Explaining Michael Brown

Neil the Ethical Werewolf

The idea that someone like Michael Brown could possibly get a job as director of FEMA belongs in parody. We're talking about a guy who had spent a decade running horse shows before being fired for supervision failures in 2001, when Bush crony Joe Allbaugh was hired as FEMA director. Brown had never managed a natural disaster, but his experience as Allbaugh's old college roommate got him the deputy director's job. After Allbaugh left to consult for companies seeking contracts in Iraq, Brown took over the agency. When Katrina hit, Brown spent his time denying the facts about what was going on in New Orleans, in a transparent attempt to fool people into thinking the situation was under control. Now Brown's FEMA is expending lots of effort in blocking incoming aid. Even Michelle Malkin wants Brown fired.

The difference between this and the stellar performance of James Lee Witt's FEMA during the Clinton administration is like night and day. When the manager of the Des Moines Water Works called local officials shortly after midnight on July 11, 1993 to say that flooding was going to shut down the city's water supply, FEMA set up 29 water distribution points in town by that evening. While floods rendered the Water Works inoperable for two and a half weeks, the city had all the water it needed. Five hours and three minutes after the Oklahoma city bombing -- an event that occurred with no warning whatsoever -- FEMA's advance team was on the scene to assess the damage, and James Lee Witt himself had arrived within 12 hours.

Why did James Lee Witt and the disaster-relief commandos of the Clinton Administration suddenly give way to Michael Brown and the incompetents of the Bush Administration? It would seem that there would be plenty for an administration to gain in hiring effective disaster-relief people, given the political fallout that accompanies mismanaged disasters.

A look at Kevin Drum's timeline suggests one answer. The Allbaugh/Brown regime saw FEMA chopped apart and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. One of the benefits of hiring clueless but loyal hacks to head government agencies is that they won't complain when you dismember their agencies or privatize essential functions in order to satisfy your anti-government preferences. If you actually hire somebody with genuine competence in doing things that the agency is supposed to do, you might get some angry complaints and defense of turf when mission-critical functions are compromised by your agenda.

There's also a reason that lies deeper in Republican psychology. Republicans don't really want to see government succeed in doing things right. Sure, when they're running the country, they want to get the political advantages of success, if such advantages are to be had. But this desire is in tension with a desire to see government fail, to see it held up to public scorn for its incompetence and ineffectiveness. So they're not going to go all-out to hire the absolute best people, especially if their buddies just got fired from the horse show business and need new jobs.

Anti-Government Governance

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math

Over at Lawyers, Guns, and Money, Robert Farely points out the fundamental contradiction in Republican governance:

The Republicans have managed a nifty trick over the last twenty-five years. They have worked ceaselessly to make government less effective, while at the same time deriving political benefit from inadequate government.

It is a nifty trick, but it's starting to run out of steam. Even in the 2000 election, the GOP had started to tone down it's anti-government rhetoric; essentially, he promised the public the same government as the Clinton Era, only smaller and with a bigger tax cut . Yes, in the debates, he railed against the specter of big government medicine, but not with the vitriol of Reagan in the late 1980s. By 2004, Bush had stopped using the word "bureaucrat" and started talking about all the "hard work" of the government employees  in Iraq.

That said, this is a point Democrats ought to make more forcefully: there's no reason for a party that doesn't trust government to be responsible for it. And it's their job to point out that "don't trust government" now means "don't trust the Republican Party".

The Business Judge

Nathan's completely right on this. I was talking with someone the other day about why Bush, with Rove running the demographics, hadn't nominated a Hispanic, a woman, or a Hispanic woman to the seat. It wasn't like this President wanted to go with a white male. He likes to think he's deeply connected to the Hispanic community, he's proud of his poor quality Spanish (which is, to be fair, better than my non-existent Spanish), his first choice was named Gonzales, and his political advisor wants to build a majority among Hispanics. So why the the Norman Rockwell nominee?

Simple. Business.

Dobson's so loud, Robertson's so entertaining, and Falwell's so grotesque that they and the movement they lead often obscures all other Republican constituencies from view. Why watch the National Association of Manufacturers when Focus on the Family is comparing Democrats to Hitler? But Business remains the GOP's single most important constituency, and they've not been particularly pleased that Terry Schiavo, abortion and all the rest have eclipsed their agenda and left them rather embarrassed by the Party they support. It was time they got something. And a Supreme Court nominee whose spent his adult life quietly conspiring with them over at the defendant's table was just the thing. Roberts is an easy confirmation, an appealing judge, and a huge boon for business. He's the diamond ring the distracted, adulterous husband, gives to his long-suffering wife; a gift impressive enough that leeway and trust are completely restored.

This business/Christian Right thing is actually an important cleavage to think about, not because they're going to split anytime soon, but because the rise of the theocrats has really taken the spotlight off the plutocrats. I'm reading Chris Mooney's new book The Republican War on Science and have been delighted to see him delving into that. We focus mostly on the Christian Right's delegitimization of evolution which, while bad, doesn't have too many public policy consequences, save for a population that's rather less well-versed in Darwinist theory. But the Industry's manipulation of global warming reports and atmospheric data? That's a fair bit likelier to destroy our world.

Radio Wonders

Last night, driving back to LA from a quick jaunt below the Orange Curtain, I decided to do as the Romans do (and as the billboards command) and listen to talk radio. First I went to 1150's Air America where Garofalo and Seder were doing the majority report. I really hate to say this, as I love Garofalo's comedy and acting, but I find her totally unlistenable on The Majority Report. She's shrill, mean to her callers (and here I'm talking the liberal ones, conservative interlopers get called "douches"), and just grates on me. On the bright side, she's well informed and good at staying on point, but I'm just not able to listen for more than ten minutes at a time.

So off I go to 640, "More stimulating talk radio!" It's some white guy named Ron filling in for some white guy named Z-Man. They're bashing the Nation of Islam, which is a bit like me sticking rhetorical knives into the Ku Klux Klan, but whatever. Very good caller choice, the host is a talented talker, and the opinions are fairly unobjectionable (black men calling in to say black men shouldn't commit crimes is the basic structure), so I turn my attention back to the asshole who's been tailgating me since Long Beach.

But then Ron -- the pinch-hitting white guy's name, or so I think -- goes over to gas prices. The interesting thing about conservative radio is that they constantly pretend they're shattering your biases, telling you what you don't want to hear. Ron promises that he'll tell us who's responsible for high gas prices, and it's not who we think!

According to him, we think it's the oil companies, though I don't actually know anyone who thinks that. Whatever. In any case, those straw men are wrong! The culprit for exorbitant rates at the pump over the last year?

Taxes and regulation. The one element of oil exploration, extraction, and delivery that hasn't changed in the past 365 days. So Ron spends a little while calmly, slowly, logically attacking Gray Davis for misusing oil taxes in the past and telling his listeners how angry they should be that they're paying for government services at the pump. Also, government regulation has left the oil companies unable to refine, explore, work, whatever, It's all the government's fault, in any case. Then we went to a KFI-640 NEWS BREAK!!!! where a Glendale city councilwoman was smoking crack, Bush was defending his policies, some crimes were committed, and a government agency had screwed up.

If you ever get some time in the car, I highly recommend you listen to these folks. NPR may be more informative and Air America more ideologically compatible, but turn on conservative talk once in awhile: the Republican worldview is perfectly understandable when you hear what they're beaming into their brains during every car ride. The news is full of addicts, criminals, and steadfast Presidents while the opinions are rational, calm, authoritative explanations of why everything wrong in your world is the government's fault, even if it didn't seem that way on first glance.

But He Tries So Hard!

This, from conservative-against-the-war Andy McCarthy, is really weird:

I support what is called the “war on terror.” I will continue to support it no matter what the Iraqi constitution says. I will also continue to support the President’s stewardship of it because he is determined to fight it, however much I may disagree with some of what is being done.

I come across this fairly often and it never fails to strike me as completely bizarre. It was an omnipresent claim during the election that, as Iraq's gotten worse, has been brought out of retirement to defend the president. But why?

1) Doesn't its mere utterance kind of give up the ghost? I mean, if you thought Bush was doing a good job, wouldn't you say "I continue to support the President's stewardship of the war because he's doing a kickass job banishing terrorists to graveyards, jail cells and torture chambers"? Seems to me that'd make for a much more convincing appeal and, given the hackery of those generally making this claim, that they can't bring themselves to go for the gold in Bush's defense really says a lot.

2) Who cares how much conviction, obsession, or attention Bush lavishes on the War on Terror? Do you know of any conservatives who are all about Lyndon Johnson because, say what you will, but the guy really wanted to defeat poverty? I can't think of another instance in modern politics where sane partisans earnestly insist that the real question isn't the results they've gotten but the effort they've put in. Andy supports Bush because, outcomes aside, the guy's really determined. Imagine if you fucked up on a major initiative than told your boss that, if he could stop thinking about the disastrous drop in your stock prices, he'd realize how committed you were and understand that that's what really matters.

And to think, the GOP is the Party of Business.

More Frist Fumbles

Poor Bill Frist's inept constituency-chasin' only gets worse. After sticking a dagger in his medical dignity by offering a (totally wrong) telediagnosis of Terry Schiavo, he tried to walk the damage back by supporting stem cell research. Criticism from his friends on the Christian Right, however, shivered the poor doctor's spine, and in a vain attempt to be asked back to Dobson's pulpit, he's loudly, futilely proclaiming his support for Intelligent Design in schools.

The first response is that the supposedly moderate leader of the Senate is taking a position so nutty that even Rick Santorum won't endorse it. "Bill Frist: Crazier Than Santorum!" just isn't the sort of reputation one wants to have. The second, though, is pity. Bill Frist wants to be President. He's not going to be. He's no titan of the Senate whose entrance will clear the field, no national figure whose very name gets independents nodding in coffee shops, no regional hero who'll have a clear set of primaries to dominate. His hope, then, was to finally be the leader able to actualize the Christian Right's agenda. If their years of frustration could be ended by Bill Frist, they'd have to support him!

So he went with them on judges and Schiavo, abortion and ID. But instead of looking like their hero, he just seemed their slave. He made an ass of himself on Schiavo, lost, at least in their eyes, on judges, and was never quite out front on abortion. And all this came at the expense of his professional reputation and public dignity (kowtowing to neanderthals never helps the self-esteem). So he tried to use stem cells to reassert independence. Turns out, Dobson doesn't like independence. So now he's back, trying to heal the breach and make amends. And once again, he just looks weak.

Poor Bill Frist. Nobody, not even Christians, really want the weak and easily steamrolled sitting in the Oval Office. And so he'll never get there. The Bible says the meek shall inherit the earth, but it doesn't command that the devout vote them the deed. Bill Frist has managed to keep himself from being the Christian Right's enemy, but his obvious calculation and transparent political ineptitude will keep him from ever getting their respect. And since he's got no one else to turn to, Frist's bid is, basically, DOA.

More Newt

So long as I'm talking Gingrich (see next post), I love this quote from his former press secretary Lee Howell:

There is the Newt Gingrich who is intellectual, appealing, and fun to be with. And there is the Newt Gingrich who's a bloodthirsty partisan who'd just as soon cut your guts out as look at you. And who, very candidly, is mean, mean as hell.

Newt nostalgia mostly turns on memories of the first guy, the eccentric ideologue who loved dinosaurs, wrote alternative history novels, thought we should blast handicapped folks into space, lived for technology, and was a general cross between a batty poli-sci professor and a 10-year-old. That's the Newt who's been on display since 1998 (save for a mostly-forgotten moment when he basically accused Colin Powell of treason). The other guy, the guy who said the Republican party's problem was a lack of nastiness, who said "Democrats were the enemy of normal people everywhere", who said that following the Democratic foreign policy would mean "tyranny everywhere, and we in America could experience the joys of Soviet-style brutality and murdering of women and children", we've kinda forgotten about him.

That Newt is in there. And the moment he's elected to something again, that Newt will return. Studying up on the old him has given me a lot of respect for the public relations turnaround he's engineered, a store of esteem I can add to my respect for his brilliance and tactical savvy. But all that aside, the guy is fairly horrible when he gets into power and we should try not to forget that.

The Party of Gingrich

The fun thing about writing articles is you get to bury into a topic you never thought much about before. I'm penning a piece on Gingrich, and so I'm deep into everything the guy's written, said, or had written or said about him. Interesting stuff. And some quotes are just too good to pass on, so here's one for you. This comes from Newt's apologetic, post-fall memoir, Lessons Learned the Hard Way:

For us Republicans in Congress, one of the most impressive aspects of this assault was the way Democratic activists in the House and Senate could be counted on to march in lockstep with it. The Democratic Party, of course, is much more of a political machine than the Republican Party. Those members of the House who had switched from the Democratic Caucus to the Republican Congress -- there have been something like a dozen of them -- kept remarking how surprising they found the lack of groupthink and intimidation [to be].

This, of course, was right after hundreds of Democrats had bailed on the President's health care plan, right after Clinton had had to reach across the aisle to pass NAFTA, right after he'd had to twist arms and break legs to pass his budget, right after fellow Democrats like Kerrey and Moynihan had called for investigation into Whitewater, right after, well, the most stunning show of party incompetence in a generation, all of which aided and abetted 1994's Republican Revolution.

But whatever Newt's historical omissions, the fact that Republicans saw themselves that way is something worth marveling at. The modern, DeLay run Republican party is less conference and more cult. Last week, Rep. Joel Hefley responded to questions about his possible retirement by saying:

"I think I'll wake up some morning and say, 'Enough is enough. I'm tired of Tom DeLay telling me when to go to bed at night.' I'm not there now."

The Party of Newt is not the Party of Tom. Maybe it never was. Newt's been known to look down on the gang of power hungry dolts who currently crack the whips even while he respects their ability to force members in line. But it's interesting to think that the Republican party of a decade ago conceived of itself in an entirely different fashion than its modern incarnation. Back then it was a response to a calcified, tired, brain-dead majority party that ran less on ideas than machine politics. This is no new conclusion, but the degree to which the Republican party has become what it despised is really quite astounding.

The Gildered Age

PZ Meyers hears a debate between techoguru George Gilder and Richard Dawkins and says:

Ashbrook recapped the last half hour by calling Gilder a "prominent American thinker". I am so embarrassed.

But Gilder is a thinker in the way kids with ADD are renaissance men, it's the number of topics that impresses, not the quality of thought that goes into them. Before he became an ID advocate, before he began rhapsodizing over high-bandwidth utopias, before he wrote on three or four other subjects he had no business pontificating over, he was a gender theorist attempting to rationalize traditional gender roles as essential to our natures.

His book began with a long and incoherent parable about a courageous knight saving a helpless princess from a dragon, then living happily ever after. Pages later, he contrasted this with a self-sufficient princess who does the job herself, shakes off the prince's attempts to help, and becomes a lonely shrew. A couple chapters later, he attempted to attack Title IX (or maybe just female encroachment on male sports -- I forget) by arguing that men, though physically able to do gymnastics and ballet, simply looked wrong when they tried. He brandished no poll numbers or aesthetic theories to buttress this; it was just that George Gilder, when eating chips and watching ice skating, preferred to stare at chicks than dudes, and thus an essential component of male and female natures was revealed, and the newly-enlightened Gilder could confidently pronounce gender equity in sports unnatural. The guy's got pundits' fallacy encoded into his DNA, and yet we keep publishing his books and allowing him on our media.

So Ashbrook is right. George Gilder is a prominent American thinker, but only because Americans don't think very hard.

James Dobson is Bad For My Soul

What does it say that every time Dobson opens his mouth, I begin to blaspheme? Whenever he appears on my television or computer screen, I take the Lord's name in vain. This can't be good.

Or can it? If James Dobson knew he was driving, say, half the country to sin, you think he'd stop? Anyway, this isn't just a random Dobson rants. John Cole noticed he's put out the warning signs of a child becoming one of the gays. and they're fairly funny. So if you're son is "different" from other boys, cries constantly, pretends he's female, only hangs out with girls, gets teased by other boys (particularly called "queer" -- 10-year olds have very perceptive "gaydars"), walks/talks/dresses like a homo, and insists he's a girl, he might be gay.

Well, yeah, that does seem possible. But by the time I got to the end of his list, I was totally distracted by the uber-hot, multiracial women exhorting me to join "Focus on Your Child". So now I was lusting in my heart.

That settles it. James Dobson is bad for my eternal soul.

Via Brad.

Say "No" to Newt Nostalgia

Posted by Nick Beaudrot

To respond to some comments in the Huckabee thread, let me say that in no way am I endorsing the nascent Huckabee '08 campaign. But given the non-McCain, non-Giuliani alternatives (since, let's face it, neither of those guys will get through the primary), I'd rather roll the dice with Huckabee than with Brownback, Frist, Romney, or any other oft-mentioned potential Republican candidates.

A commenter writes on another potential Grown-Up Republican, "I'm alright with occasionally reminiscing about soft spots for Newt Gingrich, but Huckabee is much worse." At the risk of piling on, the burgeoning "Newt wasn't that bad" meme is highly dangerous, because he really was that bad. The are three good things about Newt: he's a significantly more honest conservative than the current bunch; he's learned enough political lessons from the Clinton years that he wouldn't try to dismantle the federal government completely; and he does a lot of reviews at Amazon.com [full disclosure: Amazon.com is my employer]. But it ends there; Newt advocates a completely deregulated market for everything, very few controls on federal spending, would still like to shutter large portions of the government if he could. Whether he would be willing and able to wage war with the likes of Tom DeLay is unclear. Let's not take that chance, please.

Modern Newt

Since bloggers (Mark, Kevin, Matt) are talking about Newt Gingrich today, here are some highlights from GQ's spread on the guy. Newt, while bright and ideologically consistent, is also batshit crazy, a real radical. Like lots of young liberals weaned on the current Bush administration's deceptiveness, I have a certain affection for Gingrich's essential honesty in advocating rightwing nuttery as a governing platform. But that doesn't make him a better president than the others, just more respectable (and defeatable). Some of these quotes will explain why. The first shows why Newt is the candidate of crazy conservative comic-book artists. He echoes their powerlessness and amplifies it, giving it volume and a rationale. He takes their paranoia and tells them it's principle. Newt, you have to realize, perfected the "whine of the oppressed white-man" long before it was on Thomas Frank's radar. It's how he won Congress in 1994:

Didn't the 2004 election demonstrate that the secular lefties are on the ropes?

"No, they're not on the ropes," Newt says. "They're out of power, but they're not out of control. They control the unversities. They have control of the Senate, the staffs of bureaucracies. They have control of the language we use.

Uh, isn't the majority party in the Senate...Republican?

"You can't pass anything genuinely radical. You can't get it through the Senate."

So there's your first tip on Newt. He's a radical. A committed one. Even now, at the pinnacle of right-wing ascendance, he thinks, or at least argues, that the left is in control. We control the language(???), the colleges, the staff. Reality would ask, Who cares? So some English professors vote Kerry? So some nameless bureaucrats who get ignored by the high-value donors Bush appoints to be their boss want gay marriage? That trumps control of the courts, the congress, and the White House? And if we control the language, why do we let Gingrich talk like that? Whichever inefficient government bureaucrats we appointed to the position should be summarily fired! If only we hadn't given them that union...

Newt on the Clintons:

"Total admiration," Newt says of Hillary. "You have to respect her. This is a first-class professional. And if Bill is first spouse, it'll be one of the great moments. A new TV show! The East Wing!

The Clintons are never far from Newt's mind. They're like the Kennedys were to Nixon: glamorous, charismatic, brazen power-grabbing elitist amoral lying dream killers. Wrong on health care, wrong on the budget, wrong on them military...and so damned clever! Newt's class of 94 had seen it time and again: every time Speaker Gingrich galloped into the Oval Office with his musket loaded for Slick Willie, he shuffled out holding his gonads. "It got to the point where Republican freshmen were afraid to send him in there alone," remembers Newt's archivist and friend, Mel Stelley. "By the time Newt would get back to his office, Clinton's press secretary had already announced the opposite of what they'd agreed on. I'd say, 'Newt, how'd you get suckered in? ' And he'd say, 'Clinton would come up from behind his desk, put his arm around me, and say "Newt, you're absolutely right." Just charm the pants right off of you.'"

Newt's military advisor on torture:

I slide Bill the front section of today's Times and ask him what he thinks of the lead story, about USA torture policies in Iraq.

The man who briefs Newt Gingrich on national-security matters shrugs and says with a grin, "Hey, if it works, it works."

The guy may be funnier, smart, wonkier than the modern GOP, but that doesn't make him better. Newt's Republican Revolution created the Bush Congress. If not for Gingrich's single-minded pursuit of Clinton's sexual indiscretions, saying they were:

the most systematic, deliberate obstruction of justice, cover-up, and effort to avoid the truth we have ever seen in American history...never again, as long as I am speaker, [will I] make a speech without commenting on this topic.

He was a more honest GOP. Just as vile, radical, heartless, and ruthless as the modern group, but not as cunning or deceptive. Granted, there's value in honesty, but what Newt's lack of artifice reveals isn't moral, it's what created much of what's poisonous in today's political world. The GOP relies on deception because Newt proved Americans won't stand for their agenda. The GOP can get away with deception because Newt, he of multiple divorces, relentlessly attacked Clinton's character, prosecuted Democrats, and elected a radical Congress through sheer force of invective. Don't thank the guy. Bury him. And all those he's created.

And Liberality For All

Matt has the best comment I've seen on the hilarious-yet-deranged conservacomic series that us liberals have spent the last two days chortling over:

I think this sort of thing actually tells us something important about contemporary politics. It's rather odd to see persecution fantasies coming from the right at a moment when Republicans control the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Executive Branch, the judiciary, most statehouses, and most state legislatures. And yet a right-wing persecution complex is evident to even a casual consumer of right-wing media. To hear the conservative blogs, magazines, and radio shows tell it, despite total conservative domination of the political system a coalition of liberal reporters, academics, and Hollywood stars manage to be the real governing force in America.

Matt goes on to write that, crazy as this all seems, it's not that crazy. Very little on the Republican agenda has been passed, and even less of the conservative wish list items have pulled through. A fair amount of outrageous bills have moved from Norquistian fantasy to American law, but they're mostly business items, the sort of stuff that ends up screwing over the same rank-and-file this comic series is aimed at. Government still grows, gays get more rights, stem cell research will happen, etc. They should be angry, he writes, at the conservative media, which has become a propaganda outlet for a party that's betrayed conservatism.

But I think that Matt mistakes what's going on here, at least a little bit. This isn't really a Christian comic book, and while many who buy it (assuming any buy it) will surely hate the homos, a future where the UN controls America is not really what's scaring the culture warriors. This is a propaganda sheet aimed at the guys stockpiling ammo out in Montana, theorizing about one-world-orders and The Bilderberg Group. And for them, conservatism's ascendance will never be enough, even if it was shrinking government (as, incidentally, Clinton did) and outlawing deviance. Because no matter how deep the strain of antigovernment conservatism runs, the Republican party is, nevertheless, an essentially pro-government institution. And they can never escape it.

No organization whose sole motivation in life is to win elections and govern the country can ever be the true ally of antigovernment crusaders. In the end, the Republican party will always need something to govern. Bush's perfect-world government would still be a government. More to the point, because the Republican party wants to get elected to governing positions, they have to protect popular programs, spend on public priorities, and continue expanding the reach of the state to deal with emerging problems. To hold their coalition together, they keep blaming all those actions on the Democrats, but that doesn't change anything.

It's telling that this book features G. Gordon Liddy and Sean Hannity as heroes. There's no Tom Coburn, no Newt Gingrich, no George W. Bush, no Bill Owens, no Jesse Helms, no one, in fact, who's in any way connected to the governing apparatus of the Republican party. Instead, it's a couple of populist radio hosts who spend their days reflecting the antigovernment biases and populist rage of disaffected conservatives everywhere. Hannity and Liddy can play the antigovernment card because they don't govern. The Republican party can't. And when the Republican party swings progressive, Hannity and Liddy slam it and scream at it and evince the very same despair and anger their listeners do (don't mistake Fox News Hannity for radio Hannity, they're wholly different beasts). They, like their listeners, get mad at their party, but Republican shortcomings are piddlingly insignificant compared with the one-world, PC empire they tell listeners Democrats want to create.

So Matt's right: the audience for this book is remarkably unhappy considering the party they support has a hammerlock on the country's levers of power. And he's also right that their unhappiness is rational, that the country continues to move away from them. But it's not their media that has failed them. Their media acts just as disappointed as they are. It's their project.

During the Iraq War, the anti-war crowd liked to say that "fighting for peace was like fucking for virginity." Well, governing to kill government is no better a bet. And so the Republican party will never work for them, even if we invented three more branches of government for it to control. The government can't kill the government. And having it occupied by a bunch of nominal allies makes it all the more confusing. So an alternative universe where Gore and Soros run the world is a safe place for this mindset: they can hate their enemies, lionize their allies, and not be bitterly disappointed by reality. This isn't, we should be clear, a graphic novel. It's a comic book for grown-ups, with all the fantasy and escapism the term conveys.

Mushy Moderates and Timid Traditionalists

Interesting article in the Washington Post:

Under President Bill Clinton, multiple clashes with Congress, the judiciary and independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr chipped away at attorney-client and executive privileges on sensitive documents and conversations. But since coming to power, Bush has doggedly reclaimed turf that eroded under Clinton, asserting the power of his office to shield everything from energy policy deliberations to the papers of past presidents.
...
In a showdown with the Senate opposition over something like the Roberts papers, Klain recalled, a politically and legally weakened Clinton White House often would find a compromise to end the dispute.

"I have no doubt that if that had been us, we would have turned over the papers," Klain said. "I'm not saying that's a good thing; I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But whenever we walked up to the brink, we blinked. And these guys don't, and they're prepared to pay the price for it."

What's interesting, though, isn't Bush's obsessive attempts to retain executive privilege, it's the Senate's willingness to allow them. As the myth goes, the place is dotted by traditionalists fiercely committed to the institution's independence and totally unwilling to be pushed around by snot-nosed executives who'll be out of office in a blink of the historical eye. And yet these same guys -- Warner, Roberts, and so forth -- have shown no qualms about ceding power if it could lead to partisan advantage, or even partisan unity. Tension with the White House simply wasn't worth the cost of a strong Senate.

In the American Prospect, Matt and Mark wrote a piece puncturing the myth of Republican moderates. Moderation without the courage to buck the party and vote moderately is no virtue. But so too is it time to give up on Senate traditionalists. Save for Robert Byrd, there's no longer a contingent up there committed to protecting the institution, to keeping the president in check, to keeping the Senate independent. The WaPo's right: Clinton would have folded. But he would've folded because Republican Senators would've fiercely decried his secrecy, abuses of power, and disrespect for the office. In the end, it's not that Bush is doing anything different, it's just that the actors holding Clinton in check have quietly crept from the stage. They didn't want to protect the theatre, they just hated the play.

The Peculiar Institution

The Claremont Review of Books, conservative though it is, is an interesting journal, particularly if you want a window into what Republican intellectuals are thinking and rationalizing. But this is a bit odd. Here's the last paragraph of Victor Davis Hanson's (sadly lame) essay on politicized universities:

The signs of erosion on our campuses are undeniable, whether we examine declining test scores, spiraling costs, or college graduates' ignorance of basic facts and ideas. In response, or academic leadership is not talking about a more comprehensive curriculum, higher standards of academic accomplishment, or the critical need freely to debate important issues. Instead, it remains obsessed with the racial, ideological, and sexual spoils system called "diversity". Even as the airline industry was deregulated in the 1970s, and Wall Street now has come under long-overdue scrutiny, it is time for Americans, if we are to ensure our privileged future, to reexamine our era's politicized university.

Standard, right? Now it gets weird. The back cover of the journal generally sports an excerpt of some feature article. This issue, Hanson gets the honor. But there's a slight change. Italics are mine:

The signs of erosion on our campuses are undeniable, whether we examine declining test scores, spiraling costs, or college graduates' ignorance of basic facts and ideas. In response, or academic leadership is not talking about a more comprehensive curriculum, higher standards of academic accomplishment, or the critical need freely to debate important issues. Instead, it remains obsessed with the racial, ideological, and sexual spoils system called "diversity". Even as the airline industry was deregulated in the 1970s, and Wall Street now has come under long-overdue scrutiny, it is time for Americans, if we are to ensure our privileged future, to reexamine our era's peculiar institution, the politicized university.

Notice the addition? The "peculiar institution", by the way, is another term for "slavery".

So does the White House, which orders two dozen of each issue of The Claremont Review of Books, believe that today's universities are a modern equivalent to the enslavement of black people? Does Victor Davis Hanson? Why was the final paragraph of his article changed to include the comparison?

Inquiring minds want to know.

That Principled GOP

I just love this:

But the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, told [Rep. Hayes] they needed his vote anyway. If he switched from "nay" to "aye," Mr. Hayes recounted, Mr. Hastert promised to push for whatever steps he felt were necessary to restrict imports of Chinese clothing, which has been flooding into the United States in recent months.

Sometimes, the only way to get free trade is to restrict free trade. The world is funny like that.

"This became much bigger than Cafta, because it became a political issue," said Rob Portman, the United States trade representative. "It was important to our position as the global leader on trade, so we had to fight back, and to fight back meant being very aggressive, explaining why it was good."

Because it'll get the GOP to take a more protectionist stance on China. Now I see why it passed...

"What was the cost to the U.S. taxpayer for the president, with all of his power and all of his influence at his disposal, what was the cost to U.S. taxpayers of his very slim margin?"

The full answer will not be known for some time. Opponents of the trade pact said Republicans lured many lawmakers by earmarking billions of dollars for pet projects in a $286 billion highway spending bill.

The GOP should be very proud.

Leave No Special Interest Behind

Looks like Bill Frist, legislative leader extraordinaire, has decided to do away with the namby-pambly mollycoddling of the past few years, and start demanding the Senate address this nation's real problems:

Until lawmakers vote on a top-priority gun rights bill, nothing else happens in the Senate. And that includes Congress' prized monthlong vacation.

That's the way Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has toughened up his style in the final days before the August break was to begin, learning from last year to leave no room for gun control advocates to derail legislation limiting lawsuits against the gun industry.

Some folks, when running for president, vie for glory by competing to pass as much major legislation as possible. Others attempt to champion a cause important to voters but ignored in Congress. Bill Frist? He's decided to suck the toes of every interest group who could possibly affect a primary. So the Christian Right gets a long back massage and a judicial standoff. The pro-lifers get a foot rub and Terry Schiavo. The gun nuts get a happy ending and the toughest legislative timetable of the year.

But rushing straight to a happy ending means bypassing a slower beginning, and that's exactly what Frist did. To get the NRA's dream package on the Senate floor, Frist had to clear off other, less pressing, business. Business like a defense spending bill worth $491 billion. Megadittoes, Bill! As we've seen in Iraq, where every American troop gets issued their own armor-plated Humvee and a personalized kevlar jacket, we don't need any more defense spending, what we really need is more self-defense spending.

After all, Americans need rifles of all sorts to protect them from potential bombers and gun makers need protection of all sorts to protect them from potential lawsuits. It's a win-win situation. And if Bill Frist needs to short-circuit the Senate's vacation to address that, if he needs to axe defense spending, if he needs to avoid the Great and Troubling Crisis that is Social Security, if he needs to ignore the health care situation, if he needs to pass a subpar energy bill due to time constraints, if he needs to put aside every other damn bit of business contained in this Republic, he will. Because Bill Frist knows where his priorities lie, in a big comfy bed spooning every special interest able to potentially boost his presidential prospects. And the better he is, the more likely they are to leave an envelope stuffed with votes on the nightstand.

Bad Habit

It's one thing to have Dan Savage and the liberal intelligentsia mocking you mercilessly, it's wholly another, however, to have nuns writing letters to the editor rhetorically rapping your knuckles for setting a bad example for your children:

As a teacher for the Diocese of Pittsburgh for 14 years, one important lesson I learned was that no matter what I said to the child, whatever the parents said superseded my message. What parents say and how they live sends a message stronger than any teacher's voice no matter what the issue.

Sen. Rick Santorum and his wife have taught their children a powerful lesson on civic responsibility by refusing to pay any tuition money to the Penn Hills School District for their children who attended the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School ("Penn Hills Loses Bid to Charge Santorum," July 12). Released from that payment on a technicality shows that even an upstanding, moral gentleman like Sen. Santorum teaches his children the following lessons:

1) Take advantage of the system whenever you can.

2) The little guy pays while the rich and powerful guy gets away with it.

3) As a Catholic, you have no obligation to pay your share to the common good in spite of Catholic social doctrine.

Finally, I am shocked that our religious leaders who see Sen. Santorum as some sort of faith-and-morals hero have not spoken up on this issue at all.

SISTER LIGUORI ROSSNER
Sisters for Christian Community
Bloomfield

In some ways, Sister Rossner gets Santorum much more dead-to-rights than we do. What's vicious and base about the Republican party isn't their opposition to choice or homosexuals or cultural freedoms -- those are legitimate, genuine moral opinions that, though wrong, are fairly held by most of their advocates. What's really gross about contemporary Republicans is exactly what Rossner raps Santorum for: their belief that the rich, in some fundamental way, deserve to take more from society and pay less for the privilege, and that the poor can and should be left holding the bag. It wouldn't be so galling if the very same folks clutching bibles and protesting that piety demands marital discrimination weren't the same ones chucked the Holy Book out the window of the SUV while screeching into Wal-Mart to benefit from global labor exploitation.

A Match Made in Heaven

Tom Tancredo, the Republican demagogue who's promising to run for president until the Republican frontrunners swear they'll issue executive orders to shoot illegal immigrants on site, seems to be expanding his platform. Till now, it was just anti-Mexican. Yesterday, though, Tom branched out into national security:

Talk show host Pat Campbell asked the Littleton Republican how the country should respond if terrorists struck several U.S. cities with nuclear weapons.

"Well, what if you said something like -- if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

Excellent. I'm sure the Muslim world is ecstatic to know that a band of nuts with Russian fissile material could provoke us to detonate Mecca. But happy as they may be, I know a man who'll be even happier, and should really think about signing on as Tancredo's running mate. Congressman Johnson? Step right up:

Speaking in front of an audience of veterans at Suncreek United Methodist Church in Allen, Texas, on February 19, Republican Congressman Sam Johnson let his listeners in on a conversation he’d supposedly had with Top Gun George W. Bush himself. “Syria is the problem,” Johnson said he told the president. “Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on ‘em, and I’ll make one pass. We won’t have to worry about Syria anymore.”

The Duke Nukem ticket? The doctrine of atomic diplomacy? These guys are an ad man's dream.

Wrong Audience

RNC Chair Ken Mehlman apparently went before the NAACP yesterday to apologize for Nixon's Southern Strategy. Republicans, he said, were wrong to use race as a wedge.

Phony.

When Mehlman goes before Southern whites and says it was wrong to use race as a wedge issue, then I'll buy his sincerity. The test here isn't whether he can pander to those he offended, but whether he can confront those who flocked to the offense. Apologizing for embezzlement while living off the cash is not the most powerful of moral statements.

Doing Bad in Conflicting Ways

Matt is probably correct, I should be a bit more cautious about gleefully predicting a split between Big Business and the Christian Right on Bush's pick for the Court. But Matt too should be careful: just because both groups want bad things, doesn't mean they want bad things in the same way. And while Bush can most likely find someone inconsistent enough to promise bad things in multiple ways, there are times when ill intentions use conflicting means.

The Christian Right's strategy has long been State's Rights warfare: they know the majority of the country is oriented against their agenda, so they try to enact it in ways that sidestep federal judgment. They change a few state curriculums, ban gay marriage on state ballots, ban civil unions on other state ballots, implement piecemeal abortion restrictions where they can, etc, etc. They want the Supreme Court to overturn the precedents that make doing this so tricky (In Utah, Delaware, and Minnesota, for instance, partial-birth abortion bans are languishing in courts). That means less federalism.

Business, on the other hand, wants more federalism. States rights are dangerous to them. The best example here is California. Because of our environmentalism, any auto maker hoping to serve the largest state in the union has to produce a different sort of car in order to do it. Thanks to the size of our market and thus the amount of production our car demands, that often creates de facto national auto regulation, even without a federal mandate. Same deal with the single-payer initiatives gathering steam in state legislatures -- if they succeed, and states rights are upheld by the Court, the unholy duo of pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies are fairly screwed. Considering the composition of Congress, the danger for business isn't federal regulation, it's state regulation, particularly in big states. So they want to see that power kicked back to Tom DeLay.

So Matt's most likely correct that John Engler's plea for judicial stability is a lie. Engler, as he points out, is a business lobbyist paid to make bad sound good. But what's underlying the bad is a strategy that uses Tom DeLay to dismantle regulation at the federal level and the Supreme Court to strike down attempted reregulation among the states. Dobsen wants DeLay legislating for Christ and a Supreme Court that allows his state-specific initiatives. In most judicial philosophies, these two things would conflict. Can't be state's rights sometimes and not others. But that's actually not true, Matt may be right that Bush will find a hack able to do both. Nevertheless, Democrats should recognize that there's a tension underlying these brands of conservatism and that anyone Bush picks who's able to bridge them can -- and should -- be painted as judicially incoherent.

Unlikely Reformers

I generally try to shy away from large quotes, but this piece by Harold Meyerson on Republican efforts to pervert the McCain-Feingold Act to choke off sources of Democratic funding is too important not to publicize. More below the fold:

Ah, so you continued on. Excellent. Here's Harold Meyerson:

Accustomed though they were to Republican abuses of legislative practice, Democrats were nonetheless taken completely by surprise at the April 27 meeting of the Senate Rules Committee. With senators still settling into their seats, the “markup” session to revise the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform law had barely begun when Alaska Republican Ted Stevens, noting that he had to leave early, moved to report the bill to the Senate floor -- before the committee actually took up its language and considered amendments.
...
It wasn’t just the cart-before-the-horse aspect of the vote that was surreal. Consider, as well, the lineup of Republicans who voted at the hearing to “reform” campaign practices. The new crop included such longtime opponents of campaign-finance reform as Lott and, even more improbably, Republican Whip Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s foremost opponent of McCain-Feingold (officially the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act), who had challenged the measure’s constitutionality in court.

There’s a reason, it turns out, they’d suddenly gotten reform religion: This bill would reform out of existence the “527” groups that had run so many ads and energized so many voters in last year’s presidential campaign, giving Democrats something close to parity in spending for voter mobilization. As the session progressed, Lott and his fellow Republicans passed a series of amendments from Utah’s Robert Bennett that gave a whole new meaning to campaign-finance reform -- all intended to increase the resources that flow from businesses and big-money donors to Republicans. They raised the amount an individual donor can give to a political action committee (PAC). They increased the amount that PACs can give to national party committees. They eliminated restrictions on trade associations’ abilities to solicit contributions from corporations, and on corporations’ abilities to solicit contributions from employees. They raised from $101,000 to roughly $3 million the amount an individual can give to candidates and party committees in one campaign cycle. They removed all limits on the amount a leadership PAC (a PAC controlled by a legislative leader such as Bill Frist or Tom DeLay) can give to a national party committee. They indexed the PAC contribution limits to the cost of living. Arguably, the entire Republican worldview is encapsulated in the contrast between their opposition to indexing the minimum wage and their support for indexing PAC contributions.

So, to restate, Republicans revised the McCain-Feingold bill to kill 527's and accept more hard cash, and tried to push it out of committee before Democrats could even look at it. The most under-connected story in contemporary electoral politics is the Republican's wide-ranging and multi-front effort to shut down Democratic funding sources. A partial list would go something like:

1) Tort reform to take out trial attorneys;
2) Initiatives to force unions to receive written permission from every member before using their dues for political advocacy;
3) 50+1% law-making to freeze Democrats out of the legislative process and reduce their usefulness to industry;
4) The "K" Street project to track lobbyist donations and offer increased legislative concessions and leadership access to those who stop donating to Democrats;
5) Attempts to reform McCain-Feingold that ease restrictions on Republican funding sources and brutally crack down on Democratic methods.

This is serious stuff, and while each individual attempt is covered and subjected to appropriate outrage, I've seen nothing identifying the multiple methods as fronts in a single war. Republicans are legislating in the hopes of financially handicapping Democrats ten years hence. At the very least, we should be noticing.

McCain's True Colors

Looks like McCain's signaling his intentions:

Of course, Mr. McCain said, President Bush's nominee will be a conservative. "He campaigned for re-election and made no bones about the fact that it would be a conservative nominee," Mr. McCain said. "Elections have consequences."

Indeed they do. More to the point, upcoming elections have consequences. And let's not forget how McCain's principles worked in 2000 (from the May 30th New Yorker):

McCain beat George W. Bush in New Hampshire, in a nineteen-point upset, but the storybook campaign ended when the Bush machine retaliated, in the infamous South Carolina primary. McCain had hoped that South Carolina's large veteran population would help him win there; but the Christian Coalition, deeply entrenched in the state, became the decisive constituency. Somewhat surprisingly, McCain had the support of Gary Bauer, the social conservative, who had dropped out of the race by that time. "I wanted a commitment from either George Bush or John McCain that if elected he would appoint pro-life judges to the Supreme Court," Bauer told me. "Bush said he had no litmus test, and his judges would be strict constructionists. But McCain, in private, assured me he would appoint pro-life judges."

McCain wants to be President. And he sure as hell won't be if he fights the base on the Supreme Court.. Looks like we'll be looking elsewhere for allies.

Crazy Congressmen Who Pay Attention

Last year, during the presidential debates, a girl named Tammy wandered into where my girlfriend, some friends, and I were watching Kerry's dismantling of Bush. This was during the first confrontation, the one between the Incredible Shrinking President and his surprisingly large challenger. Bush, you'll remember, slipped up and blamed Hussein for 9/11. Kerry caught him. Bush admitted the mistake. Tammy said he was right the first time. The rest of us looked at her. Finally, I knew what "agog" felt like.

Her argument wasn't what one would call an argument, more a set of gut level intuitions. In the end, after hearing Bush's handpicked 9/11 Commission obliterated the linkage, she shook her head and said: "Well they're wrong. It's just common sense." Not the most heartening conversation. On the other hand, at least she's not a congressman:

"Saddam Hussein and people like him were very much involved in 9/11," Rep. Robin Hayes said.

Told no investigation had ever found evidence to link Saddam and 9/11, Hayes responded, "I'm sorry, but you must have looked in the wrong places."

Hayes, the vice chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism, said legislators have access to evidence others do not.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said that Saddam was a dangerous man, but when asked about Hayes' statement, would not link the deposed Iraqi ruler to the terrorist attacks on New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania.

"I haven't seen compelling evidence of that," McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN.

The 9/11 Commission had full access to all levels of information and they thought the same as McCain. Even Bush, who one would think has fairly high level clearance, said "We have no evidence that Hussein was involved with the September 11 [attacks]."

Of course, that's not exactly what came out of his mouth last night. Yesterday's speech about Iraq mentioned 9/11 six times, but WMD's were wholly absent. Osama bin-Laden appeared in the speech twice as often as Zarqawi or Saddam, and the term "terrorist" was used almost 4 times as often as "insurgent" ("terror), for its part, popped by 5 times). If Hayes is crazier than most, all he's doing is listening closer than the rest of us.

Also: Don't miss Rep. Hayes' website, home of the most patriotic banner of all times. Superimposed on an American flag is a fighter jet, astronauts, cotton, and NASCAR. I broke into a spontaneous rendition of our national anthem as soon as the image loaded.

Free Work, Emphasis on the Work

The New York Times clocks in this morning with a superb article on the Heritage Foundation's attitude towards its Summer interns.  Rather than the wageless servitude ambitious, affluent kids generally go through, Heritage offers a $2,500 stipend, palatial living quarters (at least by intern standards), intellectually rigorous work, and a lunch series where interns trudge through the conservative philosophical canon.

Sweet deal.  And not just for the interns.  These kids, due to the living quarters, will network with each other.  These kids, due to the work, will actually have the opportunity to prove themselves.  They'll be further indoctrinated into conservative ideas and exit the Summer with a tidy little sum.  The Heritage internship program, in short, is a perfect inversion of a normal program: for Heritage, it's about serving the interns, not the other way around.

It's certainly tilling no new ground to exclaim over the conservative movement's attention to its young and their devotion to cultivating college talent.  So I'll save you that -- I'm not even sure how much this sort of thing matters.  After all, the same connections can be made without the living quarters, the same experience had (assuming you can pay for it, which is a major, and often untrue, assumption) without the stipend.  What's different is the work. 

I'm going to work for the American Prospect for the simple reason that the Washington Monthly actually let me write and report articles.  If my internship with them had been anything like my work with the ACLU or the Dean campaign, I'd be off to grad school.  Liberals often lament the fact that talented young progressives dash off to single interest groups and NGO's rather than enter the party superstructure.  Makes sense -- who wants to spend a lifetime making coffee and filling out spreadsheets?  The Washington Monthly, with its skeleton staff, had lots for me to do.  The ACLU didn't.  My friends who've worked for the DNC pushed paper, those on the Kerry campaign did less.  But those who interned for small NGO's or offices are, to a one, excited to reenter their field and praying their organizations offer them a job. 

If liberals want to build their farm team, keep their talent and involve their young, the answer isn't in the Heritage Foundation's glitz.  Aside from subsidizing those who can't pay, a program's success isn't in the living quarters or stipend, it's in the respect and responsibility.  Fair or not, interns don't want to be interns, they want to be entry level staffers.  And if you give them something of that life, they'll come back for the real thing.  The Heritage Foundation is doing exactly that and, from what I hear, CATO works similarly.  No wonder that the two of them attract so much young talent. 

So CAP?  Ball's in your court.

Where Is The Love?

Reviewing John Harris's The Survivor*, Alan Ehrahalt makes a point worth taking on :

Roosevelt made enormous and sometimes reckless changes in the American government and economy, and when his critics loathed him for it, he loathed them back. ''They are unanimous in their hate for me'' he said of them in his 1936 re-election campaign, ''and I welcome their hatred.'' Clinton, on the other hand, was a centrist who undertook no dramatic transformations of society or government and, what was more, showed himself to be an instinctive conciliator who believed in compromise almost to a fault.

Ehrahalt is comparing, here, the deep-seated hatred for Clinton with the only "recent" president loathed enough to be used as precedent -- and you have to go back 75 years to find one  Moreover, he's right.  In 1992, a Democrat who eschewed liberalism beat a Republican who violated conservatism.  Republicans should have been bouncing off the walls.  Not only did their ideological betrayor find defeat, thus serving as a head-on-pike example for future tax-raising Republicans, but the Democrat who did win was shifting the party right!  Once Clinton entered office, he failed on some minor thing (gays in the military), some big things (health care), and succeeded on a variety of conservative-friendly ventures (NAFTA, welfare reform, deficit reduction).  Nothing truly liberal squeezed through, the welfare state did not grow, the government, in fact, shrank, and the country was generally run from between the poles. 

So why, exactly, did the right hate Clinton with the fire of a thousand suns?  Boomer ethics has been the refrain, they hated his sexual appetite, his generational difference.  But what then of Newt Gingrich, also an eggheaded boomer who switched wives like they had a shelf date?  Hell, compared to him, Clinton's marriage was a picture of rock-solid stability.  Was it that Clinton was too good?  Too eloquent, too smart, too attractive, too successful? 

Maybe it was, I really don't know.  But the fact remains that what the right hated about Clinton was ineffable, unexplainable.  Democrats hate Bush for being warlike, smug, and duplicitous.  They hate that he calls for compassion and cuts Medicaid, that he calls for cooperation and governs as a bitter partisan, that he wants a humble foreign policy and makes us an international Zorro.  Bush hatred, fair or not, blooms from identifiable seeds.  But Clinton hatred?  It was straight partisanship begging for a rationale.  That's why, in the end, the right needed to search so hard and dig so deep for Whitewater, Paul Jones, Monica, Travelgate, and all the rest.  It's hard to hate without a reason, and all the reasons, at least until Monica, proved inadequate.  So they had to be cycled out.  You could only get so mad over Travelgate and Whitewater, so once that rage was spent, a new outrage had to be summoned, which first meant it had to be discovered. It was a hell of a way to spend eight years. 

Indeed, the American Spectator, which had 300,000 subscribers back in the day, is a mere shell of a magazine without Clinton.  They must be begging for another Democrat to enter office.  But that's why, contra the DLC and some others, I'm not hopeful that there's a Democrat somewhere who can bring the country together.  If Clinton, an instinctual compromiser with a deep-seated sympathy for Republicans and conservative ideas, couldn't escape a full-out assault, then it's not a question of the candidate, the war is really up to the army.  So Hillary, Warner, Schweitzer -- take your pick, the hatred really doesn't care who it's aimed at.

*Which, though I'm not terribly far in yet, is shaping up to be an excellent book.

Hating on the Lab

So it turns out that the Bush administration has been putting pen to paper on government climate reports, letting a former oil industry lobbyist with a degree in economics and no scientific training fuzz up warnings on global warming by changing the language, excising passages, and tweaking the emphasis.  So "uncertainties" became "significant and fundamental uncertainties", something difficult to calculate becomes "extremely difficult", and the element of chance was generally blown into a metaphysical meditation on the essential unknowability of things and the fallacies of trusting what you read.  Brilliant.

One thing that's worth remembering is that the war on science isn't a Bush administration innovation.  Not at all, in fact.  Gingrich's 1994 revolution had its own set of ideas for recasting the role of science in regulatory law, and they, if possible, were even more sophisticated about it than the Bush administration.  Rather than going for simple Stalinistic tactics like changing language and erasing information, they tried to discredit the science itself.  Under their plan, all new regulations would have to come with a risk report, explaining how bad the problem to-be-regulated was and how certain we were that it would get to that point, thus codifying scientific uncertainty so it could be used in political fights.  Next up, all science had to be objectively verifiable and reproducible by outside scientists, meaning industry experts.  After that, any large-scale regulation needed to face a panel composed of industry reps and private scientists, and any and all questions they raised had to be answered and put to rest.  Lastly, courts would be empowered to hold hearings on the science underlying the regulations and throw out the law if they deemed the science inadequate.  This meant that industry could get the best lawyer and pseudoscientists into a courtroom, hoodwink a judge not trained in the subject, and get him to throw out the offending regulation.

If this had passed, it would've meant the end of regulation in America.  Luckily, Clinton blocked it and instituted his own, more reasonable reforms.  The Bush administration, for their part, hasn't had the interest in pursuing this strategy in all its glorious complexity, so they've simply denied that some evidence exists, tried to discredit certain theories, and rewritten reports that contained politically unhelpful conclusions.  It's bad, but it's childish compared to the strategies from a decade ago.  Nice to see, though, that in a party where fiscal restraint has morphed into profligacy, isolationism has become adventurism, small government has become unchecked growth, and libertarian values have been ground under James Dobson's heel, at least the Republican distaste for science has remained constant. 

Talking Point in Action

Frank Luntz, in his leaked playbook for the GOP:

Without the context of 9-11, you will be blamed for the deficit. The deficit is a touchy subject for both Republicans and Democrats - your supporters are inherently turned off to the idea of fiscal irresponsibility, and Democrats see nothing but hypocrisy. The trick then is to contextualize the deficit inside of 9-11 and the war in Iraq, which Republicans sometimes do, but not early enough in the answer.

Ken Mehlman, on last Sunday's Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT:  But, Mr. Mehlman, it's gone from $218 billion surplus when George Bush took office to a $427 billion deficit.  How can you call that Republican conservative economic policy?

MR. MEHLMAN:  Well, what I would say, Tim, is what we've suffered, unfortunately, was an attack on this country.  We've suffered a war, and one thing we know:  Whenever our nation's faced war, whether it was in the 1980s when we were winning the Cold War or in the 1940s during World War II, the responsible thing to do has been to borrow money to win the war.  And that's what we did in running the deficit in the '80s, in the 1940s, and that's what we did over the last four years. 

The People's Debt

I thought I might chase The Ethical Werewolf's notes on The People's Money with a snapshot of The People's Debt.  I've been following this story for several months, and I've noticed that it doesn't get much air time.  The essence is simple.  Assume the Republican Party makes all of its recent regressive tax changes permanent (but does not go farther down that path) and then only increases discretionary spending with GDP (by among other things, not debt-financing colonial adventurism).  By 2040, almost every penny that the Federal Government takes in goes just to pay the interest on the national debt.  For those who are curious about what that looks like, there's a chart below the fold.

That's not my opinion.  That's the opinion of the General Accounting Office, based on a middle-of-the-road set of assumptions.  And yet, the Republican Party talking points are that Social Security is bankrupt because in 2042, the Social Security Trust Fund will be depleted, and the amount of money then coming in earmarked for Social Security will only be enough to pay between 70% and 80% of the then-scheduled payments (again, based on a middle-of-the-road set of assumptions).

If the Republicans can't tell the difference between these two situations (and apparently, they can't, or they'd be far more worried about the General Fund than Social Security), they really shouldn't be trusted with the The People's Money to run the government.  Frankly, The People should probably think twice about whether the Republicans can even be trusted with The People's Ten-spot to buy The People a six-pack at Circle K.

- paperwight

The Country Veers Right...

Wow. Excuse my lapse into Brad DeLongism, but the Washington Post's Jim Vanderhei is getting shrill:

The campaign to prevent the Senate filibuster of the president's judicial nominations was simply the latest and most public example of similar transformations in Congress and the executive branch stretching back a decade. The common theme is to consolidate influence in a small circle of Republicans and to marginalize dissenting voices that would try to impede a conservative agenda.

House Republicans, for instance, discarded the seniority system and limited the independence and prerogatives of committee chairmen. The result is a chamber effectively run by a handful of GOP leaders. At the White House, Bush has tightened the reins on Cabinet members, centralizing the most important decisions among a tight group of West Wing loyalists. With the strong encouragement of Vice President Cheney, he has also moved to expand the amount of executive branch information that can be legally shielded from Congress, the courts and the public.

Now, the White House and Congress are setting their sights on how to make the judiciary more deferential to the conservative cause -- as illustrated by the filibuster debate and recent threats by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and others to more vigorously oversee the courts.
...
With control over the House Rules Committee, which determines which bills make it the floor, how they will be debated and whether they can be amended, Republicans have made it much harder for Democrats to offer alternatives -- for example, a smaller tax cut than one Republicans advocate. Democrats also are increasingly shut out of the final negotiations on legislation between the House and the Senate before bills are sent t

There's much, much more. Excerpting doesn't do it justice. Coming from a paragon of neutrality like Vanderhei, this is a primal scream of an article -- the roar of a longtime government reporter sick to death of watching the beat he covers being burned to the ground. And beyond mere shock value, it's the most concise, clear, and wide-ranging explanation of what Republicans have done to the government I've seen. Read it.

Don't Speak...It Just Makes It Worse

Matt's a little surprised that the right has given so little thought to the long-term consequences of the filibuster fight, namely, the destabilization of the filibuster and the massive expansions of government that its elimination will eventually engender. He points to David Boaz, who is taking the long-view (and is, by the way, a markedly dishonest dude in other contexts) and realizes the dangers. I'm a bit surprised that Matt's surprised. What's made C-Span so gripping this week has been the fantastic! amazing! unexpected! rhetorical contortions of senators advocating the rule change. They know how wrong they are. They know what they're doing is ahistorical. Bill Frist's stammerfest when confronted with his own filibustering of a judicial nominee was a perfect example: this is a power grab, and everyone involved knows it. It's nonsensical on the merits and obviously dangerous as precedent, but, since the battle has been joined, they need to do it. Thinking long about it is, at this point, nothing but an expression of partisan weakness. And they can't have that, can they?

The flipside has been the obvious relish of Democrats who get to invoke every thinker from the last two millennia in their defense. Folks get a special twinkle in they're eye when they're sure the angels are their reinforcements, and Democrats have had it. Max Baucus walked up and, in the space of 5 minutes, invoked three Greek plays, Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln, Heraclitus, and a battalion of similarly ancient and often obscure thinkers who believed change was an inevitability. It was hilarious. Now, Democrats aren't any better than the Republicans; we've tried to kill the filibuster too, and were the shoe on the other foot it's not impossible, indeed, it's not even taxing to imagine a scenario where we'd try and stomp on the minority. But being powerless and seeing your protections stripped away imbues one with a very thick air of high-mindedness, and it's been fun to watch the Democrats think, write, and speak from within it.

Our Government in a Nutshell

John Cole's got more on United's liquidation of its pensions. The story, amazingly, gets worse. While the Bankruptcy Bill was steamrolling through Congress, Dick Durbin offered an amendment that would've "protect[ed] employees and retirees from the common corporate practice of discharging liability for retirement plans, retained earnings and matching funds when businesses file Chapter 11." This is really, if you think about it, quite amazing. The Bankruptcy Bill made it harder for individuals to declare and survive bankruptcy. Durbin offered an amendment that would've forced corporations, when they were declaring bankruptcy, to fulfill their stated financial obligations to their employees. These financial obligations are retirement plans, matching funds, and so forth. They are, in other words, the exact same long-term assets that are supposed to keep hard-working Americans out of bankruptcy court!

If you want to know who our government is working for, you need look no further than this. Republicans rammed through a bill that made declaring bankruptcy harder on individuals while rejecting amendments that would've helped ensure Americans employed by struggling firms don't lose their financial base and thus have to declare bankruptcy. So the bill made it harder for individuals to declare bankruptcy, but easier for corporations to drive them to that point. Brilliant.

Protecting Predators

Doesn't this sound more like a Saturday Night Live, or, in fact, MAD TV skit than an actual strategy tried out on the floor of Congress?

About a week ago, the House Judiciary Committee was prepared to approve the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act. Dem committee members offered some fairly reasonable amendments to shield some parties from criminal responsibility...For example, one amendment, offered by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), sought to exempt “cab drivers, bus drivers and others in the business transportation profession from the criminal provisions in the bill.” So, if an underage woman takes a bus to another state to have an abortion, the bus driver, who probably wouldn’t have any knowledge of the abortion, couldn’t be charged with a federal crime. Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) not only helped kill the amendment, he decided to rephrase it for the official record:

"Mr. Scott offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution if they are taxicab drivers, bus drivers, or others in the business of professional transport."

Sensenbrenner did this multiple times. Every Dem attempt to amend the legislation was manipulated to make it appear Dems were trying to protect sexual predators. Whether one supports the bill or not, this was pathetic.

Yesterday, Sensennbrenner backed down and removed the "sexual predator" language from the record. Fact is, however, it stil happened, and the floor of Congress, is, officially, one poorly-conceived skit. Imagine Will Ferrell, in Ron Burgundy voice, presiding over a faux-Committee meeting. Various Congressmen propose amendments exempting certain groups from taxes. The first one steps up, says:

"I propose that single-mothers working full time and making less than $30,000 a year are given an exemption from the tax."

Will Ferrell responds:

"The good Congresswoman from Minnesota proposes an amendment exempting sexual predators with children from the tax."

"I didn't propose that!"

"You sure did, I was sitting right here."

"I said single mothers!"

"Can single mothers not touch little boys inappropriately?"

"Well yeah, but that's not the po--"

"So I was right. Now voting on the single parent/sexual predator exemption amendment."

Welcome to Congress.

Now Testify!

And DeLay's Repentance-palooza continues:

"Just think of what we could accomplish if we checked our pride at the door, if collectively we all spent less time taking credit and more time deserving it," DeLay told the 54th annual National Day of Prayer gathering on Capitol Hill. "If we spent less time ducking responsibility and more time welcoming it. If we spent less time on our soapboxes and more time on our knees."

DeLay drew appreciative smiles when he added, "For in God, all things are possible, ladies and gentlemen. And even greatness from lowly sinners like you and me -- especially me."

Indeed it's true, greatness is quite possible from lowly sinners who trust in God.  Whether your sin is a few decades of unethical politicking or a lifetime of drink and drugs, redemption can be found in The Lord.  But what Tom's doing here is a bit different, he's finding redemption in The Leader.  By making his wholesale invention and embrace of DeLayism into an issue of sin, he's tightly wrapping himself to Bush's resurrection tale, and in doing tangling the President's hopes of ever getting away.  After all, the Christian Right sure accepted Bush despite his past, how do you think they'd feel if their Christian head of state denied Christ's teachings and declined to show forgiveness to an admitted, repentant, sinner like DeLay?  Particularly one who'd been such a good friend to the Christ movement?

They wouldn't like it at all, I expect.  Not at all.

God, Guns, and Gandhi

My new practice of regularly reading NRO’s Corner is paying off in spades. Today, Andrew Stuttaford manages to stop bitching about Cameron Diaz long enough to make this bold assertion:

And as, for those ‘spiritual’ values that Diaz purports to find in picturesque hellholes such as Bhutan, I suspect that, given the chance, most of those bowers, scrapers and chanters would be pleased to junk their shamans, temples and priests in favour of running water, electricity and decent education.

And they would be right to.

Huh, okay. Let’s try that quote again, this time replacing a few words:

And as, for those ‘traditional’ values that Diaz purports to find in picturesque hellholes such as Brownsville, TX [which has a 45.5% child poverty rate], I suspect that, given the chance, most of those bowers, chanters and singers would be pleased to junk their bibles, churches and priests in favour of health care, job security and decent education.

And they would be right to.

So, setting aside your religious values in favor of quality-of-life improvements is the right thing to do. But only if you’re a member of one of those other religions. Fascinating.

Andrew Stuttaford’s book, "What’s The Matter With Calcutta," is available in hardcover from Regenry Books.

- Daniel A. Munz

Bolting on Bolton

Maybe I'm overestimating the power of Powell, but I have to think his decision to actively lobby against Bolton effectively kills the nomination. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is notable for its motley collection of Republican moderates -- guess the rest of the caucus wanted to cut taxes or something? -- and they're exactly the folks who listen to the words of Colin, he's one of their own. So now that he's having chit-chats with Chafee and Hagel, and Chafee and Hagel have been wobbling ever since Voinovich forced Lugar to blink, it seems like this little push from someone with so much popular authority should be more than enough to convince one or both of 'em that Bolton shouldn't exit the committee alive. And if Bolton can't get out of committee, and Social Security privatization can't pass, it's really looking like lame duckhood for this president.

That reminds me: Is anyone else thinking Bush term two looks a lot like Clinton term one? Tough fights on nominations, unpopular cultural battles (gays in the military then, Schiavo now), collapse of primary domestic initiatives (Health Care reform then, privatization now), ethical investigations weakening friendly congressional leaders, and so on. The resemblance is quite close.

The Means-Based President

While reading some post-mortems of the just passed Screw The Poor Bankruptcy Bill, I came across this sneaky little stat:

"With 90% of bankruptcies attributable to job loss, divorce or excessive medical bills, it is clear that better economic policies, social services and affordable healthcare is the way to reduce bankruptcy," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma).

Most of us already knew that about half of bankruptcies are precipitated by crushing medical emergency, though I'd no idea such innocuous and understandable trials as job loss and divorce made up for the rest. But isn't it weird that the answer to bankruptcy from medical bills and job loss was to make it, well, harder to declare bankruptcy?

If the Bush administration had wanted to end bankruptcies, they could have offered federal reinsurance for catastrophic medical costs. You would've ended half the bankruptcies right there. If they'd wanted to do more, they could have instituted better unemployment insurance and transitional services and shrunk the crowd of spurned creditors to negligible numbers. But they didn't. When given the choice of achieving X (where X is reducing the costs of bankruptcies) through helping Americans or helping industry at the expense of Americans, they chose the latter.

It's fascinating, though, to look at how often and reliably the make that choice. Think back to Bush's constant mention of the shortened life expectancy for black males. Clearly he thought it a public policy program, but not in the way a normal person would. Rather than putting money towards addressing the causes of the shortened life expectancy, he tried to privatize Social Security on them.

Huh?

It goes on. We've got a surplus, so we need tax cuts for the wealthy. We're in a recession, so we need tax cuts for the wealthy. Democrats wanted to target the cuts so as to spur middle class investment, but no, make 'em for the wealthy. We've got a problem with terrorism, let's invade Iraq. And that's why, when some of the conservatives on the site ask me why I don't support this or that policy from Bush when I likely would from a Democrat, I can only answer that I don't trust the guy.

Bush's presidency is means-based, he wants to institute certain policies and he'll do it no matter what the facts on the ground are. It's a mistake to conceive of him and his advisors looking at a problem, groping for a solution, and just getting it wrong. It's much more a case of the administration deciding on a policy and then groping for a problem with which to justify it. And since their policy shop is a gathering place for every industry lobbyist in the country, the folks profiting from their a priori solutions are not the ones who need the windfall.

"Fundamentally Anti-Democratic"

According to Jason Spitalnik, the House is planning 30 minutes of debate before passing the Bankruptcy Bill tomorrow. 30 minutes! I spend more than 30 minutes picking out movies at Blockbuster. I spend more than 30 minutes deciding on takeout with my friends. I spend more than 30 minutes on the treadmill. You're telling me I spend more time on the treadmill than the Senate spends debating major legislation?

Jason calls this fundamentally anti-Democratic. True 'nuff. But it's also a basic affront to the idea of deliberative democracy. Good government is laying in the mud with the Republican Leadership's foot digging into its throat. and I'm sure it'd appreciate it if the press noticed, or if media populists like O'Reilly found a mere 30 minutes of debate on an anti-family bill half as deserving of airtime as some elementary school teacher saying a naughty thing about Bush. But we've reached a point in this country where the major offenses are too toweringly repugnant to wrap our minds around so we occupy ourselves with more comprehendible irritants. We sleep better that way.

Update: Whoops, it's actually a full hour of debate, with no amendments allowed. Yippity-doo-dah!

DeLayism

Drop the Hammer, one of the premier anti-DeLay sites, gets mail. Oh boy do they get mail. And some of it even comes from elected officials, like this one from Councilman Kevin Cole of Texas:

Hey ass hole [sic]. Tom Delay happens to be my congresman [sic] and I am happy with the job he does for me and my district. Why don’t you get the F@&* out of our district and leave us alone. Better yet, come speak to me personally and I will show you what I think of you.

Kevin Cole
Pealrand [sic], TX
[Cell Phone # Redacted]

Mr. Cole, in addition to being a councilman and all-around nice guy, is also a Baptist deacon, which explains where he get the idea for this letter:

And Jesus said unto the Pharisees, "Fuck thee, and all that thee stand for. Thou art hypocrites whose presence at my door would merit a divine ass-whipping. Get thyselves away from Nazareth, lest the Son of Man leave you his bitch." (Matthew: 37:12)

But biblically based or not, this is Tom DeLay distilled. Our Majority Leader, unfortunately, is little more than a bully, who ascended up the ladder by doling out cash, stepping on throats, and being infinitely more ruthless and unconcerned with ethics than the next guy. So is it any wonder that those he's inspired show themselves to be little more than thugs? And doesn't it make you wonder what sort of men -- and they've almost all been men -- Tom DeLay's cash has elected?

That's why this isn't about DeLay so much as DeLayism. In all this talk of Abramoff and Reed and junkets and casinos, I don't think enough attention has been given to the spread and reach of the illness itself. So let's talk about that for a second:

DeLay's central innovation was incorporating industry lobbyists into the power structure, realizing that they could act as footsoldiers in his personal revolution. How he did it was, frankly, brilliant. Each lobbyist represents an industry or interest group of varying importance to each congresscritter. So tobacco lobbyists are crucial to congressmen from North Carolina, but less so to those from New Jersey. A textile lobbyist can hold a lot of power over a congressman who's got a textile plant in his district, but less over an urban representative whose constituents don't look to the textile industry for jobs. And so forth.

Now, lobbyists generally leap into action only when the bill or amendment at hand directly affects their industry. That may mean an effort to get a tax break, a subsidy, looser regulations, a commemorative day, whatever. But crucially, they'd relax when the legislation didn't affect them. DeLay ended that. In exchange for full and total support for industry demands, DeLay demanded that the lobbyists twist the arms of the congressmen dependent on their industries on bills wholly unrelated to their industry. So a coal lobbyist would go after a Pennsylvanian congresswomen on Medicare Reform, not because the lobbyist cared about Medicare but because winning the Congresswomen over would assure the coal industry the legislation it wanted later on.

That was the central mechanism of DeLay's takeover of K Street. From there, it got substantially more sophisticated. Lobbyists were only allowed to write their legislation if they were effective and helpful on unrelated issues, which meant they were now lobbying on behalf of the Republican agenda at all times. Soon, lobbyists weren't allowed to lobby the leadership at all if they were Democrats, or if their organization donated substantial sums to Democrats. So industries simply stopped hiring former Democrats and contributing to current ones. The whole thing was a giant trade -- the industries got all influence and power they wanted in exchange for putting their lobbying and political operations at the beck and call of Tom DeLay. To restate, the industries achieved their legislative goals if they helped the Republicans achieve their legislative goals. DeLay, then, had a veritable army on mini-whips he could control, not to mention unending amounts of industry cash that could be funneled to Republicans, both new and old, who Tom wanted to elect and put in his debt.

That right there is DeLayism, a whole new way of structuring and running the Congress. But it's no longer limited to DeLay. Now it's practiced by the leadership he brought into power, by the vast number of fellow Republicans he got elected, and by scores of powerful lobbyists conditioned to serve Republican interests in order to further their industry's interests. It's made Congress into an institution wholly ignorant of the public good, where dissension is no longer tolerated and deliberation is no longer allowed. Why, after all, should they allow it? DeLayism has made the House of Representatives into a well-oiled machine. When votes matter, Tom's got them. When elections come, Republicans are funded. When arm-twisting is needed, Republicans have industry-trained twisters targeted to the needs of each congressmen's district. Why should they waste time on debate and minority amendments?

Congress is broken and Tom DeLay broke it. But simply removing him won't cure the cancer. So far as I can see, nothing short of a Republican purge or a return to Democratic dominance can clean the place. The former might bring in more ethical Republicans who want to restore the traditionally deliberative nature of Congress and the latter would make it impossible for industries to get what they wanted simply by batting for the right. Otherwise, the DeLay machine will continue apace, and Congress will continue to deteriorate. For that reason, we can't limit this to Delay nor laud the Republicans who abandon him -- this is about the entire structure they've put in place and nothing but its wholesale destruction will restore the institution's dignity.

Red Eye DeLay

It's becoming a bit trite to accuse Tom DeLay of snapping his tether to reality, but I'm not going to stop noting it until Tom stops doing it. Yesterday, he gave a short presentation to the GOP Senate caucus, where he unveiled what should be called the "Stoner Defense", a combination of "chill out" sentiment and massive paranoia:

As DeLay left a 90-minute luncheon with his party's senators, he told reporters that his basic message was "Be patient; we'll be fine."

Giving a preview of the approach he is likely to take when he appears before reporters this afternoon, DeLay dismissed questions about his travel and his relationships with lobbyists as "the Democratic agenda."

Attendees said DeLay, in extremely brief remarks, told the senators that, if asked about his predicament, they should blame Democrats and their lack of an agenda. The attendees said DeLay thanked Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) for supportive comments on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.

Yeah man, it's like, nothing. So stop fucking up the rotation. And make sure Roy's keeping watch for Democrats, they're everywhere.

What a Tool

I'm no Horowitz fan, but holy hell, I didn't think the guy was this intellectually dishonest. Challenging someone to a written debate, editing their answers down, and then publishing the exchange with comments that you wish your opponent had participated more fully -- when he did and you cut it! -- is a rarely realized peak of argumentative weakness. I guess this is just one more of Horowitz's never-ending contradictions -- to reach this highest point of dishonesty he had to sink lower than we ever thought he could. Why Berube wastes his time on this guy I'll never know.

Three Cheers for DeLay!

Sam Rosenfeld's got a terrific rundown on the eternal frustration of the evangelical voter which argues, basically, that there will be no payback for the GOP footsoldiers, it doesn't poll well. He's right, of course. But I want to hone in on something he says midway through:

the atmosphere was suffused with a sense of anger and despair at the way the vast majority of Republicans they helped to put in power -- with the notable exception of a certain House majority leader locked in an existential bid to keep his career alive -- inevitably betray or ignore the religious conservative cause.

And that right there explains why Tom DeLay won't go quietly into the sweet night. The Bugman has been a pretty silent actor over the years, essentially unseen and unheard to those of us in C-SPAN land. That's because we were never his audience. DeLay's spent his time among the conservative base -- the fringe conservative base -- cultivating and schmoozing and fundraising for power. Because DeLay's position never came from natural popularity or a recognition of skill. No, it came from industry money and activist donations that Tom used to elect a fair portion of the Republican caucus.

But industry money is pragmatic cash, it stops flowing when the target enters the liability stage. DeLay is long past there and he can expect little help from his business buddies as his problems progress. But the base? They love DeLay, he's never let them down, never taken them for granted, never turned his eye towards anything but matching their wishes up with Republican success. They're not going to let him down precisely because everyone else has let them down. If they lose DeLay, their only all-weather friend, they've got nothing left.

All of which should make Democrats very happy. This is creating an excellent chance for a split between big business and the base. Tom DeLay, at this point, is like a smallpox carrier who refuses to leave the communal cave. And so long as he and his opponents, even if they're just rare independents like Chris Shays, are tussling over his ethics, it'll make every Republican who hasn't joined the denouncements look complicit. The bugman's poisonous, and the GOP's most important constituencies refuse to believe it...

Think Big

Matt's right. The DeLay scandals are cresting too quick, little would be worse than watching the right sacrifice their figurehead, install Roy Blunt Jr., and move forward untainted by ethical issues. On the other hand, I'm not sure this is in the power of "liberal advocacy groups" anymore -- the press smells the blood and I get the feeling that they're circling on their own, no one's having to herd them. The only thing liberal groups can do now is try and widen the attack, to demand that the press pay attention to the larger issues of Republican corruption and pay-to-play ethos.

This moment is as good as it gets, with the press already nailing Delay for transgressions, they're as likely as they'll ever be to pick up on stories implicating the whole caucus and it's way of doing business. The front room lobbyists, the corporate cronyism, the breathtaking shamelessness with which industry shills form legislation -- those are the real scandals, it's not just one bad apple, it's a caucus that's disgustingly bold in allowing and enlarging the nexus between cash and Congress. In the ideal hierarchy of things, what the Republicans do today is infinitely worse than what Nixon did during Watergate. His actions were just aimed at screwing his enemies, the Republicans have turned their sights towards their constituents. But the way the press works, you can't indict business as usual, you can only nail individuals for the unusual. DeLay's carelessness has thus opened the door for these stories, are job now it to push the larger issues into the front yard.

Demagogues

About an hour ago, Sen. John Cornyn gave a speech that said:

"I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in - engage in violence." [Senate Floor, 4/4/05]

Considering the circumstances of the shootings, no, probably not. But if the situation were different, we know who to blame for it, right? I'll give you a hint: It's not the judges, who do their jobs as arbiters unaccountable to the voters and beholden solely to the constitution. It's the politicians, who have forgotten their roles as deliberators and assumed the guise of demagogues. Gutter-dwellers like Cornyn and DeLay, who threaten judges and invite retribution against them. "Leaders" like George W. Bush, who couldn't be bothered to reject the congressional majority leader's statement, and Dick Cheney, who could offer only a yawning, halfhearted dismissal. Institutions like the Republican party, which couldn't rouse itself from its moral slumber and repudiate a statement that was nothing less than an invitation to assault a foundational portion of our republic.

The whole thing stinks of nothing so much as McCarthyism, with demagogues assaulting America's foundational values while allied opportunists stand by and watch, not necessarily in agreement with the statements but aware of the political benefits they confer. Republicans, who've long advocated strict adherence to the constitution, sit meekly by while some of their numbers attempt to destroy the judicial independence the Founders worked so hard to grant. As a party, they should be ashamed. As individuals, they should be clamoring to expel the offenders. What Tom Delay and his friends are advocating is, in the simplest and clearest terms, unAmerican. And anyone who stands by while they do it is betraying their country as well.

Update: Oliver suggests you contact the "good" Senator. So do I:

Contact Senator Cornyn:
Tel: 202-224-2934
Fax: 202-228-2856
E-mail

Kill the Courts

Jesse's got some great comments on Duncan's confusion as to why the GOP wants to destroy the judiciary. Read them. Love them. His basic point is that if you destroy the judiciary, the country will ride with the whim of the people. Ignorant legislators profiting from backlash politics can work their obscene magic on the government free from robed authorities stepping forward to outlaw the unconstitutional, or the just plain insane. Considering the portion of the Christian Right's agenda that checks the "unconstitutional" and "insane" boxes, that's a Good Thing.

But there's a break in conservative thought on the judiciary, though it's a public, not private, one. A fair number of conservatives are personally uncomfortable with the Christian Right but aware of their electoral and political importance. So they comfort themselves with the knowledge that the nuttier pieces of theocracy thrown out by evangelicals (and the true believers they sometimes elect) will be blocked by the judicial branch, therefore remobilizing the Christians, who vote for the right, which consolidates its power and implements policies that non-evangelical conservatives want. That group probably includes most senators and a bare majority of Republican congressmen. Sure you've got your exceptions, the Brownbacks, Coburns and Santorums of the world, but they're a small price to pay for the crucial Christian support that elects so many "normal" Republicans. So these conservatives use the judiciary as a safety valve, a check on the faustian bargain they've struck with the religious right. They don't want the judiciary gone, they want it in operation, but wildly unpopular.

Of course, it can get too unpopular and face massive reform, or, more accurately, demolition. Acts like Brownback's "Restoration of the Constitution" are becoming less symbolically introduced and more priorities for the Christian Right. That's a natural extension of their increased power -- as they grow, they've stopped being merely an interest group helping too elect conservatives and begun electing their own conservatives, true believers who want the same crackpot things they do. As more and more of them populate the halls of power, their nuttier ideas become ever more actionable.

They've not hit critical mass quite yet, but they will soon. And then...what? What will the rational Republicans do? Opportunists like Frist know full well AIDS doesn't travel through tears and condoms are secure, but they see these little lies as appeasing a group that wants to implement some giant falsehoods. Soon, little lies won't be enough and only the massive ones -- like homosexuals destroy marriage -- will suffice. So what do the good Republicans do then? Contra Atrios, they don't want the judiciary dead. Contra Jesse, they don't want government by public whim. They just wanted government by their whim. They just wanted power. And now, having indulged the Christian Right to get it, they're finding that their distasteful allies actually kept some power -- maybe a lot? -- for themselves, and want to use it in service of an objectionable agenda. The question is whether the opportunists can, at this point, wrest their power back, or whether the balance has tilted in favor of those who genuinely want to destroy the judiciary. At base, it's a numbers question, and I'm not sure anybody currently knows how to count it.

Update: Welcome Air America folks. There's coffee on the stove and food in the fridge. Make yourselves at home.

Bad Rudy, No Cookie

Via Paul Waldman, look what Saint Rudy's been up to:

on Feb. 9 in Columbia, S.C. Mr. Giuliani had initially been booked by the South Carolina Hospital Association through the Washington Speakers Bureau to speak for his usual $100,000 fee. But then a massive tsunami devastated South Asia and "we just didn't feel that a big old party was the right thing," said Patti Smoake, the hospital association's spokeswoman.

Instead, the South Carolinians held a fund-raiser called "From South Carolina to South Asia."

Mr. Giuliani agreed to speak at the new event. He even wrote a $20,000 check to the Red Cross, the event's beneficiary, according to figures cited by a South Carolina hospital official and obtained by The Observer. He batted away the inevitable political speculation that accompanied his visit to the crucial Republican primary state, telling a local reporter he was visiting "because I enjoy coming to South Carolina and because this is a worthy cause."

Mr. Giuliani didn't mention it at the time, but he also walked away from the tsunami benefit with $80,000 at a time when celebrities from Bill Clinton and the first President Bush to George Clooney were donating time to the relief effort.

Wowza! My favorite part is Rudy, ever ready to nab himself some good press, publicly writing a check for $20,000 to the Red Cross. What generosity! What an example! What a miniscule part of the $80,000 he netted for spending an evening in South Carolina!

Shooting the Devil in the Back

Jesse Lee thinks the sole force able to take out DeLay is Rove, and he can only do that by converting the GOP caucus. True, but I don't think he's got the power. The house leadership is surprisingly disconnected from the White House -- there's been no patron relationship there. Unlike Frist, Hastert and DeLay built this goddamn majority, and I'd be stunned if they let the transient occupants of the White House tell them how to run it. So I think Rove's meddling might prove counterproductive.

But what about internal fears from the conference? That's trickier. If DeLay is dragging down the poll numbers and become a problem for the Republicans, would he allow Hastert and Blunt to put him out of his misery? My answer, again, is nope. You have to remember that DeLay was never a Gingrichite, he's never been a movement guy concerned with creating an enduring GOP majority in order to change the world. DeLay's ruthlessness, and thus his success, actually comes from his alternative motivation -- the man wants power, simple as that. And he doesn't just want it for his friends or party or patrons, he wants it for himself. So you're about to watch DeLay cash in all the chits, call in all the debts. All those lawmakers he installed in power? Watch them circle the wagons. All those lobbyists he invited into the Capitol? Watch them contribute to the fund. And DeLay himself? He's readying for war, already constructing a him-against-the-world narrative. His very belligerence closes off his escape routs, once he's entered the fight and vowed to win it, losing becomes unacceptable, a knife in his pride. He won't allow it -- it's personal.

And that, for Democrats, is probably the best outcome. DeLay flailing wildly, desperately trying to survive as Republicans distance themselves, caucus dissension hits the papers, and the poll numbers nosedive. DeLay, for his part, has never been good in front of the cameras. He's not a skilled media personality, more apt to reach heights of sublime absurdity (i.e, his defense of Quayle, which argued that minorities snatched up all the spots in Vietnam, leaving no room for white boys like Dan and Tom) and blistering rage than to turn in compelling and vulnerable performances. But if he wants to survive, he'll have to step into the limelight, which might kill him on its own. And the more damage DeLay takes, the more his omnipresent PAC contributions and fundraisers will hurt the candidates they were meant to benefit. In the end, he's got too much pride to go quietly and he's too connected to go on his own. If Tom's going to die, he won't go clean. He'll writhe and flail, and he'll take many a friend and foe down with him.

We can only hope.

DeLayicans

Brad Plumer is so right on this it's hard to believe he's not been hired by the DCCC and given a corner office somewhere:

Look, last year no one was offering Senate Democrats a chance to "wash their hands" of Tom Daschle. Quite the opposite—the phrase "Daschle Democrats" spread far and wide across the airwaves, during the big push to paint the entire minority party as one giant ball of pure, black-hearted obstructionism. It was dirty, it was lame, it was disgusting, but that's how the fucking game goes. *No one* gets out of here alive!

Seriously, it's useless, entirely useless trying to turn Tom DeLay into a big lightning rod for all the outrage against the House's excesses these days. If that's what happens, he'll be purged in a minute's notice and then absolutely nothing will change. The GOP will just find someone else to do what DeLay does. Roy Blunt can do what DeLay does. The K Street stovepipe will still pump along. The rule-bending and committee-abusing will still go on. House Democrats will still be cut out of the decision-making process. DeLay's just the symptom of a larger disease, and that's how he ought to be treated and portrayed. Hm? Please, please get this right so I don't have to spend all my time being a shrill partisan hack. Thanks.

Agreed. Judged by temperament, I'm a pretty moderate guy. But there's no time to be moderate anymore, not if you've taken even the slightest look into what's going on in the House, in this Administration, in the Republican party, in the country -- the whole system is going so sour it makes me sick. Which is why I'd love to see the tumor removed. But it'd be terrifically moronic to make this about Tom DeLay, rather than make Tom DeLay about the Republican majority. If the former works, all the right has to do is pull him from the spotlight, either by snatching his position or forcing his resignation. Either way, the corruption train chugs along, just with a new conductor.

It's the same problem I'm seeing with Social Security. Democrats are gingerly testing the waters of attack politics, dipping in a toe here and there to criticize an opponent, or a policy, or a procedure. But they seem afraid, or maybe unwilling, to widen the assault, to kill something and tie the dead weight to the Republican party's neck. I'm glad we're nailing privatization, but it's not helping our poll numbers any. In fact, Democrats in congress are seeing the same drop -- though it's taking them even lower -- than their Republican counterparts. Tom DeLay's a really bad guy, but we're getting really excited at the sight of his weakness and not, so far as I can tell, working him into a long-term strategy. Rahm Emanuel can tap all the "squeaky-clean" candidates he wants, but if we make the scandal about the guy, once he's gone, there's no more scandal.

Privatization, DeLay, all these things need to become about the Republican party as a whole. Privatization needs to explain their unhealthy obsession with destroying the American safety net. DeLay needs to explain the tight embrace the Republican majority and industry lobbyists are locked into. Anything less allows them to lose a battle but escape the war. And, as the minority party, the status quo is too untenable for us to allow that.

End of the Investigation

Looks like we should consign that little part of us awaiting answers on the intelligence failures that led us into Iraq to that same purgatory where we still expect a verdict in the Plame case. It didn't have to be that way. Liberals weren't happy when Kansas Senator Pat Roberts condemned the intelligence verdict on the Bush administration to "Phase II", which would only emerge after the election, but still, we understood. Were we Republicans, tasked with defending a President who'd obviously massaged inadequate intelligence into the shape he wanted, we'd want the report to come out post-election as well.

But even I didn't think they'd just stonewall the thing. Even I didn't think they'd just bog down the investigation and let it fizzle out of its own accord. But that's exactly what Roberts has done. No administration officials have been interviewed, obstacles set up by the OSP (a bunch of neocons who seem responsible for much of the mess) have not been bypassed, and Roberts has declared the investigation "on the backburner", which ensures that it'll never singe Bush.

Checks and balances indeed.

Death and Taxes

I know, I know: No more about Terri Schiavo. But I just have to flag this astonishing statement from NRO’s Jack Dunphy:

If Terri Schiavo were able, she would go to the nearest telephone, dial 9-1-1, and tell the operator that people are trying to kill her.

“If Terri Schiavo were able”? Why, pray tell, is she not able? Could it be, perhaps, because she no longer has the ability to think?

The one useful thing about this mess is that it’s invited us to figure out what conservatives mean by “culture of life.” I think Dunphy’s statement just about explains it all. They see being alive much the same way that liberals see paying taxes: Not something one just happens to be doing, but something one must do out of an obligation to the rest of humanity. To people like Dunphy, the notion that death is a natural part of life, or that continuing to live could be a net negative, is simply unacceptible. This isn’t a culture of life. It’s a culture of publicly-owned life. It’s a culture of forced immortality.

- Daniel A. Munz

ez

McCain’s Slide into Irrelevance Continues Unabated

(I had a pretty wonky post on Social Security ready to go, but Ezra beat me to it, so instead you’re getting my latest rant on the increasingly useless John McCain.  Enjoy!)

Not to be all Seinfeldian about this or anything, but what is <b>with</b> this guy?!

Sen. John McCain said Tuesday the conclusions of a commission investigating intelligence failures on weapons of mass destruction should not lead to new questions about whether the Iraq war was justified. "America, the world and Iraq is better off for what we did in bringing democracy," McCain said.

The Arizona Republican is a member of a commission formed by President Bush over a year ago after the chief weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, resigned saying "we were almost all wrong" about the pre-war estimates that Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons.

[…]

In a recent interview, McCain said the report by the panel led by Republican Laurence Silberman and Democrat Chuck Robb was worth the $10 million Congress dedicated to it.

"I think questions had to be answered as to why we were so wrong," McCain said. "We needed to have recommendations as to how to prevent something like this from ever happening again."

Okay, you got that?  $10 million has been spent.  Conclusions have been drawn.  Those conclusions should not lead to new questions.  Even though the assertion that “America, the world and Iraq [are] better off for what we did in bringing democracy” is widely debatable, from its key premise about whether any of the above are, indeed, better off, to whether democracy has actually been brought to Iraq, no more questions are allowed.  Forget it.  Whatever that commission says about intelligence failures, missing WMDs, or anything else, you’d better get prepared to accept it, because ain’t no more questions gonna be allowed.  $10 million buys a lot of answers, and you’re gonna like ’em, got it?

Now for my favorite part:

McCain, in appearances with Bush at Social Security events in the West the past two days, has been offering a glowing endorsement of the president's second-term push for democracy around the globe. In two states Monday and here on Tuesday, he ticked off changes in Afghanistan, Ukraine, the Middle East and Iraq as proof that Bush "is on the right side of history" and deserves credit for advancing freedom throughout the world.

Oh yes.  Freedom, freedom everywhere.  Everywhere I look—nothing but freedom!

Freedom here.

Freedom there.

A little bit more freedom thisaway.

A little bit more freedom thataway.

Look all around you—freedom!

It’s everywhere!

As far as the eye can see.

Freedom.

Thanks, Bush.  And thanks, McCain. As a former resident of the Hanoi Hilton, you would definitely know how to spot freedom, so thanks for pointing out how we owe all this awesome freedom to the Pres.  GO FREEDOM!!!

-- Shakespeare’s Sister

Republican Renaissance?

On Monday, I asked where all the “real Republicans” are, and, if there are any of them left, whether they could be bothered to try to reclaim their party from the lunatics who have hijacked it. Well, it seems like the tenuous stitching that holds together the mangled remains of the party of Lincoln may well have been put under enough pressure by the Schiavo case that the unholy alliance between the corporatists and the Jesus freaks, upon which the GOP depends for its supremacy, is beginning to tear at the seams.

Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the sole Republican to oppose the Schiavo bill in a voice vote in the Senate, said: "This senator has learned from many years you've got to separate your own emotions from the duty to support the Constitution of this country. These are fundamental principles of federalism."

"It looks as if it's a wholly Republican exercise," Mr. Warner said, "but in the ranks of the Republican Party, there is not a unanimous view that Congress should be taking this step."

In interviews over the past two days, conservatives who expressed concern about the turn of events in Congress stopped short of condemning the vote in which overwhelming majorities supported the Schiavo bill, and they generally applauded the goal of trying to keep Ms. Schiavo alive. But they said they were concerned about what precedent had been set and said the vote went against Republicans who were libertarian, advocates of states' rights or supporters of individual rights.

"My party is demonstrating that they are for states' rights unless they don't like what states are doing," said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of five House Republicans who voted against the bill. "This couldn't be a more classic case of a state responsibility."

"This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy," Mr. Shays said. "There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them." (Emphasis mine.)

(So much to exploit…if only the Democrats had had the sense to not vote right along with it! Yeesh.)

The truth is, there’s not much room left in the Republican party for “real Republicans,” who don’t want their president’s policy to be a balancing act between catering to corporations and their highly paid lobbyists and mollycoddling the religious wingnuts. But DeLay and his cronies might just have pushed things one step too far this time, and Bush’s leap into action on behalf of a politically expedient symbol has rendered ridiculous their past defenses of his lackluster response to the Aug. 6 PDB, the events on the morning of 9/11, the 9/11 commission, the tsunami, and every other reaction he’s bungled. He’s made a mockery of their belief in him. Worse, he’s proved us right and them wrong.

The hold-your-nose voters who cast their ballots for Bush, despite the deficit and despite the social conservatism, and justified their support for him on the basis of his alleged integrity and consistency (his ability to “stay the course”), always looked like fools to us—one day you’ll find out, we thought—and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for them to defend him as anything but the ineffectual minion of Rove’s Machiavellian machinations that we’ve said he is all along. Welcome to reality, folks.

Now go take back your party and we can get back to the business of debating policy like grown-ups.

-- Shakespeare’s Sister

(Crossposted at Big Brass Blog.)

All For Tom and Tom For All

You know, maybe that Brooks column is part of a larger strategy -- crucify Abramson and Reed with such vigor and glee that no one notices you're ignoring DeLay. I say that because McCain, eyes on 2008 and ethics in the gutter, has promised to lead a vigorous investigation of Abramoff and Reed that does not, in any way, touch Tom DeLay. That he'll leave to the ethics committee, newly neutered and restocked by, yes, Tom DeLay. Lawmakers, even those involved in scandals that he's investigating, apparently fall outside the ex-maverick's purview, and so he won't touch them.

That's the Republican way, after all. Remember how Ken Starr's expansion of the Whitewater probe to cover Clinton's trysts spurred them into outrage and fierce opposition? "A travesty", they didn't call it. "A textbook case of overreach", no one said. "The only one who deserves impeachment is the partisan prosecutor", I heard them refuse to demand. And now McCain, a guy so wedded to good government and bipartisan ethics that he got the press to staple a symbolic halo to his scalp, is moving forward in the grand tradition of the Grand Old Party. I wonder how he'll feel after he's sold his soul and still lost his bid for the nomination? Will he repent and wonder what he trashed his legacy for? Or will the sputtering out of a storied career be vindicated by the everlasting friendship and PAC donations of the good congressman from Sugarland, TX?

Tom Gone Crazy!

Via Digby, I see Tom DeLay is proving my argument from yesterday, namely, that the further Terry gets from the headlines, the more ludicrous become Tom's attempts to keep her under the cameras. Her exit, after all, means the reentrance of his scandals. So on the 18th, Tom argued that she was as "alive as your or I", that she was not "being kept alive", and promised that, on Palm Sunday weekend, she would not be forsaken. Pretty good, huh? Well on the 19th, he accused the Supreme Court, who didn't want to hear the case, of perpetrating a "moral and legal tragedy" and told them they owe it "to the dignity of human life" to explain their decision. Pretty nutty, huh? On the third day of Terry-saving, the 20th, DeLay stumbled in from the bar to explain that "Terry Schiavo is not brain-dead; she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort" and that "it won't take a miracle to help Terry Schiavo".

So in three days, he went from concerned, to outraged, all the way to issuing press releases from a land entirely of his imagination. But Terry was still slipping from the headlines! How dare she!? So here's Tom on the 21st:

One thing that God has brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to help elevate the visibility of what is going on in America," Mr. DeLay told a conference organized by the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group. A recording of the event was provided by the advocacy organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

"This is exactly the issue that is going on in America, of attacks against the conservative movement, against me and against many others," Mr. DeLay said.

Mr. DeLay complained that "the other side" had figured out how "to defeat the conservative movement," by waging personal attacks, linking with liberal organizations and persuading the national news media to report the story. He charged that "the whole syndicate" was "a huge nationwide concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in."

In three little paragraphs, Tom has called the woman with a liquified cerebral cortex a gift from God, compared her situation to his own, and used her to uncover a vast left-wing conspiracy determined to topple Tom DeLay and the values of America conservatism. Look behind you kids. Yeah, that's right, wave to the shark. Yeah, keep watching the shark. Those men taking Uncle Tom away are doing it for his own good, but he wouldn't want you to watch.

Tom and Terry

It's becoming cliche to point out this or that statement of Tom DeLay's as enough to make you ill, but his latest on Schiavo is really unconscionable:

"She talks and she laughs and she expresses likes and discomforts," he said Sunday evening.

My God, you'd think her a three year old, giggling at Blue's Clues and slapping away the mashed peas-bearing rocket ship when it approaches her mouth. That she's really an inert woman whose cerebral cortex has liquified and whose every twitch is being interpreted as signs of higher consciousness makes DeLay's lie all the sadder -- he's misrepresenting the brain damaged. Over at the Stakeholder, Jesse Lee notes that, unlike Ginny Brown-Waite, a Republican who "burned up" the phones talking to medical experts in Florida and voted against the bill, Tom probably hasn't spent that long doing his research.

Oh how right he is.

The bugman not only didn't do his research, he hasn't been doing his speaking, either. Turns out DeLay only started mentioning Schiavo on the 18th, three days ago. That's kind of a trip. because even I beat the majority leader to the punch, and, unlike him, I don't think of Schiavo as my religious obligation. So what's going on?

Well, Tom DeLay has had better days than March 18th. On March 17th, Rahm Emanuel promised to make his ethics violations a central issue in the 2006 campaign by recruiting "squeaky-clean" candidates to run. On March 17th, the newspapers began calling for his resignation. And so, on March 19th, Tom DeLay found Terry Schiavo, and held. In fact, watch DeLay's progression as he attempts to keep the issue kicking:

March 18th: “Terri Schiavo is alive.  She is not ‘barely alive.’  She is not ‘being kept alive.’  She is as alive as you or I, and as such we have a moral obligation to protect and defend her from the fate premeditated by the Florida courts.  This is not over.  We are still working, so are Mrs. Schiavo’s lawyers, and so is the Florida state legislature.  This is not over.  

“To friends, family, and millions of people praying around the world this Palm Sunday weekend: do not be afraid.  Terri Schiavo will not be forsaken.”

March 19th: “While I respectfully disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision, the justices’ refusal to offer any explanation or guidance – knowing that Congress is working around the clock to save the life of a defenseless dying woman – is a moral and legal tragedy.

“The Supreme Court owes it to Terri Schiavo and her family – and, frankly, to the dignity of human life – to explain their decision so that Congress can properly focus its continuing work to replace Mrs. Schiavo’s feeding tube.

March 20th: “Mrs. Schiavo’s condition, I believe, has been at times misrepresented by the media, but far more often has simply gone unreported all together.  Terri Schiavo is not on a respirator; she can breathe on her own.  Terri Schiavo is not brain-dead; she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort.  Terri Schiavo is not on life-support.  

“She’s not being ‘kept alive’; she is alive.  It won’t take a miracle to help Terri Schiavo; it will only take the medical care and therapy that all patients deserve.  Mrs. Schiavo is not being denied heroic measures; she’s being denied basic, basic, basic medical and personal care.  

“The legal issues, I grant everyone, are complicated, but the moral ones are not.  What will it hurt to have a federal judge take a fresh look at all this evidence and apply it against 15 years’ worth of advances in medical technology?  We have a bill – the Palm Sunday compromise – that will give her that chance."

We've gone from asserting that Schiavo is alive (a fact), to accusing the Supreme Court of creating a moral tragedy by allowing this "defenseless and dying woman" to perish, to arguing that "she talks and she laughs, and she expresses happiness and discomfort...Terry Schiavo is not on life support". To hear him tell it now, you'd think we could take out her feeding tube, leave her in the woods, and let her wander back home. Of course, this isn't about Terry Schiavo's life nor her death, it's about Tom DeLay's chances for survival. And knowing that the sooner she leaves the news the quicker he reenters it, he's been reaching ever more impressive heights of overstatement and nuttery. All this from a man who'd never noticed Terry until three days ago. I'll say this for Tom -- the slimebag knows how to adopt a cause.

Troubles in Sugar Land

Jesse Lee, writing at the Stakeholder, makes an important point:

It's hard to say how many headlines away that day is, but as we've said before, something has certainly shifted. The past week has seen literally a half dozen separate stories written on doubts within the GOP Conference about DeLay. That never happens. And DeLay's bizarre news conference and recent meetings to "assuage" his rank & file are also unusual, and smell of desperation.

It's really true. Ten days ago, the DeLay scandals were in the same category as Plame, and the intimidated Medicare actuary, and the 50 other small-bore scandals liberals hoped would undermine the House of Bush but which never seemed find the foundations. At some point in the last week, however, the DeLay's violations, either through new evidence or critical mass of news stories, experienced a phase shift, and now the editorialists are slamming him, the cable shows are dissecting him, the Democrats are planning against him, on and on. That he's embattled is being etched into conventional wisdom, give it three more days and David Broder will tattoo it on his ankle.

The only way for Republicans to derail the ethics attacks, it seems, is to unchain the ethics committee, but that move is almost certainly stillborn. That it's coming from the ethics chair DeLay demoted ensures it's DOA -- Tom would never lose a grudge match like that, bureaucratic warfare is in his bloodstream. To DeLay, party unity is the only way to keep Republicans ascendant, it's the touchstone of his political philosophy. So unless he decides to leave, he'll never let himself be pushed out, because he'd never allow the united front to publicly crumble. All of which may be good for Democrats. Tom DeLay, it seems, will be there to kick around for quite awhile longer.

The Wizard of Luntz

Luntz is such sleaze. His op-ed in the LA Times isn't even the sort of thing you can rebut, you can only point out the slime oozing off every word. The contention that his true aim in life, linguistic humanitarian that he is, is to clear policy debates of obfuscation and inject language that fairly and clearly expresses the policy conflict is enough to make a weaker man retch. But I'm no weaker man. In fact, I'm a highly evolved homo-sapien deeply enmeshed in modern communication technologies that allow me to absorb disparate sources of information and render judgments that inform and amuse thousands of others. And, highly sophisticated creature that I am, Luntz's op-ed pleases me. Because it means he's on the run.

Luntz wrote this in response to the wide play his leaked "New America Lexicon" got. You guys might remember it -- Kos had it, everybody linked, everybody laughed and pored over it...but it got to Luntz. It got to him because he's being dragged out from behind the curtain. Instead of issuing Oz-like pronouncements and watching the words ripple through the Sunday shows, liberals are focusing fire on him, the message-man, and the tactics he uses. And so now he's wasting his time defending what he does and, in true Luntzian fashion, spinning it. Bits and pieces of his offhand framing are impressive, as when he calls the Social Security plans with the highest levels of privatization "the most innovative", but the whole thing is an apologia for the indefensible. So keep up the pressure kids, Oz is emerging, and the sun hurts his eyes.

DeLay in Short

Damn that Sam Rosenfeld. Here I was planning to digest the in-depth coverage of the DeLay scandals and summarize the excellent work being done by The Stakeholder, The Daily DeLay, and Think Progress so you could all keep score at home. But he got there first.

Sigh. Go read. But remember, it would've been me getting the links if not for that meddling kid...

The Hagel Factor

In fighting the Bolton nomination, the guy to watch on the Senate Foreign Relations Commitee is Chuck Hagel. Unlike most Republican internationalists, who've found the ideal out of necessity, and most Democratic internationalists, who've arrived there through convenience, Hagel's got a real commitment to the philosophy. That should make Bolton's nomination anathema to him and, indeed, he's already sounding cautious notes on the guy. But an independent's misgivings would rarely translate into a "no" vote on a presidential nominee, particularly in committee. I think Hagel may be different.

The real question with him is how he figures the vote will affect his 2008 aspirations. If he holds out hope of attracting Republican support, he'll probably fall back on some trite "deserves an up-or-down vote" boilerplate and be done with it. And, two or three weeks ago, I'd have bought that scenario. But the conservative forces massing against Hagel's run are pretty unprecedented. Witness, for instance, the fusillade launched by the American Spectator against the morose-looking Nebraskan. To spend a cover story killing, or trying to kill, a candidacy still three years in the future is reasonably absurd, but a good indicator of the depths that conservative distaste for Hagel have reached.

For his part, Hagel has to make a choice. Can he shed his internationalist label in time for the campaign, and, if not, what's an alternate path out of the primaries? Since he's not going to be an establishment choice like Kerry was -- that'll probably go to Frist or Guiliani -- his only option is as a McCain-esque maverick who sweeps the independents and moderate Republicans. In that role, a principled vote against the UN-hatin' Bolton makes perfect sense. Indeed, running as the candidate willing to return sensible internationalism to a Republican party set ideologically adrift by the neocons becomes his only chance. Which, to me, means Hagel is probably the guy to target in the coming months using e-mails and letters packed with phrases like "principled choice" and "sterling independent reputation". If he votes against and no Dems defect, the count stands at 9-9, and then, who knows what the embattled Chafee does? The odds are probably against that outcome, but they get significantly better if the Senator (Hagel, not Chafee) sense some sort of constituency for a sober foreign policy realist willing to buck the president in order to preserve world order -- particularly considering the enormous press, and thus visibility, the vote would give Hagel. We can help create that critical mass.

The Bugman Goeth

You have to respect the karmic rightness of this: Tom DeLay's redistricting toughened his own district, so in 2004, having historically won 60+% with no effort, he only took 55% against an unfunded Democratic challenger. Now it;s back to Sugar Land for the Bug Man, as he tries to shore up support. That's a Good Thing for the country; every evening spent in a bad buffet line with the rest of the Lions Order is a night he's not raising cash for other candidates or plotting new and ever more devious ways to screw the country. And I love Rep. Emanuel's perspective:

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said he is happy that DeLay is "meeting some real people instead of just K Street lobbyists."

"Maybe he'll find out the people actually like Social Security," Emanuel said.

Well played. Now caption this picture of the majority leader of the United States Congress:

Horrorwitz

PZ Myers attended David Horowitz's lecture the other night. It was funny. And sad. But definitely funny. As for the kid who stood up at the end, made note of his service in Iraq, and called Kerry unAmerican for opposing the war (which Kerry, by the way, didn't do), I wouldn't worry about the round of applause he got. I've noticed that when a soldier stands up at any sort of campus political event and expresses any opinion, pro or con, smart or dumb, they get a wild round of applause. Students generally hold their battle-tested peers in a kind of awe, and the cascade of clapping has more to do with our guilt (there but for fortune...) than their opinions.

Update: Speaking of shit that makes no sense, Berube found a pile.

Tricky, Tricky

Poor Bill Frist. Caught between a Bush and a hard place. Now he's not even sure he can bring Social Security to the floor before 2007, which is congressional code for "never".

That, as the Bush Administration surely realizes, is the problem with promoting a nobody who wants to be president. His first allegiance is to his ambitions and not your priorities. Not only would Frist rather not be identified with a stunningly unpopular plan that either fails to pass (still can be used against him, though!) or gets jammed down Congress's throat, but he'd also prefer not to preside over a midterm whupping, where his side loses a bunch of seats (thanks, again, to Social Security) and he, as Senate majority leader, gets to share in the blame. After all, he's only got to keep his stock up for a few more years and then he's on the campaign trail and can stop paying attention. That the president who promoted him is determined to go down in history as the guy who knifed the New Deal, probably bringing Frist down with him, is a real kink in that timeline. But when Senators face a problem, they know exactly what to do:

Stall.

"Democrats"

Does anybody else think Ben Nelson sounds like he's one close election away from switching parties?

Would you ever consider becoming a Republican?

Somebody said not long ago that people don't always leave the party; the party leaves the people. So, recognizing that you never know what the future's going to hold, what might happen, you never say never. But am I considering it right now? No.

If you run for re-election in 2006, then, you're absolutely committed to running as a Democrat?

I have every intention, if I run again, to run as a Democrat.

Speaking of "Democrats", does anyone else think Lieberman's revived interest in private accounts is connected to the revived talk of him replacing Rumsfeld? Yeah, me neither.

Such Innocence

Now be honest. Is there anything cuter than a freshman Republican Senator? Because Isakson's adorable comments sure make me want to tickle him under the chin.

Forging Reality

I'm always amazed at the twisted logic, or at least outcomes, of Bush administration policies. When pushing policies that have no relation to reality, they change reality so it relates to their policies. They mismanage government finances and blow through a budget surplus creating what they call a "crisis" in Social Security, propose a plan that'll further explode deficits without helping the program, but then make that plan vaguely reasonable by warping the economy so we might have a heretofore unknown future of high stock returns and minimal wage growth.

The list of man made crises fitting preexisting policy solutions is almost absurdly long. Iraq wasn't a roosting ground for terrorists, but it was once we invaded. The budget was in such surplus that the only responsible thing to do was offer tax cuts, at least until we went into recession and the only responsible thing to do was offer tax cuts. And on, and on. In some ways, it's quite impressive. They ignore criticism, they ignore policy recommendations, they govern entirely on brashness and ideology and, somehow, they get away with it.

Let 'Em Gloat

I hear that the weekend saw Eason Jordan resign? Really? Wow, I take a few days off and you guys totally drop the ball.

As if. Is someone out there actually impressed by the Jordan's resignation? Yes, yes, I know Hugh Hewitt is going to print out a picture of a scalp and staple it to his wall, but if an egomaniac cackles and nobody cares, does he make a sound? I think not. Which is why I'm so nonplussed by the lefty bloggers lauding the remarkable takedown abilities of the right. Nailing public (or, in this case, semi-public) figures for absurd comments and getting them fired is a dance older than dirt. CNN will spend five minutes genuflecting, install his replacement, and move on with their lives. And Digby, who I generally agree with, is giving the wingers way too much credit for their waltz:

If liberal bloggers' record of scalps is Trent Lott losing the leadership post that Bush wanted him out of anyway then we aren't even in the same league. The Right Wing Noise machine is a group seasoned professionals made up of bloggers, newspapers, FOX, talk radio, and a direct pipeline to powerful Republicans in the government. We are Kos and Atrios et al. We are not equivalent.

These cats blowing their wad over every intemperate comment are not seasoned professionals, they're overexcited teenagers. Funnily enough, its their obsession with "scalps" that has actually reduced their effectiveness. While Kos and Atrios raise hundreds of thousands for their chosen candidates, their conservative counterparts are rain-dancing around the latest functionary to resign. While Matt Yglesias and Josh Marshall are helping sink the privatization plan, Instapundit and the gang are fulminating over obscure academics.

If I was Billmon, I'd now dredge up some comment by a Nazi about how power only matters when no one can see it. The right-wing blogosphere has decided to focus their efforts on fame. If they're going to have a role, they'll make it as high-profile as humanly possible. They'll also make it useless. Eason Jordan's successor won't make moronic remarks, but he's not going to do his job any differently. Meanwhile, the people in his organization and the rest of their colleagues populating the "mainstream" media have no interest in reading Hewitt's latest tirade. They're reading the wonks and reporters they can identify with, the Plumers and Drums and Marshalls of the world, and their coverage is being affected by them. Meanwhile, the activist wing of the left is filling the DNC's coffers and funneling their cash where it matters, they're creating a voice for themselves and, as Kos did a month ago, addressing the Senate Democratic Caucus.

The right spent a long time laying the groundwork for their victories. And they didn't do it in front of the cameras. Instead, they worked tirelessly to build institutions and create stealth movements that'd change the landscape without anyone realizing it. When your enemy is loud, you're lucky. It's when their progress evades the radar that they're dangerous. For now, they're all flash and no impact, while we're doing the institutional work that's become so necessary. So, contra Digby, I'm not impressed by the seasoned professionals across the aisle so much as I am by the amateur activists and journalistic prodigies on my side. And that's why I'm not worried.

The Passion of the Keyes

Maya Marcel-Keyes, daughter of Alan Keyes, has publicly come out of the closet. In response, her parents have stopped speaking to her, thrown her out of the house, and cut off payments to her college. You know, like good Christians.

Kiss My Ass -- No New Taxes

Brad Plumer's noticed a problem:

I'm a bit confused as to what Congressional Republicans think would make for a better budget. It seems that the two primary objections from President Bush's own party are: cuts to particular programs, and the yawning federal budget deficit, which the budget doesn't really cure. Okay. But then a sizeable majority of Congressional Republicans have also signed a pledge not to increase taxes. So that solution's out. Meanwhile, cutting discretionary spending even further will only yield very tiny reductions in the deficit. And Bush's two big entitlement "reforms"—including last year's Medicare bill, which will cost $400 billion over the next five years alone, and his vague hints at a proposed Social Security plan, which will cost $4.5 trillion over the next 25 years—will only expand the deficit by huge amounts. So where is fiscal sanity supposed to fit come from? Fairy-land?

There was a time when that question had an answer. Republicans who'd been cornered into signing Norquist's "no taxes" pledge during election campaigns decided that the ridiculous promises they'd been blackmailed into making were less important than sane governance. So one of them, President George H.W Bush, reversed course and proposed some revenue enhancements to close Reagan's deficit, and then convinced 30 of his Republican cosigners to follow his lead. That bit of fiscal responsibility paved the way for the surpluses and growth of the Clinton years (and, in turn, the irresponsible promises and economic absurdity of his son's campaigns). Would that the modern Republican party act with the same wisdom...

Second Term Econ

Remember that time when the Bush administration silenced an actuary and lied $100 billion off the cost of Medicare reform so Congress would pass it? That was fun, even quaint. But this is a brave new second term world, baby! And $100 billion bucks ain't shit to these guys, so now they're saying they lowballed by $670 billion. Yowza! That's second term economics for ya! Bam!

But second term dynamics shouldn't be forgotten, either. Because right now the Bushies are doggedly trying to ram Social Security privatization through, and having little luck with it. As you followers of Josh Marshall know, the most effective, and common, Republican beg-off has been "y'know, yeah, good idea, but a bit later when the deficit looks smaller". Looks like a bit later just got a lot later, and the Conscience Caucus has found itself a rallying cry. What's that Rahm Emanuel? You want to close this one out? Do it, buddy:

"If you're looking for a crisis, I would suggest you look at a crisis that was self-made in just last year, because the crisis exists in what's happened to Medicare by weighing it down," Emanuel said. "Those of us who told you it was going to cost twice as much were right."

Opposite Day

Sam Rosenfeld, talking about Republicans playing the race card, says:

I’ve yet to hear any conservative offer a principled defense of a tactic that Republican politicians and right-wing pundits have come to use more and more over the years. Nor have I seen enough attention paid, by anybody, to a development that extends beyond the conserve-race card: In a whole array of arenas, conservatives are now the ones most likely to employ a politics of victimhood and grievance -- the persecuted Christian! the intolerant academy! the oppressive elite of blue America! -- to try to foreclose substantive debate over issues and subsume political disputes into zero-sum battles of culture and identity. The conservo-race card is only the most obvious (and obviously cynical) manifestation of this kind of right-wing identity politics.

If it wasn't so corrosive, it'd be really funny. More and more, Republicans have come to embody everything they project onto others. They call liberals big-spenders then blow up the deficits. They tar Democrats for their Hollywood ethos then run campaigns -- sometimes helmed by actors! -- based entirely on sex and war. They stereotype the left as whiny and complaining yet continually assure the majority (be it the white majority or Christian one) that the oppression and discrimination they face is real. They laugh at Democrats for having no new ideas while peddling rejects from three-decade old CATO papers. They decry the race card but can't whip it out fast enough. They demand media balance, condemn media bias, and then fund viciously right-wing outlets. As I said, it'd be amusing, if only it wasn't working.

So Brooksian

Brooks's latest column is so, ugh, Brooksian. Billed as a short history of Deanism, it tries and fails to connect Howard Dean to the breakdown of fraternal orders. Or something. I'm really not sure, but I do know that PZ Myers did an excellent job gutting it:

Ooh, there [Brooks] goes, treating some nice words as if they were smutty slanders. "Secular" is a virtue: we live in a secular state, which means it carries out its functions without requiring specific religious beliefs of its citizens. It does not mean that we hunt down and persecute Christians, much as the religious right would like you to think it is so.

"Embodying the educated class" is also a lovely advantage to me. He makes it sound like some narrow, weird group of people with freakish habits, but I think he's just trying to play that divisive red-blue state game. Guess what? Alabama is full of educated people! So is Idaho! And Florida! Even Texas, although I understand they have to hide in armed enclaves. Those people we're electing to the Senate and House of Representatives and White House? Educated. Judges? Educated. Even Republicans go off to universities to learn things.

So I guess I don't understand Brooks' game. He seems to be declaring the Democrats and especially Howard Dean's clan to be the party of really smart people who like to learn things. What does that make the Republicans?

Ethical on the Inside

Chew on this:

Timed as it was to get lost in the hullabaloo of the State of the Union address, the Tuesday night/Wednesday morning purge of the House Ethics Committee was still a pretty audacious move.

It's been known for some time that the now-outgoing Chairman of the House Ethics Committee, Rep. Joel Hefley (R) of Colorado was going to get canned for his various offenses related to the Ethics Committee's handling, be it ever so gentle, of Rep. Tom DeLay (R) of Texas. The only mystery was just when the ax would fall.

But in this case, Speaker Hastert seemed to be channeling Michael Corleone in one of his less appealing moments.

As we noted back on November 19th, three of the five Republican members of the House Ethics Committee turned out to be in the Shays Handful. Or putting it more prosaically, three of them voted against the DeLay Rule.

The three were Hefley, Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R) of Missouri and Rep. Steven LaTourette (R) of Ohio.

Hastert axed all three.

The two who toed the DeLay line -- Rep. Judy Biggert (R) of Illinois and Rep. Doc Hastings (R) of Washington -- stay. And Hastings becomes Chairman.

Could some of my friends across the aisle lay out the affirmative case for this maneuver? And could one or two of them maybe explain why it happened before dawn on the day the SOTU would eat up all the coverage? It's not that I don't want to believe your party is ethical, it's just that they're making it mighty, mighty hard to do.

The "For Something" Trap

I'm rapidly losing patience with the "Dems need to stand for something" trope, the one usually offered by kindly conservatives in the context of well-meaning advice. This week, the guidance was proffered by QandO's Dale Franks, and it's springboard is a Christian Science Monitor editorial that worries itself sick over the Reid-led move towards opposition party. The criticism follows the usual trajectory, a graceful arc from sadness over the failing opposition party to invocation of the now-unemployed Tom Daschle who, the writer predictably writes, would be glad to tell you how well this opposition party stuff works out. Too bad such a fun to write post is so intellectually bankrupt.

Tom came from a crimson state that voted for President Bush in overwhelming numbers, so maybe if you're from Dubya country you might not want to be the nation's highest profile opponent of his policies. And I'm sure that's exactly what he'd tell you if you went to his door and asked, rather than simply imagined the conversation onto your keyboard. As for Reid and the Dems? They don't stand for anything? Really? Not even the 10 Leadership Bills that they unveiled last week as the centerpiece of their legislative agenda? Or did you just not take the time to look?

If the Dems really were a bunch of idealess naysayers whose only use in life was implying things about Bush's nominees, I'd wholeheartedly jump on the "they suck' bandwagon. But it's just not true. What is true is that they are a minority party subject to the whims of a hyper-partisan majority that has choked off every opportunity for the Democrats to put forth an affirmative agenda. The evidence of the Republican Party's near-despotic rule over the House, and to a lesser extent the Senate, is voluminous and outrageous. Democrats can't bring bills to the floor, Hastert won't put legislation up for vote unless a majority of Republicans support it (a stark contrast with the bipartisan vote-counting of certain Clinton-era policies), Democrats are denied the judicial courtesies they offered Republicans, DeLay regularly augments egregiously conservative portions of bills when he finds they gain too much Democratic support, and so forth. This is a public strategy aimed at painting the Democrats a wholly negative, unproductive party. But, as with so many PR efforts, it's relation to the truth is creative.

Fact is, Democrats have a publicly accessible legislative agenda that they're simply being barred from pursuing. They asked perfectly reasonable questions of Bush's nominees, queries that are all the more essential considering the mess these folks made of the last four years (does anyone really believe that the country was well-served by ignoring the August 6th PDB or the Geneva Convention?). And Republican dominance, for its part, is directly traceable to the determined bomb-throwing and demagoguery of that consummate oppositionist, Newt Gingrich. You tell me -- did it hurt them in the long run?

I don't fault the Republicans for misrepresenting the facts, they're a political party focused on consolidating their power. I blame the pundits, editorialists, reporters and writers who don't do the reporting or questioning that'd lead this absurd meme to disintegrate. And that goes for normally freethinking guys like Dale over at QandO, who must know better and, if they don't, damn well should.

The Politics of Branding

Tucker Foehl points out this interview with Naomi Klein. Her thoughts on the anti-war movement, the state of Iraq, the failure of the left, and basically everything else are worth reading in full, but this caught my eye:

So what the Republican Party has done is that it has co-branded with other powerful brands — like country music, and NASCAR, and church going, and this larger proud-to-be-a-redneck identity. Policy is pretty low on the agenda, in terms of why people identify as Republicans. They identify with these packets of attributes.

This means a couple of things. One, it means people are not swayed by policy debates. But more importantly, when George Bush's policies are attacked, rather than being dissuaded from being Republicans, Republicans feel attacked personally — because it's your politics. Republicanism has merged with their identity. That has happened because of the successful application of the principles of identity branding.

Klein, of course, is an expert on branding, having written No Logo, the seminal book on the subject. And her thoughts here prove her expertise, she's absolutely right. Over the past 30 years, Republicans have successfully merged identity with politics, the importance of which is almost impossible to overstate. When your party affiliation becomes enmeshed with your sense of self, attacks on your candidate become attacks on your person, and thus ends any hope of being convinced out of your position. No longer are you dealing with policy or evaluating arguments, now your personal defenses are up, your worth is being called into question, and the rightness of your original position is transcendentally important.

Democrats, for our part, have failed to notice this phase shift happening. While we sat around the campfire agog at the Christian culture warriors sucker-punching their self-interest and focusing on trivialities, we missed that they were focusing on what moves them. It's a point Michelle Cottle makes in her excellent critique of Jim Wallis. While liberal evangelicals make a compelling logical case for Christians to focus on poverty rather than penetration, they miss that sex is simply a more interesting and visceral topic, it grabs people better. That's why television is packed with shows focusing on bedrooms while only one focuses on the Roosevelt Room, and even it throws in sexual subplots and features conversations conducted during breakneck sprints through the halls. Same goes for the public sphere, where the titillating easily triumphs over the technocratic and, by involving people on a deeper, more moral level, increases their self-identification with whoever they judge their allies.

Democrats are right to want to focus on health care and the kitchen table. But virtue only counts once elections are won. While Democrats have retained their focus on traditional social targets, Republicans have moved towards focusing on the dramatic aspects of the public sphere, either those associated with culture or those associated with safety. They, not us, embraced Hollywood's values, focusing on fighting and fucking while Democrats continued exciting audiences with stirring invocations of Medicare. And as Democrats became more theoretically correct (all the polls show our domestic platform's popularity), our audiences became more detached. Sure they agreed, but damn were they bored. Republicans, at the same time, kept hammering at primal desires and fears and getting their base more invested, making them feel each election and loss was more climactic and high-stakes. It took the overwhelming hatred of a Republican incumbent to return the fire to the Democratic base, but by then we'd lost too many voters in the preceding years to win a turnout fight.

That's why branding matters. Kerry won the moderates, the independents, the unaffiliated. Those with a mind to make up went for the Democrat. But that group had dwindled over the years, as more and more voters had incorporated the Republican party into their identities. In 1992 and 1996, forign policy was silenced and the Republican candidates were technocrats unable to grab onto the hooks the party had placed in voters, but in every other recent election, decades of Republican branding triumphed. And it triumphed because Republicans understood the brand trumped the quality of the product. That they weren't focusing on the important issues, either for the country or themselves, was never important. Just as few iPods are used without their subpar but instantly identifiable white earbuds, few voters noticed that the issues they wanted weren't the ones that'd do them the most good. But the Republican Party certainly recognized that if you give the people what they want, you get to do what you want. The Democrats didn't. What a shame, then, that Al Gore spent 2000 listening to Naomi Wolf and not Naomi Klein. Maybe if he'd picked the latter we'd be living in a different country.

Pesky Political Bedfellows

James Dobson, fresh from protecting our children from the persuasive homosexual arguments of aquatic cartoon characters, has turned his attention to bigger, harder, longer fights. Namely, homosexuals (what can I say? The guy's got focus). Along with some Christian superfriends, he's formed The Arlington Group and written Karl Rove a letter promising to sink Social Security privatization private accounts obliteration if Bush doesn't move faster on outlawing his Vice-President's daughter. Dobson has reason to be worried. Bush, of course, famously broke with the party platform and argued that:

"I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so."

When Charlie Gibson asked if he was disagreeing with the GOP platform, Bush, shooting characteristically straight, replied "Right". Only it seems that his inflection was off. What he meant to do was say "Riiiiight", give a wink and cross his fingers. At least that's what White House spokesperson Trent Duffy seems to think, as he explained Bush's defeatist attitude towards the FMA as a product of Senate conditions, not personal conviction. But does Bush really want to enter a fight Rick Santorum doesn't think he can win? And can he do so while desperately trying to piece together his shattered "spit on FDR" coalition? And does he really want to cross the majority of Americans who find the FMA a waste of everyone's time? And does this remind anyone else of Clinton's first term?

Tune in next week, same Bush place, same Bush channel, for the exciting conclusion to "Term Two: Fools Rush In".

Goldwater Lives!

With Republicans sweatily gripping all the levers of government, it's worth taking a moment to see how the worm has turned. MoJo blog had a great post showing that Bush's speech wasn't so much penned by Michael Gerson, as lifted from an acceptance address 50 years ago:

On the Republican Party: "This party, with its every action, every word, every breath and every heartbeat has but a single resolve, and that is freedom -- freedom under a government limited by laws of nature and of nature's God."

On other nations in the world: "This nation and its people are freedom's model in a searching world. We can be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world."

Will that road be easy: "I know that our freedom was achieved through centuries, by unremitting efforts by brave and wise men. I know that the road to freedom is a long and challenging road."

What about those who say America is an Empire: "Our Republican cause is not to level out the world. Our Republican cause is to free our people and light the way for liberty throughout the world."

And the larger forces at work: "This Nation was founded upon the acceptance of God as the author of freedom."

Why will the world follow: "We must make it clear that until its goals of conquest are absolutely renounced and its rejections with all nations tempered, terrorism* and the governments it now controls are enemies of every man on earth who is not -- or wants to be -- free."

In case you were wondering, those words didn't come from Michael Gerson's pen nor emerge from Bush's mouth. They were Barry Goldwater's. And Gerson, a speechwriter with an acute sense of history, surely knew that. But does he know what happened to the man who scribbled down the original? This comes from Page 37 of The Right Nation:

Goldwater's defeat turned conservatives into pariahs. Theodore H. White tells a remarkable story about Goldwater's chief speechwriter, Karl Hess. Chief Speechwriters of losing campaigns usually find a safe berth in the party machinery, but not so Hess. First, he applied for positions with conservative senators and congressmen -- the very politicians who had been cheering him on months before. Unwanted, he lowered his sights dramatically. Could he perhaps work the elevators in the Senate or the House? Still no luck. The apostle of the free market was reduced to the ranks of the unemployed. He enrolled in a night-school course in welding and eventually found a job working the night shift in a machine shop.

It wasn't that long ago that Gerson's equivalent was banished from politics forever. 50 years later, his words echoed in the inaugural speech of a two-term Republican president. And while his party crows and talks of a "permanent majority", disheartened Democrats should keep in mind how quickly -- and how totally -- the worm can turn.

* MoJo blog replaced Communism with terrorism to drive home the similarity.