Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Go Knowles!

Atrios hosts guest blogger Tony Knowles, Democratic candidate for the Senate in Alaska. I am an ex-Alaskan and have close ties to the state and I can tell you that this is a good guy. This seat is a definite possibility for a Dem pick-up in the Senate (hopefully to balance out the loss of Kerry or Edwards.) Governor Murkowski appointing his daughter to replace him in the Senate and attempting to curtail the yearly stipend the state confers on each citizen has made it a real contest for what should be a safe GOP seat. Knowles is an attractive and popular ex-Governor. He has a real shot.

I must warn everyone, however, that Alaska is a red state and Knowles is likely to be one of those Senators who will be called a “tu-tu” wearing, cowardly, Republican-lite Democrat on certain issues. Alaska is dependent upon federal largesse and is well cared for by Senate appropriations chieftain Ted Stevens. Military spending is a huge part of the economy. Every Alaskan gets a check each year from the oil companies’ payments to the state “permanent fund.” It is also one of the few states that routinely elects libertarian legislators to the state house and has no state income tax (for now.) Alaskans see themselves as rugged individualists living in the last frontier. Go figure.

So, if Knowles wins, I wouldn’t expect him to be a Paul Wellstone Democrat. He’ll likely vote for opening the wildlife refuge — Alaskans want it badly. He is supported by oil companies because oil companies are the biggest and richest companies in Alaska and all successful politicians are supported by oil companies there. And, he’s not going to be somebody who will vote against military spending or gun rights either.

But, he won’t support right wing attacks on civil liberties, fascist judges or tax cuts for billionaires. He’ll support President Kerry or Edwards and if Bush somehow makes it he will vote to block the worst of Bush and DeLay’s excesses. He is not Zell Miller.

Still, I think that everyone should recognise that he may end up being one of those awful turn-coat Dems on some important issues if he wins. His constituency is very different from Barbara Boxer’s. But, he is a Democrat. And at this point we’ve got to support Anyone But Republicans. (ABB and ABR are my watchwords. The problem is Institutional Power, folks. The Republican party has shown that they cannot be trusted with it.)

Knowles is a middle of the road guy. But he’s our middle of the road guy and we should support him.

At Our Peril

It appears that most of the left blogosphere is on the same page in that we should simply ignore Nader’s candidacy. After some thought, I was going to agree, in spite of my post below, until I realized that I had been linked to Dean for America and Kos threads where I found the lost spirit of those Deaniacs who sent me loving e-mails and comments a couple of months ago. And once again I was reminded of how much the Dean campaign had at times reminded me of the 2000 Nader candidacy, especially the earnestness and often blind passion for the cause.

I don’t know if this will wear off, but I have a suspicion that a fair number of hard core true believer Deaniacs, especially those for whom the cause was really about “taking the Party back,” are susceptible to Nader’s message. In fact, it would not surprise me to find that a larger number of Nader voters from 2000 had signed on to the Dean campaign than any other candidacy. Of course, since no data exists to back up this claim, just as no data exists to back up the now apparently certain belief than Dean brought hoardes of new voters to the system, I cannot prove it. Regardless, the arguments, emotion and committment have long seemed to me to be related:

Fellow bloggers: I just listened to Ralph Nader on Meet the Press, and he reminds me of why I am interested in politics in the first place. Ralph is a national hero. He is a hero for what he has done for all his causes over the years, especially on the environment. And he is a hero in my book for standing against the corporate interests that rule our country, rule our media, and run both the Democratic and Republican partys.

I agree with every word he said today, and I will vote for him in November.

My sincere hope is that many Howard Dean supporters around the nation will feel as I do, that a vote for Kerry / Edwards is a vote for politics as usual. Howard Dean averaged 15% voter support in the primaries contested so far. If we all threw our support to Ralph Nader it would send shock waves through the political world, on both sides of the divide. It would begin to change politics as usual.

Let’s dream a little.

It is true that on these threads many Dean supporters are forcefully arguing against Nader (hence the link to my post below.) I am not suggesting that Dean voters are a monolith. However, it is obvious to me that the only Democratic candidate out there who has mobilized people for ’04 who might switch to Nader is Dean. Kucinich’s backers may also be tempted, but because Kucinich has not made a fetish of attacking the political system in the terms that both Nader and Dean employ, I don’t think his followers are motivated by the same things. Indeed, Kucinich voters are the true blue liberals in terms of policy and philosophy and Kucinich himself is the living embodiment of liberal politics working within the system, as Paul Wellstone was in the Senate.

I don’t know how many possible Dean-to-Nader folks exist. I suspect not very many. However, I still believe that despite Bush’s precipitous dip in the polls, this election will end up being very close. Bush is weak, but his organization and war chest are not. And, he has the power of incumbency to shape events in ways that we can only dream of. For all the Democrats’ motivation, and it is formidable, I believe that it is more than equally matched by the Republicans’ desire to hang on to power. We’re going to need every single vote.

So I don’t believe that Nader is necessarily irrelevant. After all, the GOP has more than a couple of hundred million burning a hole in their pockets. They can easily siphon off a few to help Nader in selected close swing states and we could be in deep shit. I think it’s a very, very good bet (to coin a phrase) “that’s exactly what they’re gonna do.”

Therefore, I’m standing by my call for Dean to use his clout with the anti-establishment grassroots to make the case against Nader. Despite what some of my commenters say, I can’t see what Dean is going to do during the rest of this campaign that is more important (although I’m certainly willing to listen if anyone has ideas about what it might be.)

This may be a different time, but if anything the Republicans are even stronger institutionally than they were in 2000. We have to fight them on all fronts. It is stupid to leave anything to chance.

We ignore Nader at our peril.

Howard Dean Is The Right Man For The Job

As Howard Dean retools his campaign into a grassroots organization and searches for the best way to launch it, might I suggest that he consider taking on Ralph Nader, as Michael Tomasky suggested he do last summer?

Dean has the most grassroots credibility of any Democrat in the country and could make a huge contribution by doing exactly what Tomasky prescribed:

Attack Nader right now, and with lupine ferocity. Say he’s a madman for thinking of running again. Blast him especially hard on foreign policy, saying that if it were up to the Greens [him], America would give no aid to Israel and it would cease to exist, and if it were up to the Greens [him], America would not have even defended itself against a barbarous attack by going into Afghanistan. Have at him, and hard, from the right. Then nail him from the left on certain social issues, on abortion rights and other things that he’s often pooh-poohed and dismissed as irrelevant. Cause an uproar. Be dramatic. Don’t balance it with praise about what he’s done for consumers. To the contrary, talk about how much he’s damaging consumers today by not caring who’s in charge of the Food and Drug Administration or the Federal Communications Commission.

Dean is the best guy to take on the man who said “there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference” between the parties, because he’s the guy who’s been running against the establishment and holds the hearts many of the people who might be inclined to listen to Nader’s message. When the guy who called Wes Clark and John Kerry Republicans takes on Nader, disaffected liberals know it’s not because he’s in the tank. He’s no DC dupe.

By using his credibility and prestige in the single most important goal we Democrats have — beating George W. Bush, he would also bring this party together at a crucial time. He would become the indispensible voice of conscience for the Party, and gain the gratitude and profound respect of all of us.

Thanks to Matt Yglesias for the Tomasky link.

Rigged!

Congratulations

…to all the “winners.”

Unlike The Poorman and others of the pissing and moaning variety, I have much too much class to contest the results even though all evidence suggests that I didn’t win because my legions of fans were disenfranchised by that lying and cheating trial lawyer, Dwight “Diebold” Meredith.

Perhaps some of you are unaware that there are quite a few older bloggers who complained after the fact that they may have voted for Little Green Footballs by mistake because of the bad ballot design. It’s difficult to prove, of course, but really, what are the odds that LGF would get more than 100 votes from the Berkeley Bloggers Collective? I’m just asking.

And I suppose it’s best if we just forget about the fact that many lefty readers were purged from the blogrolls and e-mail lists before the vote. It’s just another little coincidence, I’m sure. Like the fact that everybody voted for “Atrios”, the psuedonymous Sonny Perdue of the left blogosphere again even though the exit polls had him losing to both Kos and Calpundit by a huge margin. Right. Must have been another case of failed exit polling. Uh huh.

I don’t suppose it had anything to do with the fact that his campaign manager Marybeth “dimpled chad” Williams certified the vote and is now conveniently running for office and getting endorsed by the “big man” himself. Nah. No connection there.

But, I won’t mention any of this because I’m not bitter like some others. I am going to Get Over It. But, might I just suggest that we require a paper trail next year?

Update: I would have thought Elayne would be happy enough with the title of the post, but there is no pleasing some people. She should GOI, if you ask me….

Losing the Brakes

In “a nation without brakes” Kevin over at The Tooney Bin notes an important talking point to make among your GOP friends at the water cooler: Colin Powell is checking out after this term.

This article discusses the frustrations of the bloodthirsty chickenhawk neocon contingent with the State department, but offers up a startling admission from a right wing think tanker (whom I’m sure is pulling splinters out of his posterior as we speak):

“State has very valuable things to say to the rest of us,” said John Hulsman, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. “They’re the listening posts overseas. They make the personal contacts; they know the foreign leaders’ quirks and weaknesses.”

Hulsman described himself as “more amused than annoyed” by the department’s weaknesses. He also isn’t bothered by its reluctance to always follow the Pentagon’s wishes.

“Nobody likes hitting the brake,” he said. “But aren’t we glad there’s one on a car?”

That’s sort of odd, when you think about it. Is “hitting the brake” considered something to like or dislike? Do people wish they could just drive until their cars run out of gas on the side of the road? Or would they be glad if their destination were ordained by where their car ended up? The truth is that a car is undrivable unless it has brakes. It’s not really an option. But I digress into a metaphor that is rapidly losing even me…

As Kevin notes in his post, the issue isn’t whether Powell really provides any brakes. After his ignominious appearance before the UN, he pretty much flushed his credibility down the toilet. But, according to Fox news the public hasn’t quite caught on to that fact. Powell still holds a 75% approval rating, 20% higher than the resident.

I think it is useful to continuously and relentlessly shine the light on the “grown-ups” who are handling Bush, whether it’s the “good” ones like Powell who will be leaving or the bad ones like Cheney who are clinging to power. Nobody, not even Peggy Nooner, believes that Junior is really in charge of anything. Even the most die hard Republicans get a little worried at the thought of him behind the wheel with no brakes.

This is, after all, the mental giant who said just this week:

“I flew fighters when I was in the Guard, and I like speed,” he said. “It would’ve been fun to drive up on these banks. … I’d like to, but I’m afraid the agents wouldn’t let me.”

I think we can all agree that it’s long past time for a brake job. In fact, the automobile of state needs a complete overhaul.

Update: Kevin writes in with the question of who might replace Powell if T-Ball erases his asterisk and actually wins the office. I think they will consider an ’04 win to be a total validation of their actions thus far and will become even more aggressively radical than they already are.

Which means that this guy may very well be brought back from the dead to “reform” the State department.

That’s when you start to think about stuff like fall out shelters and big cold, northern countries.

New Feed

My former site feed went kerflooey. New one at left, via blogger.

Buy Your Own President!

Via Cursor, I read about these exciting plans to showcase the GOP as the party of diversity in NYC during the Republican National Convention.

Harris wants the GOP to venture into the outer boroughs. He’s eyeing Flushing Meadows Park in Queens as a possible venue, and is exploring events in the city’s diverse ethnic neighborhoods. The idea is that the sight of Republicans mingling with New Yorkers of all hues will project an image of a new, inclusive GOP to a national audience.

“I fully expect to have events all around New York,” Harris says. “It’s an opportunity to show the country, and the world, what the Republican Party is all about.”

Haha. Good luck. I have the feeling that if the Democrats and the Left in general play this one right, that they can show the world what the Republican Party is really all about.

For instance, the NY Times reports today about a great strategy that I think will entertain and fascinate the media if activists can pull it off with humor and panache:

At one point, as hundreds of guests with invitations waited to pass through velvet barriers to enter the club, a small group of men in bowler hats and women in gowns marched up, chanting, “Four more wars” and “Re-elect Rove.”

As the group approached, a man who appeared to be a security agent of some type, was overheard whispering into a microphone: “We’ve got two groups. One for and one against.”

Actually, it was two against. The person was confused by a group that calls itself Billionaires for Bush, a collection of activists who use satire to make a political point. Indeed, members of the Sierra Club, who were protesting on the other side of the street were also confused and began shouting at what they thought was a pro-Bush contingent.

” We want the truth and we want it now!” the Sierra protesters shouted.

The billionaires shouted back, “Buy your own president!”

It took a few minutes, but the police finally realized what was going on when they escorted the group behind the blue barricades as well. Still, the show was not over. A black town car pulled up and out stepped a man whom who the crowd assumed to be Mr. Rove. “There is Karl Rove,” people shouted.

Reporters, photographers and television cameramen swarmed the man, but the police pushed them back. Another man lifted the velvet rope to let him enter. But the would-be Mr. Rove walked over to the crowd of protesters and began shaking hands, when finally, again, this was seen to be a joke. It was not Mr. Rove, but an actor playing the part.

Each of the groups has said it planned to stage similar events when the Republican National Convention comes to New York City from Aug. 30 through Sept. 2.

I remember that some activists did a similar thing to protest a Cheney speech in San Francisco where they had a Cheney impersonator shake hands and entertain the crowd. Even the cops were laughing, asking “Mr. Vice President” to stay behind the lines.

Over on TAPPED today, Tara McKelvey links to a Reuters story that reports on “a group of activists from the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign are planning to host “reality bus tours” of local slums during the Republican convention. They’re also going to build a tent city. It’ll be called Bushville, of course.”

Perhaps as part of their desire to project an “image of a new, inclusive GOP,” the convention planners would like to stage one of those exciting events there to show “Republicans mingling with New Yorkers of all hues.”

Humor can be a powerful weapon. Especially when the convention itself will be nothing but a bunch of boring windbags telling lie after lie. A little counter programming is definitely in order.

The Wrong Study

In One Short Half Hour Republicans twisted themselves into a preznit pretzel and managed to prove the point that all those dumb old scientists were making:

BEGALA: Well, more than 60 leading scientists, including 20 Nobel Prize winners, today said that the Bush administration has — quote — “misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies” — unquote.

The group includes scholars from both political parties, who say President Bush and his team systematically distort science in order to serve Mr. Bush’s political agenda on issues ranging from nuclear weapons to biomedical research to the environment to health.

So, now we know George W. Bush misled us about the war in Iraq. He misled us about the environment, about health care, about science. He certainly misled us about the deficit, jobs and his tax cut. Of course, don’t forget his many fibs about his National Guard service. Of course, Mr. Bush’s defenders do have an important point. He never lied about Monica Lewinsky. And isn’t that really what matters?

CARLSON: Actually, there were not 20 Nobel Prize winners. There were about…

BEGALA: Yes, there were.

CARLSON: Actually, I checked. They were about half that.

BEGALA: So it’s only Ten Nobel Prize winners.

CARLSON: It’s something called the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is a left-wing and completely discredited, utterly partisan group.

BEGALA: It’s totally bipartisan.

CARLSON: No, no.

BEGALA: One of the members worked in the

BEGALA: … for two Republican presidents.

CARLSON: Right, worked in the Nixon administration. Right. That’s exactly right. It is completely partisan. That’s why your alert contained not a single specific example of what — how George Bush had subverted science, because there aren’t any. Go on the Web site.

All those scientists are bloodthirsty leftist partisans who clearly don’t know what they are talking about. George W. Bush has never subverted science. For instance, the Bush team would never encourage his people to stop using the methods and models to measure economic activity that have been used by the government for decades. They would never say that it was permissable to substitute completely different measurements, having the effect of comparing apples to oranges, in order to give the impression that they are successful when the standard surveys reveal that his policies are miserable failures. That, after all, would fall under the definition of “subverting science” and there is simply no proof that they have ever done such a thing.

BEGALA: I want to bring Mr. Forbes in, because I do want to focus on the promises that President Bush has made.

[…]

BEGALA: But shouldn’t he be held accountable for his promises?

FORBES: Even he misunderestimated the damage you guys did to the economy.

BEGALA: Oh, those 24 million jobs we created?

FORBES: All short-term oriented, all short-term oriented. And now the president, as soon as he took office, he reduced tax rates, put in incentives, coped with the disaster of 9/11.

Today, we are creating jobs. There are 2.5 million more jobs today in the United States than there were when he took office, when you look at the right survey of measuring these things. And now we’re on track again.

BEGALA: What survey is that?

[…]

SPERLING: But, Steve, we’re down 2.9 million sector private — private-sector jobs since he came into office. Let’s forget the recession. Let’s forget 9/11. Since the recession ended, we’re down a million. Steve, our are standards

FORBES: You’re looking at the wrong survey. You’re looking at the payroll — you’re looking at … You’re looking at the payroll survey.

SPERLING: I’m looking at what everybody has always looked at and regarded as the most significant survey.

FORBES: You’re looking at the wrong thing.

SPERLING: Steve, Steve…

FORBES: As a journalist, Paul, you shouldn’t look at what everyone else looks at.

Tuckie? Hello?

Update: Maybe it’s better to simply redefine what a job is. For instance, the administration indicates that burger flipping could soon be classified as a “manufacturing” job. That must be where those 2.6 long-term jobs that Steve Forbes says Bush has created are…

Meanwhile, cashing tax free dividend checks is now classified as a job, as is eating dinner and watching the Paris Hilton video on your private plane. Bush has created more jobs than any president in history.

They Don’t Like It

Atrios quotes Minority Whip, Hammer “hot tub” Delay saying:

Americans “have been tolerant of homosexuality for years, but now it’s being stuffed down their throats and they don’t like it.” DeLay said.

Hmmm. What evocative and detailed images these good Christians use when they talk about gay rights. It’s all “man-on-dog” and something “stuffed down their throats” and “being forced to take it.”

Where do you suppose these disturbing thoughts come from, anyway?

It’s always possible that they make their way into the minds of these fine upstanding Republicans at those junkets put on by their contributors AOL/Time Warner and Comcast, the nation’s biggest purveyors of on-line and PPV pornography. But, that’s just a guess. It could just as easily be those regular “fact-finding” missions over at the Justice Department where they all annoint themselves in consecrated Crisco and sit around sifting through the evidence in Ashcroft’s new war on obscenity.

It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.

Oh No! They’re Calling Him a Hypocrite!

Here they go. Kerry’s Past to Star in Bush’s Ads

The beauty of John Kerry is 32 years of votes and public pronouncements,” said Mark McKinnon, the chief media adviser. McKinnon suggested a possible tag line: “He’s been wrong for 32 years, he’s wrong now.”

I sure hope they use that one because the response is so obvious.

“32 years ago John Kerry was a highly decorated Naval officer testifying before congress about the unjustified war he fought in halfway across the world. At that very same time, George W. Bush was dodging responsibility and wasting the taxpayers money in Texas and Alabama doing who knows what. He kept doing that for 32 years and he’s doing it now.”

I love the fact that they have resuscitated the concept of hypocrisy just in time to use it against John Kerry. But, there is some danger in it. After all, we have a cowboy president who can’t ride a horse, a wartime president who took many special favors to get out of Vietnam, a businessman president who failed at every single venture he ever went near, a moral leader who sanctions putting the lives of CIA agents in danger for political reasons, a Commander in Chief who took the country into an elective war under false pretenses and a fiscal conservative who has created the biggest deficits in American history and the worst job creation record since Herbert Hoover.

Yes. I think hypocrisy is a fine charge to hit John Kerry with. I’m sure it’s deserved. Politics is not an endeavor for the pure of heart and motive. However, hypocrisy is such a sissy little word when you can respond with muscular words like fraud, fake, phony, corrupt, crooked, unethical, unprincipled, manipulable and criminal.

Bring it on, fellas. This isn’t our first time at the rodeo.

Oh, and memo to John Kerry: I can’t find the $%^!!! link, but I recently read that he was telling anyone who will listen that he won’t “cut and run” in Iraq “like his father did.” I think the entire Iraq issue is wrapped up in some kind of freakish oedipal complex for him and it is probably a good idea to taunt him about it as much as possible. These guys get apoplectic when they are challenged and it leads them to make mistakes. Don’t hold back.

Update: South Knox Bubba has more, saying (as only can) the irony drips like bar-b-cue sauce from the chin of a county ward heeler at a GOP tent revival.” What an image…