Bushite PATRIOT Games

(apologies to Tom Clancy, whose similarly-named book, and subsequent movie, I've never been able to sit through)

So, tonight, Congress has passed a one-month extension to the PATRIOT Act as we know it, rather than pass the Conference Committee version to extend key provisions due to sunset on December 31.

This is among several victories of a highly technical nature that occurred in these weeks and shows that the ability to mobilize near-unanimous Republican support for the Bushite agenda is faltering; the opposition is gaining by forming tactical alliances shaving off small groups of Republican social moderates, libertarians, fiscal conservatives, and principled constitutionalists. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has found his step by utilizing the intricate knowledge of Senate and Congressional rules which he has, along with that of other key Democratic operatives. Against the odds and the numbers, he has come up with some legislative wins. We should forgive any lack of ideological purity when we have a captain who can put the other team on the defensive and come away with some big upsets.

Of course, it is the nature of the Bushites to be obtuse, and so we should not be surprised by the effontery of Dubya's recent P.R. onslaught. Rove feels an election comin' on; even at a distance of 11 months we can hear the grinding of the spin machine. This time, though, the Talking Points are out of touch, reality-denying, and no longer with the same convincing swagger.

Let's go through a few of the recent jousts, the sound of battered helms, split beams, and shattered shields still ringing in our ears:

Torture: After months of fighting it behind the scenes, then finally professing public indifference, Bush folds and accepts the legislated prohibition of practices beyond the military field manuals by any American government entities. The votes were solidly against him in the Senate. The key point was that McCain accepted the power of the American military to do what they wanted, but simply insisted that their actions be properly put beyond that which is legally allowed. The perpetrators thus could hope to plead that their actions were for the right cause, perhaps bringing benefit to the nation, putting themselves on the line.

Bush immediately trotted out the argument when the beans were spilled on the Eavesdropping of American phone conversations by the Times and the Post, conveniently for Bushite opponents on the key day of the Senate cloture vote on the conference report for the PATRIOT Act extension.

This story has broken quickly (after being held up for a long time), but this much I have managed to understand: Our national security and intelligence capabilities include massively capturing all the phone conversations, then sorting out the ones of interest. In order to make use of these capabilities for domestic purposes (and follow the law), it would be necessary to gain frequent, quick, and extensive secret warrants to keep selected information. The FISA Law bends over backwards to give that to our federal authorities. Despite knowing this, Bush gave the go-ahead to forget all this legal claptrap and "just do it".

Now, when it breaks, his defenses have been planned for months or years (as with the Plamegate indictment). Number One defense is no defense: hell yes, I stop at nothing to protect the American people. And it's working, he says. Trust me.

Yes, there are some trumped-up, lily-livered opinions from Justice about the legal and constitutional justifications for violating the law and constitutional protections. The rest of it is a bunch of mumbo-jumbo which sounds like a reasonable appeal for the novelty of this highly classified technology to bust the envelope of the law, but isn't. The delicacy and complexity of the technology seems to have been built right into the understanding the law shows; it's just that Bush said "to hell with it".

It's still early for this one, but I have the feeling that the Administration is going to get thumped a few times really vigorously, the judiciary will get their back up against the Bushites, and the wheels which allow the feds to examine basically everybody's call to everybody else and sift out the .001% of national security interest will be greased even more.

Arctic Drilling: Yet again, the combination of environmentalists, skeptics, and a few realists has preserved the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for another year. This one remains a bit of a dream--it will only take one bad legislative year on this one to ruin the place forever, and it's probably going to come some day. In the meantime, leaving the stuff in the ground seems wise; at least when we finally drill it the value will be at an all-time high (by definition).

Budget Cuts: OK, on this one I think the Bushites will get their way in the end, in substance; the bill will finally pass. However, the debate has embarrassed them with their core group, the conservatives, who know that the cuts are unpopular and niggardly--small potatoes next to the cost overruns of Iraq and Katrina, and even to the tax cuts the Bushites want to slip by next session. My bet is that the tax cuts will be, themselves, chopped to fit the bed they made this fall.

I forgot to include a bit on the PATRIOT Act itself! Like most Americans, they slipped this one in after 9/11 while I wasn't paying attention. This time, I am. Russ Feingold, one of the few who was paying attention the first time, has led the movement for some sensible restrictions on the totally-over-the-top power grabs and disregard for review, checks and balances of the Bushites. And it's not just about them; if we lose this battle now, we will never get these pieces of our privacy back. Bush is bleating on about how having to get a court order is going to cause terrorism, and similarly, we simply must have someone looking over our shoulder when we check out library books--a one-month lapse in the law would give "terra" a chance to check out all those secret tomes on making atom bombs and stuff and we wouldn't even know! Meanwhile, Feingold has put together the winning coalition of Democrats and libertarians and comes out of this looking very Presidential.

I thought the Internet poll on Lou Dobbs about The PATRIOT Act was interesting (capitalized because it has nothing to do with patriotism; it's a SLA: a seven-letter-acronym. Perhaps we should call it TPA--"The PATRIOT Act" or "Toilet Paper Act" for short. Basically, the Bushites use this stuff to keep their butts clean.) As I recall, there was about 20% who said it should be extended for 6 months; 10-11% total for longer periods; a few for a shorter period; and 60% said it should not be renewed at all. Too bad everyone in Washington knows better.

Anyway, during their bluff stage, the Bushites pretended they couldn't accept a short extension--can you imagine Dubya using the first veto of his administration to block an extension of the PATRIOT Act? Then, after being defeated on the Senate floor, they insisted that the extension had to be their way--one month instead of longer--to make sure it's out of the way before the election campaign and prevent any real examination of the questions involved.

2005: It's finishing the way it has been for most of the year: disastrous for the Bushites.
In these cases--standing up for internationally-recognized principles against mistreating prisoners, defending civil liberties against overweening federal goons, exposing the Bushite war on the less privileged, preserving the environment-- we got good outcomes, ones that benefit this country. Unfortunately, there are many other areas where Bushite incompetence, unintended consequences, lack of foresight, myopia, and bloody-minded arrogance have hurt us. Those are the ones where we couldn't stop him or change his direction.

I have to comment on this year's "controversy": is it "holidays" or is it "Christmas"? I feel the whole thing is a sham of a debate, as usual around here. I'm in favor of recognizing the global holiday that is Christmas, and putting a little spin on it: Christmas is about universal brotherhood (or the P.C. version of that word) and peace, recognizing that children are our future, and it's not just a sectarian event. OK, and it's also about getting lots of presents and being a glutton, too.

Happy Whatever!

Doris Lessing's Intelligent Design?

I refer here to the "Canopus" novels of Doris Lessing, of which Shikasta (1979) was the first and most complete in its explication of a system of regular visits and interventions in the Earth's biological evolution and, in particular, in humanity's development.

A fictional system, we may presume. But one that she uses quite brilliantly in Shikasta to suggest a possible explanation for many of the marvelous, fortuitous facts relating to our becoming the colossal, if superficial (in the planetary sense) factor we have become on our planet.

Shikasta is told from the viewpoint, omniscient if ever there were in fiction, of a veteran emissary of Canopus to Earth. This being has been involved with the planetary terra-forming, biological seeding, care and nurture of mammals, apes, and finally us reformed troglodytes (formerly reformed tree-dwellers). So she (for some reason I feel the character is feminine, though the name Lessing gives to the character in the present day is "George Sherban") has been through it all. The book is composed of extracts from the archives the character has reported back to home base over the eons, and particularly in the last 10,000 years or so.

Basically, they (those from Canopus in Argos) started things, along with their junior partner Sirius, who got part of the earth to perform their own experiments (the break-up of Pangaea, with Sirius getting to play with S. America, Australia, and the future Antarctica). There was also a third force, parasitic and jealous of Canopus, that keeps on infiltrating what was once a paradise (protected by Canopean beams of energy from harmful things like meteors, too much heat or cold, or black holes). As a result of these complex and partially malign influences, things have gotten knocked out of balance.

It was (is) sort of like the current Iraq thing, only for better motives (something like: it's what they do, bringing life, etc.) Basically, Canopus has some great powers: its beings basically live forever, can move heaven and earth, mess around with genetics, there's something about crossing dimensions (perhaps a string theory reference?), even a very tricky process to go into human life through the barbaric childbirth process, then heavily influenced by the intoxication of life on Earth, fulfilling their destiny and Canopean guidance by being in the right place, at the right time, for some critical act. That's how they work, mostly, these complex days, but previously they risked direct external appearances.

In our religious legends, they're the angels, the Hindu avatars. The cycle of religious founders that started about 500 B.C. and ended with Muhammad (among which there was an exceptionally perilous outcome in Judea in the first century A.D.) was a phase in their concern for us--a series of warnings to all the lands to change our sinful ways. Despite all their efforts and powers, though, they can't quite fix what has been knocked off kilter, and thus we are in this parlous state.

I don't want to criticize here the Pennsylvania judge who rather decisively threw out the notion that a public school system can teach intelligent design because of church-state separation reasoning. But it seems to me that Lessing's world hypothesis, which can explain so many things, shows that there is a basis other than pure religion to create an intelligent design concept. OK, there's no proof; it's basically a thought piece, which in the other Canopus novels she tries to flesh out with some stories from other planets in the Canopean sphere of influence.

The part I like about it, the nut of truth that drives the whole concept, is the vast similarity between the systems of religion of man. Each of them seems to foolishly (and improbably) believe that it, alone, is right. This reality suggests to her that we are a species that has trouble remembering facts, passing them on coherently, but one that's not forgetting everything, either. She's struggling to make sense of this meta-fact and find the part that could be true behind all the thousands of years of playing "telephone".

Iran Nuke Post at TPM Cafe

Signed up with this one to Matthew Yglesias who asks someone to save him from his inclination to oppose Iran getting Nukes:


[new] Re: Save Me (3.00 / 0) (#31) by chinshihtang on Dec 11, 2005 -- 12:03:55 AM EST
A nuclear Iran is no worse a problem than a nuclear Pakistan, and we're getting through that (though there were some scary moments with India). Pakistan, indeed, would have made more sense as a place to conduct strategic opertaions than Iraq.

That's history, now, and Pakistan will be a rogue power with nuclear weapons for the next few years, or a subcontinental partner with India in a Predator-vs.-Alien kind of symbiosis.

I digress. The only advice I got is that I just don't want anything to blow up with either Iran or with North Korea until we get this Bushite down the road in 2009. We can't trust him. Or the Rove/Cheney axis (jettison Rumsfeld, the unlikely victim of Plamegate) which rules his world. And, somehow. through some crazy electoral college logic, he rules ours.

Sure, we should advocate that Iran stay within the NPT. But we're hypocritical at best to insist that they do so when we so cavalierly toss aside our commitments to international law.



I got this response:

Re: Save Me (3.00 / 0) (#37) by BruceMoomaw on Dec 11, 2005 -- 12:53:35 AM EST
Chinshihtang: "A nuclear Iran is no worse a problem than a nuclear Pakistan, and we're getting through that (though there were some scary moments with India)."
Really? What evidence do you have that we're "getting through it"? Do you see any sign that the Pakistani government is more stable than it was, or that the degre of public sympathy for al-Qaida has diminished? (I believe Pew Research Center pegged it earlier this year at 50% of the populace.)

"Pakistan, indeed, would have made more sense as a place to conduct strategic operations than Iraq."

Not, of course, when it already had the Bomb, and we had no way of knowing where all the Bombs it had were. Which is also why we don't dare attack North Korea now. The only thing we can do to resolve the Korean situation at this point is to make it clear that (1) we won't pay one cent to keep Kim's government propped up in power; but (2) we WILL do absolutely anything necessary to allow it to give up power peaceafully without being massacred by its own people. To do that credibly, however, we have to be capable of occupying and stabilizing the place -- which, of course, is something else we're totally incapable of doing as long as we stay entangled in Iraq.

"That's history, now, and Pakistan will be a rogue power with nuclear weapons for the next few years, or a subcontinental partner with India in a Predator-vs.-Alien kind of symbiosis."

Thou sayest it. How likely is it that it WILL turn into a "rogue power with nuclear weapons" in the near future? Enough to scare the hell out of me -- but it's too late for us to do anything about it. It is not, however, too late for us to prevent Iran from becoming still another deadly theat of the same kind. (Or, rather, it wasn't too late for us to do so before we got entangled in Iraq because of the cretinous overoptimism and duplicity of the Bushites.)

Thanks for paying attention, Bruce. Here are two responses I made (the second being the afterthought that's the main point):

Re: Save Me (3.00 / 0) (#87) by chinshihtang on Dec 13, 2005 -- 03:03:53 PM EST

True, North Korea was also a better focus for our energies than Iraq. Alas.

I was advocating operations in cooperation with Pakistan, helping to secure its western borders. And, no, I don't think that the regime is stable (more reason to work with it now), but I do think they have plans to protect their nukes within their military no matter what craziness might happen with their political regime.

Re: Save Me (3.00 / 0) (#88) by chinshihtang on Dec 13, 2005 -- 03:07:59 PM EST
We've lost control of nuclear proliferation (if we ever had it). There are more holes in the dyke than we've got digits.

The answer, though, is not stepping on the ambitions of the wannabes, but something more fundamental in our approach to nuclear weapons as a global society. And we, of course, are doing the opposite of providing sound leadership in this area.

On the record Admission

Someone (never mind who) asked me whether I "hate Bush". This is my response:


I certainly don't hate the person, George W. Bush.

I do hate Bushism, though. As I do most Bushite policies and governmental decisions. Both for their choice of means and for their inevitable unintended consequences. As a good American, I hope for their success in many things though I am always skeptical of their ability to bring them off.

So I am not at all fond of this Bushite Administration. The Administration of the 41st President, George H.W. Bush, was not at all Bushite, another example of the distinction between hate for the person/(s) and for the "philosophy".

Similarly, and as Islam is not "the" source of Iraqi government in its constitution but is "a" source, Dubya is not "the" source of the Bushite administration we have, but his questionable contributions cannot be denied.

Delay update

Delay is off for conspiracy, but the money laundering was very real. Let the courts decide whether his fingerprints are on it.

My Letter to Debbie...

in response to Debbie Stabenow's request for input on the agenda, on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, seeking priorities for 2006:

With regard to health care, jobs, homeland security (including emergency preparedness), energy and environmental policy, we should have clear programs of action that we stand together behind. These would be appropriate coming from the DNC as the national party's top organization. Obviously, they would be very different from the Bushites'. I suggest our health care program includes both a revision of the ridiculous Medicare prescription program and something to address those many without health insurance, particularly the young.

If you want to really drive a tidal wave against Republican control, though, you must not be afraid to hit out at the Bush administration with one voice on Iraq. The theme I would propose is "100 Americans a Month" until such time as Bush begins to talk seriously about dates and timetables. After that, it will become clear whether there can be a bipartisan approach to Iraq or not. Regardless, the Cheney/Rove axis leaders need to come under consistent pressure for their roles in politicizing the intelligence interpretations behind the initial invasion and attempting to suppress through personal attacks (as in Plamegate). The goal should be to marginalize them permanently.

You must insist on American behavior in the world that is consistent with our values, as has been frequently lacking with the Bushites.

Finally, on the Supreme Court nomination debate (or "Alito-sis", as I call it), I suggest Sen. Reid utilize the "two-speech" precedent which will prolong the debate, keep the issues present, while observing Senate rules and avoiding "Nukler War". Important as the swing vote's change (from O'Connor to Kennedy) will be, it's more important as a symbol of the hijacking of the government we have all been witness to these 5 years.

Speaking of Plan B...

I have to express my outrage at the FDA's denial of license to market the morning-after contraceptive called "Plan B" in this country and the way the organization did it.

The scientific merits and safety of the drug did not seem to have been the paramount concern. The drug has been opposed on political arguments connected with preventing abortion--this is a lot like the implied connections between Osama and Saddam--a deliberate deception allowed (encouraged) to proceed. Plan B is not even close to abortion; the fact is, it acts before conception actually occurs. To argue otherwise is getting close to Pythonesque "every sperm is sacred" self-parody.

We need to take this political logic further. I will give this much integrity to this presumed right-to-life position (for pre-conception eggs and sperm) and those who make the argument, and I will not accuse them of seeking more unwanted pregnancies. Preventing the distribution of Plan B would seem certain to increase the number of subsequent abortions, and I'm sure that's not what they want. Is it possibly some desire for an increased supply of babies for adoptive purposes, in order to meet unfulfilled demand? Seems farfetched.

Instead, I will give the argument "credit" of a negative variety--what it seeks to do is to prolong the debate over abortion. It's part of the "pick a fight--any fight--over the Supreme Court nominations" strategy. Its aim is to distract the American people from issues that, frankly, are more pressing, and more harmful to Bushite administration.

The incidence of legal abortion in the U.S. has been dropping sharply; we should applaud that fact, but note that Plan B would have brought another sharp drop and, perhaps, started to take the issue off the table.

An Iraq Policy with Some Guts

In honor of Jack Murtha's effort, but trying to bring in some reason.

Back to the Elephant

I was working on a scathing condemnation of Cheneyan hypocrisy on Iraq, but I found it all in the Times by Sunday. The first of two pieces was the simple and direct challenge through letter to editor from Thomas Czarnowski last Wednesday asking Cheney "who's the Revisionist?":
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/opinion/l23cheney.html,
and the second Sunday's Frank Rich broadside branding them as liars (footnoted below for the Times Select-less).*

So let's move on to the real topic: what is the best timing for the withdrawal of the coalition forces, and why?

Let's go over a few pieces of relevant data:
1) the U.N. has authorized continued occupation for one more year, roughly. For that period of time, at least, the occupation is not illegal by international standards (though the invasion was).
2) readiness levels of the Iraq forces to defend the federalist, democratically-elected government which could emerge from the elections are terrible.
3) some individuals are kidnapping, torturing, and killing Sunnis, apparently taking advantage of being able now to settle scores from Saddam's times. The connection with Iraq's "government" and "military" will not be publicly forthcoming on these, but it seems their readiness to take over is pretty advanced in this particular dimension. Once again, the parallels with the Vietnamization experience seem to be surprising us.
4) Thus, the Bushite claim to have prioritized rebuilding the Iraqi self-defense capability (which is not new by any means) is seen to be hollow, further proof of ineptitude, and/or terribly cynical.
5) The Bushites choose not to discuss the question of permanent or ongoing basing of American forces but hide behind the lack of readiness of the Iraqi forces.

Political Calculations

I have to own up to the fact that, in the key moments leading up to the invasion, I was more interested in moving my family back to the country than the arguments for or against some immediate military action: I was concerned the invasion would disrupt our move. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

I was aware of the games that were being played with the weapons inspectors by Bushites and Saddamites and the fact the inspections were not allowed to run their course. I was aware the forces were in place. I was aware the Turks had denied us permission to use their country to stage attacks on central and northern Iraq. I was aware that the key Congressional votes to back up Bushite threats to invade Iraq were conveniently scheduled for October, 2002, so that those who dared vote against could be bashed for the anti-patriotism evident in any vote against aggressive military action, for whatever reason. What I missed was, "What's the frickin' hurry?"

My answer to that question was, and is, that political timetables were the one thing that was thoroughly planned in the invasion. The vote had to be at X date, the invasion had to be when it was, so it could be over by Y date, so that Bush could gain any benefit for "doing something" about 9/11 in 2004. Cheney's most hypocritical charge (OK, I couldn't lay off) is the accusation that his critics have politicized these issues of national security.

My point being, those who advocate a timetable for withdrawal have every right to bring political calculations into this argument. Nobody being hypocritical here: domestically, the Iraq Issue is more a political football than a serious debate about our foreign and security policy, and there's no rule in the game that says you can only punt on fourth down.

Bottom-line requirements for a bipartisan Iraq policy (even now):

1) Cease to offensive maneuvers beginning now.
2) Active policing actions by coalition forces end after the elections.
3) Six months to put up or shut up on training Iraqi forces, if and only if the atrocities against captured Iraqis cease. We are much in the position of the PLO being told to be responsible for stopping terrorism in the West Bank on this one, but we must insist upon it.
4) July 1, 2006, a balanced panel of pro-and anti-Bushite Congressmen will receive report from the military on the training progress (executive session OK). The choices are whether to give them 0, 3, or 6 more months to train.
5) Regardless, coalition forces should be drawn down to 25,000 by end of September, 2006. Whether that goes to 0 by end of year depends on continued U.N. authorization.
6) The U.S. publicly disavows any intention to have permanent bases in Iraq. Now, before the Iraqi elections. No "squirm now, sleaze later" approach this time.

If any of these are not agreeable, we stick with Plan B--we hammer the Enemy on these points:
1) We would not have invaded the way they did;
2) We would not have occupied the way they did; and
3) When we get control of the government we will move promptly to withdraw the forces.

http://chinshihtang.blogspot.com

* The operative phrase in Frank Rich's editorial: "The more we learn about the road to Iraq, the more we realize that it's a losing game to ask what lies the White House told along the way. A simpler question might be: What was not a lie?" Rich recalls a Dick Cavett story, dishing Lillian Hellman: "'Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'". Can't top that for breadth, though it could be a bit more direct. A calling-out, nevertheless. Amen, Frank.

When does Plamegate become just Scootergate?

If that happens, these will be my last words on the subject. The fate of Libby's indictment is not the point here.

I think it's pretty clear what happened--I like to speculate, but there's probably not that much need. Scooter has been ID'd as the fall guy for a long time--perhaps he was actually the one who spilled the beans, certainly the guy who failed to do the cross-check for the VP between the "Smear List" and the "Do Not Smear List". Don't you hate when that happens, when somebody turns out to be on both lists, and you don't realize it?

There I am, speculating again. It might've actually been somebody else's job--like Stephen Hadley, or Mary Hughes, who has been conspicuously absent for most of the scandal investigation. Anyway, Scooter's the one who couldn't be protected, just like Mary Astor in the Maltese Falcon. Somebody's got to take the fall for Rove and Veep.

I checked some of my notes from April, 2004. At that time, aware of the specific allegation that Libby was the source for Novak (apparently only half-right, that one)I was wondering whether the scandal might touch Cheney before (or even more deliciously, after) the Republican convention. I was off by about 18 months: if the indictment had hit before November, 2004, Bush & Co. would be out on the street. Which is, of course, why it didn't happen. In retrospect, the months the thing was with Ashcroft, the legal protections and email folders being reviewed, were key in the successful postponement of the case exploding in the collective Bushite face.

I do give Fitzgerald credit for doing the right thing. Even now, he's putting the legal thumbscrews to Liddy (excuse me, Libby) to get him to rat out the truth. But it's been slow, too slow. The media knew that Libby was the probable principal by the end of 2003; there was a real lack of interest when they should've been on it (instead all the nonsense about the National Guard in the '70's....)

As usual, the timing was great for Rove, as was his ability to avoid direct fire and to script properly his comments to the press. That guy's got to go! Also, cover up-related kudos to Robert Novak, who was the guy who put 2+2 together. You sleaze for publishing it; a rare combination of brilliance and consistent lack of integrity.

That'll be it, unless I get answers to my two principal unanswered questions:
1) What context exactly was the one in (presumed CIA agent) Miller's notebook in which she mentions "Valerie Flame"?
2) Who was the 8th Person in WHIG?

I've just got one more question: Can we get a do-over on 2004?

Alito Filibuster Question

Is it to be Bad Breath, or just a Waste of Breath?

The proper name for the foul humour which seems likely to afflict the body politic next year is “Alito-sis” (hyphen optional). It’s the smell of the Sargasso Sea; a zone in which movement slows to a crawl, direction seems a meaningless question, and the stench gets on everybody. That’s where we’ll be, if Alito’s nomination brings a prolonged filibuster, leading to some version of a Nuklar Option being implemented, and the Democrats retaliate by throwing the Senate’s business into total disarray.

The scenario could easily leave a cloud of noxious gas over the country through Election Day, 2006, with voters afraid to come to the polls without a gas mask. Under those circumstances, I don’t think the Democrats would benefit: they don’t have the werewithal to issue the needed 75 million stink filters, nor the Category 5 breath of fresh air that would be needed to dispel the fog of Post-Nuklar War. It’s a mofo.

Confirmation Trivialities

I recommend to Harry Reid that he announce—I’m skipping the part about waiting for the hearings and the Committee vote—that he will observe the “Two Speech Precedent”. That will give an eventual end date to the ceremonious Beating the Bushites that will precede Alito’s confirmation (by about 60-40, I’d predict, and will do it according to Senate Rules and precedents, which is what he wants.

A couple of Senators who are prepared to Nuke a Filibuster (from the French term for "bootless") will actually end up voting against Alito. Senator “'Profiles in Courage'-fodder/loser in ‘06” DeWine will be one. McCain will not. Reid should save the Balls-Out, Protracted Filibuster, Followed by Post-Nuklar Disarray Scenario (a name almost worthy of Herman Kahn) for the replacement for Justice Stevens or Ginsburg, if that should happen before we can all safely enter the post-Bushite era.

I suggested in a previous post that the key question which all the Senators will try to solve, for any proposed nominee to replace Sandra O’Connor, is to think of a compass and ask, how many milliseconds or degrees of separation will there be between her course for the "Judicial Ship of State" and the Nominee’s. On the conventional liberal-conservative axis (number line? time line?), Alito’s nomination changes that game somewhat—he is clearly far to the right of O’Connor’s ideologically contiguous justice, Anthony Kennedy, way over there in the distant zone of Scalia/Thomas-ville (as x goes to negative infinity, or to the year 1930). So, if confirmed, the question is modified to the difference between Kennedy and O’Connor—that is how far the course of the Court’s opinions will deviate. The pressure will be on Kennedy, and he appears to be a vain vacillator.

I have a lot of ambivalence about looking at the Supreme Electorate in such uni-dimensional terms, though. While I accept that the Court does not need another Scalia or Thomas—the 1-2 combination of the literate bomb-thrower and the knuckle-walker is more than adequate to represent their micro-constituency (you can pick either justice for either role)-—there are other ways to look at the Court and what it does.

From my point of view, I say “fie” on both houses! The two most significant decisions of the last session of the Court--on using eminent domain to support private interests, and to hold federal law superior to state referenda and legislation allowing medical marijuana—were driven by the “liberal” judges in the wrong direction. OK, they weren't of the level of significance of Gore v. Bush (what exactly was the judicial philosophy of the majority in that case, now?), but that one doesn't come up in these discussions. After all, the Electoral College and our voting systems couldn't lead to another snafu like 2000, could they? (That was "scorn", not sarcasm, though I admit a bit too facetious.)

I think that we need to look a little past the optics of the '60's in evaluating our Court politics. For example, we should be a little more careful in our support for expanding federal powers when the hands holding the sceptre are so shaky.

The question I want to hear asked of The Nominee is: what happens when our government is found to be in violation of international law, but following federal statutes? Until I hear someone say, "we are bound to accede to international law", I would urge any Senator to vote against any Nominee. Filibusters are OK as long as they don't get in the way of important business. If there is any, and I'm 99% convinced there isn't any left for this Congress.

The other question I want asked of The Nominee: Can we get a do-over for 2004?

Post here your choice for "Worst Bushite"

Note: has to be a person.

Testing the Winds

1) Ambassador Wilson's Lament?
Someone’s got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press.
Whoever it is I wish they’d cut it out quick; when they will I can only guess.

…People see me all the time and they just can’t remember how to act.
Their minds are filled with big ideas, images, and distorted facts.

From “Idiot Wind”, Bob Dylan (1974)

On the face of it, "Idiot Wind" was about Dylan's difficulties in dealing with the public and the media, and with some particular individual (ex-girlfriend or ex-wife, perhaps). I think there's something more, though: the man who coined "blowin' in the wind" and said "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing" was testing the winds at the time, and he found something stultifying out there. Mind you, this was the time when America was stirred by the corruption of the Nixon-Agnew administration and was about to move to decisively oust the Nixonites and go for a breath of fresh air, which was what Jimmy Carter promised. I think Dylan saw beyond it all to the stink of the political climate that was to follow. It would be nice to know what his finger in the air tells him now, but my sense is that he's not interested anymore in that scene.

2) The Scent of Alito-sis
That's the flavor of the stagnant air in Bushite Washington these days. Old thinking, old ideas, but very practical tactics. Let's be sure we lock in these gains now, because this doesn't look like it will last.

That's what the Establishment decided, rejecting Bush's adventurous nomination of Miers. Last month's aroma was unsettling, improvised: frankly, the smell of the uncertainty of the future, rather than the familiar stench of the past.

Although the Miers fiasco presented the Democrats with a great pretext for filibuster: I thought you guys were the ones who insisted on a "fair up-or-down-vote of the full Senate"! I don't see this fight as one they will take up seriously. For one thing, it's the one their opponents wish for, so it's letting them pick the terrain. The credentialists are totally cowed, so it's down to those with the political freedom to fight the right-wing agenda. As with the Roberts nomination, only 30 or so.

I'm only slightly worried. The fulcrum of "what 5 Supreme Court justices say the law is" will move from O'Connor to Justice Kennedy, who is a vain weakling and may cave to pressures from the Right. Perhaps in some ways Alito would be better than Miers, in the sense that a principled conservative may hold back federal prerogatives more consistently than a political cronyism-based one, who'd give the Bushite GWOT anything it asked for. We shall see (and smell). If any institution was made to be conservative, it's the Supreme Court.

3) A Shift in the Jetstream?
Certainly the weather is playing a larger role than usual in the affairs of our country. On the one hand, a timely reminder of the limitations of our power; even more, of policy failures (in disaster planning, in infrastructure); most tellingly, though, the exposure of our governing elite's negligent attitude toward those who are not the winners in American society. This winter the weather promises more political embarrassment due to supply/demand imbalances for gas and oil products in the colder regions.

Or is it the climate, not just the weather? I'm one who finds it very plausible that the storms of 2005 are more than just an accident, even more than just a cyclical variation. Instead, consider them a means of the terrestrial system self-regulating: the greater energy in the seas and lower atmosphere being expended through storms of greater intensity.

Will these be reflected in the political climate? Well, I don't believe that the political storms will be more intense, but I do find that the "idiot wind" has shifted. The Bushites are on the defensive, their party colleagues are rushing to separate themselves, the discipline of the zealots is loose. Democrats seem to be making more of the right moves, and I believe some policy consensus has emerged around some key issues for them. It is way too much to expect a reversal in power in Congress in 2006--the system is gamed against any dramatic changes--but the winds are blowing over the warm waters in a new direction: they may pick up speed.

Plamegate and Watergate

This is in response to two postings from "truthdr" on the Washington Post Forum, in italics below.

Yes the White House is essentially open in this investigation and the two are very much unlike the actual Watergate thing. to my knowlege no one has accused Bush of covering up anything, he is letting the investigation continue to find its way. Remember here we have a specific event, the outing of Valerie Plame a CIA agent that is being investigated. but the crimes if any indictments come will be similar, obstructing justice and perjury. No one to my knowledge is accusing Bush to be involved in either. there has been some talk of cheney but from what I hear and read the prosecutor is not going to indict for the outing but for actions of people during the investigation.

Yes, Plamegate and Watergate are two different things. For one, Bush and Nixon are about as different, from a personality perspective, as two people could be, and the White House behaviors are influenced by that. Among the differences is that Bush would never need to be touched by the tracks of a cover-up; this is so clearly a Rove/Cheney pulling-the-strings-on-their-own operation. As for Veep himself, his methods give him plausible deniability; unless a sizable fish decides to cop a plea--which will lead to a whole box of pain--he can't be touched directly (only through actions of his "office", of which we will be told to believe that he remained unaware).

In Dubya's W.H., the dirty tricks are more furtive, more self-aware. From a legal technicality standpoint, more advanced. The basic idea remains the same, though: "Get (in Dubya/Rove's case, "Git") so-and-so. Use the appropriate methods--and don't get caught."

The problem is the "don't get caught" part; Plamegate shows that Watergate is far enough down the river that its basic legal lesson--that the coverup was more punishable, more broadly incriminating, than the crime--has been forgotten in Washington.

One big difference is that the crimes here were crimes of state (relating at least indirectly to national security and war), whereas Watergate's were "just" ones of politics. This very much aligns with the characteristic trait of the Bushite administration, that "everything is politics".

It's time for the purge to begin. I'm OK with the point that, like Nixon, it's become Bush v. world, as the evangelical rats and other right-wing extremists seem to have been as quick as any to jump ship.

We will all be "anti-Bushites" soon, and there are some good results to expect from that. But what we have to be careful about is the fact that anti-Bushism can carry us in so many directions, all improvements but some opposed to one another.

Bush should not have been reelected. Grid lock with Kerry and a Republican Congress would have been better.

One big question is on whom the chickens will roost for their support of Bushism, particularly in 2004. I think the two biggest victims so far appear to be the liberal Republicans (particularly of the N.E.) and John McCain.

The Lady V., and the Bald Man of WHIG

I made a few notes off Judith Miller's report today of her time in jail and her time before the grand jury, as well as the article about her by some Times staffers, and an editorial by Frank Rich on the subject. I will try to organize these thoughts on the fly, and if necessary come back and re-focus.

To me, there are some key names, and these provide associations in my mind to some major unanswered questions:

Valerie Flame--This "name" was found in Judith Miller's notebook. Importantly for her testimony, not in the section of the notebook where her notes from meetings with Scooter Libby were located.

I give her credit for taking some precautions. She claims to have no recollection of who might have mentioned this proper noun to her and in what context. This seems to me a clear case of selective memory: Miller makes clear in her memoir that she agreed to testify only when Fitzgerald acceded to her request that the grand jury testimony be limited to questions about her meetings with Scooter. In spite of which she somehow did get asked, and denied, meeting with VP Cheney on the subject. (A meeting with Cheney, of course, being impossible as he was in his undisclosed location at all times).

The error in the first letter of the last name (as one would presume it is in fact an erroneous--or encoded--rendering of the name of formerly clandestine CIA agent Valerie PLAME) is interesting to me: I've made the same error in print myself, several months ago. Was I channeling her confusion, or she mine?

OK, a more interesting question is, in what context was "Flame" found in the notebook? Hmm?

Victoria Wilson--another name found in Miller's notebook. This time the surname may be correct (or may not be, certainly not politically correct)but the given name is in error. Here, I think even more clearly, there is supernatural, or subliminal, channeling going on: I recognize the dire echoes of "my name is Victoria Winters" (the start of every tiresome episode of "Dark Shadows", the macabre soap opera/thriller of the what? early 70's?)

Victoria Wren--Actually, this name was not found in Miller's notebook, but at this point, it is time to bring in the common thread: the Lady V. herself, the one from whom we have not yet heard. I call upon Thomas Pynchon to be the muse we all need to unravel this mystery, certainly one worthy of Herbert Stencil. The latest straw the media have grasped is a photograph purportedly of Plame, who appears in her latest incarnation as a young, foxy blonde (ah, but the powers of plastic surgeons have come so far since Valletta, haven't they?)

WHIG--the Rich editorial (http://select.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/opinion/16rich.html) says there were eight members of the White House Iraq Group, an ad hoc conspiracy to force the invasion down the (mostly willing) throats of the American people, come what facts there may. Rich's text names only six: Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Mary Matalin, Mary Hughes, Condoleeza Rice, and Stephen Hadley (a national security official). It might be implied that chief of staff Andrew Card, who set up the group, would be a seventh member. Who was the eighth, and why does Rich not dare to name him/her? Could it be that the eighth member maintained plausible deniability, retains immense power, and has a reputation for ferocious infighting?

Then there is the seemingly mysterious, portentous line from Libby's famous letter releasing Miller from any need to further protect him as a unnamed source: "Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning," Mr. Libby wrote. "They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them." Miller followed this with some anecdote about how she had been surprised to meet Libby out West in Aspen.

This screams, "Cover story!" No, not for a newspaper, but for spy business. What else do aspens do besides turn in clusters, and have complex connecting roots? They quake, that's what. Libby is talking about the cover-up, the threat that some of his fellow Bushite cronies would turn themselves in en masse, and reveal the hidden conspiratorial connections--if only they were not mortally afraid? Of whom? Who gave the name to Novak?

I think the message is clear: The Eighth Man. That man of the West. Benny Profane's Ivy League-educated half-brother, Dick.

Who is Harriet Miers?

...and how many milliseconds of difference are there between her point of view and Justice O'Connor's?

If you read my piece below on the Roberts nomination (and preview of this one), you won't be surprised to read that my opinion was that Gonzales was Bush's first choice, but he was convinced not to go with it. Unlike Gonzales, Miers' fingerprints are not all over some of the more controversial White House decisions, like the Guantanamo detainee practices, stretching the Geneva Conventions, etc. These would have caught Gonzales up in a prolonged mess before confirmation--which would not have been assured. Apparently some of the right-wingers were planning to dig in their heels about him, as well--as they have with Miers. (Not that I believe many--or any--Republican Senators will end up voting against her). And, although Hispanic, he's not a woman. (Duh!) So, I think the Bushites decided to go a similar direction with the less well-known Miers, who was intended as a female Gonzales with less well-known views; a sort of Roberts/Gonzales chimera.

I think Bush had to give up on Gonzales, at least for this go-round; anyway, he still gets to be Attorney General. I think that the prevailing impression when the Miers nomination goes to the floor will be that she will resemble O'Connor in her decisions--which I do not agree is the right standard, but I certainly believe it will be the standard that will be applied.

The Tar-Baby Scam

I, for one, am not going to accept that Democrats should not filibuster her appointment because either: 1) right-wingers are disappointed in her selection; or 2) Harry Reid supposedly suggested her name as a possible nominee. There are major unknowns, and there is undoubtedly some dirt related to various Bushite messes she has had to try to clean up. There will be a lot of requests for information for the White House--most of them will not be fulfilled. I think the question of whether to allow a floor vote for her should depend on the relevance of unanswered questions (after the committee hearings, which I think will be like Roberts'--rather unrevealing).

The right-wing lobby did want to provoke a knock-down, drag-out fight on this nomination, and they are disappointed that they may not get it. I think that was the Bushites' intention here, that is, to come up with a woman nominee who has a fairly good chance of getting through without a filibuster. I watched the Pres' news conference quite closely the other day; he seems actually to want Congress to do something (though the likelihood they will, and the value of any legislation they could come up with are two completely different matters) rather than get totally bogged down in partisan warfare. At this time.

I think that's a smart call; right now things are running rather strongly against the Bushites.

The right doesn't have to despair over an opportunity forever lost, though. There's quite a good chance that there will be another nomination to the Court during the 3+ Bushite years remaining. If it were to be a replacement for Stevens or Ginsburg, a war is almost assured. So, don't be upset--it's probably still coming, just not so soon. I don't believe the majority will be stronger after 2006, but it will probably not be radically different, so the game will essentially be the same. The most interesting outcome of the congressional election will be to see whether the voters reward or punish the Gang of 14 members who have to run for re-election. That will have a chilling or encouraging effect (depending) on those who want to deepen the trenches between aisles in Congress.

You know, I'm not one of them. It's not because I'm a "moderate", but because I'm a "radical". Why should they pretend they have such differences when they agree on so much? The answer: It's about power, of course; but I'm only interested in the power to do something. Since neither party has much of a vision of the future, so what? Until we start getting our act together, I'm all in favor of cooperative muddling.

On the Washington Post Politics Talk Forum:

From: DAVIDJEROME
To: chinshihtang
(22 of 23)

5317.22 in reply to 5317.17


what type of nominee do you think Bush will select when Miers goes down?

Reply


From: chinshihtang
To: DAVIDJEROME unread
(23 of 23)

5317.23 in reply to 5317.22

Actually, I don't think she will "go down" (no distasteful sexual allusion intended). I think she'll slip through in a relatively close vote, after a fairly prolonged confirmation process (due to White House stonewalling of Senate information requests). I don't think a filibuster will hold longer than, say, 30 days, and I think the Republican senators will vote in lockstep for her when it comes down to it.
A few of the Gang of 14 members will break ranks and say that the circumstances are not extraordinary enough to merit a prolonged filibuster, while reserving the right to vote against her. The threat of Nuklar Option Mofo will be, like a sharp-breaking inside curve ball, enough to bend a couple Dems' knees. They will realize that it would be unchivalrous to filibuster a woman who's going to be doing her best to smile a lot and look gracious.
These are all guesses on my part at this point, trying to "poke the pig" to come out of her hole.

What do you want from a Presidential candidate?

All hail the Washington Post Political forums, the only game around since the New York Times gave up on policing their site, then pulled their best columnists behind the paid Internet (i.e., losing) curtain. The above title is a current Forum topic, and here is my answer:

From a President I look for two things above all else: 1) Ability to articulate a vision for America's future which can motivate our citizens and civic leaders to act responsibly, thoughtfully, and yes, selflessly; 2) Knowledge of the world's cultures and histories so that they can intelligently conduct diplomacy and command the military. I place close to zero importance on candidates' alleged ability to manage the economy (which Presidents do not do), a little on the mere execution of policy and bureaucracy (which a good chief of staff can do).

Recent history does show that governors consistently beat senators in presidential elections, but this does not necessarily mean they make better presidents. I think everyone who reads this can think of at least two ex-governors who became presidents in the last 30 years for whom they have a strong distaste. If you study U.S. history, though, you will note that generals trump even governors in Presidential elections.

Speaking of ex-military, I would be very surprised if John McCain--who would be the strongest possible Republican candidate in a general election--can get the support of the Republican party Establishment, without which he is going nowhere in terms of getting the nomination. He is too much an independent thinker. Same for Gingrich (who's definitely not ex-military). I expect a Bushite like Cheney, Jeb, or Frist to get it, unless the incipient party rebellion gets a lot more substantial (as it might if they were to lose their majority in a house of Congress in 2006).

As for the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary has a long way to go, but if she can tightrope through the primaries, satisfy the centrists, the restless activists out there, and avoid crazies with guns, she will truly deserve it. I think a national security pro like Ret. Gen. Clark would make the best sort of running mate for her. It might not please the left-wingers out there, but I think they would be more than satisfied with the results, as compared with any other President in the last 50 years (Hillary's husband included).

Iraq EndGame Theory

The crunch is coming in Iraq, and it will take place with the national referendum on the proposed constitution. After a brief review, we can move to each of the main players' game strategies.

The key facts are pretty simple: the Kurds and the Shiites have pretty much the constitution they wanted, the Sunnis don't. The rules of the game require an overall majority in favor of the proposed draft, but also specify that if 3 provinces defeat the proposal with 2/3 majorities, the whole process starts over (including new elections for the constituent assembly). Nobody knows if it would really re-start, or just totally degrade into civil strife and chaos. So:

Shiites: This should be pretty simple for them. Generate the required majorities. Make deals if necessary to get them--recall that in the U.S. Constitutional ratification process, there was strong resistance in a lot of states. It was necessary to promise that there would be a Bill of Rights immediately following, and even then it was very close in several states. The Shiites need to be prepared to make such a bargain.

I say "should be" simple--of course, there is the Moqtada Al-Sadr factor. I've heard that he is actually rallying Shiites against the constitution. This shows once again that the guy is not reading the same playbook as the other mullahs and ayatollahs. As they say in The Right Stuff, this guy could seriously "screw the pooch". His group will have to be suppressed; the question is who? and how? I think the plan is to find him, bring him onto al-Sistani's carpet, and give him a sound beating.

Kurds:same deal, basically. They got what they wanted. There could be a deal on Kirkuk to try and co-opt some Sunnis' votes there.

Americans who favor the Bushite policy:Scarce as these people are becoming, they have a good opportunity here. They need the vote to come out right, no matter what. After that, they can join the withdrawal bandwagon. I think the whole business of not naming timetables is just a temporary position until they get past this obstacle. The only problem is their limited ability to affect the outcome (short of tricking the election, which I wouldn't rule out, but don't expect). If it looks as though it may turn out badly (like 2/3 badly in 3 provinces), look for the Bushites to put the U.S. military in the streets "to maintain order" and intimidate opposition voters.

Americans who oppose the Bushite policy: I hate to say it, but they have the same interests. Protest as they will, they can't change who holds the reins of power. If they want the US out, they should want the constitution to pass so it can happen.

Radical Sunnis:Their objective is clear: do not permit the Constitution to pass. Perversely, though, this means that they have to accept the legitimacy of the vote enough to let Sunni opposition voters go to the polls in the Sunni-dominated provinces. Advocating a boycott of the referendum would be disastrous: if the constitution passes, they truly will be the "dead-enders". If it fails in three provinces, they can prolong their insurgency and wreak more havoc. To improve their odds, they want to intimidate the Shiites who live in those provinces.

US military: The strategy should therefore be to protect the Shiite enclaves in the central provinces and ensure that people there feel they can get to the polls safely. That would be a limited role, subject to the political assessment of whether that will be sufficient to ensure the constitution gets 1/3 vote or better in at least a couple of the Sunni-dominated provinces. Regardless of that political assessment, that is what they will need to say they are doing.

Sunnis who are not active resistance fighters:This is the most tricky group to game. They have taken the right initial position, which is opposition to the draft constitution: if there were no threat of the referendum's failure, there would be no leverage for them.

This does not mean necessarily that they should follow that policy through to the bitter end. If they hold that position and the constitution passes anyway, they will lose their leverage and end up with a constitution that is disadvantageous. If they hold that position and the constitution fails, they will have delivered the country over to the resistance's objectives, essentially: more chaos, probably worse, prolonged US occupation, and still, in the end, no likelihood they will emerge on top. I'm pretty sure most of them don't want that.

So, they have to ensure some political discipline among their supporters, as they will want to drive a hard bargain with the Sunnis and Kurds, then shift sufficient support to deliver the constitution's victory. It could be a split, with only certain subgroups (tribes? urban coalition groups?) making a deal.

Bottom line: if everyone follows their best strategy, the outcomes will be: a late deal between the Sunnis on the one hand, and the Shiites and Kurds on the other--probably involving specific concessions to the Sunnis for the local governments of Baghdad and Kirkuk. The constitution will pass in those two provinces (or rather, not fail with 2/3 against), be soundly defeated in one or two others, but pass overall. The US announces a beginning of withdrawals in 2006, starting in the southern provinces.

Roberts et al., and getting past '68

As the Roberts nomination goes to the Senate floor, I want to express my thoughts on him and the Democratic Senators votes, generally meaningless as they are, on it. First, though, I’d like to suggest a little different perspective from which to view the nomination and votes upon it, then we’ll tackle the more interesting question of what is next.

One of the basic premises here is that American politics is stuck in a rut, one that basically dates from 1968. Like the movie Groundhog Day, in which the main character keeps living the same day over and over until he finally gets it right, our national election stage since then has been mostly variations on the theme of 1968’s election-that-never-happened, Richard Nixon vs. Robert F. Kennedy. I think we have basically tried all the different combinations (with and without the 3rd-party populist factor, as sometimes played by Ross Perot), or enough of them anyway, and the 2004 election was the closest yet we’ve gotten to the originally intended matchup. It helped that we had the new Vietnam, i.e., Iraq, in the last election, to help crystallize the foreign policy component, but it was basically a rehash of the same old issues: abortion, minority rights, deficit spending, us vs. them internationally, executive power, pork-for-whom, propping up our declining industries, law 'n' order, etc.

My view is that the Republicans basically win this fight every time, in the absence of current, publicly-exposed misuse of power or a strong third-party candidate who can draw off populist independent voters (we had the misuse in the elections of 1972, 1984, 2004, but it hadn’t reached the level of public awareness due to cover-ups). The Republicans utilize the now-all-too-familiar tactics and strategies: the Southern strategy, wrapping themselves in the flag, exploiting Democratic divisions, challenging their patriotism, etc. It’s tiresome, and the public dissatisfaction with these alleged issues—-most of which are entirely static at this point—-is frequently evidenced.

We tried to get out of the rut, I’d suggest, in the post-Cold War/pre-9/11 period from 1989-2001. Looking back now, the whole era had a sense of unreality about it, and there weren’t too many new issues. (What were they, anyway? Clinton scored one success in taking welfare out of the Republicans’ column, and made some inroads on the tax-and-spend, but failed to change the basic game, due to his own weaknesses.) We were just starting to look around and think about things differently—Gore tried-- then BLAM: The GWOT has replaced the Cold War, and we’re back in the rut.

It’s time for some new issues, and there's some signs of movement undercover. Actually, the Bushite neocon point of view on championing democracy may actually signal some new thinking in the neglected area of America’s role in the world and its mission. Clearly, “the energy crisis”—that pseudo-issue dating back to the ‘70’s or so—has taken a more critical, meaningful turn calling for new policies and new thinking (though that certainly wasn’t reflected in the recent energy or transportation bills). Global warming is now getting on everybody’s radar, whether or not it has any direct relation to the rash of intense hurricanes of this year and the last. I see some movement on the critical issue of electoral reform. A glimmer of some consideration of modification of the current transnational organizational void (particularly in the face of the collapse of the EU constitution). Thoughts about the huge fiscal mess we are leaving to our descendants (though the Social Security privatization wasn’t the answer).

Now, back to the Supreme Court. I take a different view of John Roberts from many, which is that, diffidence notwithstanding, we pretty much know what he’s going to do as Chief Justice. It’s Rehnquist Redux. He will be a reliable vote for the Republican platform, circa 1968. Unlike Scalia and Roberts, but like Rehnquist, he will avoid extreme, injudicious statements, but he will support federal government expansion, oppose expansion of individual liberties, cautiously cut back on the right to abortion, accept disenfranchisement of the disadvantaged as long as it’s not too blatant, etc. He’s no bomb-thrower for the radical right, but a status quo ante kind of guy.

Fine—this is a Republican victory, but one that I suppose they earned in the ’04 election debacle, and one that changes absolutely nothing. I objected to the notion that he was a proper replacement for O’Connor from the beginning, noticing that Rehnquist was due to depart, and suggesting he was really the replacement for him all along. Events have borne that out. The Democratic votes are lining up pretty predictably along red/blue lines: swing-state senators are seeking to solidify their moderate image, solid blue state Senators to buff up their liberal credentials. Nothing too exciting here; more entrenchment in the rut. That deal is done.

The next nomination will generally be viewed through a very microscopic measure, namely, the number of degrees/minutes/seconds that the nominee varies, in the classic, outdated liberal-conservative spectrum, from the O’Connor Standard azimuth. I suspect that the Bushites would love to nominate another Roberts but will be unable to find someone able to put on as convincing a show as he did. This next nominee will not get through by dodging and weaving, he/she will have to get specific and the answers will always be compared to O’Connor’s positions. The Democrats will not let things proceed unless they get answers this time, while the Republican Right is spoiling for a fight—they want to revisit the Gang of 14 moderates’ coup, and they are grumbling that they will not fall into line if Bush names a moderate.

I don’t “mis-underestimate” the Bushites on this one. They did a great job coming up with Roberts for the last nomination, and they will consider carefully this time as well. I just don’t think they will be able to avoid a fight. If we take Alberto Gonzales, for example—a candidate with pretty high probability for selection since he’s a Hispanic, a Bush loyalist; he’d be almost a sure bet if he were female—he apparently would stir up resentment and resistance from the Right, as well as harsh questioning from the Democrats on his policy memos supporting detention, torture-like methods, etc. I read on a right-wing blog he’s the only candidate the Democrats wouldn’t filibuster—that’s probably because he’s one that they can get the votes to defeat!

Clearly, the Democrats have positioned themselves to filibuster either an unambiguous right-winger or an ambiguous one. The chances Bush will name a proven moderate are very slim. It’s going to be Nuclear Option time.

I’m looking forward to it. A rightist judge, however they get him confirmed, will shake up the status quo and produce a reaction of some kind. I think the fireworks will alert people to the stagnation in American political thought, which will be reflected, post-Apocalypse, in the stagnation in the Congress which the Democrats will impose. I think there’s a good chance that the violation of the Senate rules which the Nuke requires will end up in the Supreme Court itself—Roberts won’t have to recuse himself, though the nominee will (or would). That decision could be like Gore v. Bush in its significance, but moreso in that it will lead to some change from the current stasis. Unless, of course, it's a 4-4, in which case it will highlight the stasis itself.

At the end of the day, progressives will ask ourselves whether just another O’Connor is really such a good standard. It’s time to turn the clock forward.

Carter-Baker Electoral Reforms

I haven't read the dissents yet, but I am grateful that this commission, of which I never heard until now, has produced some recommendations which the American people can get behind. These seem truly nonpartisan in their intent and their effect. I can only conclude that those against it are doing so for partisan reasons, which virtually makes them unworthy of consideration.

Not much high technology involved with either the voter ID or the vote-counting methods, which I think is a good idea given our currently regressed state of policy execution. We can bring out the retinal scan, second-choice counting, etc., etc. in about 50 years when we get our act together. In the meantime, I would note that photo ID is a benefit to Americans beyond the mere act of voting.

I strongly recommend that Congress approve these recommendations without modification, before they get tied up in the Sargasso Sea Scenario of the next Supreme Court nominee, the inevitable filibuster, the nuclear option and the post-apocalyptic rebuilding of our checks and balances. I am waiting for the Bushite Spin, but I am perfectly prepared to give them my sincere praise if they endorse the proposal--without modifications!

Even after this may get approved, there will still be the need for structural revision of the House of Representatives and the redistricting process, but that will be assisted by the reforms on the table and the possibility that the political class recognizes that the people actually do have the ability to mobilize in their interest.

I have little more than scorn for the cynics who have no interest in ridding this system of its massive irregularities because the quality of the political class "leaders" doesn't suit their iconoclastic urges or the revised system does not meet some standard of theoretical perfection. If the "move on" and the individual bloggers who claim to be for sovereignty of the people over the Beltway don't get behind this now, what good are they?

Historical Parallels: the 1800's

The notion I've been noodling around with is that American history, particularly in the last 20-25 years or so, has some meaningful examples from the period prior to the Civil War to offer us in our current predicaments. By this, I don't mean that the country is about to fracture in bloody internecine conflict over secession and slavery--don't take me that literally. Perhaps I can explain the basic idea in a short post now, then I'll come back to the topic as the spirit moves.

First, I think the 20th century, particularly the "short 20th century" from 1914-1989 as correctly identified by Hobsbawm, is one of a kind. Let's hope so, anyway. I don't think any period before or since can or will ever compare in its bloodshed, its dynamism for science, technology, or its massive social and political changes (think of the population growth! the rise and fall of Communism, Nazism). Nothing nearly as exciting as the litany of incredible events of that time period has happened since (the expansion of the Internet being the only comparable development, and it has been a Big Bang in slow motion at that), and nothing happened on such a global scale before.

American history in the 20th century was the story of a great ship tossed by enormous waves, often losing its course but always staying afloat somehow. The great wars drew us into their undertows despite our usual self-absorption. Sometimes our politics even reflected interest in the world around us! On the other hand, usually the foreign issues served as rallying points bringing unity.

When we think of the mid-1800's, though, the focus seemed to be on trying to resolve difficult, divisive internal problems. Growing pains, if you will. War--as with the Mexican-American conflict--was more an outgrowth of our domestic issues.

I'd pick up the parallel with Reagan's election, comparing it to Andrew Jackson's in 1828. Each led to a period of governmental dominance for the leader's party, though not uninterrupted and certainly not uncontested. The opposition gradually became demoralized, and eventually fell into disarray over the war the governing party successfully used as a rallying point for political ends.

The logic of the red state/blue state (or slave state/free state) division comes to a head with Bush II/Buchanan.

Note, though, that it was Buchanan's party that fractured by the 1860 election, while the fledgling Republican party (formed just four years before from the remnants of the Whigs) took the victory.

I see great potential for Dumb Duck Dubya to produce his final and greatest unintended outcome through exposing the fissures in the Republican coalition in the name of power. It's early yet, but I find it hard to believe that the Republicans can put another free-spending, tax-cutting, free-trading, interventionist, federal government-expanding candidate out there without creating violent fractures from the libertarian wing, the isolationist wing, or at least from the conservative wing! On the other hand, a libertarian, anti-government, neo-isolationist candidate wouldn't fly too well with the Establishment, who've named every Republican nominee since Wendell Wilkie. Something's gotta give.

I'm going to work on the concept a bit more, particularly how the Reconstruction, and then the Progressive Era, might offer us some guidance on how we can move forward--without falling into their pitfalls. And let's assume that we get past our deep divisions without violence, though I have to think Hillary in the White House will be about as infuriating to some of her opponents as Lincoln was to his.

Belief and this Blog

I want to lead this post with an abridged excerpt from the final pages of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, one of the most creative, genre-bridging novels I've read in years. In this quote, Adam Ewing, a 19th-century American sea traveler in the Pacific who sheltered a desperate Moriori tribesman from slavery on Chatham Island and then is in turn saved by him from a poisoning schemer, notes in his journal his new resolve:

What precipitates acts? Belief.

Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind’s mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being & history’s Horroxes, Boerhaaves, and Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the “natural” (oh, weaselly word!) order of things?

Why? Because of this:--one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.

Is this the doom written within our nature?

If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw...if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword.

A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson (note: his son) to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living. Upon my return to San Francisco, I shall pledge myself to the Abolitionist cause, because I owe my life to a self-freed slave & because I must begin somewhere.

I hear my father-in-law’s response: “Oho, fine, Whiggish sentiments, Adam. But don’t tell me about justice! Ride to Tennessee on an ass & convince the rednecks that they are merely white-washed negroes & their negroes are black-washed Whites! Sail to the Old World, tell ‘em their imperial slaves’ rights are as inalienable as the Queen of Belgium’s! Oh, you’ll grow hoarse, poor & gray in caucuses! You’ll be spat on, shot at, lynched, pacified with medals, spurned by backwoodsmen! Crucified! Naïve, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!”

Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?

This is what I would like this blog to be about: saying what I believe. I have no reason to sugarcoat it for anyone--I'm not running for anything, nor do I have any need to suck up to anyone.

What I ask of you, my reader(s), is to hold me to it. Challenge me if you feel I'm not being honest with myself. I should eschew sarcasm and facetious statements. Scorn is a different matter; I do feel scorn, believe it's justified, and should express it (scornfully) from time to time; however, I do want to keep the focus--as Adam Ewing proposes--on the future world, it's needs, and convincing others whenever I can to consider those. As with Adam, I am not deceived: this is but a blot in the Blogosphere, and unlike the drops in the ocean, all those blotted blogs don't add up to much of a unified whole. In this case, there's no "buts" to add to this blog, except that this one is going to express what I believe, or be blotted out entirely.

Bono, the Statesman

I've read the piece by James Traub of the New York Times, and I have a one-word reaction to it: "Ridiculous"!

No, not Bono. Not even the argument that Bono ranks as a statesman.

What is ridiculous is the fact that our political so-called "leaders" have so ceded their role to envision and act upon that vision that a middle-aged rock musician can upstage them consistently, and to great effect.

I believe that Bono could outpoll the top dog in any major Western democratic nation-state, Arnold-style (OK, I don't understand the complex "Us and them" aspects sufficiently to say that about one or the other Ireland--maybe.)

I love the fact that Bono seems to know the right buttons to push so well--flattery for Lawrence Summers, rock-star aura for Condoleeza and Tony Blair, Christian guilt trips for the right-wingers, not to mention the power fantasy with which he seduces his colleagues in the entertainment world.

Bono for Secretary-General?

Fine piece o' Fineman

The Democrats' dilemma
An independence versus capitulation wrestling match

By Howard Fineman
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 11:38 a.m. ET Sept. 14, 2005


Howard Fineman
MSNBC contributor


WASHINGTON - If I am hearing Simon Rosenberg right (and he is worth listening to), a nasty civil war is brewing within the Democratic Party, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton – the party’s presumptive 2008 nominee – needs to avoid getting caught in the middle of it.

“It’s not a fight between liberals and conservatives,” Rosenberg told me the other day. “It’s between our ‘governing class’ here and activists everywhere else.”

In other words, it’s The Beltway versus The Blogosphere.

What’s interesting is that Rosenberg is himself a Beltway creature, a preternaturally self-assured young insider with a cherubic face and a cold smile. He heads a group called the New Democratic Network and ran his own campaign for DNC chair. But the names he utters with reverence are net-based: organizers such as Eli Pariser and bloggers such as Daily Kos and Atrios.

Rosenberg rejects that notion that the bloggers represent a new “Internet Left.” It’s not an ideological rift, he says, but a “narrative” of independence versus capitulation: too many Democrats here are too yielding to George W. Bush on the war in Iraq, on tax policy, you name it. “What the blogs have developed is a narrative,” he told me the other day,” and the narrative is that the official Washington party has become like Vichy France.”

The birth of the DLC
In the 1980s, he said, a generation of Democratic strategists reacted to the rise of Ronald Reagan by looking for ways to co-exist with his brand of conservatism. The result was the Democratic Leadership Council, founded in 1985, which mixed cultural traditionalism with pro-market economics and hawkish foreign policy. It worked: Bill Clinton became chairman of the DLC in 1990, and used it as a launching pad to the presidency.

But, in the view of the Blogosphere, the DLC model is outmoded and dangerously accomodationist, in the manner of the allegedly independent, but in reality pro-Nazi, regime of wartime of France.

Rosenberg, who has, and can move easily in establishment circles, somewhat self-mockingly declares his own allegiance to the “narrative.” “I feel like I’ve joined the Resistance!” he says.

The First Battle of Bull Run (or First Manassas, if you insist) in this civil war occurred in 2003 and early 2004, when party insiders, the Mainstream Media and a network of long-time “funders” anointed Sen. John Kerry, only to see him get chewed up in the early going by Gov. Howard Dean.

But even though Kerry eventually outlasted the Rebs, and even though Dean (for some weird reason) decided to become chair of the Democratic National Committee, the civil war didn’t end. It just went underground.

The first sign of its reemergence was Cindy Sheehan (remember her?) on the national stage. Beltway Democrats avoided her like the plague; the Blogosphere embraced her as a heroine of the grassroots. It wasn’t so much the content of what she said; she was, after all, claiming mostly to be asking questions. It was the WAY she came to prominence – quickly, virally, seemingly from out of nowhere – and her stubbornly confrontational tone.

In Rosenberg’s view, that’s the tone Democrats need to adopt now, especially after Hurricane Katrina. Too many “governing” Democrats, he says, wrongly assume that their party’s traditional vision of “competent, benevolent government” has been rejected by the voters. It hasn’t, he says.

There is no need, Rosenberg says, to wander in the desert in search of a new theoretical synthesis, the way conservatives did a generation ago. What the Democrats need, he says, is an unforgiving toughness and a mastery of new means of communications – and all of this is more likely to be accomplished in the Blogosphere than inside the Beltway.

Why does any of this matter?
Well, for one, it could affect Hillary Rodham Clinton’s run for the White House. The consensus, among the insiders and in the early national polls, is that the 2008 nomination is hers to lose. But Clinton, by virtue of her DLC family roots and her role in the U.S. Senate – not to mention the job her husband used to have – has no choice but to “inherit the leadership of the Washington governing class.” Not to mention the fact that she is a Baby Boomer of an almost grandmotherly age.

Strategically, Clinton has no higher priority than reaching out to what Rosenberg calls “the emerging activist class” and word is that, through aides and advisors, she is doing just that: they have set up meetings with key bloggers.

I am waiting to see which, if any, of the crop of likely Democratic challengers tries to make himself the avatar of the “emerging activist class.” Dean did it without even knowing he was doing it. I don’t think Cindy Sheehan is running. Who will it be? Unless somehow it turns out to be Hillary – who voted for the pre-war resolution on Iraq and in other ways has tried to burnish her “moderate” credentials.

But if Rosenberg is right, the key is not ideological purity but combativeness, and an appreciation of the power and tone of the internet. Hillary must adapt – she has to “join the Resistance” – and her history has shown that she is nothing if not adaptable.

This is really quite an excellent piece in several ways. Use of the word "avatar", for example; and Fineman's assessment of Hillary's adaptability. This does lead me to believe that Hillary could solve the problem.

Fineman is right to buy into the ideas that there is a rebellion afoot in the party, that there is intense hostility in the Blogosphere to the DLC, and that some there still are fighting the Kerry vs. Dean nomination battle (which wasn't much of a battle two weeks after Iowa and The Scream).

I don't agree that Kerry was a tool of the DLC, though; perhaps more of a tool of the DNC, and that should be history now that Dean is in the top spot there. I do agree that Hillary will have a hard time courting both the DLC (which one would presume she would do based on her husband's history) and the Blogosphere's Rebel Dems. If she is truly "the presumptive 2008 nominee", though, she will have to do some serious tiptoeing and bring home both constituencies. Clearly, her next move is outreach to the Web--more than fattening her already substantial Senate warchest--and I believe I will send her a note to that effect. Let's see if it works; I'll update the site with any response from HRC.

Vacation's Over...

for me, your ever-loving "stoner", as well as for the Ace of Hearts in the Bushite deck. (the other aces: Cheney: spades; Rumsfeld: Clubs; Rove: diamonds--I'll have to list the current complete deck one of these days as part of my newfound commitment to posting)

We'll be tackling the question of the U.N. (it's put up or shut up time on ideas for that antiquated organization's charter, as signaled by the nations' failure and James Traub's kickoff article in the Times Magazine); more on Katrina; the Iraq constitution; the Supreme Court/Senate advice and consent tango; and perhaps some issues close to home, like Ronny Lee's Supper Club, Valle Vidal, and our senators Domenici and Bingaman.

March of the Penguins

I found the story--the real story behind the movie--of the penguins to be poignant and impressive. The efforts that go into survival!

The movie, however, I found manipulative and deceptive in several ways. A few examples:
1) Size of the penguins--they were intentionally made to seem human-sized throughout. Only in the credits do we actually see humans in the same shot and see how small they are. For me, this was somewhat transparent anthropomorphization, and one can only be skeptical of the purposes for which this was done.
2) Mating: They made a point of how there are more males than females, but said nothing about where all the single males go. Do they slink off back to the sea in defeat, or support the desperate effort of the colony to stay warm? Answer: not given.
3) Bodily functions: Do they have any? The environmental effects of the numbers one and two they must produce--particularly, stuck in one place--totally overlooked. (I did see what appeared to be a frozen feces at one point.) Which brings up #4:
4) Is this the one and only place in the world where these penguins mate? Not answered. The environmental stress and the fact the whole species depends on this one place suggests it will be impossible for humans to keep their nose out of it for long. Such vulnerability means, to me, that tragedy looms.

The movie producers' desire to "keep it simple, stupid" actually makes it much less effective as a documentary source of information, and the misleading portrayal makes me doubt any real message that might come from it.

I've heard this film has become the new darling of the right-wing evangelicals. Could it be because manipulation of the masses is the central Bushite value?

More on Nawlins

posted on the soon-to-be-defunct NY Times Readers' Forum, in response to a column by Thomas Friedman (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/opinion/07friedman.html):

chinshihtang - 4:01 PM ET September 8, 2005 (#33993 of 34004)

Different when the Bushite hits homeBest column I've seen from Friedman since the early days in the Middle East.

I grieve for the city of New Orleans; fear it may never regain the grace and joy it was so famous for, and mourn the so-far uncounted casualties.

There is a delicious irony, though, that the combination of the high gas prices and the federal government's failures to properly anticipate, plan for, or react to Katrina have finally combined to break the public's confidence in the Bushites. Not the disastrous Iraq invasion/occupation, nor the myopic management of the economy and the environment, nor even their ridiculous Social Security proposals did it. It's different when the effects of bad policy are felt right here, right now.
The irony, of course, is that the gas price hikes and Katrina were disasters caused by something other than our federal government policy.

Saying this, though, the Katrina episode has all the hallmarks of Bushite administration: lack of foresight, incompetence, cronyism, neglect of the underprivileged, dallying at the crucial moment, furious politicization and spinning of the blame, arrogance, and, above all, refusal to admit error.



talon57a - 4:07 PM ET September 8, 2005 (#33994 of 34004)

Actually polls indicate the public does NOT feel Bush was responsible.
chinshihtang - 4:56 PM ET September 8, 2005 (#34005 of 34005)

George W. Bush? What, me responsible?


talon57a - 4:07 PM ET September 8, 2005 (#33994)
"Actually polls indicate the public does NOT feel Bush was responsible."

Which polls? Worded exactly how?

Actually, my reading of the polls is that the public feels Bush would not accept responsibility if his DNA were two-inches deep covering the entire flood-damaged area.

Of course, he's not responsible for the hurricane. Check out the no confidence ratings; guarantee they will be worse next time around. Nah, probably just a coincidence.


And now, a slightly more serious posting:

Rebuilding, and if so, how?
That is the question--since we're stuck with Dubya and the Bushites for 3 1/2 more years no matter what.

Congress will no doubt pass generous bills to encourage rebuilding of the damaged areas, emphasizing infrastructure and relief and jobs for the evacuees. I would suggest two key aspects for their consideration:
1) We should not be rebuilding beachfront properties on the Gulf Coast. There will be more, probably even larger, hurricanes there and we can't keep the sea out everywhere. Provide reasonable compensation to those homeowners and rebuild them back from the coast a mile or two. This is almost a no-brainer, but in our compassion and determination to overcome this disaster, we may overlook this obvious lesson.

2) We have to put our engineering genius to work in a big way to make a secure New Orleans/lower bayou area. The Dutch have shown the way how to build extensively below sea level near the sea. Louisiana has the added challenge of hurricane-intensity storms. I believe we can and should put our best minds to work on this challenge--it can be done, and it should be done.

Thoughts on New Orleans

We are the Grasshoppers who lived without thought of the future, fed by the tax cuts of the season. "Now is the winter of our discontent..."

I grieve for the beautiful city of New Orleans and what will be lost of it. And the beautiful society, with its lovely folks, that will be hard-pressed to recover its grace and joy.

from this mornings NYTimes:

"seventy two hours into this, to be openly posturing about this, to be attacking the president, is not only despicable and wrong, it is not politically smart" said one White House official who asked not to be named because he did not want to be seen as talking about the crises in political terms.


I think it is a delicious irony that the Bushites' popularity goose may finally be cooked by such things as gas prices and Katrina relief failures (or poor planning)--things mostly beyond the scope of their decision-making--rather than such monstrosities as the Social Security campaign, and the Iraq invasion/occupation. Of course, it's the end, not the means, that counts. Only the outcome matters.

Right, Karl?

Of course, it's too early to declare victory. The Spin Machine is in active cycle. Anytime you hear the phrases "greatest disaster ever...never could have anticipated..." etc., you know you are getting the official story.

A Consensus Democratic Position on Iraq

I just sent this bit to Wes Clark at his website, www.securingamerica.com:

Your letter to the WSJ and your comments on Meet the Press are both right on the money. I think your stance hews very closely to the line that I believe all of us Democrats can take:
1) We would not have invaded Iraq in the way they have done.
2) We would not have occupied Iraq in the way they have done.
3) When we take back the reins of power in 2009, we will move promptly to withdraw any remaining occupation troops; and
4) In the meantime, we support the efforts of our troops.

In this way, we can impose an effective deadline on the occupation, of the only kind the Bushites can respect: Election Day, November, 2008. If they can withdraw safely before then, Iraq will not be such a big issue in 2008, and that is the best the Republicans can hope for. More than they deserve.

What more can we say or do? They don't listen, anyway...

John Kay and Steppenwolf on Iraq?

While sitting on the toilet this morning, the words flooded back to me from one of my favorite songs of my late childhood. As I'm doing this from memory, apologies to the authors.

Monster
by John Kay and Steppenwolf (1971?)

Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and Pope.

Like good Christians some would burn the witches
Later some bought slaves to gather riches
But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
But she just patiently smiled and bore them a child
To be the spirit and guiding light .

(Bridge) The Blue and Grey the stomped it, they kicked it just like a dog
And when the war was over, they stuffed it just like a hog.

Though the past has its share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But its protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey.

The spirit was freedom and justice and its keepers seemed generous and kind
Its leaders were supposed to serve the country but now they don't pay no mind
'Cause the people got fat and grew lazy; now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order, but it's Oh! just an echo of what they've been told.

(Refrain) There's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into the noose
And it just sits there watching

Cities have turned into jungles and corruption is strangling the land
The police force is watching the people and the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our business because the whole world's got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there; no matter who's the winner, we can't pay the cost!

Refrain

American where are you now? Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now? We can't fight alone against the monster.

Topic: Plame Case

I agree that it's unlikely that Rove will go to jail for exposing Plame. It's still possible that he perjured himself. Regardless of the criminal culpability, Rove should remain in the spotlight for his reckless actions which harmed the interests of the people he and his superior in the White House allegedly serve. The court of public opinion is the relevant one here, and neither Ambassador Wilson nor his wife is on trial, no matter how the spinmeisters acting at Rove's will may try to shift the blame.


From:
mfkern
Aug-12 5:55 am
To:
chinshihtang
(43 of 231)


5185.43 in reply to 5185.40

Rove operates in that gray area which may not be provably illegal, but is clearly unethical and self-serving. This is the same landscape which much of our current administration seems to favor.
Gone are the days of low corruption and simple answers. Wilson is a self promoter. Plame is a player. Rove is a political thug and hatchet man. Yet we cannot throw them all in a pit and throw on gasoline- but each is unworthy of high honors in serving the American people.
As more facts are uncovered we are exposed to the low level of honor and ethics in governmnt and politics. The debate seems to center on if this low level crosses the line to illegal. Few comment on the overall state of the environment.
Such ubiquitous low level corruption is not new, but it is cyclical. We can seek to control it, to improve the standards.
But when we do so we should remember that Plame and Wilson are middle class people, pushed around by the paid operatives of the rich, the corporate, the poor, and foreign influence: those everpresent enemies of the American vision of a free middle class. We can perhaps forgive Plame and Wilson their minor transgressions- but Rove should be held to a higher standard as representing the office of the President.


From:
chinshihtang
Aug-12 12:15 pm
To:
mfkern
(59 of 231)


5185.59 in reply to 5185.43

I agree 100% with your posting. The important point is not whether Rove continues on in the Administration, but the condemnation of Rovian behavior as unacceptable. Otherwise, it will become the norm, and it is already too close to being so.
Too many quality people are scared off from public service by seeing how the low behaviors are rewarded, and how those who dare to challenge the system face career destruction and even physical danger--as we have seen too often in our lifetimes.



....But Kern and I got into it a bit on another topic, America's Future.
By the way, apologies to Ms. Plame for referring to her as "Flame" elsewhere, when the topic was not quite as hot.