Get Out!! And Stay Out!!

by emptywheel

For once we've got reason to hold our breaths in anticipation that we might rid ourselves of one of the nastier GOP leaders because the law finally caught up with him. And Tom DeLay is not alone. Hold our collective breath long enough and we might rid ourselves of Frist, Abramoff, Norquist, Douglas Feith, Rove plus any number of Bush Administration officials tied to the Plame outing, and--as firedoglake informs us--Richard Perle.

But it's time we thought beyond these indictments.

I say that for two reasons. First, the indictment to conviction to incarceration rate of well-connected GOP officials has got to approximate Brett Favre's winning percentage this year. I'm convinced Bush has never tried out his Veto Pen because he plans to use it to replace his Pardon Pen, when that runs out of ink. And it's not just pardons--with what BushCo lawyers will be getting paid, there are bound to be all sorts of legal shenanigans designed to get their clients off.

But also, indictments are no guarantee that we'll be rid of these guys permanently. Indeed, somewhere deep in the GOP bureaucracy there seems to be a job placement center dedicated entirely to placing rewarmed Iran-Contra felons. We need to prevent Michael Ledeen, twenty years from today, from passing forgeries again through his buddy Manucher Ghorbanifar.

First, let me comment on a strategy that will not work--impeachment. Put aside all discussion about whether this is politically feasible, either from a tactical perspective or a historical one. Put aside creative schemes about simultaneous double impeachments following Democratic victories leading to a Pelosi presidency. Impeachment won't work because it will allow the Republican party to publicly cleanse itself of its guilt. If enough Republicans were to support impeachment, it would create a fiction that these Republicans never had anything to do with the impeachees, that they didn't endorse them, that they didn't go along for their own (considerable) profit. The Republican majority is, today, knowingly and willfully enabling the sale of our national interest to the highest bidder and we can't let them pretend any differently. Because if they're allowed to pretend differently then one of them will lead a resurgence and we'll end up with President George Prescott Bush hiring Stephen Hadley as his Defense Secretary fifteen years from now.

No. We've got to find a different way to rid ourselves of these guys, permanently. Here are my suggestions for what we need to do--I'd love to hear yours.

Expose the Truth

When Poppy pardoned Cap Weinburger he did more than save his friend. He prevented the full truth from being told. Heck, if we had learned the role Poppy really had in Iran-Contra, we'd probably not have his son messing with our country right now!

I think--but I'm not positive--that we've got a way to avoid this from happening this time. At least in the Plame Affair, we've got a private citizen with a legitimate reason to sue those who wronged her. So the second Bush starts pardoning Judy Miller to prevent the truth from coming out, the Wilsons can borrow Fitz' notes and get their own access to subpoena Judy and Rove and all their friends. No pardons in a civil lawsuit. While the government would no doubt try to classify some of the testimony in such a lawsuit, I doubt that will succeed with the media.

I'm hoping we won't need to use secondary tactics with the Abramoff cases (the other case that we'll need to expose fully to discredit the criminal Republicans for the long term). I mean, there are so many of them, two or three of them are bound to come to trial, right? But if one after another federal prosecutor somehow all get demoted and we don't get trials, we might be able to appeal to the greed of those involved to get them to tell their stories. The question is, can we get any of them to deliver on huge book deals before John Gotti's associates knock them off?

Tell the Story

The next thing we need to do is to explain, in very easy terms, what these guys did wrong. And what the implications are for America.

At least with some of these scandals, the stories are easier--and sexier--than Iran-Contra and even than Watergate. "Karl Rove Exposes Beautiful Blond Spy, Gets Agents Killed" "Republican Fundraiser Paid for Mob Killing" the headlines will read. The trick will be to tell the more obscure parts of the story. Get Chris Eyre to make a movie about the tribes bilked by Abramoff. Get some unemployed South  Carolina UNITE workers to go on tour, talking about how their jobs were offshored because Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay wanted to fill their slush fund. And someone--I hope it won't have to be me--is going to have to appeal to the fears and prejudices of the American people on this. Do I think it relevant that Douglas Feith was selling secrets to Jews and Harold Rhode was funnelling secrets through Chalabi to Iranians as opposed to, say, the British? Nope. But will some Reagan Democrats care they were selling secrets to, you know, "minorities"? You bet.The point is, we need to get an overwhelming majority of people in this country to understand how much Bush and his cronies have sacrificed the best interests of our country.

Sacrifice Our Own Liabilities 

I've long thought the moment when John Kerry transformed from inspiring war hero and peace activist into the kind of guy who would vote "for it before he voted against it" was when, at the request of party leadership, he backed off Clark Clifford in his BCCI investigation. Sure, he passed on his notes for criminal prosecution. But he missed the opportunity to put principle before party where it mattered--in DC.

This time around, we must refuse to back off our own. I guarantee you if we investigate the Abramoff network long enough, we'll ensnare some Democrats along the way. And if we followe CREW's lead, we'll lose Maxine Waters and William Jefferson along the way. But we've got to change the way things are done in DC and that will require purging some of our own.

Offer an Alternative

Did I say we've got to change the way things are done in DC? I'm hoping that the story of defense employees selling secrets to foreign lobbies will make it easy to explain to people the danger of the influence industry in DC. I'm hoping that when taxpayers figure out how much they have personally paid into the coffers of Halliburton because Dick Cheney and Joe Allbaugh wanted to get richer, then they'll realize how the influence industry has taken over our entire government. In any case, we need to provide a map to ending the power of special interests in government. I'd like to hear Russ Feingold and Howard Dean hammering on this issue over and over and over. And describing how a citizen-led government would differ from a lobbyist-led one.

But we've got to offer more than an alternative to K Street. One of the reasons the Iran-Contra crowd convinces people of their ongoing relevance is because the issues they were trying work around--rising Iranian influence and commitments to sustaining our hegemony--are more threatening than they ever have been. Yeah, we allowed Ghorbanifar to seduce us because we wanted to forestall Russian influence in Iran, which we saw as an existential threat. But Iran is now positioned to extend its power across the (oil-producing) Middle East backed this time not only by Russia, but by China as well. Such a move could be just as threatening to the American way of life, if Iran wanted it to be. But you know what? That's not going to change so long as we're sucking off the Middle Eastern teat. Especially not now, because the Iranians seem to be a whole lot smarter and patient than any of the people I see in DC. Know what that tells me? If making stupid deals with Iran keeps getting us into trouble but we keep trying to make those stupid deals because we're trying to have our oil-encrusted cake and eat it too, that says we've got to cut back on the cake or keep getting into trouble. Sounds really obvious, but it's an area where the Democratic Party seems to be falling behind even some Neocons. I'd go further than just energy efficiency to embrace the notion of sustainability in all areas of our foriegn policy. We've reached a point where we can no longer maintain both American hegemony and our exceptionalism; if the Democrats are serious about preventing the return of the Watergate Iran-Contra Abramoff cronies, we need to offer a new paradigm that doesn't make it so easy for them to appear useful.

Whew. Well, I've had my say, and the dog is getting really antsy for his walk. What suggestions do you have to get rid of these guys for good???

Comments

[Mimikatz]

Great job, 'Wheel.

You are absolutely right about impeachment. People REALLY need to get off that hobby horse for any number of reasons. More importantly, people have to understand that if the Dems return to power, it is because the people expect us/them to GOVERN, not to spend 2-4 years in payback. We need to undergo something like "the cleansing of the Shire" at the end of "Lord of the Rings", which would include a decent number of prosecutions. But the end must always be GOOD GOVERNMENT not political payback. And it must be oriented toward sturctural reforms that will make recovery possible.

To your list I would add (or amplify) the fact that these clowns were willing to take money from anyone--Saudis with ties to al Qaeda, Russian mobsters, Iranians, shady Israelis, mobsters, anyone. They consistently put Party above Country. Done dare to call it treason, to recoin a phrase, but at least we can call it graft on an unprecedented scale. And explain how all the skimming of tax dollars for cronies costs the American people in increases to their own taxes and cuts in bebefits and services.

These guys (DeLay, Norquist, Abramoff, Reed, the like) have to be made radioactive so that it is a liability to any GOP politician to be associated with them or take their money. That will help level the playing field.

Absolutely emphasize growing income inequality. There was an article in the SF Chronicle today about how it now takes $80,000 for a family to have a middle-class lifestyle in the Bay Area without a house or more than minimal vacations. People work harder than ever and are falling further and further behind while the top 5% (especially the top .5%) live ever more lavishly. The Dems need to get behind fair taxation (rich pay their fair share) and increases to the minimum wage, cutting payroll taxes but raising the salary cap etc.

And energy conservation. Real energy conservation. Higher CAFE standards to lower pump prices; more mass transit and more regional planning so people can live nearer their jobs.

[Sara]

I agree with your proposition that we need a sexy but clear narrative directed toward the middle and working class that voted Bush and the Republicans, and that essentially thinks of audience as faithful and conservative Christians who got eaten whole at Breakfast. What happened? and why didn't we know?

We've been through this before in American History -- and probably will again because for some reason our mix of cultures are prone to the wiles of the Confidence Man or the various shades of Elmer Gantry. And yes, they all eventually encounter the flaw that results in their downfall, but they sure do take a lot of folks security with them.

After FDR was elected in the 30's, we named many of the remains of the late Republican era things like "Hooverville" -- and we kept using the term for about 50 years. It worked -- it reminded people of lost dreams and all, and it kept folk suspicious of medicine man nostrums about the economy until Reagan came along with supply side theory on the back of a napkin -- and all too many people fell for it.

What say we start by calling refugee trailer parks "Bushvilles"? What else can we name?

[Redshift]

Heck, if we had learned the role Poppy really had in Iran-Contra, we'd probably not have his son messing with our country right now!

Which, I've always thought, is why one of Bush's first actions in office was to reverse the regulations that presidential records had to be made public, making them effectively property of the ex-president rather than of the people.

This time around, we must refuse to back off our own

I agree, but that means require an additional strategy for countering the inevitable "there's no difference between the parties" BS.

This needs to be about corruption.

For political payback, they sell out in intelligence agent working on weapons that are a life-and-death matter to all of us.

For contractor profit, they sell out the military they profess to support, paying more for undelivered meals and mail, trucks that leave when it gets dangerous, while claiming it's for "private sector efficiency."

In order to give tax cuts to wealthy contributors, they cut the budget for flood control, emergency preparedness, and god knows what else that could be a matter of life and death for you or your family members.

In a game of "their money or your life", they'll choose their money every time.

[emptywheel]

Redshift,

From the time they did things that, given the perspective of history will appear clearly wrong, I have maintained one reason they were so intent on winning in 2000 was to bury Poppy's papers. I would bet there's more than what we suspect about Iran-Contra in there. Particularly when you go back to his CIA days.

[texas dem]

I don't know what to do, but I do worry VERY hard about all these bad guys getting to skulk offstage in 2008 without our having publicized their villainy. Once Bush is out it will be very hard to "run against Bush" or even bring him up again. If we don't get our pound of flesh out now, make them pay a political price for all their crap, we'll be right back here in 2012 or 2016. And that scares me more than anything.

We have a very small window -- less than three years -- to define the Bush presidency and the R congress. We are in our least organized period in history, but we also have amazing new innernet tools. We've got to win the battle for short-term voter interpretation of the last five years, or we'll still be faced with a 45-45 nation, and we'll still have a slim majority in all chambers on the very best of days, and when we lose that, we'll be back to round two of this farce. And our country is barely strong enough to dig out of 2000-2008; I'm literally not sure we can handle another four or eight years under these guys out of the next sixteen.

The battle for the legacy is on. I hope.

[rj]

Terrific post, nicely amplified by Mimikatz. My one quibble would be to ditch any focus on "minorities" (too many pitfalls, practical and ethical); "furriners" should do nicely.

On sacrificing our own, the "sweep it clean" party has to go where the dust bunnies are, in service to both virtue and politics: Newt pushed the House Bank scandal even though it snagged some Republicans (himself included, IIRC).

This -- "Impeachment won't work because it will allow the Republican party to publicly cleanse itself of its guilt" -- is beautiful. I've touched on this in a more general way in other threads here, but you hit it perfectly: there's nothing more important than making sure the whole malign movement is well and truly vanquished. No escape hatches; no quarter.

[rj]

Oh, yes, texasdem, that's what this has to be about. Any Republican who's ever given any support or cover to their party's pernicious agenda must be tarred with the Bush-era brush, which must stand for more than just Bush: he was just the figurehead chosen to front for the culmination of a decades-long program. On that score, emptywheel's prescription is more than a good start. The other half of the cure, of course, has to be the Dems' own agenda.

[emptywheel]

rj

Yes. You're right--and I apologize. Here's what I posted over at DKos in a cross-posted thread:

I regretted this statement...

Do I think it relevant that Douglas Feith was selling secrets to Jews and Harold Rhode was funnelling secrets through Chalabi to Iranians as opposed to, say, the British? Nope. But will some Reagan Democrats care they were selling secrets to, you know, "minorities"? You bet.

...during my whole walk. (Dog was wondering why I was so gloomy even though it was a magnificent fall day.)

It's not that I want to race bait. I'm just saying that this message will resonate for some people primarily in the context of their own fears. Yeah, I want to alleviate their fears by addressing the root cause of it, their fundamental insecurity (economic and otherwise). I want to educate them so their insecurities aren't expressed primarily in terms of race. But first, I want to 1) reclaim power and 2) make damn sure these nutcases can't come back and ruin America all over again. I guess I would appeal to their fear primarily by talking about selling secrets to enemies.

[rj]

Selling secrets to enemies -- that's it. And I couldn't agree more with your general thrust: it's way past time we started playing hardball. And unlike the Republicans, we don't have to lie about our opponents or our own positions; we just have to grow some...finally.

[YK]

This time around, we must refuse to back off our own.

I would add that this applies not only to Democratic politicians, but also to some of our nutty special interest groups, and to liberal government programs that just aren't working properly.

All that distrust of "liberals" and "big government" won't disappear just because one generation of Republicans screws things up. It may go away for a few years, but it'll come back. If we want to stay on top of the Republicans in the long term, we'll have to rebuild the public's trust, not just in the Democratic party, but in the idea that government can be a force for good. (Hopelessly idealistic, I know.)

[rj]

Not hopelessly idealistic, YK -- essential! We MUST tackle exactly that, head-on; any chance a future Dem government might have of setting things right depends on it. In a small way, ridicule can help here...I think I've pushed this line here no fewer than three tiresome times recently, but it's actually working for me: Republicans who claim Katrina proves you can't depend on government are exactly like the guy who kills his parents and then pleads for mercy on the grounds that he's an orphan. I'm telling you, every time I've used it on a Republican (the first time spontaneously, in amazement and disgust) it's made them laugh, then mumble something indecipherable, then shut up. (The independents laugh, and then nod...)

We've got to reclaim the FDR legacy of pragmatic liberalism (see, for starters, DemFromCT's "freedom from fear" post of several weeks ago). The idea that government can be a force for good is an indispensible part of our message: the positive part of the one-two punch we need to execute, the other part of which emptywheel outlines here.

[rj]

And YK, on "liberal government programs that just aren't working properly" -- at the risk of pulling this thread off its course, I think that's an important point: FDR was utterly flexible in his quest for what worked, not just what was theoretically beneficent (hence my use of "pragmatic liberal" above). And I've always maintained that much of the Dems' trouble in fending off the ascent of the right has been the refusal even to tweak anything, thereby giving the opposition some legitimate small targets that they happily blew up into "see? can't trust gummint!" Eyes on the prize -- always remember the goal.