Palintology: A Play In One Act
Sarah Palin [to Media]: LEAVE ME ALONE!
MEDIA looks over and notices SARAH PALIN
Media [to Palin]: Oh, are you still here?
Media
Joe The Chunder
Sam “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher comments from Israel on the state of modern war reporting:
You don’t need to see what’s happening every day, that’s my personal opinion, you don’t have to share it. But, you know, okay, you don’t have to see, you know, 800 dead, 801 dead. It’s like they drill that in your head. … They want you to sit there saying there are so many people dying. You know these are large, these are numbers, you know I don’t want to take away from that. Let me, uh, think about how to say that again. Just essentially, they keep drilling it into your head, newscast after newscast after newscast.
I think the military should decide what information to give the media and then the media can release it to the public. I don’t believe they need to be in the front lines with soldiers, I don’t believe they need to, uh, you know, be bothering the military for information or for access to certain areas.
Actually, allowing the military to have complete control over the flow of information in and out of war zones is a terrible idea.
First, it goes without saying that the constant bravery of American soldiers deserves our eternal thanks and praise. Still, the military isn’t perfect. Like any other part of the federal government, it can–and does–make mistakes, sometimes big ones.
Having an objective media present in war zones can help expose and remedy problems with the military, thus making our armed forces stronger. Having journalists in war zones also serves as a check on the military, ensuring that soldiers follow protocol and remain professional.
Actual war correspondent Bill Roggio makes the same point:
[I]f Joe’s spent any real time with the military, he’d know they typically don’t want reporters to cheerlead for them. In my experience, all the troops on the ground want is a fair shake (senior commanders may or may not want such candor). If something is working, they want you to tell that story, and if something is going wrong, they want that story out there too. One reason for the latter is that often the media can serve as a back door to get some problems fixed that the chain of command may be ignoring.
For those of you keeping track, this is strike three for Sam Wurzelbacher.
I wonder when Pajamas Media will get sick of taking flack for Sam’s tidbits of inane right-wing commentary and just call him home, already. Heck, even Pajamas Media’s own commentators don’t know what they were thinking by sending him to Israel.
How long it will take for conservatives to realize just how much Wurzelbacher is damaging their credibility? If they had any sense, they’d stop treating him like some kind of bizarre right-wing folk hero and just dump him–there are plenty of conservatives out there with good ideas, why keep promoting the ones with bad ideas?
Joe The Blunder (UPDATED)
Sam “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher’s trip to Israel isn’t going very well.
First, he criticized reporting from war zones…while he was reporting from a war zone.
Now he’s gotten into a fight with an Israeli journalist for not being pro-Israel enough:
JOE: The story here is people are being killed and the media’s slanting it and trying to make it Hamas is, uh, as far as, that Israel’s being bad. Do you believe Israel is bad?
REPORTER: Do I believe it?
JOE: Yeah, do you?!
REPORTER: I’m Israeli, so…
JOE: So answer the question!
REPORTER: No, I don’t think Israel is bad.
JOE: Do you think Israel has every right to protect itself?
REPORTER: Yeah.
[pause]
JOE: You do?!
REPORTER: Yeah.
JOE: Have you said that on air?
REPORTER: I’m just a reporter.
That’s modern conservative punditry for you–embarrassingly ignorant and unnecessarily belligerent. Are conservatives really letting this guy speak for them? Wasn’t Sarah Palin bad enough?
UPDATE: And here’s what Bill Roggio–an actual war correspondent–has to say:
I believe the media should have access during conflicts. Shutting the media out would entirely concede the information to al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, etc. who are increasingly developing sophisticated information strategies. Yes, there is bad and slanted reporting coming out of the combat zones, but there also are good reporters out there who can get the story right. The public needs to hear these stories to understand the nature of the war.
Third, if Joe’s spent any real time with the military, he’d know they typically don’t want reporters to cheerlead for them. In my experience, all the troops on the ground want is a fair shake (senior commanders may or may not want such candor). If something is working, they want you to tell that story, and if something is going wrong, they want that story out there too. One reason for the latter is that often the media can serve as a back door to get some problems fixed that the chain of command may be ignoring.
Finally, Joe is advocating a 1940’s media strategy for wars that are being fought in the 21st Century. We can’t roll back the mass access to print, television, the Internet, cell phones, etc. and push the news on grainy films at the theater.
Joe The Bluster
Sam “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, commenting on war reporting from Israel:
“I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think journalists should be anywhere allowed war. I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what’s happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I-I think it’s asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for’em. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to downer–and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers. I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, ‘Well look at this atrocity,’ well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.”
[Emphasis added]
Obviously Wurzelbacher doesn’t think nobody should be allowed to report on wars, otherwise he wouldn’t be in Israel milking his fifteen minutes. He just thinks war reporting should be restricted to people with certain opinions–apparently he doesn’t understand the difference between journalism and propaganda. Hey, maybe that’s why they have journalism schools.
Of course, the most brilliant part of this is that he’s attacking media outlets for reporting from war zones…after being sent by a media outlet to report from a war zone.
Sadly, that’s modern conservative punditry for you, where “nobody else should be allowed to do what I’m allowed to do; only people with certain opinions should speak; reporters shouldn’t be allowed to report” is considered smart and insightful.
It’s going to be a long few years…
Stimulating
President-elect Obama’s economic stimulus package is in trouble.
Not because it’s a bad bill, but because it’s an extremely ambitious plan that openly defies the Washington conventional wisdom that tax cuts are the only solution to all economic problems.
There’s a chance the same old song and dance between the GOP and the media that has stymied Democrats for years will be used by Republicans to torpedo the stimulus package and oust the Democratic majority in Congress.
Below is the worst case scenario of how the GOP will game the media into letting them kill the economic stimulus bill and then blame the resulting catastrophe on the Democrats.
Here were two chyrons that ran on MSNBC today, several hours apart:
Will Congress Pass Obama’s Plan? Pres.-Elect faces criticism from Dems & Republicans on stimulus
Obama’s Economic Drama
First, we all know that if John McCain had won the election and proposed what Obama is proposing, the media would be lauding him as a maverick for bucking both parties and doing what was right instead of what was popular.
Of course, since it’s a Democrat we’re talking about, the media is airing wall-to-wall criticism of his plan. And they won’t bother to differentiate between constructive criticism designed to improve the bill and poison pill criticism intended to kill the legislation outright (I’ll let you guess which party will be saying which). The media will uncritically repeat all criticism regardless of economic merit, because investigation and analysis are far more difficult than he-said-she-said stenography.
And by airing criticism of the stimulus without noting its intent or merit, the media will gradually erode whatever popular support the bill might now have. That will force Obama to bend over backward in order to make everyone happy, revising and changing the legislation in a way that will ultimately leave nobody happy and rob the bill of its ability to fix the economy. “Serious” journalists and commentators will decide that half a loaf is better than nothing at all and urge Obama to pass the legislation anyway, ineffective ideological garbage and all.
And a year or so from now, when the economy is still bad, Republicans blame it all on Obama, ignoring both George W. Bush’s role in creating this mess and their own role in perpetuating it. They’ll start talking about the “Obama recession” and “Obama economy,” terms which the media will pick up and repeat endlessly because it’s a more interesting angle than “yeah, the economy still sucks.”
Thus, Republicans will blame Democrats for a problem they created and perpetuated. And come 2010 they will try to convince the American people that they’re the only ones who can clean up the mess they made and then foisted off on all of us.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Headlines
At Huffington Post: Cheney Mocks Biden.
My headline: American people mock Cheney:
Favorable: 29%
Unfavorable: 61%
Favorable: 59%
Unfavorable: 29%
The Transparent Trap
Republicans have dragged out battered, dog-eared copies of their 1990’s playbook to help them remember how to deal with a Democratic president. Using one of their old plays, they’re trying desperately to connect President-elect Obama to the Rod Blagojevich scandal.
But, as I’ve said before, there’s no connection between Obama and Blagojevich’s pay-for-play scheme. At his first press conference dealing with the scandal, the President-elect said:
I have never spoken to the governor on this subject. I’m confident that no representative of mine would have any part of any deals related to this seat. I think the materials released by the U.S. attorney reflect that fact.
And Obama was, in fact, vindicated by U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who explicitly stated that Obama is no way involved in the Blagojevich scandal. And in the 78-page criminal complaint filed against Blagojevich, Barack Obama isn’t mentioned by name once.
But that wasn’t enough for Republicans, who are demanding a full accounting of what kind of contact the transition team had with Blagojevich.
So, Obama and the transition team did a review; guess what they found:
President-elect Barack Obama said Monday that an internal review had found that his advisers were not involved in any “inappropriate” talks with Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich or his aides over the vacant Senate seat in Illinois
The President-elect said that he and the transition team will release their full report next week.
But even after bending over backwards to meet every Republican demand for transparency and proof that he had nothing to do with Blagojevich’s little pay-for-play scheme, the GOP still isn’t satisfied with Obama. They’re demanding that he release the results of the internal investigation right now because otherwise it looks suspicious, like he has something to hide.
The problem here is that Patrick Fitzgerald is still working on building the case against Blagojevich, and he explicitly asked the transition team to wait until next week before releasing their findings.
So now the GOP is trying to lure Obama into a catch-22: if he listens to the prosecutor and waits until next week to release his report, Republicans will accuse him of trying to cover up evidence he was dealing with Blagojevich. But if Obama listens to Republican demands and releases the report now, conservatives will attack Obama for defying the prosecutor and will accuse him of trying to spoil the investigation in order to protect Blagojevich.
In other words, in the eyes of conservatives, Obama can do no right here. Because the point of their protestations isn’t to find the truth, it’s to create a situation that makes Obama look as bad as possible regardless of the facts.
Expect to see much more of this in the coming years–Republicans will place increasingly unreasonable demands on Obama, setting standards he could never hope to live up to (and standards that they have never held any of their fellow Republivcans to) and then baiting him into traps where they can attack him no matter what he does.
The GOP is partying like it’s 1992 all over again; hopefully the Democrats and the media will be wiser to their antics this time around.
Prophecy
They told me that, if Barack Obama and the Democrats won, conservative voices would be silenced.
Ann Coulter’s Jaw Wired Shut: Report
[…]
WE HEAR…THAT although we didn’t think it would be possible to silence Ann Coulter, the leggy reaction- ary broke her jaw and the mouth that roared has been wired shut…
</snark>
In all honesty, I hope whatever has befallen Coulter isn’t too serious and that she makes a full recovery.
…just not a speedy recovery.
Pritzker Will Not Be Secretary of Commerce
Though she was apparently at the top of Barack Obama’s list, Penny Pritzker’s business dealings will prevent her from becoming the next Secretary of Commerce:
Hotel heiress Penny Pritzker, who commanded Barack Obama’s record-shattering fundraising operation, has run into business obstacles that will likely prevent her from becoming Commerce secretary, sources close to the president-elect said.
“The issue is whether she ultimately wants to do this, and it may be – and probably will be – possible that for business reasons, she probably can’t do it,” said a Democratic source familiar with Obama’s Cabinet selection process.
[…]
Pritzker had started a review of her vast financial holdings, weighing whether she could disentangle herself to the extent necessary to meet Obama’s strict standards for service in his administration.
Politico is reporting that she has turned the offer down:
Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker, national campaign finance chairwoman for the Obama campaign, has taken herself out of the running to be secretary of Commerce because of vetting issues, a Democratic official said
[All emphasis mine]
Overall, though, this is a good sign–Obama’s vetting process is strict and thorough that, no matter how badly the President-Elect may want someone to get a particular job, they still have to submit to vetting and get cleared, No exceptions.
Of course, this re-opens speculation as to who the Commerce Secretary will be…
BREAKING: Waxman Defeats Dingell
Image from Firedoglake
Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) has ousted Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (Mich.), as Democratic lawmakers voted 137-122 Thursday morning to hand the gavel of the powerhouse panel to its second-ranking member.
With Waxman heading that committee we’ll now have a chance to pass some much-needed progressive energy legislation.
BREAKING: Begich Wins
Sweet, sweet victory.
Democrat Mark Begich has defeated convicted felon and 40-year Senate veteran Ted Stevens, therefore unseating the longest-serving Republican in Senate history.
Right now, Begich has a lead of 3,724 votes with approximately 2,500 votes left to count. The margin between Begich and Stevens is wide enough that an automatic recount will not be triggered; if Stevens wants a recount, his campaign will have to pay for one, making it unlikely.
This brings the Senate Democratic caucus to 58 members, with two races (MN and GA) still outstanding.
Congratulations, Senator-Elect Begich.
BREAKING: Senate Democrats Vote To Keep Lieberman (UPDATE)
Majority Leader Harry Reid is holding a press conference to announce that the Senate Democratic caucus has voted to allow Joe Lieberman to keep the Chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
President-Elect Barack Obama is getting credit for intervening on behalf of Lieberman; hopefully Lieberman will keep that fact in mind as he wields oversight authority over the White House for the next four years.
UPDATE: CNN reports that the final vote total was 42-13.
Don’t Quit Your Day Job
Indiana Republican Mike Pence, speaking with Chris Matthews this past weekend on how to fix the Republican Party:
“You build those conservative solutions, Chris, on the same time-honored principles of limited government, a belief in free markets, in the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage”
Hey, Mike? About that ‘limited government’ and those ‘free markets’…
And on a broad philosophical measure, 51 percent said government should do more to solve problems…
[O]nly 43 percent said government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals, down from 49 percent in 2004 and a high of 56 percent during the 1994 midterm elections.
Also:
Gallup Poll, Oct. 23-26, 2008. N=1,010 adults nationwide. MoE +/- 3
“Do you feel that the distribution of money and wealth in this country today is fair, or do you feel that the money and wealth in this country should be more evenly distributed among a larger percentage of the people?”
Distribution is fair: 37%
Should be more evenly distributed: 58%
Unsure: 5%
And in terms of prioritizing ‘the sanctity of life’ and ‘the sanctity of marriage’:
FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Nov. 1-2, 2008. N=971 likely voters nationwide. MoE +/- 3 (for all likely voters).
“Which one of the following issues will be the most important in deciding your vote for president: [Options rotated]
Economy and jobs: 49%
Terrorism and national security: 9%
Health care: 8%
Taxes: 8%
War in Iraq: 7%
Ethics/government corruption: 6%
Abortion: 6%
Energy: 3%
Immigration: 2%
Other: 3%
Unsure: 1%
‘Gay marriage’ and ‘traditional values’ aren’t even ranked.
And here’s a poll before the economy collapsed completely in mid-September:
Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Sept. 10-11, 2008. N=1,038 registered voters nationwide. MoE +/- 3.8 (for all registered voters).
“Which ONE of the following ISSUES is MOST important in determining your vote for president this year? The economy and jobs. Taxes and government spending. The Iraq war. Terrorism and national security. Energy policy and gas prices. Issues like abortion, guns, and same-sex marriage. Health care.” [Options rotated]
Economy and jobs: 39%
Taxes, government spending: 14%
Iraq war: 10%
Terrorism, national security: 10%
Energy policy, gas prices: 8%
Abortion, guns, marriage: 8%
Health care: 7%
Other/none of these: 1%
Unsure: 3%
[All emphasis mine]
Now, I know that polls are imperfect. But, by every indication, the slice of the electorate voting on Mike Pence’s proposed flagship issues is extremely small. Plus, I’d find it hard to believe that people voting based on ‘the sanctity of life’ or ‘the sanctity of marriage’ aren’t already voting Republican.
But hey, if emphasizing the most unpopular, right-wing planks of your party’s platform is what you guys want to do, go ahead. I can get used to being in the majority for a generation or two.
The GOP Civil War Continues
It’s being reported that neither Paul Ryan (WI) or Joe Barton (TX) will challenge John Boehner for minority leader. Right now, no serious contender has stepped forward to unseat the man who lead House Republicans to two massive electoral defeats in a row, though conservative darling Jeff Flake (AZ) has been making some noise:
Conservative Rep. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) was the first publicly out of the gate calling for the House leadership team to be replaced.
“Much of the backroom maneuvering and media speculation in the coming weeks will focus on identifying new standard-bearers for the party…[t]his is important, and after a second-straight drubbing, the House Republican leadership should be replaced. But the far more critical task is determining what standard these new leaders will bear.”
VA Rep. Eric Cantor will replace Roy Blunt as Minority Whip; his candidacy for that position is currently uncontested.
On the other hand, there’s a massive battle brewing to replace Adam Putnam as the GOP’s #3 guy in the House; Roll Call is reporting on the current list of candidates:
Republican Study Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (Texas), former RSC Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) and Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.) were campaigning for the third-ranking House GOP slot, with Rep. Mike Rogers (Mich.) among several others mentioned as possible candidates.
And the long-running fight between John Boehner and NRCC Chairman Tom Cole is now a full-fledged wildfire: Texas Rep. Pete Sessions is challenging Cole to head the NRCC and Boehner is throwing his weight–well, whatever of it he has left–behind Sessions.
I don’t know how this will all end, but it’s looking like the GOP’s leadership in the next Congress will be very different than the GOP’s leadership in this past Congress. Hopefully for them their new leadership will have learned some lessons from these past two elections, but I wouldn’t be too confident of that.
ACORN This!, Part Seven
More Republican attempts at voter suppression:
The Virginia Pilot reports today that a phony Virginia Board of Elections flier is being distributed in Hamption Roads, VA telling Democrats that they are now scheduled to vote on November 5. The flier falsely claims that “an emergency session of the General Assembly” adopted a new voting schedule to “ease the load” at polling places on election day:
So someone is passing out fliers in the key swing state of Virgina telling Republican voters to vote on November 4th (the actual day of the election) and telling Democratic voters to vote on November 5th (the day after the election).
But Republicans will tell you to worry about Democrats committing voter fraud. What a joke.
Biden Was Right
I guess that–just like the media, the pollsters and the American people–the Pentagon is now also in the tank for Obama:
[T]he chairman of a key Pentagon advisory panel is sounding a similar warning, telling the next administration to “prepare for a likely first-270-days crisis.”
Veteran Pentagon consultant Michael Bayer, chairman of the Defense Business Board, told his fellow panelists that the new president’s inner circle should “set aside time in transition to identify the planning, gravitas and interagency process necessary to respond to a likely first-270-day crisis.”
From Kennedy (Bay of Pigs) to Johnson (Gulf of Tonkin) to Bush (9/11),” too many presidents were ill prepared for this,” Bayer warns.
“For months, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the service chiefs and the Joint Staff have been preparing for the first wartime transfer of Pentagon political authority in four decades,” notes Inside Defense, which broke word of Bayer’s presentation. “In addition to identifying defense policy issues for an incoming to understand, the military is also on high operational alert.“
[Emphasis mine]
Once again, Republicans are wrong and Democrats are right. I won’t hold my breath waiting for an apology, though.
“Not In Our Backyards”
Sarah Palin’s hometown paper endorses Barack Obama:
Gov. Palin’s nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency — but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all is said and done, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation.
Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.
[…]
Yet despite [Palin’s] formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command of the most important, powerful nation on earth. To step in and juggle the demands of an economic meltdown, two deadly wars and a deteriorating climate crisis would stretch the governor beyond her range. Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time.
[Emphasis mine]
The people who know Sarah Palin best know she isn’t ready to lead. In fact, considering her ideology and policies, she might never be ready.
Post-Mortem
Robert Draper at The New York Times brings us the first of many McCain campaign post-mortems.
He ends up blaming McCain’s failure on his campaign’s constantly-shifting narrative: McCain was defined and re-defined so often that voters never really got a sense of who he was (besides a politician constantly changing his story, depending on the polls).
On the other hand, you had Obama displaying a steadiness and consistency that a lot of people see as a guarantee of a steady, consistent Presidency. It’s funny that the basic outlines of this race are very close to 2004–you have the steady leader versus the impulsive politician, except this time the Democrat is the former and the Republican is the latter.
Anyway, read Draper’s piece; it’s worth it just to get the view from inside the McCain campaign.
All But Conceding
Republican John McCain is not going to make his election night remarks in the traditional style _ at a podium standing in front of a sea of campaign workers jammed into a hotel ballroom. Oh, the throng of supporters will hold the usual election night party at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix on the evening of Nov. 4.
But the Republican presidential nominee plans to address another group of supporters and a small group of reporters on the hotel lawn; his remarks will be simultaneously piped electronically to the party inside and other reporters in a media filing center, aides said.
Aides said Thursday that the arrangement was the result of space limitations and that McCain might drop by the election watch party at some other point.
Only a small press “pool” _ mostly those who have traveled regularly with the candidate on his campaign plane, plus a few local Arizona reporters and other guests _ will be physically present when McCain speaks.
[Emphasis added]
So there will be a huge party of supporters–but McCain won’t be there. He’ll stand before his hotel and talk to a small group of people and a handful of reporters.
That doesn’t sound like he plans on winning; it sounds like he’s planning on conceding, and trying to do so in front of the smallest audience possible in a place where he can easily withdraw out of the spotlight.
And they’re citing space limitations? You’re a Presidential campaign–you can’t find a place with more space? You can’t find a way to make more space in the room you have? Come on.
This story only makes sense in the context of John McCain realizing he is far more likely to end up giving a concession speech than taking a victory lap.
Bachmann Abandoned (UPDATED)
Minnesota McCarthyite Michele Bachmann is being abandoned by the NRCC:
Two sources aware of ad buys in Minnesota say that the National Republican Congressional Committee is pulling its media purchases from Bachmann’s race. If true, it is a remarkable fall for a congresswoman who, until recently, seemed relatively safe in her predominantly conservative district. The race had become closer in recent days — the NRCC had transferred funds from Rep. Erik Paulsen (MN-03) to Bachmann a little over a week ago.
In the days following her appearance on Hardball, however, Bachmann has watched as her challenger, El Tinklenberg raised more than a million dollars off her incendiary remarks. That surge in fundraising put Bachmann’s re-election in a far less certain position. Bachmann tried to stem the bleeding by telling the press she was sorry for her remarks. But with the national party now apparently pulling the plug, the situation has gone from bad to worse.
[Emphasis mine]
Good riddance to Bachmann; I can think of few Congressional Republicans who deserve to lose more than she does. And take note, Republicans–attacking Democrats’ patriotism and calling them anti-American doesn’t work anymore.
I mean, just look at how far Obama’s poll numbers have gone up since McCain started attacking him with Ayers back in early October.
This isn’t 2004–you guys need a new playbook, stat.
UPDATED: And then there’s this:
On Hugh Hewitt’s radio show yesterday, Bachmann declared that “Barack Obama’s views are against America”:
BACHMANN: All I did on Chris Matthews is I questioned Chris Matthews and said, “look, if John McCain had friends like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and Father Pfleger, you’d be all over him Chris, but you’ve laid off of Barack Obama.” And so, he was using the word “Anti-American” and I told Chris, what I question are Barack Obama’s views. Because Barack Obama’s views are against America. They won’t be good for our country.
Go, Michele, go! Elwyn Tinklenberg needs your help!
Stormclouds And Silver Linings
Barack Obama raised a record-shattering $150 million in September and picked up the endorsement of Republican Colin Powell.
But those might just be the silver linings of these gathering clouds:
With the prospect of a bone-crushing election defeat staring them full in the face, the diehard rump of the conservative movement is already busy fashioning a narrative to explain the dissolution of its world — the one that Ronald Reagan built and that George W. Bush (with an assist from Wall Street) has thoroughly trashed.
And the emerging story line appears to be, roughly, that ACORN did it.
[…]
You have to admit: That’s a damned impressive revolutionary track record for an obscure group of community organizers operating on a shoestring budget.
[…]
However, as the McCain campaign descends into bitter futility (clinging to its guns and its religion all the way) and the band of the USS Republican Party assembles on deck to strike up “Near My God to Thee,” the anti-ACORN hysteria is starting to look less like a coherent campaign attack and more like a post-defeat rationalization. Clearly, conservatives are preparing themselves to take a knockout punch. Unfortunately it appears a big part of this psychological armouring will be convincing themselves the election was stolen, not lost. Even worse: stolen by the same “socialist” extremists who destroyed the American economy by forcing the banks to give loans to the n——.
This, of course, is not how the new stabbed-in-the-back myth will be expressed in polite conservative company (i.e. among the David Brooks and Ross Douthats of the world). But anyone who doubts that is the way it will be internalized among the many new members of the Sarah Palin Fan Club simply hasn’t been paying attention.
Choosing ACORN (and/or its constituents) as the scapegoat for the implosion of the biggest credit bubble in American history and, simultaneously, a wholly fictional attempt to steal a presidential election, may seem like a bit much. Why not pick on someone a bit more believable…?
[…]
We’ve crossed some more lines, in other words — in a long series of lines that have made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between the ultraconservative wing of the Republican Party and an explicitly fascist political movement. And John McCain and his political handlers appear to have no moral compunctions whatsoever about whipping this movement into a frenzy and providing it with scapegoats for all that hatred, simply to try to shave a few points off Barack Obama’s lead in the polls.
To call this “country first” only works if you assume your opponents (and scapegoats) are not really part of that same country. And we all know where that leads.
[Emphasis mine]
Ghosts Of McCarthy (UPDATED)
Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (MN) today:
That’s right–a sitting Republican Representative is accusing an unknown number of her fellow Representatives of being anti-American.
Well, the rules of the House of Representatives have this to say about censure:
Censure of a Member has been deemed appropriate in cases of a breach of the privileges of the House. There are two classes of privilege, the one, affecting the rights of the House collectively, its safety, dignity, and the integrity of its proceedings; and the other, affecting the rights, reputation, and conduct of Members, individually.
I’d say accusing your fellow Representatives of being anti-American certainly insults the reputation and conduct of those individual members (whoever they may be) and impugns the integrity of the House as an institution.
UPDATE: Apparently others have had the same idea.
I say the Congress has a duty to preserve it’s reputation by censuring Congresswoman Bachmann for her outrageous and reprehensible comments.
Clouds On The Horizon
Can you hear me now?
Is John McCain about to get caught up in an ethical storm?
Early in 2007, just as her husband launched his presidential bid, Cindy McCain decided to resolve an old problem — the lack of cellular telephone coverage on her remote 15-acre ranch near Sedona, nestled deep in a tree-lined canyon called Hidden Valley.
By the time Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid was in full swing this summer, the ranch had wireless coverage from the two cellular companies most often used by campaign staff — Verizon Wireless and AT&T.
Verizon delivered a portable tower know as a “cell site on wheels” — free of charge — to Cindy McCain’s property in June in response to an online request from Cindy McCain’s staff early last year. Such devices are usually reserved for restoring service when cell coverage is knocked out during emergencies, such as hurricanes.
In July, AT&T followed suit, wheeling in a portable tower for free to match Verizon’s offer. “This is an unusual situation,” said AT&T spokeswoman Claudia B. Jones. “You can’t have a presidential nominee in an area where there is not cell coverage.”
Over the course of the past year, Cindy McCain had offered land for a permanent cell tower and Verizon embarked on an expensive process to meet her needs, hiring contractors and seeking county land-use permits even though few people other than the McCains would benefit from the tower.
Ethics lawyers said Cindy McCain’s dealings with the wireless companies stand out because Sen. John McCain is a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the Federal Communications Commission and the telecommunications industry. He has been a leading advocate for industry-backed legislation, fighting regulations and taxes on telecommunications services.
McCain and his campaign have close ties to Verizon and AT&T. Five campaign officials, including campaign manager Rick Davis, have worked as lobbyists for Verizon. Former McCain staffer Robert Fisher is an in-house lobbyist for Verizon and is volunteering for the campaign. Fisher, Verizon chief executive Ivan Seidenberg and company lobbyists have raised more than $1.3 million for McCain’s presidential campaign and Verizon employees are among the top 20 corporate donors over McCain’s political career, giving more than $155,000 to his campaigns.
McCain’s Senate chief of staff Mark Buse, senior strategist Charles R. Black Jr., and several other campaign staffers have registered as AT&T lobbyists in the past. AT&T Executive Vice President Timothy McKone and AT&T lobbyists have raised more than $2.3 million for McCain. AT&T employees have donated more than $325,000 to McCain campaigns, putting the company in the No. 3 spot for career donations to McCain, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
“It raises the aura of special consideration for somebody because he is a member of the Senate,” said Stanley Brand, a former House counsel for Democrats and an ethics attorney who represents politicians of both parties. “Here is a guy who is campaigning as Mr. Maverick and Mr. Reformer and he keeps skirting the edge.”[…]
Verizon navigated a lengthy county regulatory process that hit a snag on environmental concerns. The request ultimately prevailed when Verizon invoked the Secret Service after John McCain secured the Republican nomination.
The Secret Service told The Washington Post it did not formally request the tower. After checking with Verizon and the McCain campaign, Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said an e-mail sent in May by the service’s technology manager could be perceived as a request for temporary coverage under the service’s existing contract with Verizon.
“This was something that was being addressed before we were out there,” Zahren said.
The service could have made do with existing cell coverage in the area, he said, because it uses multiple layers of communication, including a secure land radio network.
Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Taylor declined to elaborate. “I am not going to talk about individual customers and their requests,” Taylor said.
[…]
Construction costs would be $22,000, records show. Industry specialists said the figure probably only covers the tower and fence because the antennas, the dish and power source would run the cost into the six figures. On Dec. 4, Cindy McCain signed a letter (see document) authorizing Verizon Wireless to act on her behalf to seek county land-use permits.
[…]
Three telecommunications specialists consulted by The Post said the proposed site covers so few users that it is unlikely to generate enough traffic to justify the investment. Robb Alarcon, an industry specialist who helps plan tower placement, said the proposed location appeared to be a “strategic build,” free-of-charge coverage to high-priority customers. A former Verizon executive vice president, who asked not to be named because he worked for the company, agreed with Alarcon, saying, “It was a VIP kind of thing.”
Verizon spokesman Taylor declined to comment when asked if this had been considered to be a “strategic build.”
[…]
But the wireless specialists said the lack of compensation suggests the purpose of the tower was not income for Verizon but a ‘strategic build” for the McCains.
Over Memorial Day, McCain hosted potential vice presidential running-mates at the ranch, but the area still lacked coverage. Richard Klenner, then the wirelss communications chief of the Secret Service, which had recently started providing protection for McCain, sent an e-mail to Verizon. “Is there any way of speeding up the process?” Klenner asked.
That day, Downing, Verizon’s contractor, wrote to the county urging approval for either the permanent tower or a cell site on wheels, “to improve Verizon Coverage in the area (including at Senator McCain’s ranch). It is imperative that the coverage is improved immediately so that Senator McCain’s security personnel, including Secret Service, can communicate while in the area.” (Zahren told The Post that Downing’s citing of the Secret Service in correspondence with the county was unauthorized.)
A day later, the county issued a permit for the permanent tower, with environmental restrictions. A week later, the county approved Verizon’s cell site on wheels.
Over the summer, AT&T’s Jones said, the company contacted the McCains for permission to install a cell site on wheels. She said that ordinarily, given the few number of residents, AT&T would not have installed a facility, but McCain’s standing as a candidate warranted it.
[…]
John McCain–a senior member of the Senate Commerce Committee–received two cellular towers from two different cellular phone companies, free of charge, to provide service that only he would benefit from.
Maverick who?
Gibberish About Gibberish (UPDATED)
New right-wing talking point: Obama is collecting money—maybe hundreds of millions of dollars—from illegal foreign donors!! The fact that some of his donor spreadsheets contain fake entries proves this ridiculous leap of faith!
Yeah—or a bunch of idiots just entered gibberish into the donation form on Obama’s website. And, most likely, that data went into a spreadsheet that got submitted to the FEC, gibberish and all.
With an operation as big as Obama’s, it’s probable that not all credit card information was verified and not all credit card donations were processed before the FEC’s filing deadline. It’s likely the Obama campaign just took the data collected through their website and sent it to the FEC without thoroughly checking it first, in order to report the highest amount of donations possible for that fundraising period.
But here’s the important part–those gibberish donations aren’t going to translate into actual money for the Obama campaign. Because when some Obama campaign worker sits down with the data and tries to actually run the credit card numbers and get the money, it’s not going to work; all those gibberish submissions are going to have to be thrown out.
See, it’s going to be impossible for them to get the money from these gibberish donors, because you have to have the actual name on the credit card and the actual address it’s registered at to get money from that card, and (obviously) nobody out there has a credit card actually belonging to ‘Hbkjb, jkbkj’ who lives in the city of ‘Jkbjnj’
So, again, none of these fake submissions are going to translate into money for the Obama campaign; all they will amount to is a lot of wasted time and effort spent checking and erasing garbage donation pledges.
But hey, never let the facts stand in the way of your talking points, right?
UPDATE: It should be noted that, often times, presidential campaign donations are handled by a ‘caging firm’–a business devoted to receiving donor information, collecting that money from the donors, and weeding out potential frauds or otherwise suspicious donations. So keep in mind that the Obama campaign itself might not be handling any of these donations–their caging firm probably is.
UPDATE II: Above I (apparently incorrectly) assumed this information was coming from the FEC. But that doesn’t appear to actually be the case.
Conservatives are calling for Obama to release the names and information of his small donors, which isn’t information you can get from the FEC (because small donors don’t have to be reported to the FEC)
So, if the Obama campaign hasn’t released the information from their small donors, then where is this supposed information coming from? What are these amateur conservative ‘investigators’ actually looking at?
I mean, I’m not seeing any screenshots of spreadsheets,I’m not seeing links to some kind of donor database. Where is all this coming from, exactly?
UPDATE III: Found it:
On July 19th, 2008, at 4:57 AM, conservative blogger Pam Geller posted this on her blog, Atlas Shrugs:
John Jay has been assisting me in analyzing small foreign contributions to Obama’s campaign that Atlas reader Laura sent me. It appears to be, after cross checking FEC documents, a list of the Obama For America Contributors.
On its face, the list (under 500 pages) is suspect. So many foreign addresses giving money to the Presidential campaign. There are numerous individuals who are “bundling” contributions, some are smaller from the same person on same day, not to mention lots “unemployed or student”. Further, there’s a ton of foreign service and State Department admissions.
[Emphasis mine]
Yeah, no kidding it’s suspect–but not for the reasons you seem to think.
This is the source of these very serious allegations? How do we know this mysterious spreadsheet is even real? How do we know it actually exists, let alone accurately portrays donations that were actually made to the Obama campaign?
Geller says she verifies it by cross-checking the names on her list to names of Obama donors on the FEC website. But what would stop someone from just copying and pasting valid donors from the FEC website into an Excel spreadsheet, adding a bunch of fake gibberish/foreign donations, then sending it out in order to drum up this ridiculous story?
There is no proof that any entries in Geller’s supposed spreadsheet are real donations to Obama, or even attempted donations. And until this mysterious spreadsheet is produced and verified as donations that were actually made to the Obama campaign (and that the money was actually spent), this story has no credibility.
(Though, this is a perfect example of how the right-wing media works–conservative blogs push ridiculous stories with no credibility, which are then picked up by right-wing media outlets looking for the next big story).
BREAKING: CT Supreme Court Legalizes Gay Marriage (UPDATED)
Smells like equality. And nutmeg.
Here’s the headline from MSNBC:
BREAKING NEWS: Connecticut Supreme Court rules that same-sex couples have the right to marry
More as it comes…
UPDATE: MSNBC reports:
The Connecticut Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriage Friday in a victory for gay-rights advocates that will allow couples to marry in the New England state.
The court found that the state’s law limiting marriage to heterosexual couples discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation. The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry
Democrashield 