Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Campaign 2000 Acid Flashback

3rd Presidential debate:

Ms. LISA KEY: How will your tax proposals affect me as a middle-class, 34-year-old single person with no dependents?

Vice Pres. GORE: If you make less than $60,000 a year and you decide to invest $1,000 in a savings account, you’ll get a tax credit which means, in essence, that the federal government will match your $1,000 with another $1,000. If you make less than $30,000 a year and you put $500 in a savings account, the federal government will match it with $1,500. If you make more than $60,000, up to $100,000, you’ll still get a match but not as generous. You will get a–an access to life-long learning and education, help with tuition if you want to get a new skill or–or training, if you–if you want to purchase health insurance, you will get help with that. I–if you want to participate in some of the dynamic changes that are going on in–in our country, you will get specific help in doing that. If you are part of the–of the bottom 20 percent or so of wage earners, then you will get an expanded earned income tax credit.

Now the tax relief that I propose is directed specifically at middle-income individuals and families. And if you have a–if you have an elderly parent or grandparent who needs long-term care, then you will get help with that, $3,000 tax credit to help your expenses in taking care of a loved one who needs long-term care.

Mr. LEHRER: Governor Bush?

Gov. BUSH: Right. Let me just say the first–this–this business about the entitlement he tried to describe about savings, you know, matching savings here and matching savings there, fully funded is going to cost a whole lot of money, a lot more than we have. You’re going to get tax relief under my plan. You’re not to be targeted in or targeted out. Everybody who pays taxes is going to get tax relief. If you take care of an elderly in your home, you’re going to get the personal exemption increased. I think also what you need to think about is not the immediate, but what about Medicare? You get a plan that will include prescription drugs, a plan that will give you options. Now I–I hope people understand that Medicare today is–is–is important, but it doesn’t keep up with the new medicines. If you’re a Medicare person, on–on Medicare, you don’t get the new–new procedures. You’re stuck in a time warp in many ways. So it will be a modern Medicare system that trusts you to make a variety of options for you.

You’re going to live in a peaceful world. It will be a world of peace because we’re going to have a clearer–clearer sight of foreign policy based upon a strong military and a mission that stands by our friends, a mission that doesn’t try to be all things to all people, a judicious use of the military which will help keep the peace.

You’ll be in a world, hopefully, that’s more educated so it’s less likely you’ll be harmed in your neighborhood. See, an educated child is one much more likely to be hopeful and optimistic. You’ll be in a world in which–fits into my philosophy, you know, the harder work–the harder you work, the more you can keep. It’s the American way. Government shouldn’t be a heavy hand–that’s what the federal government does to you–it should be a helping hand, and tax relief and proposals I just described should be a good helping hand.

Tim Russert: That was President…uh ooopsie!…Governor Bush and Vice President Gore in their 3rd and final Presidential debate.

So, panel, what did you think!

Barbie Banfield: Oh my Gawd! Dubble Yew is so kewl cuz he isn’t all stiff and you know, like such a total liar and stuff!

Brian Williams: If I recall correctly, Tim, didn’t the Vice President wear that tie two months ago with an off white shirt and a navy blue 3 button pin stripe? Is it possible, Tim, that the Vice President of the most powerful country on the planet doesn’t realize that all over America, indeed the entire world, people are commenting on the choice of this tie, on this of all nights and how that affects not only his credibility vis a vis his comfort inside his suit but, yea verily, inside his own skin?

Chris Matthews: Gore’s a stiff! And he lied, he lied, he lied!!! He said if she wanted to participate in the dynamic changes in the social security system she’d have to make less than 20,000 year and that’s just not true Tim. Peggy, why do you think that Bush makes so much sense and Gore can’t tell the truth if it hits him over the head with a signed copy of “Love Story?”

Peggy Noonan: Well, Chris it’s because George Bush is a man, a man with two legs and two arms. A man who goes to bed at night and a man who gets up in the morning. He eats breakfast. He feeds his dog. He likes his own pillow because he is a real man, a man who sleeps. Who loves his sleep and his pillow and Americans feel that and understand that and feel comfortable with that. Al Gore is a souless empty shell, a cipher in earth tones who consists of words, and facts and phrases and numbers that nobody understands because he isn’t real, because he can’t love a pillow or his breakfast and people need that in a leader. They need a man, they need one so badly they feel as if they’ll burst if they don’t have one, a rich one with cowboy boots and a bad temper. That’s what I need…er the American people need, Chris, and George W. Bush looked right into my…er…their eyes tonight and promised to give them everything he has until he is completely spent.

Brian: Peggy, do you think he uses 350 count egyptian cotton pillow cases or is he more of a percale kind of guy? His shirts are always so crisp. Do you think he uses starch vis a vis his collars?

Michael Beschloss: When Al Gore spoke tonight I was eerily reminded of Nixon’s farewell speech in which he cried and said he wasn’t a quitter. It is interesting to see the corrupt and mendacious side of Al Gore show itself in such an obvious way. It is said that when Millard Fillmore debated he had much the same effect on people, they recoiled in horror and averted their eyes. Now Governor Bush sounded as if he were a cross between Abraham Lincoln and Socrates with his sober, unadorned style and his challenging abstract way of explaining his positions as if to require the voters to delve into themselves for the deeper answers. He was very noble in his bearing, almost Christlike, but with an accesible persona that brought to mind the universal acceptance of George Washington as the father of our country.

Doris Kearns Goodwin: I thought George W Bush sounded as if he were a cross between Socrates and Abraham Lincoln with his straight and sober style and the abstract way he has of explaining his positions. He wants the voters to delve into themselves for the deeper answers. He very much reminded me of the father of our country, George Washington. Al Gore looked strangely like Millard Fillmore tonight, and perhaps a bit like Derek Jeter and Pedro Martinez too.

Tim: Well, Doris, if you are saying that the Governor of Texas hit the ball out of the park tonight, I’d have to agree with you. Join me Sunday on Meet the Press when I’ll have Jim Nicholson, Karl Rove, and Tom DeLay on to explain Al Gore’s economic plan. Good night from all of us at NBC News.

Thanks to “nameless” from Atrios’ comments section for the debate excerpt, which is 100% factually correct.

Those Bleeding Heart Republicans

In the ongoing discussion of our fearless leader’s decision in the University of Minnesota case over on Atrios’ and Hesiod’s blogs, I find it disconcerting that many feel the Democrats are making a strategic mistake by defending affirmative action because it upsets certain white people who feel it is unfair. Hesiod says in Atrios’ comments section:

The Republicans are all home ejaculating over this debate. Why? Because middle class, suburban white women are seeing the Democrats argue in favor of a system THEY perceive as being inimical to the interests of their sons and daughters

He is certainly not alone in this assessment and I know that he does not say this out of any racial animosity himself. But, setting aside whether the debate should be fought on principle, I strongly disagree with this strategic analysis. I do not believe that these middle class suburban white women are offended that black students get a leg up in college admissions, nor do I think they perceive preferences as being detrimental to the interests of their children. They are, in fact, the group most likely to be offended by the GOP’s thinly veiled racist appeals when they are made aware of them. It’s why Olympia Snowe came out yesterday and said that Bush’s decision was “disappointing.” The issue cuts to the Democrats’ benefit, not the Republicans.

Bush did this to shore up his base who are very unhappy about Lott’s ouster. That the administration had to handle it so carefully is a testament to how much the issue ties them in knots.

Democrats have to recognize that the “compassionate conservative” agenda is Bush’s Achilles heel. Republicans don’t really believe in compassion as a governing principle. They think compassion enables dependency. Their operating principle is self-sufficiency. But, the GOP cannot win national elections with religious conservatives, CEO’s and white male gun owners alone. They’d like to say to hell with all this caring and sharing bullshit but they can’t because those swinging suburban women expect the government to do things to affirmatively better the lives of citizens who need help and that includes racial minorities. The Republicans don’t expect to win non-white votes, but they have to win a few of those whites who are sympathetic to the cause and it’s not easy with the confederates expecting Bush to honor the unspoken promise that if they stay quiet, he’ll deliver.

They have a problem and, in my opinion, from a strategic as well as a principled standpoint the Democrats should dig at that scab every time they try to cover it over. It is an internal inconsistency that makes them vulnerable.

And substantively, this whole issue is a crock. The country is veritably overwhelmed with unfair practices, from absurd drug laws to rich people buying their way out of trouble to corporations draining pension funds to red-lining to off shore tax dodges and the list goes on and on and on. We Democrats spend our lives decrying the inequality of opportunity that pervades the entire system – a progressive’s raison d’etre is to try to level the playing field. So, how absurd it is that this particular “unfairness” is such a rallying cry for Republicans, seeing as they normally consider such concerns to be examples of weak individuals who aren’t tough enough to “suck it up” “get on with it” “work harder and stop whining.”

So, why then are we supposed to believe that their interest in this somewhat arcane and academic debate about scoring systems and weighted averages and a few thousand kids around the country who have to go to their second choice school is a brave act of principle? Since when is that kind of issue even on the GOP radar screen?

In that context, it becomes very clear that the affirmative action debate has been willfully constructed entirely for the benefit of the Republican Party’s race based politics. It is a useful surrogate issue for those simpleminded bigots who just have to gripe about blacks and Mexicans and for the phony meritocrats who knowingly wink and nod at them while smugly toasting each other for their “color blind” principles at NY cocktail parties.

It is beyond comprehension that in a country with a 300 year history of slavery, apartheid and discrimination against racial minorities (that clearly persists to this day) the single most important equal rights issue presently on the table is the case of a relative handful of white people who maintain that they were unfairly denied access to the college of their choice because racial minorities were granted a small advantage roughly equal to that of a football lineman or an alumni’s idiot offspring. This is the country’s burning civil rights issue that must be taken all the way to the Supreme Court, again and again and again?

Sure it is. When Republicans respond with as much outrage and passion to something like this and like this then maybe I’ll believe that they are acting out of conviction. Until then, I have to assume that the fact that the only time they get worked up about discrimination is when they perceive it to be toward white people means that they are doing what they have been doing since 1968 — pandering to losers who are so primitive that they believe their problems would all be solved if it weren’t for those uppity blacks, lazy Mexicans and ugly women stealing away all their opportunities in life.

If they want to take my Navigator, they’ll have to pry it out of my cold, dead fingers…

Jay Caruso on The Daily Rant says:

Her ads have nothing at all to do with her concern over whether not money used to buy gasoline in this country is somehow winding up in the off shore bank accounts of terrorists. Her issue is obviously her born again environmentalism. All of this talk about funding terrorism is a bunch of crap. Oh, and while the anti-drug ads were stupid as well, nobody spends $250K on a public service announcement simply to make a point about another one, so that stuff doesn’t fly (Marty).

If she wants to come out and say that the millions of SUV’s driving around the United States are killing the environment, then fucking say it! Don’t cloak your agenda in some nonsense about terrorism, and make sure you’re driving a Prius and living in a tent before you lecture others.

Jayzuz. Literalism is epidemic these days.

She is using the administration’s slick, condescending terrorist ads against them to make her point. If they can say that smoking a joint causes terrorism, then why can’t she say that driving a gas guzzling SUV causes terrorism? At least there actually is oil in middle east terrorist countries. Unless terrorists are hiding out in Humboldt County, I seriously doubt that the sensimilla crop is particularly relevant to Homeland Security. (And if they are, the biggest threat is to the cookie section at 7-11.)

Huffington clearly states that she is using the format of the stupid “drugs finance terrorism” ads to “turn the tables” on the Bush administration. She isn’t hiding her environmental agenda, it’s right up front. The entire campaign is a parody. It’s humorous. Funny. And it is a way of pointing out the emperor has no clothes when it comes to lecturing Americans about funding terrorism through drugs when the administration’s cozy relations with the oil industry, Saudi Arabia and the auto manufacturers actually do contribute to the terrorist threat because it is warping our foreign policy. (Is it really debatable that our relationship with Saudi Arabia would be what it is today if they didn’t have oil? Because if it is, then that bit in the Bush Doctrine about “harboring terrorists and funding terrorists makes you a terrorist” is total bullshit on every single level. If it isn’t the oil then why the hell didn’t we invade immediately after Afghanistan?)

She does not say that eliminating SUV’s will miraculously end terrorism OR clean up the environment.

She doesn’t have to live in a tent to make a case for driving a fuel efficient car. That’s ridiculous. (She drives a Prius, BTW) All she’s doing is trying to get Americans to cut down on their consumption of oil — both for the sake of the environment and because our dependence on foreign oil forces us into alliances that don’t make sense in the era of Islamic terrorism. She’s isn’t suggesting that the government should take away anybody’s precious SUV. She’s just trying to raise some consciousness, get Americans to stop driving them if they don’t need to, and pressure the auto companies to push harder for alternatives.

And she used the administration’s silliness to do it. I think it’s damned clever.

Big Tent

Katie the Goblin Queen gives Little Ben a final fisking so sublime that he had to read it over and over and over again to remind himself how offended he was.

Update:

TBOGG tells us that today is Ben’s brithday. He’s just 19 years old. For a birthday present, I suggest that Ben allow himself to re-read the paragraph in Katie’s post about her boyfriend’s fantasy of laying on top of her in a gold fish tank. It’s your birthday, man. Treat yourself.

Vaara’s blogging on the Road to Hong Kong!

They don’t call it The Daddy Party for Nothin’

From the Liquid List

I’ve come to the conclusion that Republicans must need to regularly inflict a certain amount of self-flagellation. What other reason could there be to explain their tendency to make themselves look like idiots, over and over again, on most issues relating to the economy? What else accounts for pushing so many financially ruinous ideas on the public? Instituting debunked supply side schemes, cutting social programs that Americans support, forgetting the lessons of massive deficits, tax cuts for the super-rich that will do nothing for the big spenders…on it goes. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If I were a psychologist, I’d first look for any twisted parental relationships that might be at work here: “Son, take a bath or I’ll burn a cross in your room.” That kind of thing can damage a person, no? Make them feel bad about themselves? Make someone want to hurt themselves a little? “I’m not good enough for Daddy, so I’ll support this tax cut that will send the economy south, and I won’t get re-elected, which is what a bad boy deserves.” The bifurcation of the brazen quest for power and the self-loathing is just so pathetic.

The daddy issues aren’t always subtle, though. George W. Bush has spent the last six months trying to aim a big missile (more Freud there, don’t miss it) at, as he put it, “the man [who] tried to kill my dad.” But the young warmonger has missed the fact that it wasn’t Saddam who ended GHWB’s presidency. It was the economy, stupid! Bush enemy #1, with a bullet.

So here we are, stationed with 1991 Company at Camp Déjà Vu. The war, the economy, and the personnel. There’s trouble in Kennebunkport. Because 43 is all mixed up, see, just like all the other Republicans. He want’s to defend Daddy’s honor by grabbing power and killing Saddam, and at the same time he’s pushing this incredibly self-defeating economic policy — the kind that makes people think Republicans are bad boys.

It’s sad, really. Sometimes Republicans just need to be held.

Poor lil’ w.

To tell you the truth, this is the first time I’ve actually considered what it must have been like to grow up with Read My Lips for a father and Rhymes with Witch for a mother.

Jesus. Buy Gold and potassium iodide. We are in so much trouble…..

The Earth Moved

I need a cigarette and I don’t even smoke.

From the Poor Man Andrew Northrup.

The Republican ticket is a lock. Bush has matured into a masterful and commanding leader, and Dick Cheney is a widely respected policy heavyweight who has become the most active Vice President in American history. Combine this with high approval ratings, an untouchable war chest, a friendly Congress and an upcoming romp to victory in Iraq, and you’ve got an unbeatable combination for four more years … and beyond!

Or do you? I remember the election, and the thing that struck me, and most of the voting public, about Dubya, wasn’t that he was a “masterful leader” so much as that he was an “embarrassing fool”. A cartoonish, empty-headed serial idiot with a resume made up entirely of draft dodging, tequila shots, and gifts from daddy and a political platform composed entirely of lies, impossible promises, and stunningly, shockingly, record-breakingly empty rhetoric. And don’t tell me that this is some liberal propaganda – I watched the debates, I watched every step of the way, I watched you babbling on with a smirk on your face like some 4th grader giving the class his book report on a book he didn’t even read. Every time you spoke it was a breakthrough in the field of stupidity, opening up unexplored vistas of idiocy beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings. You don’t even read the paper, you don’t even have a single clue what’s going on in the world, and you don’t even fucking care. Knowing who is in charge of Pakistan isn’t like knowing the square root of pi – it’s in the paper every day, it’s not like some outrageously esoteric thing that only super big nerds know about. If you are going to be President, it’s something you might want to look in to.

And I know we were all supposed to be impressed with you after September 11th, and, yes, you did a good job of playing President. And everyone kind of forgot about all the dumb stuff for a little while, because we thought maybe we might all be dead tomorrow, so we’d better stick together, and if I say something mean about the President and then someone kills him I’ll feel pretty bad. And in a lot of ways you were very good, looking very grim and determined looking in a situation that was difficult emotionally, but, let’s face it, kind of a no-brainer policy-wise. “Kill the mutherfuckers” was, indeed, the correct response, and it was carried out with some efficacy, but it’s not exactly rocket science.

But you know what? Stupid’s not a passing thing. Stupid’s not some phase in life, like when you were really into MC Hammer or when you abused alcohol and cocaine for twenty years, which you suddenly recover from and no one is supposed to talk about anymore. Stupid’s forever, my friend, and you can’t get away from it. Stupid sticks. Stupid shows.

Do you even know what your Iraq policy is? Do you even really have one? I know what I hope it is, but every time I hear you talk about Iraq it’s something different. Sometimes it’s nuclear weapons, sometimes it’s terrorism, sometimes it’s human rights. Aside from moments of (scripted) lucidity, such as the speech to the UN, it’s all been very obscure. And what about North Korea? “I loathe Kim Jong Il!” What are you, two years old? Nobody likes Kim Jong Il, he’s a fucking maniac, but what’s your point? It is your job, as President, to do a little thinking about things beyond the level of ‘starving people is wrong and I hate it,’ beyond the level of being the national id. It’s your job to actually figure out how to deal with this guy. The whole Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, or Mr. Smith Goes to the OK Corral, or whatever it is schtick is getting pretty stale. It worked when the problem was medieval religious fanatic douche bags in Afghanistan who thought that they could deflect bombs with old tires, but when dealing with the real problems of the world, your faux-regular guy bullshit act is not going to cut it. And you got a free ride for a while now because of extenuating circumstances, but if you think the Democrats are still going to be playing patty-cake with you in 2004 you’re in for a surprise. If the war in Iraq doesn’t go like a picnic on a cloudless day (and it probably won’t, Sunshine), they’ll kill you with it. And it may not be fair at all, but that’s just too bad. And if you think that two years from now, when you have lowered taxes (on the rich), raised spending, the economy is going no where, and you’ve spent four years shitting on the environment, sucking up to the hard right wing, and embarrassing the country on the world stage, if you think that people are going to be satisfied with you gritting your teeth and telling people that you’re a man of conviction who says what he means or some John Wayne Hallmark card horseshit like that, well, you’ve got another thing coming. You are doomed in 2004, and I can’t wait until we dump your clueless ass.

Oh baby. Was it as good for you as it was for me?

The Mouth That Roared

Josh Marshall posts another very interesting tidbit on the Korea train wreck about James Kelly, in which he discusses some of Kelly’s questionable ties to certain Chinese businessmen and how that may be shaping the internal conflict in the administration between the “China Hawks” and what I like to call the “sane people.” Kelly, as Powell’s Asia policy person, has been lobbying from the beginning for a less bellicose approach to the North Korean situation and is viewed with some suspicion in the bully boy crowd. Marshall thinks these suspicions about his China ties may be playing into the debate.

But, somebody also needs to take a close look at the screaming jackass that Bush appointed as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, apparently against Colin Powell’s wishes, John Bolton. It’s hard to keep track of all the neocon nutcases that populate this administration’s foreign policy shop, but this guy ranks up there with the worst. He won the post with a vote of 57-43 — fewer than Ashcroft. It was a disastrous decision.

Here are just a few of the highlights about Mr. Bolton:

Bolton on China/Taiwan: “…diplomatic recognition of Taiwan would be just the kind of demonstration of U.S. leadership that the region needs and that many of its people hope for. The notion that China would actually respond with force is a fantasy.”AEI web site, 8/9/99

Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: “The Senate vote on the CTBT actually marks the beginning of a new realism on the issue of weapons of mass destruction and their global proliferation… the Senate vote is also an unmistakable signal that America rejects the illusionary protections of unenforceable treaties.” The Jerusalem Post, 10/18/99

North Korea: “A sounder U.S. policy would start by making it clear to the North that we are indifferent to whether we ever have “normal” diplomatic relations with it, and that achieving that goal is entirely in their interests, not ours. We should also make clear that diplomatic normalization with the U.S. is only going to come when North Korea becomes a normal country.” Los Angeles Times, 09/22/99

At a 1994 panel discussion sponsored by the World Federalist Association Bolton claimed “there’s no such thing as the United Nations,” and stated ”if the UN secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

Sen. Jesse Helms on John Bolton: “John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon.” Speech at American Enterprise Institute, 01/11/01

Past Scandals: As a young lawyer Bolton in 1978 Bolton helped Sen. Helms’ National Congressional Club form Jefferson Marketing “as a vehicle to supply candidates with such services as advertising and direct mail without having to worry about the federal laws preventing PACs, like the Congressional Club, from contributing more than $5,000 per election to any one candidate’s campaign committee” (Legal Times). He later defended the club against charges from the FEC that led to a $10,000 fine in 1986. As a reward for his service Sen. Helms “helped the career of John Bolton” by supporting him for his Department of Justice and State positions (Legal Times).

At the Justice Department, Bolton acted as the Department’s “no man” refusing to provide congressional committees documents on Supreme Court nominees William Renquist, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy. He also refused to provide information, including his personal notes regarding the Iran-Contra scandal, and aided congressional Republicans who attempted to stop investigations of Contra drug smuggling.

After leaving the State Department under the first Bush Administration, Bolton headed the National Policy Forum which “reportedly pursued money from overseas” for the RNC (Los Angeles Times). The NPF defaulted on a $1.3 billion loan guaranteed by Hong Kong businessman Ambrous Young, whose lawyer claimed his willingness to absorb the debt was “contingent upon Mr. Young getting something in return,” namely “business opportunities.” The Taiwanese government “served as an intermediary for a $25,000 contribution” to the NPF(Washington Post). At his confirmation hearing Bolton acknowledged that he had received $30,000 from the Taiwanese government for writing a series of papers.

At his confirmation hearing Bolton defended his ability to separate his personal beliefs from his professional duties: “Of all the different jobs I’ve had in government, I’ve never had any allegations that I wasn’t following the policies that were set.” Actually, Bolton ignored administration policy while in the Reagan Justice Department when he held an unauthorized press conference lashing out at special prosecutors. His comments drew sharp criticism from the White House when spokesman Marlin Fitzwater called Bolton “intemperate and contentious.”

Since his confirmation he’s been a total disaster.

It is widely assumed, his views on North Korea being what they are, that Bolton is one of those who pressed for it to be included in the “axis of evil,” one of many stupid pieces of advice.

On Feb. 22, 2002 he announced that the United States would no longer respect a long-standing agreement to limit consideration of a nuclear response only to attacks from a nuclear-armed foe. He said that the long-standing agreement to avoid using nuclear weapons reflected “an unrealistic view of the international situation.”

And then, there was this gem. Bolton, clearly off the reservation, said in early May 2002, that the administration may be targeting Cuba in its war on terrorism. His “Beyond the Axis of Evil” speech claimed, without any evidence, that Cuba was developing biological weapons and sharing its expertise with other U.S. enemies. It was a crock.

Throughout this period the administration was sending all kinds of mixed signals to the North Koreans, from the President calling Kim a “pygmy” to embarrassing the Prime Minister of South Korea (and Powell) by publicly dissing the sunshine policy without notice, to releasing $95M last April under the Agreed Framework even while claiming that North Korea was not in compliance. They were all over the place.

Then, once again, with administration’s hallmark arrogance and bad timing, on August 29th, Bolton let fly with what was probably the final straw:

North Korea is the world’s foremost vendor of missile technology and has “one of the most robust offensive bio-weapons programs on earth,” the top U.S. arms negotiator said Friday, echoing President Bush’s warnings about the communist state.

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton called North Korea “an evil regime that is armed to the teeth, including with weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.”

“President Bush’s use of the term ‘axis of evil’ to describe Iran, Iraq and North Korea was more than a rhetorical flourish — it was factually correct,” Bolton said in a speech to a a group of South Korean government officials and scholars.

“There is a hard connection between these regimes — an axis along which flow dangerous weapons and dangerous technology,” he said.

The chief U.S. arms-control negotiator was in Seoul for a three-day visit that included talks with South Korean officials on the communist North’s arms proliferation. He discussed the same topic with Japanese officials in Tokyo earlier this week.

His comments come at a sensitive time, as the two Koreas try to revive stalled reconciliation after months of tension. South Korea wants Washington to open dialogue with Pyongyang about the arms issue.

Bolton stressed that such overtures will depend on whether the North will stop developing and exporting missile parts and technology to “notable rogue state clients such as Syria, Libya and Iran.”

[…]

Bolton also said that there is “little doubt” that North Korea has an active chemical weapons program and has “one of the most robust offensive bio-weapons programs on earth.”

As Bolton spoke, economic officials of the two Koreas were meeting in Seoul to discuss a host of pending issues, including a cross-border railway. The talks were part of an agreement reached during Cabinet-level negotiations in Seoul earlier this month.

The revived inter-Korean dialogue has coincided with North Korea’s moves to reach out to the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday [same day] during a visit to Japan, Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Richard Armitage signaled that Washington was planning to send an envoy to Pyongyang in the near future.

“We have received a variety of messages from North Korea in recent months and it seems to me that the general thrust is that they would welcome a visit by assistant secretary (James) Kelly,” Armitage told a news conference.

His comments followed a brief meeting last month between U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun on the sidelines of a regional security meeting in Brunei.

Their brief informal chat over coffee was the highest-level contact between the U.S. and North Korea since a landmark visit to Pyongyang by Powell’s predecessor Madeleine Albright in October 2000.

Hello???

The North Koreans reacted very badly to this saying “Known as a standard-bearer among the notorious hard-line hawks of the Bush administration Bolton never opens his mouth without making anti-DPRK remarks, bereft of reason. Therefore, his recent outbursts do not deserve even a passing note,” said a DPRK foreign ministry’s spokesman on August 31. “If there is any security issue over which the U.S. should worry, it is entirely attributable to the Bush administration’s hostile policy toward the DPRK,” he added.

[…]

“It is also an unpardonable criminal act to vitiate a positive atmosphere of dialogue between the DPRK and the U.S. and between North and South Korea, which has been created with so much effort, and to strain again the military situation on the Korean peninsula,” it said, and continued: “This compels the DPRK to doubt the U.S. will to dialogue and interpret its call for dialogue as a fig leaf to conceal its moves to stifle the DPRK by force of arms.”

So, when they sent Kelly to Pyongyang in early October, the North Koreans were prepared to get in his face and they did. Bolton had made a fundamental mistake by embarrassing Kim Jong Il when he was in the middle of the Japanese reconciliation and the sunshine policy negotiations. To publicly disrespect him, in front of his adversaries whom at that very time he was trying hard to accomodate without losing face, was probably more than a neurotically proud tyrant of a seriously distressed country could take.

And, if Bolton’s speech was approved by the State Department, while at the same moment Armitage was in Japan talking about how North Korea would welcome a visit from Kelly, then you can only assume that the strategy was to drive Kim Jong Il over the bend. I’m afraid it’s far more likely that, once again, Bolton was off the reservation. Pure speculation on my part, of course, but unless Richard Armitage has become the rogue peacemaker at State, or this plan is so Machiavellian that even the players don’t know the final goals, then there are not a lot of other ways you can explain it.

So when all hell breaks loose, what does the administration do? They send Kelly and Bolton to Beijing to try to pressure the Chinese to put the heat on North Korea. This was so very intelligent, considering Bolton’s restrained public language about Taiwan and China. What a wise choice it was to send him in at a time of crisis to request Chinese cooperation in a ridiculous fuck-up of our own making. Needless to say, China has been somewhat opaque in its response to our foolish dilemma.

To summarize, John Bolton is a complete disaster. The Bushies seem to be intent upon keeping all of the members of the Reagan and Bush I administration who were involved in Iran Contra close and cozy, for reasons we can only guess. But, once one of these guys single-handedly bring the world to the brink of nuclear war with their big mouths, wouldn’t you think they could find them a nice quiet job writing policy papers on US Peruvian trade policy or something? Allowing crazy men to make speeches on behalf of the US Government is really not a good idea.

The Founders were Marxists! Who knew?

Reading a lively discussion on Atrios’ blog about the article linked in the post below, there is a debate about Bobo Brooks saying that “Most Americans do not have Marxian categories in their heads,” and it reminded me that the GOP seems unaware of the great mistrust of wealth inequality in this country going a little further back than old Karl (and I’m not talking about Rove.)

In an 1813 letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents… There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class… The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy.”

Now, Jefferson may have been dead for 40 years when Marx published Das Kapital, but apparently he was a Marxist, being a proponent of “class warfare” and all.

And old Teddy Roosevelt actually WAS a Marxist, because in 1906 he said, while arguing for a graduated inheritance tax and a progressive income tax:

“The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the State, because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.”

Talk about class warfare! My God, didn’t he realize that he was cruelly punishing the most productive and hard working members of society who were just trying to keep their hard earned money so they could spend it on antiques and fine art and thus produce jobs for dead people?

Bobo tells us that Americans are just not receptive to arguments based upon “envy.” (Perhaps, although I certainly don’t see that Americans are lacking in that, any more than any other deadly sin. Bobo needs to take a good look around him at one of those DC cocktail parties if he wants to look into the eyes of the green eyed monster up close and personal.)

Kevin Phillips, with his usual insight, tells us in his book “Wealth and Democracy” and in a timely op-ed in yesterdays LA Times, that Bobo and the rest of the fat cat, investor class Republicans who are trying to press this line, are not only corruptly self-dealing in ways that Harding and his crew could only dream of, but they are badly misreading the political history of this nation. The Republicans have had their asses kicked repeatedly on this issue, but they can’t help themselves.

[…]

Historically, this is the great Republican Achilles’ heel — favoritism to the rich. The 2003 Bush tax cut proposal is the biggest, baldest example since the 1920s, when Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon decided that if Congress wouldn’t let him cut income tax rates enough he’d just start giving money back, to individuals and corporations alike, through Treasury refunds, rebates and remissions. Given this recurrent thread over eight decades of GOP fiscal history, White House and congressional Republicans may be setting up a dangerous issue for the 2004 elections.

[…]

Will the Democrats, who in recent years have baa-baaed around Washington like clueless sheep on an Idaho hillside, somehow turn and swing this issue like a political power saw? They show some movement, but they have displayed too little knowledge of their own history — Thomas Jefferson’s fear of the money power; Franklin D. Roosevelt’s bold use of the inheritance tax; Harry S. Truman’s lambasting of Wall Street — to assume that they can call up a memory of the Republican fiscal heritage, however vulnerable.

Yet, the vulnerability is potentially huge. As Bush fiscal policy suns itself in the mentality of Coolidge-Hoover-era Treasury Secretary Mellon, it disdains the better legacies of other GOP presidents. Dwight D. Eisenhower favored taxes on excess wartime profits; Richard Nixon signed legislation imposing a higher top tax rate on unearned, rather than earned, income; Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform insisted on equal top rates for earned versus stock-market income, eliminating the preference for capital gains. The first President Bush was the succeeding president who cried incessantly to restore capital-gains favoritism to investors. We should also mention Theodore Roosevelt, who called in peacetime for the progressive tax on large inherited fortunes that George W. Bush works to eliminate in wartime; and Abraham Lincoln, whose wartime taxes covered dividend income.

The Lincoln-Roosevelt-Eisenhower-Nixon-Reagan viewpoint still commands a fair minority of the Republican rank and file, if not among its Bush-era leadership. The only major Republican voice speaking for the old party, however, is that of McCain, who said in December, “We probably need to have tax cuts directed at lower-income Americans, such as payroll-tax reductions. … [L]ow-income Americans in totality bear a much higher tax burden than wealthy Americans do; therefore, there is a growing gap between the wealthiest and poorest Americans.” He scoffed at the notion that Bush’s tax policy embodies compassionate conservatism. McCain’s father and grandfather were four-star admirals; he learned a different tradition than that of the tax-shelter sale.

I live in California. What am I, French?

From David Brooks:

This is the most important reason Americans resist wealth redistribution, the reason that subsumes all others. Americans do not see society as a layer cake, with the rich on top, the middle class beneath them and the working class and underclass at the bottom. They see society as a high school cafeteria, with their community at one table and other communities at other tables. They are pretty sure that their community is the nicest, and filled with the best people, and they have a vague pity for all those poor souls who live in New York City or California and have a lot of money but no true neighbors and no free time

Oh yeah. Bobo Brooks knows all about real haaaartland Muricans.

I dun heard he’s a champeen cow tipper who kin toss a chew moren’ 50 feet in one spit.

Right in the middle of The Palms at lunch hour.