute by the political correctness and intimidation that often emerges during wartime. She is right that the majority of those who oppose Bush on the war feel tremendous pressure — and there is, as yet, not much cultural approbation for public dissent on the subject. But we should not be afraid. If this country has ever stood for anything it’s this. And there have been times worse than this in which people who had much to fear took a stand.

Perhaps the most famous speech by an African American before MLK’s classic “I Have A Dream” speech was Frederick Douglass’ fourth of July speech of 1852. Talk about politically incorrect. He not only pointed out the incongruity of a slave owning nation celebrating freedom, he did it in no uncertain terms. And he spoke at a time when the country was moving toward violence and in a culture that was racist to the bone. But it didn’t shut him up. And the government allowed him to speak. I’ll excerpt the speech beginning with its most famous passage:

…At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival….

Yes, Frederick Douglas was one of the “blame America First” crowd for sure. And rightly so. The shocking hypocrisy of a freedom loving country that had to fight a civil war to free its own slaves is so mind-bogglingly ironic that to even suggest that America is or was ever perfect is absurd.

But, among many things, we did do one thing very, very right and it’s enshrining in the Constitution the right of dissenters like Frederick Douglass (at the time only in the north, to be sure) to speak so frankly about America. Dissent has been this country’s savior. If this country is great, it is because we believe that it is the inalienable right, if not the duty, of all Americans to push her to be better than she is.

Read Douglass’ entire speech to remind yourself that there have always been dissenters in this country who were willing to call it as they see it. But also read it to absorb Douglas’ conclusion. He was right then and he’s right now:

…Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented, of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from “the Declaration of Independence,” the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. — Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly heard on the other.

The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, “Let there be Light,” has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. ‘Ethiopia, shall, stretch. out her hand unto Ood.” In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:

God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o’er!
When from their galling chains set free,
Th’ oppress’d shall vilely bend the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom’s reign,
To man his plundered rights again
Restore.

God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end,
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.

God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant’s presence cower;
But to all manhood’s stature tower,
By equal birth!
That hour will come, to each, to all,
And from his Prison-house, to thrall
Go forth.

Until that year, day, hour, arrive,
With head, and heart, and hand I’ll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive —
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate’er the peril or the cost,
Be driven

The heart of the American liberal on the fourth of July is always full with the knowledge that there ain’t no stopping progress. We’ll keep speaking out and step by step, inch by inch, we will get there. Happy 4th everyone.

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Who Could Have Ever Predicted This?

Democrats’ hopes of blocking a staunchly conservative Supreme Court nominee on ideological grounds could be seriously undermined by the six-week-old bipartisan deal on judicial nominees, key senators said yesterday.

With President Bush expected to name a successor to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor next week, liberals are laying the groundwork to challenge the nominee if he or she leans solidly to the right on affirmative action, abortion and other contentious issues. But even if they can show that the nominee has sharply held views on matters that divide many Americans, some of the 14 senators who crafted the May 23 compromise appear poised to prevent that strategy from blocking confirmation to the high court, according to numerous interviews.

The pact, signed by seven Democrats and seven Republicans, says a judicial nominee will be filibustered only under “extraordinary circumstances.” Key members of the group said yesterday that a nominee’s philosophical views cannot amount to “extraordinary circumstances” and that therefore a filibuster can be justified only on questions of personal ethics or character.

The distinction is crucial because Democrats want to force Bush to pick a centrist, not a staunch conservative as many activist groups on the political right desire. Holding only 44 of the Senate’s 100 seats, Democrats have no way to block a Republican-backed nominee without employing a filibuster, which takes 60 votes to stop.

GOP leaders, sensing the Democrats’ bind, expressed confidence yesterday that the Senate will confirm Bush’s eventual nominee, no matter how ideologically rigid. “I think there is every expectation, every reason to believe that there will be no successful filibuster,” Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Under the “Gang of 14” accord, the seven Republican signers agreed to deny Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) the votes he needed to carry out his threat to bar judicial filibusters by changing Senate rules. The seven are implicitly released from the deal if the Democratic signers renege on their end. Yesterday, key players suggested the seven Democrats will automatically be in default if they contend a nominee’s ideological views constitute “extraordinary circumstances” that would justify a filibuster.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), one of the 14 signers, noted that the accord allowed the confirmation of three Bush appellate court nominees so conservative that Democrats had successfully filibustered them for years: Janice Rogers Brown, William H. Pryor Jr. and Priscilla R. Owen. Because Democrats accepted them under the deal, Graham said on the Fox program, it is clear that ideological differences will not justify a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee.

“Based on what we’ve done in the past with Brown, Pryor and Owen,” Graham said, “ideological attacks are not an ‘extraordinary circumstance.’ To me, it would have to be a character problem, an ethics problem, some allegation about the qualifications of the person, not an ideological bent.”

Yes, they were just as thick and stupid as we thought. Once they confirmed the wingnut freakshow, they lowered the bar to confirm all wingnut freakshows.

I suppose that they may have made some sort of informal agreement as to what constitutes a circumstance more “extraordinary” than this, but I don’t know how much trust I would put in such a thing. If Brown, Owen and Pryor are confirmed, the bar has been set very, very low. It’s hard to imagine how Bush could come up with anyone even less qualified or philosophically unacceptable than that, but they seem to be able to find the worst judicial freaks in the country so maybe they’ve been holding out on us. It also pays to remember that Earl Warren wasn’t even a judge before he became Chief Justice. Bush could name James Dobson if he wanted to.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he picked him. I’m not sure what it will take to make Democrats understand that making a deal with Republicans is akin to stabbing themselves in the back. It never fails.

Truthfully, I think Bush is going to nominate Gonzales, which would be sort of unremarkable under these circumstances if it weren’t for all the executions and the war crimes. Of course the crazies are all saying he’s too liberal — and they’ll probably succeed in convincing the dipshit gang of 14 that they got Bush to nominate a moderate. In the end, of course, it’s all about rewarding Bush’s cronies — which is, after all, his central governing philosophy. And the nutballs will fall in line and be very happy when he turns out to be somewhere to the right of Clarence Thomas and Pinochet.

And let’s not forget that Rehnquist is hanging by a thread so they’ll get another bite of the apple by which time the Gang of 14 will have convinced themselves that they’ve saved the republic by turning the Supreme Court into a federalist society circle jerk.

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Telling The Right Story

Atrios questions the WaPo’s skepticism (in its article quoting Rove’s lawyer Luskin) and points to Lawrence O’Donnell’s follow-up post today on The Huffington Report in which he subtly says that Luskin is full of shit.

I don’t know that I’d characterize Luskin as a liar, however. He doesn’t know exactly what Rove told the grand jury because defense lawyers aren’t allowed in there. He knows what his client told him. He also has absolutely no idea what Cooper’s notes really say — and neither does Karl Rove.

Unless there is something really off the wall developing, it seems pretty obvious that the reason that Fitzgerald wanted to talk to Cooper and Miller is to verify that what Rove said was true, whatever it was — and it’s also reasonable to believe that Fitzgerald has some substantial reasons to think it might not be. The law pretty specifically requires prosecutors to exhaust all other possibilities before a judge cites a reporter with contempt for refusing to reveal sources. Fitzgerald knows full well what a hot potato this is. He’s not fucking with Time magazine, the NY Times and Karl Rove for his health. He has reason to believe that Matt Cooper and Judith Miller have something to tell him or he wouldn’t have gone this far.

I hesitate to bring this up, but it’s relevant to this case. From Peter Tiersma, law professor at Loyola University and expert on the language of the law:

One of the famous (or infamous) scenes from the impeachment proceedings is Clinton’s remark about the meaning of “is.”

During the deposition, Clinton’s lawyer, Robert Bennett, objected to questions being asked about Lewinsky, and made the following statement:

“I question the good faith of counsel, the innuendo of the question. Counsel is fully aware that Ms. Lewinsky has filed–has an affidavit, which they are in possession of, saying that there is absolutely no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form with President Clinton.”

Clinton said nothing.

During the grand jury proceedings, Kenneth Starr accused Clinton of making an “utterly false statement” by not speaking up and correcting his lawyer’s comment. Clinton responded that Bennett’s statement was not necessarily false. He explained: “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” and remarked that in the present tense, the statement was true.

Even though Clinton was subjected to much ridicule for this reponse, it is actually completely true. Clinton’s physical relationship with Lewinsky had ended some time before the deposition.

As I mentioned, Rove may have lied to his lawyer or withheld the truth. Clinton certainly didn’t come clean with Bennett about Lewinsky, although he was a very clever lawyer himself and understood the language of the law and didn’t need a lot of advice about how to avoid perjuring himself. Rove is not a lawyer.

In that light, I find Luskin’s language a little bit interesting. He says Rove never “identified” Valerie Plame to Cooper. What does that mean exactly? Did he not identify her by name? Or did he not identify her as a CIA operative? In other words, did Karl Rove call up Matt Cooper and say, ” Joe Wilson’s wife is a CIA operative and she got him the job,” which technically means that he didn’t “identify” her, but he sure put old Matt on the trail. It wouldn’t have been hard to find out who Joseph Wilson was married to. Or maybe he meant something else entirely. But the wording is unusual — just as Clinton’s wording “I did not have ‘sexual relations’with that woman” was strange. Why didn’t just say “sex”? Because he was carefully using a legal definition. When lawyers word things in a careful way like this, there’s usually a reason for it.

But public opinion doesn’t care about such nuances. To them sex and sexual relations are the same thing. And the meaning of “is,” is is. And “identifying” and identifying are the same thing. And it is in the court of public opinion that this is finally moving.

So, in spite of what I wrote above, I don’t think we should get ourselves caught up in some sort of legal mumbo-jumbo legal definition of what “identify” means. It’s their turn to squirm on the parse machine and try to explain why the clear meaning of cover-up isn’t cover-up. That’s the key my friends, and that’s the level on which the American people will come to understand this if we do it right.

People forgave Clinton for lying about an affair. Most Americans, including a good many people reading this blog today, have some personal experience with situations like that. Infidelity is a common occurence of everyday life. People didn’t need experts to explain to them what was going on. And they decided that they didn’t like the spectacle of the politicians and the law sticking its nose into something so personal.

This isn’t about some middle aged jerk getting excited over a chubby eager beaver exposing her thong. This is about a powerful political operative exposing an undercover CIA agent in order to exact revenge and cover up the president’s lies about the Iraq war.

Kevin Drum wrote correctly back in 2003, Keep It Simple:

Top White officials blew the identity of an undercover CIA agent, potentially endangering both lives and intelligence operations, solely to gain political payback against a guy who had risen to the top of their enemies list.

That’s not so complicated, is it?

That remains true. But the context has changed quite dramatically and there is more to it now. It has become obvious to a majority of Americans that the Bush administration was lying when it made its case for war. The public is much more likely to see this Plame leak for what it was. A cover-up by smear and intimidation. And it looks much more serious in this new light. Here’s how I would update it:

The Bush administration lied about its reasons for the war in Iraq. When a critic stepped up to expose one of the lies the Whitehouse blew his wife’s identity as an undercover CIA agent. They did this to exact revenge against what they saw as a political enemy and to intimidate those who would further expose the administration, potentially endangering both lives and intelligence operations around the world.

That’s the story. And regardless of what comes out about who leaked what to whom first, the sick fucking thing is Rove has actually already admitted to being the biggest asshole on the planet regardless of his legal culpability. When they are apprised of this, in the context of the Iraq lies, people may not be as amenable to forgive or write off as some think. Even if Karl Rove didn’t break the law, here is what we already know he did do:

President Bush’s chief political adviser, Karl Rove, told the FBI in an interview last October that he circulated and discussed damaging information regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame with others in the White House, outside political consultants, and journalists, according to a government official and an attorney familiar with the ongoing special counsel’s investigation of the matter.

But Rove also adamantly insisted to the FBI that he was not the administration official who leaked the information that Plame was a covert CIA operative to conservative columnist Robert Novak last July. Rather, Rove insisted, he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak’s column. He also told the FBI, the same sources said, that circulating the information was a legitimate means to counter what he claimed was politically motivated criticism of the Bush administration by Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Rove and other White House officials described to the FBI what sources characterized as an aggressive campaign to discredit Wilson through the leaking and disseminating of derogatory information regarding him and his wife to the press, utilizing proxies such as conservative interest groups and the Republican National Committee to achieve those ends, and distributing talking points to allies of the administration on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Rove is said to have named at least six other administration officials who were involved in the effort to discredit Wilson.

Here’s the thing, though. Let’s not forget that Wilson was right. There was no yellowcake. Rove and his minions discredited Wilson and destroyed his wife’s cover because he was telling the truth.

If Democrats start going on Matthews to talk about this, they need to hammer this point home over and over again. They can debate the Barbizon school of blond former prosecutors all they want, but every single time, their point must be that this was a very serious matter of national security, weapons of mass destruction, lying about war —- life and death. There was no yellow cake and there were no WMD and Bush and Rove and the rest have been lying their asses off from the beginning. And when anyone in a position to know spoke up, they were subjected to what Karl Rove openly admits to believing is a “legitimate means to counter criticism” — leaking and disseminating derogatory information about Bush’s critics. In common parlance that’s called character assasination. And when you do it to discredit someone who is telling the truth it’s a cover-up.

Democrats really need to rise to the occasion this time. There remains a serious danger of the whole thing getting purposefully muddied by GOP spin artists as it usually is and there is just no excuse for it. As David Corn said back in 2003:

The strategic point here — and there is one — is for the GOP’ers to make this scandal look like another one of those nasty partisan mud-wrestles that the public never likes. Turn it into a political controversy, not a criminal one. Then it all comes out blurry and muddy in the wash. (Bad metaphor, I know.) But that is the intent: to fuzzy up the picture and cause people to shrug their shoulders and say, “it’s just politics.”

That’s why we have to be prepared with a story people can understand and be prepared to tie it in to what they are beginning to see happened with the Iraq war. In Hollywood, screewriters and readers are asked to distill the plot into a single sentence called a logline. Here’s the logline for the Plame Scandal:

Karl Rove and others in the White House exposed an undercover CIA agent in order to cover up their lies about Iraq.

Update: Needlenose has a very interesting theory about Judith Miller’s role in all this — and Josh Marshall seems to be leaning in a similar direction.

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Grover’s Darkroom

I’m sure that most of you have read that the Rev. Lou Sheldon, unofficial new head of the National Park Service, made a stink that there wasn’t any footage of conservative protests in a Lincoln Memorial tourist film and successfully got the NPS to add such footage to its reel:

The video gave the impression that Lincoln would have supported abortion and homosexuality,” said the Web site of Rev. Louis Sheldon’s Traditional Values Coalition. It cited footage showing rallies at the memorial by abortion and gay rights supporters and war opponents but no similar footage from Christian and conservative interests.

“Absent from the video were any Promise Keepers marches or Marches for Jesus rallies at the capital. The video was totally skewed to present only a leftist viewpoint,” the Web site said.

What I didn’t know until I read it at The Capetbagger Report is this:

Here’s a classic example of how far conservative thinking has strayed from reality. In order to make the Lincoln Memorial’s tourist video more conservative, the NPS will add video of a 1997 rally held by the Promise Keepers and footage of a well-attended march in Washington after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. What’s wrong with these? Nothing — except they weren’t held at the Lincoln Memorial.

For whatever reason, most of the major events at the memorial, throughout the 20th century, have dealt with progressive caucus (civil rights, opposition to war, gender equality, etc.). In the interest of “balance,” the right is demanding the addition of footage from events that took place elsewhere.

Now what does this remind me of? Oh yeah.

What’s really funny is that the progressive tradition of mass protest seems to have become something the “traditional values” people want a piece of. NOW they want to be hippies. It figures. They wait until they are deep into middle age to finally get hip — 35 years too late. Next thing you know they’ll take up pot smoking and student sit-ins.

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Everyone Should Hate France

Tom Friedman is right. France is a real hellhole. Ask anyone who spends any time there. Like Richard Perle, neocon France-hater.

I can’t understand those fools who think that France has the best definition of the good life. Who would ever think that great food, great weather, great wine, interesting political conversation,great museums, great writers — long vacations, long meals, light religion, universal health care, laid back sexual attitudes, and beautiful countryside are worth giving up shopping for? They trade money for time to read, think, rest, talk and all those other useless wastes of time.

That’s unacceptable. Nobody should go there. Especially workaholic Americans. Not that there’s anything wrong with workaholism. I realize it’s the highest state of Randian being. Especially if you are working a couple of low paying, low satisfaction jobs. God wants you to work hard and buy a lot of shit at Walmart for Jesus. So don’t go to France. They don’t have anything good to buy.

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