The Next Hurrah

Pioneering Corruption, Part Two

by emptywheel

Back in December, the Toledo Blade quipped that almost enough of Bush's Pioneers and Rangers had been implicated in criminal scandal to put together a prison softball team (and they didn't count Kenny Boy Lay, who I hear is a mean outfielder). Well, in the interim five months, we now seem to be working on a flag football team, at least counting those who have been implicated in some crime or contracting scandal. Here's my own list of Pioneers and Rangers who have been caught in dirty dealings, just from eyeballing the list.

• Jack Abramoff, for everything and the kitchen sink
• Katharine Armstrong, Anne Armstrong, covering up Dick's drunken hunting accident (Katharine also seems to be present every time George and Tony get together to plan illegal wars)
• Haley Barbour, for funding GOP Marketplace, the NH phone jamming firm
• Neil Bush, received donations earmarked from his mommy's Katrina donation
• (Uncle) Jonathan Bush, executive of the former Riggs Bank, money launderer for (among others) Augusto Pinochet and the Saudis
• Joseph Canizaro, largely responsible for the Katrina profitable non-recovery
• Tom Craddick, implicated in DeLay's TRMPAC money laundering
• Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, for alleged stock manipulation
• Lanny Griffith, for funding GOP Marketplace, the NH phone jamming firm, also involved in New Bridge Strategies, arranging business deals in Iraq
• Larry Householder, accused of accepting kickbacks from state contracts
• Nicholas Hurtgen, for extortion related to state contracts
• Alphonso Jackson, claims to have refused HUD contracts for Bush non-supporters
• Ken "Kenny Boy" Lay, for the mother of all business fraud
• Tom Noe, indicted for 53 counts including theft, money laundering, and tampering with records; some money laundered to Bush-Cheney 04
• Wally O'Dell, for allegations of fraud (former CEO of Diebold)
• Ralph Reed, implicated in Abramoff's scandals
• Manuel Stamatakis, for suspect insurance contracts negotiated for the Philadelphia port authority
• James Tobin, guilty of conspiracy for jamming the Democrats phones in NH in 2002
• William Weld, for fraud related to Decker College
• Brent Wilkes, guilty of bribing Randy Cunningham, possibly with hookers
• Charles Wyly, for tax evasion (also funded the anti-McCain black baby ads and the Swift Boat campaign)

Whew. A flag football game, with subs!

Al Franken's Stockholm Syndrome

by Kagro X

So I've finally decided to pick up and read the copy of Al Franken's The Truth, with Jokes that I got as a gift this past holiday season. And having just recently read some of the blog coverage of Franken's recent visit to Burlington, Vermont, I was struck by a section of the book I read last night, and haven't been able to sleep since.

Let me start with the relevant passage of the book. In Chapter Six, "With Friends Like Zell," Franken describes what may have been one of the most politically costly mistakes made by the 2004 Kerry-Edwards campaign.

More Polling Tea Leaves

by DemFromCT

Gallup has a new post on party ID which has been a contentious and poorly understood topic for some time. Party ID, in a nutshell, is a variable and not a constant. It both measures and influences the voting public's opinion of the powers that be; when pollsters use party ID to weight poll results, it can change the outcome of the poll. But it's also an important historical measure that reflects satisfaction with current leadership.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Republicans have been more likely than Democrats to hold an edge in party identification. In the 18 quarters since 9/11, Republicans have had an edge in 12 of them. This is a change from the past, as Democrats have traditionally held an edge in national partisanship in Gallup polls dating back to the 1940s except for a brief period of time in 1991 around the Persian Gulf War and late 1994 and 1995 after Republicans took control of Congress.

Even though basic overall party identification is essentially even, the Democrats can be said to have an advantage because more independents say they lean to the Democratic Party than to the Republican Party. This is significant because independents who lean to a political party tend to share similar attitudes and voting patterns with those who identify with the party. That could be one reason why Democrats have a lead in Gallup's generic congressional ballot this year.

In the most recent quarter, 49% of Americans identify as Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party, and 42% identify as Republicans or lean to the Republican Party. Democrats have held that same 49% to 42% advantage during each of the last three quarters. In the second quarter of 2005, Democrats had a slightly smaller 47% to 43% edge. At the beginning of 2005, the parties were at even strength on this measure.

The slow eroding of trust in Bush, the Schiavo debacle for Congress, corruption scandals and the Iraq war all have influence here, as does dismay at spending on the part of fiscal conservatives and NSA actions on the part of libertarians. This is a trend that will need watching right up to the election.

Republicans will scream 'inaccuracy!' when polls show 'not enough Republicans' in the party ID demographics. But it ain't necessarily so.

Impeachment Bad for Dems? A data point.

by Kagro X

Another common objection to impeachment is, "It'll hurt us in the election."

It's a convenient one because it fits the currently fashionable model of timidity seeking bi-partisan cooperation, sounds vaguely sophisticated (because it's contrarian), and is untestable, at least until it's too late.

But is it untestable?

Eugene McCarthy Dies at 89

by DemFromCT

I was clean for Gene way back when, though I was just a kid in 1968... high school age, in fact, and a few years shy of the draft. But I'll never for get him. And today he passed from us.

Former Minnesota Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, whose insurgent campaign toppled a sitting president in 1968 and forced the Democratic Party to take seriously his message against the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 89.

McCarthy died in his sleep at assisted living home in the Georgetown neighborhood where he had lived for the past few years, said his son, Michael.

Eugene McCarthy challenged President Lyndon B. Johnson for the 1968 Democratic nomination during growing debate over the Vietnam War. The challenge led to Johnson's withdrawal from the race.

The former college professor, who ran for president five times in all, was in some ways an atypical politician, a man with a witty, erudite speaking style who wrote poetry in his spare time and was the author of several books.

"He was thoughtful and he was principled and he was compassionate and he had a good sense of humor," his son said.

The best memorial I can think of is to pass this thoughful review along that put him in context with his times.

Grover Norquist’s Leaky Bathtub: The Republican Decline, Part I

By DHinMI

Those of us who try to discern tectonic movements from what feel like tiny shakes and tremors risk looking silly when we predict major political realignments. Historians, with the luxury of hindsight, often disagree on what happened before and during historical realignments, so it's understandably difficult to identify what's happening and predict the future.  But the signs are getting hard to ignore.  They’re visible in the public opinion polls, the results of the last several elections, going all the way back to 1996, and the demographic changes. They can be seen in the changes in the media and how the media is reporting on the Republicans. They’re visible in the internal dynamics within the two major parties, including the Republican scandals, and the diverging paths of the Republicans’ ideologically-driven predictions on numerous subject and the very differnt “facts on the ground,” most notably on Iraq. They were visible in the country’s shock at the federal failure to respond to Katrina and the “Two Americas” it exposed to the world. Finally, they’re becoming visible as we reckon with the effects of decades of anti-tax, cultural jihad politics, over a decade of Republican control of Congress and five years of complete Republican control of the federal government. The political trends seem to be converging in ways that suggest that Grover Norquist will not achieve his goal of reducing government to a size where he could “drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” And for abetting Norquist’s’ pursuit of his insane and megalomaniacal dream, the Republican party is on verge of losing control of Congress and losing the benefits of the (mistaken) perception that they have had momentum and popular support behind their unending attacks on government and governance. Just as George W. Bush and Karl Rove let Grover Norquist get his hands on government and he dragged it to the bathroom to drown it, America appears to have pulled the plug from the tub.

Secret Memo Exposing Bush/GOP Strategies

By DHinMI

I've just come into possession of a secret memo used by the highest levels of the Bush administration for spelling out their plans for post-invasion Iraq and post-election domestic policy.  Possessing this top-secret document has put me at great peril, but you, reader, need to know that, contrary to what many believe, the Bush administration has worked off a carefully calibrated set of plans for what do do after major combat and major campaign operations have ended.  Not just adept at campaigning, the Bush team, as shown by this memo, are also more than adept at the art of governance.   So here's the memo.  I hope it disabuses you of the notion that the Bush team has no plan other than reap the benefits of inevitable victory in every battle. 

It's All Giuliani's Fault

By DHinMI

It's all Rudy Giuliani's fault.

He's to blame for Iraq. 

He's to blame for the economy.

He's to blame for us having to fight a defensive battle to protect Social Security.

Tax cuts for the wealthy, exploding deficits, attacks on the environment, attacks on gays, attacks on science, and too few attacks on Osama bin Forgotten; all Rudy Giuliani's fault.

Why?  Because the response by the City of New York on 9-11 was so good that it masked the corrosive ineptitude and contempt for governmental competence that, in the absence of the best emergency response and crisis management system in America, is so bad that people die for lack of water, basic medical care or a bus ride. 

Does anyone have any doubt that if the response in NYC to 9-11--an on-the-ground response that was almost entirely local--does anyone doubt that if the response to the WTC attacks was anywhere near as bad as the response to Katrina, that Bush would never have been able to soar in the polls, launch the cynical and evil fearmongering that morphed into warmongering, and eventually his reelection last November?

It's one of those ironies that make you realize that the higher being has a bitter sense of humor: because the people of New York City got competent--and for a while, inspired--leadership and performance from their mayor and institutions of local and state government, the people of New Orleans have to suffer through the gross incompetence of FEMA under an administration that uses the levers of government for little more than plunder, here in the US through taxes, deregulation and no-bid contracts, and overseas through the misuse of soldiers who should be on the Gulf Coast maintaining order and delivering relief. 

It's a cruel thought, but Rudy Giuliani and the skill and expertise of the local responders on 9-11 kept the callousness and incompetence of George Bush from being fully revealed to just about every American until the disasterous "relief" that's made things so much worse for the victims of Katrina. 

The Insecurities of the Democratic Hawks

By DHinMI 

Digby:

We are the ones who pointed out the fact that Bush's delusional PNAC/TeamB/CPD braintrust had been wrong about everything since the dawn of time and were the last people who should be trusted with a pre-emptive war doctrine. We're the ones who noticed that you didn't have to be a nuclear scientist to see that the "evidence" of Saddam's arsenal had a bit of a comic book flair to it. (The drone planes should have been a tip-off.) We're the ones who understood that people tend to not like being invaded by foreign troops even when they despise their own leaders.

It was the sophisticates of the establishment who bought every bit of snake oil the administration was selling, not us. And yet we still have to be condescended to from the people who were flat out, 100% wrong?

I am not a pacifist. And I never said that we should not respond to the threat of global terrorism. But I disagreeed with the way this administration and the Democratic hawks went about doing it --- especially this enormous mistake of invading a middle eastern country for inscrutable reasons, at this time, in this way. And I was right. I don't know if I represent the zeitgeist of the rank and file, but I do know that I and others of "the left" who saw this debacle for what it was have earned a little fucking respect.

Digby's right, 100%.  But it raises a question?  Why don't the liberals who supported the Iraq war show us respect?  Could it be that they're so insecure that they're afraid it get they expelled from the kool kidz foreign policy klub?  That they won't be seen as viable national leaders?

America Coming Together Coming Apart?

By DHinMI

After the last election the blogs were full of stories about how America Coming Together (ACT), the 527 dedicated to doing field and get out the vote (GOTV) activities that would help Democrats, had been a failure. Some folks looked at it as the least sophisticated will, declaring that if Kerry didn’t win that it was a failure. Others complained that it didn’t match up to the Republicans’ highly targeted GOTV, which drove out lots of new voters in places where neither party had previously dedicated resources for field activities. Still others complained that its geographic scope was too narrow, with most of the activities focused on high Democratic areas, primarily urban areas with large African-American and Latino populations. What these criticisms lacked was an understanding of why ACT was created, its funding, and the inextricable link between its funding and its strategy. By any informed measure of ACT’s performance, it was a huge, huge success. And that success makes this news absolutely demoralizing: