A sequel to my Sunday post: While trolling through my notes on the Rick Santorum-Bob Casey NBC debate, and checking the transcript, I find even more grist for discussion.
1. Incumbent Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Santorum is fortunate that his Democratic challenger is either (a) slow off the mark, (b) insufficiently acquainted with foreign policy basics, or (c) exceedingly cautious.
Santorum repeatedly voiced his eagerness to shift the focus away from the war on Iraq by invoking a new enemy: “At the heart of this war is Iran. Iran is the, is, is the problem here. Iran is the one that’s causing most of the problems in, in Iraq....We need to do something about stopping the Iranians from being the central destabilizer of the Middle East...I think the focus should not be Iraq, should be Iran.”
Casey might have scored some points if he had countered Santorum’s argument with this factual observation: If Iran is more of a threat today, it’s because the Bush administration made it so -- because the U.S. invasion eliminated Iran’s top enemy in the region, and replaced Saddam, an avowed foe of Shiite Islamist parties, with a tottering government that is dominated...by Shiite Islamist parties friendly to Iran.
Aside from the fact that host Tim Russert was dominating many of the exchanges, it’s possible that Casey passed up this opportunity only because, as a cautious centrist, he didn’t want to sound like he was opposing the “mission” on principle, since he had just said that “I’m not ready to abandon the mission.”
2. Casey did make decent political use of Donald Rumsfeld. Most Americans now believe, at the very least, that Iraq has been fraught with multiple failures of execution. Even war supporters like Joe Lieberman and John McCain have long called for Pentagon chief Rumsfeld’s resignation. Casey goaded Santorum into defending the guy (“I think Secretary Rumsfeld has done a fine job”), but, given the current polls in Pennsylvania, Santorum’s view is out of step with sentiment in vote-rich moderate Republican suburbia.
On the other hand, Casey was vague on what he would do to improve the situation on the ground in Iraq; he kept talking about the need for “clear benchmarks” as a measurement of progress, but didn’t offer any criteria, much less anything that would suggest creative new thinking.
3. The public’s anti-incumbent mood is driven in part by a desire to hold the incumbents accountable. Santorum probably didn’t help himself by taking a stand against accountability: “I don’t play Monday morning quarterback. That’s not, that’s not what you do here in Washington, D.C.”
4. On the other hand, Santorum willingly played “Monday morning quarterback” on whether the Bush administration has been sufficiently militant. Santorum, eager to show that he has at rare moments differed with the White House, did so by running to Bush’s right: “A big problem I have with this administration is it hasn’t been tough enough on Iran...It should not have negotiated with the Iranians on their nuclear program.” But can Santorum win the hearts of moderate swing voters by claiming that he is more hawkish than Bush?
5. Casey didn’t exactly shine when Santorum brought up the administration’s intelligence surveillance programs. This is a good issue for Republicans, because at least half of all Americans seem willing to entertain civil liberties curbs, in the interests of national security.
Casey said last February that he was worried about civil liberties, remarking in an interview that even if the Bush programs are not illegal, “I think people get very concerned about tipping the balance in favor of a policy that impacts how Americans can communicate.” But in the NBC debate, Casey said that “we should keep the programs and keep the wiretaps...” He seemed to be poised to argue that a compromise could strike the proper balance, but didn’t bother to pursue the point.
6. But Casey got in a good jab on the issue of slapping sanctions on Iran (which both he and Santorum support). Here’s what Casey said (in his meandering way): “The number one, or the most prominent, at least, opponent of sanctions, critic of, Iran’s sanctions when he was in the private sector at least, his name is Dick Cheney. It’s not some, some European. Dick Cheney opposed sanctions when he was at the Halliburton company...Rick, do you, are you going to sit here today and not denounce him for continually opposing sanctions, and are you going to give the money back that he raised for you?”
This question was a three-fer: It put Santorum on the spot, reminding voters of his close ties to the administration and to the unpopular veep; it potentially reminded voters of the veep’s ties to a company that has played a key role in our cost overruns abroad; and it potentially positioned Casey as being tougher on Iran than the uber-tough number two (whose company has been doing a lot of business with Iran, most recently concerning natural gas).
Santorum’s answer, “I’m not going to denounce the vice president of the United States,” didn’t trump the question.
7. In terms of pure theatre, Santorum swamped Casey on the issue of legislative pay raises in Harrisburg. I doubt that most viewers knew anything about this dispute -- during the summer of ‘05, in the dead of night, state lawmakers used a loophole to dramatically raise their pay -- which probably helped Santorum to paint Casey, albeit briefly, as a complicit incumbent. Casey is the state treasurer who had subsequently signed those higher checks.
Santorum: “You didn’t do anything when you could’ve stopped it....Why didn’t you stop it, Bob?...Why didn’t you try to stop it? Why didn’t you try to stop it? You could’ve stopped it!”
And what Casey said was, “It’s called following the law, following the law...Following the law...Following the law...Following the law, Rick...”
Casey, again a tad slow on the uptake, missed the chance to say, for example, that the pay raise scheme was basically quarterbacked by the governing Republicans in Harrisburg (the GOP controls the legislature), and that 11 state Republican incumbents were thrown out of office during the May primaries.
Casey did play a role, since he was in the governing chain of command, but, politically, it appears that the voters most incensed about the pay raise are the fiscal conservative Republicans who already vented in May. In those vote-rich Philadelphia suburbs, will swing-voting moderates care more about that than about Iraq?
8. Many national Democrats have long lamented the fact that Ed Rendell tends to say things that hurt the party. Witness this gubernatorial comment (which Russert brought up during the debate), as it appeared this summer in the conservative Weekly Standard magazine: “Rick Santorum has proven that he gets the job done. Time and time again he has come through...I will eventually campaign with Casey. But, no, you won’t see me attack Santorum. I work well with him...When it comes to Pennsylvania, Santorum delivers.”
Asked about this Sunday, Casey said that “as a governor, you’ve got to work with both parties, and I’m glad that he does.” That response didn’t begin to address the reality that Rendell -- who heads the party ticket in November -- clearly wouldn’t mourn if Casey was beaten. Indeed, Santorum’s best asset might be his track record in bringing home the bacon, and the enhanced clout he would have if re-elected.
Given the current political mood, that issue might be all he has.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Sunday, September 03, 2006
The political perils of sound-bite candor
It’s doubtful that more than a fraction of Pennsylvanians interrupted their holiday this morning to watch Rick Santorum and Bob Casey Jr. joust for the U.S. Senate job on Meet the Press. So the “winner” is probably going to be the guy who can best master the post-debate spin, probably by highlighting a sound bite (suitable for endless TV replay) that depicts his opponent screwing up in some memorable fashion. In other words, the debate itself is not nearly as pivotal as the subsequent debate over its interpretation.
Santorum, the GOP incumbent and Bush loyalist who trails in the polls, has to be a tad frustrated, because his soporific opponent refuses to talk in sound bites. As a result, Santorum probably didn’t get anything that showed Casey damaging himself with his own words. That’s because Casey just tends to meander along, repeating verbose talking points culled from his speeches, and deflecting the thrust of questions in a lulling tone of voice that would best suit a meditation instructor.
When host Tim Russert asked Casey whether he would have voted to authorize Bush to invade Iraq, knowing what he knows today, Casey replied by saying that most Americans would not have voted yes; and when Russert asked (multiple times) whether that meant that he would not have voted yes, Casey said only that he doubted there would have been a vote at all.
The same pattern was repeated midway through the debate when Russert asked Casey how he would tame Social Security and Medical expenses and balance the federal budget. Russert asked, what programs would you cut? Casey responded by saying he’d eliminate the tax breaks for people earning more than $200,000 a year, maybe close some off-shore tax loopholes, maybe make some changes in the estate tax, and maybe find other ways to cut costs, like the way Pennsylvania has trimmed the number of outside consultants, and grow the economy…Russert repeated his question, and Casey repeated some variation of his initial response.
Since Casey didn’t hang himself in a sound bite, Santorum was reduced to attacking Casey in his own sound bites. Samples: “He (Casey) is against anything that cuts government. He’s for raising taxes.” And, “No specifics, no answers.” And, “Your party has been trying to undermine our surveillance programs…What do you think has kept our people safe?” And because the anti-abortion Casey nevertheless supports the morning-after contraception pill, “His father (an avowed abortion foe) would be very upset if he was alive today.” But without Casey hanging himself in a phrase of his own, those one-liners probably have limited utility.
But from Casey’s perspective, however, this debate was probably a success, because on two key occasions, Santorum – who is, by nature, more glib and outspoken -- uttered two potentially damaging sound bites at his own expense.
The lesser of the two: “I probably spend maybe a month a year” at his home in Pennsylvania.
Santorum has been politically hurt by reports, over the past several years, that he was home-schooling five of his six kids at his Virginia residence with most of the tab being picked up by the Penn Hills School District in southwestern Pennsylvania; and now it turns out that state taxpayers, through the state Education Department, will compensate the school district to the tune of 55 grand. Under questioning today, Santorum said he’s really a Pine Hills guy (“I vote there, my dentist is there”), but when asked how much time he spends at his house there, he uttered his month-a-year line. This sounds like a parochial issue, but polls have indicated that the residency flap has already been hurting him in his home region.
But the more important one-liner, the potential gift to the Casey campaign, was his overall assessment of President Bush.
Santorum said that of course he and the boss don’t always agree on things – Santorum pointed out today that he still thinks that we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whereas Bush now says we have not – but the senator was still upbeat about his beleaguered leader. Hence, the debate’s number-one sound bite:
“I think he’s been a terrific president, absolutely.”
Santorum’s base probably liked that line; at least he doesn't bob and weave like his challenger. The problem is, statewide polls indicate that seven in 10 Pennsylvanians certainly don't view Bush as terrific, at least not in the positive sense. This could be a case when a politician's sound-bite candor puts him out of step with the voting majority. All year long, Santorum has been battling a headwind. That particular line could expose him to stormier weather.
Santorum, the GOP incumbent and Bush loyalist who trails in the polls, has to be a tad frustrated, because his soporific opponent refuses to talk in sound bites. As a result, Santorum probably didn’t get anything that showed Casey damaging himself with his own words. That’s because Casey just tends to meander along, repeating verbose talking points culled from his speeches, and deflecting the thrust of questions in a lulling tone of voice that would best suit a meditation instructor.
When host Tim Russert asked Casey whether he would have voted to authorize Bush to invade Iraq, knowing what he knows today, Casey replied by saying that most Americans would not have voted yes; and when Russert asked (multiple times) whether that meant that he would not have voted yes, Casey said only that he doubted there would have been a vote at all.
The same pattern was repeated midway through the debate when Russert asked Casey how he would tame Social Security and Medical expenses and balance the federal budget. Russert asked, what programs would you cut? Casey responded by saying he’d eliminate the tax breaks for people earning more than $200,000 a year, maybe close some off-shore tax loopholes, maybe make some changes in the estate tax, and maybe find other ways to cut costs, like the way Pennsylvania has trimmed the number of outside consultants, and grow the economy…Russert repeated his question, and Casey repeated some variation of his initial response.
Since Casey didn’t hang himself in a sound bite, Santorum was reduced to attacking Casey in his own sound bites. Samples: “He (Casey) is against anything that cuts government. He’s for raising taxes.” And, “No specifics, no answers.” And, “Your party has been trying to undermine our surveillance programs…What do you think has kept our people safe?” And because the anti-abortion Casey nevertheless supports the morning-after contraception pill, “His father (an avowed abortion foe) would be very upset if he was alive today.” But without Casey hanging himself in a phrase of his own, those one-liners probably have limited utility.
But from Casey’s perspective, however, this debate was probably a success, because on two key occasions, Santorum – who is, by nature, more glib and outspoken -- uttered two potentially damaging sound bites at his own expense.
The lesser of the two: “I probably spend maybe a month a year” at his home in Pennsylvania.
Santorum has been politically hurt by reports, over the past several years, that he was home-schooling five of his six kids at his Virginia residence with most of the tab being picked up by the Penn Hills School District in southwestern Pennsylvania; and now it turns out that state taxpayers, through the state Education Department, will compensate the school district to the tune of 55 grand. Under questioning today, Santorum said he’s really a Pine Hills guy (“I vote there, my dentist is there”), but when asked how much time he spends at his house there, he uttered his month-a-year line. This sounds like a parochial issue, but polls have indicated that the residency flap has already been hurting him in his home region.
But the more important one-liner, the potential gift to the Casey campaign, was his overall assessment of President Bush.
Santorum said that of course he and the boss don’t always agree on things – Santorum pointed out today that he still thinks that we have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whereas Bush now says we have not – but the senator was still upbeat about his beleaguered leader. Hence, the debate’s number-one sound bite:
“I think he’s been a terrific president, absolutely.”
Santorum’s base probably liked that line; at least he doesn't bob and weave like his challenger. The problem is, statewide polls indicate that seven in 10 Pennsylvanians certainly don't view Bush as terrific, at least not in the positive sense. This could be a case when a politician's sound-bite candor puts him out of step with the voting majority. All year long, Santorum has been battling a headwind. That particular line could expose him to stormier weather.
Friday, September 01, 2006
The new Bush plan for winning over the public: what would Dale Carnegie say?
We’ll keep it short here today, not for TGIF or holiday reasons, but because I’m on assignment for the paper. So let’s focus, almost exclusively, on the latest news concerning the Iraq war and public opinion.
Concerning President Bush’s speech yesterday to the American Legion, and similar addresses earlier this week by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, it is difficult to see how their arguments will achieve the result that they seek -- namely, a resurgence of public support for the war, hopefully in time for the November congressional elections.
Here is their fundamental challenge:
The swing groups in the electorate are independents and moderates. Every poll reports that most of those folks have long soured on the war; for instance, the latest CBS-New York Times survey shows that 67 percent give Bush a thumbs-down verdict on the war. The Fox News pollsters report that independents in ‘06 now favor Democratic congressional candidates over GOP candidates by a margin of 40 percent to 16 percent. And USA Today, citing its own new polling, reports today that independent voters are swinging toward Democratic senatorial candidates in five states.
Given such sentiments, can the Bush team feasibly expect to win over independents by giving speeches which imply that anyone with serious doubts about this war is merely an appeaser of fascism? To borrow a phrase from Dale Carnegie, is this a politically effective way “to win friends and influence people?”
In the New York Times report this morning on Bush’s speech, the most important comment is attributed to a senior Republican Senate aide: “For (Bush) to move the numbers in a way that benefits congressional Republicans, he needs to reach out to moderates, and it’s difficult to do that when his surrogates are contradicting him and calling opponents of his policy appeasers.”
On one point, this aide is merely being diplomatic: Surrogates Cheney and Rumsfeld were hardly “contradicting” Bush by using the word appeasement. Given the track record of White House rhetorical coordination, it’s more likely that the decision was made to have the surrogates use the tougher language while the boss supposedly hewed to the higher plane.
But again, in terms of political effectiveness, it’s hard to see how Bush can sway public opinion his way by arguing, as he did yesterday, that “if we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.” He is contending that winning in Iraq will make us safer at home -- but polls already show that most Americans now believe the war is already making us LESS safe at home.
The latest poll by Associated Press-Ipsos Public Affairs reports that, by a margin of 60 to 31 percent, most Americans now conclude that there will be more terrorism stateside because the U.S. invaded Iraq. Moreover, that same poll reports that, by a margin of 47 to 40 percent, Americans now favor the Democrats as the party that would do the better job of protecting this country. And what’s most noteworthy about that poll is the makeup of those who were surveyed: 70 percent described themselves as either moderate or conservative.
Yet perhaps these speeches aren’t even designed to win back the independents (although the endangered moderate GOP congressmen in Northeast districts would be grateful if that goal was achieved). Maybe these speeches are aimed at merely shoring up the conservative base. Because unless those voters are stoked to turn out in great numbers, the GOP is probably doomed in the midterm elections.
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Speaking of polls, the survey team at Fox News, hewing no doubt to the network credo about being “fair and balanced,” managed to ask a question that reads as if it was crafted by GOP chairman Ken Mehlman at national party headquarters.
Question #7: “If Democrats win control of Congress in the midterm election, do you think it is more likely that they will spend the next two years investigating and trying to impeach President Bush, or coming up with new ideas to move the country forward?”
But the respondents didn’t take the bait. Forty-seven percent said the Democrats would stress new ideas, while only 30 percent said they’d hound the president. And that spread was more pronounced among swing-voting independents: 48 to 23 percent.
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Missed opportunity of the week:
In his NBC interview with Brian Williams the other day, Bush said that he recently read “three Shakespeares.”
Williams whiffed by not asking a follow-up question. For instance,“Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter verse -- true or false?”
Just kidding. Seriously, here was the obvious follow-up: “Which ones, Mr. President? Tell us what they were about, and what themes or lessons you derived from reading them."
-------
Here's a political junkie tip for a rainy holiday weekend: Rick Santorum and Bob Casey, debating this Sunday on Meet the Press. The latest USA Today poll has incumbent Santorum trailing by 18 points among likely voters. If that's even remotely accurate, how will Santorum try to shift the dynamic? Check back here for a critique on Sunday afternoon.
Concerning President Bush’s speech yesterday to the American Legion, and similar addresses earlier this week by Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, it is difficult to see how their arguments will achieve the result that they seek -- namely, a resurgence of public support for the war, hopefully in time for the November congressional elections.
Here is their fundamental challenge:
The swing groups in the electorate are independents and moderates. Every poll reports that most of those folks have long soured on the war; for instance, the latest CBS-New York Times survey shows that 67 percent give Bush a thumbs-down verdict on the war. The Fox News pollsters report that independents in ‘06 now favor Democratic congressional candidates over GOP candidates by a margin of 40 percent to 16 percent. And USA Today, citing its own new polling, reports today that independent voters are swinging toward Democratic senatorial candidates in five states.
Given such sentiments, can the Bush team feasibly expect to win over independents by giving speeches which imply that anyone with serious doubts about this war is merely an appeaser of fascism? To borrow a phrase from Dale Carnegie, is this a politically effective way “to win friends and influence people?”
In the New York Times report this morning on Bush’s speech, the most important comment is attributed to a senior Republican Senate aide: “For (Bush) to move the numbers in a way that benefits congressional Republicans, he needs to reach out to moderates, and it’s difficult to do that when his surrogates are contradicting him and calling opponents of his policy appeasers.”
On one point, this aide is merely being diplomatic: Surrogates Cheney and Rumsfeld were hardly “contradicting” Bush by using the word appeasement. Given the track record of White House rhetorical coordination, it’s more likely that the decision was made to have the surrogates use the tougher language while the boss supposedly hewed to the higher plane.
But again, in terms of political effectiveness, it’s hard to see how Bush can sway public opinion his way by arguing, as he did yesterday, that “if we give up the fight in the streets of Baghdad, we will face the terrorists in the streets of our own cities.” He is contending that winning in Iraq will make us safer at home -- but polls already show that most Americans now believe the war is already making us LESS safe at home.
The latest poll by Associated Press-Ipsos Public Affairs reports that, by a margin of 60 to 31 percent, most Americans now conclude that there will be more terrorism stateside because the U.S. invaded Iraq. Moreover, that same poll reports that, by a margin of 47 to 40 percent, Americans now favor the Democrats as the party that would do the better job of protecting this country. And what’s most noteworthy about that poll is the makeup of those who were surveyed: 70 percent described themselves as either moderate or conservative.
Yet perhaps these speeches aren’t even designed to win back the independents (although the endangered moderate GOP congressmen in Northeast districts would be grateful if that goal was achieved). Maybe these speeches are aimed at merely shoring up the conservative base. Because unless those voters are stoked to turn out in great numbers, the GOP is probably doomed in the midterm elections.
-------
Speaking of polls, the survey team at Fox News, hewing no doubt to the network credo about being “fair and balanced,” managed to ask a question that reads as if it was crafted by GOP chairman Ken Mehlman at national party headquarters.
Question #7: “If Democrats win control of Congress in the midterm election, do you think it is more likely that they will spend the next two years investigating and trying to impeach President Bush, or coming up with new ideas to move the country forward?”
But the respondents didn’t take the bait. Forty-seven percent said the Democrats would stress new ideas, while only 30 percent said they’d hound the president. And that spread was more pronounced among swing-voting independents: 48 to 23 percent.
-------
Missed opportunity of the week:
In his NBC interview with Brian Williams the other day, Bush said that he recently read “three Shakespeares.”
Williams whiffed by not asking a follow-up question. For instance,“Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter verse -- true or false?”
Just kidding. Seriously, here was the obvious follow-up: “Which ones, Mr. President? Tell us what they were about, and what themes or lessons you derived from reading them."
-------
Here's a political junkie tip for a rainy holiday weekend: Rick Santorum and Bob Casey, debating this Sunday on Meet the Press. The latest USA Today poll has incumbent Santorum trailing by 18 points among likely voters. If that's even remotely accurate, how will Santorum try to shift the dynamic? Check back here for a critique on Sunday afternoon.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
The war drums are beating on the president's right flank
As President Bush ponders what to do next about the recalcitrant Iranians, he will undoubtedly pay close attention to the rumblings on his right flank.
The neoconservative thinkers who laid the groundwork for the war in Iraq have hardly been chastened by the setbacks that America has faced in that conflict, nor by the fact that the promised weapons of mass destruction never showed up. On the contrary, they are conspicuously vocal these days on the topic of Iran -- and the need, as they see it, for Bush to show some moxie and plan for a new military confrontation.
And they are likely to ratchet up their rhetoric, and prod the White House further, now that Iran has decided to ignore a United Nations deadline to suspend uranium enrichment and hence slow its suspected nuclear weapons program. For instance, the neoconservatives aren’t happy today about the news that the Bush team, in retaliation, is considering only mild sanctions, such as a travel ban. And Michael Ledeen at the American Enterprise Institute yesterday voiced what he calls his “worst fears about the administration. Talk, talk, talk, but when it is time to act, they are still talking.”
And what do they define as action? Enter neoconservative William Kristol, ex-GOP aide and editor of the movement’s bible, The Weekly Standard. His agenda for action includes “serious preparation for possible military action -- including real and urgent operational planning for bombing strikes and for the consequences of such strikes.”
What’s noteworthy is that he wrote those words last April, in the wake of the news that Iran had successfully enriched its uranium. The pressure on Bush’s right flank was intense that month, with cries de guerre in other neoconservative outlets, such as the Wall Street Journal opinion page, and the National Review (the latter called for an “air campaign” coupled with regime change).
Indeed, even though Bush this week is trying to reframe the war on terror as a war against “fascism,” that’s old hat in the neo camp. Last April, Kristol was already doing that very thing, contending that Iran’s nuclear program was akin to Adolph Hitler’s 1936 prewar march into the Rhineland.
There are plenty of foreign policy experts within the Republican camp who view the neoconservatives as too precipitous on the Iran issue; for instance, former Colin Powell deputy Richard Haass believes that anyone who thinks a conflict with Iran would be small or quick is harboring “the most dangerous delusion,” and key Republicans on Capitol Hill have said that the quality of U.S. intelligence on Iran is questionable. James Carafano, an expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said last year that “there are no good military options,” and retired Air Force Lt. Col. Sam Gardiner, a simulations expert at the U.S. Army’s National War College, after scenarioizing a war on Iran, told the Atlantic Monthly magazine nearly two years ago that “after all this effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers. You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work.”
There are also plenty of people who think the neoconservatives have forfeited their credibility due to the mess in Iraq. Now that the Sunnis and Shiites are waging what some experts consider a civil war, it’s worth revisiting, for example, a prediction that Kristol made on National Public Radio three years ago: “I think there’s been a certain amount of...pop sociology in America that, you know, somehow the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni.”
Nor does it appear that the neo position is widely popular nationwide. The pollsters at Fox News, querying Americans on Tuesday and Wednesday, asked whether the Bush team should do “whatever it takes to stop Iran -- including military action.” Only 37 percent said yes. Among swing-voting independents, only 32 percent said yes. Even 45 percent of Republicans said no. Those numbers suggest that most people prefer strong sanctions and aggressive diplomatic efforts.
But the neos have multiple media megaphones, and it would be wrong to assume that their influence has diminished, particularly since a key ally and patron remains one heartbeat away from the presidency. And this administration has long demonstrated that it closely monitors the sentiments of its conservative base. With Democrats and independents no longer in the Bush camp, that base is more important than ever.
The neoconservative thinkers who laid the groundwork for the war in Iraq have hardly been chastened by the setbacks that America has faced in that conflict, nor by the fact that the promised weapons of mass destruction never showed up. On the contrary, they are conspicuously vocal these days on the topic of Iran -- and the need, as they see it, for Bush to show some moxie and plan for a new military confrontation.
And they are likely to ratchet up their rhetoric, and prod the White House further, now that Iran has decided to ignore a United Nations deadline to suspend uranium enrichment and hence slow its suspected nuclear weapons program. For instance, the neoconservatives aren’t happy today about the news that the Bush team, in retaliation, is considering only mild sanctions, such as a travel ban. And Michael Ledeen at the American Enterprise Institute yesterday voiced what he calls his “worst fears about the administration. Talk, talk, talk, but when it is time to act, they are still talking.”
And what do they define as action? Enter neoconservative William Kristol, ex-GOP aide and editor of the movement’s bible, The Weekly Standard. His agenda for action includes “serious preparation for possible military action -- including real and urgent operational planning for bombing strikes and for the consequences of such strikes.”
What’s noteworthy is that he wrote those words last April, in the wake of the news that Iran had successfully enriched its uranium. The pressure on Bush’s right flank was intense that month, with cries de guerre in other neoconservative outlets, such as the Wall Street Journal opinion page, and the National Review (the latter called for an “air campaign” coupled with regime change).
Indeed, even though Bush this week is trying to reframe the war on terror as a war against “fascism,” that’s old hat in the neo camp. Last April, Kristol was already doing that very thing, contending that Iran’s nuclear program was akin to Adolph Hitler’s 1936 prewar march into the Rhineland.
There are plenty of foreign policy experts within the Republican camp who view the neoconservatives as too precipitous on the Iran issue; for instance, former Colin Powell deputy Richard Haass believes that anyone who thinks a conflict with Iran would be small or quick is harboring “the most dangerous delusion,” and key Republicans on Capitol Hill have said that the quality of U.S. intelligence on Iran is questionable. James Carafano, an expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said last year that “there are no good military options,” and retired Air Force Lt. Col. Sam Gardiner, a simulations expert at the U.S. Army’s National War College, after scenarioizing a war on Iran, told the Atlantic Monthly magazine nearly two years ago that “after all this effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers. You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work.”
There are also plenty of people who think the neoconservatives have forfeited their credibility due to the mess in Iraq. Now that the Sunnis and Shiites are waging what some experts consider a civil war, it’s worth revisiting, for example, a prediction that Kristol made on National Public Radio three years ago: “I think there’s been a certain amount of...pop sociology in America that, you know, somehow the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni.”
Nor does it appear that the neo position is widely popular nationwide. The pollsters at Fox News, querying Americans on Tuesday and Wednesday, asked whether the Bush team should do “whatever it takes to stop Iran -- including military action.” Only 37 percent said yes. Among swing-voting independents, only 32 percent said yes. Even 45 percent of Republicans said no. Those numbers suggest that most people prefer strong sanctions and aggressive diplomatic efforts.
But the neos have multiple media megaphones, and it would be wrong to assume that their influence has diminished, particularly since a key ally and patron remains one heartbeat away from the presidency. And this administration has long demonstrated that it closely monitors the sentiments of its conservative base. With Democrats and independents no longer in the Bush camp, that base is more important than ever.
A few suggestions for the "gloom and doom" party
The national Democrats are fond of saying these days that they’re more united than ever. In terms of their shared antipathy toward President Bush, that’s certainly true. But harmony does not reign otherwise. There are still substantive intramural tensions, not just on issues, but on the best way to communicate those issues. And I’m not even talking about the ongoing party debate over whether it’s politically smart to push for a troop withdrawal timetable in Iraq.
Take, for instance, the party’s checkered efforts to court the average middle-class voter.
It’s a basic truism in national politics that whoever wins the white middle-class electorate wins the election. Care to guess which party has been losing lately?
Two Democratic camps in recent years have often squabbled, at times acrimoniously, about the best way to woo the white middle class: the liberal wing has argued that the party needs to craft a populist message that stands up for the little guy who is getting screwed by the rich and the special interests (big oil, big pharmaceuticals, big corporations that send our jobs overseas); however, moderate and pro-business Democrats have been arguing since the mid-‘80s that such a message is too gloomy and too combative, that most middle-class voters actually aspire to be rich, and that a more sunny, upbeat message will work best with that key electoral cohort.
The last two Democratic presidential candidates tried to straddle these two camps, without much success. Al Gore tried a populist message in 2000 (“the people versus the powerful”), and while it worked with wavering labor voters, it was basically phony, because (as I wrote at the time) Gore himself was hardly a working-class hero. By mid-summer that year, he had raised $30 million from the special-interest sector that he was publicly railing against.
As for John Kerry, he also tried a populist message, claiming that dark economic forces were threatening the middle class, and assailing “Benedict Arnold CEOs” who shipped jobs overseas. But this was somewhat phony too, because (as I also wrote at the time), Kerry had voted in the Senate for free trade agreements such as NAFTA, and he had also taken campaign money from “Benedict Arnold” firms and executives.
So, to review: The last two Democratic nominees adopted populist language that didn’t really suit them...and didn’t attract the white middle-class anyway. The stats say it all: In 2000, George W. Bush beat Gore among white middle-class voters by 15 points; that same year, with those same voters, Republican congressional candidates beat their Democratic opponents by 14 points. In 2004, Bush beat Kerry among those voters by 22 points, and congressional Republicans won them by 19 points.
Hence, the internal Democratic debate about how to woo the middle class is still very much alive. The latest salvo was launched this week by a trio of Democratic activists who believe that something is fundamentally wrong when the party that styles itself as the champion of the middle class can’t even win over white voters who make between $30,000 and $75,000 a year. (And that's quite a non-achievement, considering the fact that, as the polls indicate, the Republicans are still widely viewed as the party of the rich.)
Writing in a new publication, The Democratic Strategist, the authors, all of whom have ties to a new group called Third Way (which bills itself as “a strategy center for progressives”), lowered the boom on the party’s penchant for populist rhetoric:
“Democrats must first realize that they have a problem -- no, actually a crisis -- with the middle class....(In 2000 and 2004) we got slaughtered among the white middle class....Folks, if bashing rich people, the oil industry, and the drug companies were an effective political strategy, jets would be landing at Michael Dukakis National Airport in Washington.”
Anne Kim, Adam Solomon, and Jim Kessler are basically contending that the Democrats should quit their rhetoric about powerful forces threatening the little guy, because, they say, the little guy is actually an optimist by nature, and tend to respond more favorably to a sunny, aspirational message. The kind of message that the GOP has virtually trademarked since Ronald Reagan.
They write: “Whether it's the ‘people versus the powerful’...or John Kerry's ‘Benedict Arnold companies’ where American workers see their factories ‘unbolted, crated up, and shipped thousands of miles away,’ the Democratic economic message is pervasively pessimistic. Democrats see the American Dream fading, the middle class being squeezed, jobs disappearing, schools crumbling, and wages stagnating. That is not the way middle-class Americans view their own lives.” Basically, they say that modest wage earners aren’t motivated by resentment against the rich; rather, these earners want to BE rich.
The Kim-Solomon-Kessler argument is bound to enrage many Democratic liberals who would prefer to draw sharp contrasts between the parties and avoid any rhetoric that might sound like me-too Republicanese (such as a sunny Reaganesque message)....although I was somewhat surprised this morning to see a semi-friendly critique on the Daily Kos website.
During the runup to the ‘08 Democratic primaries, we will see this debate play out among the candidates. John Edwards’ “two Americas” message, for instance, appears more populist than Evan Bayh’s middle-class aspirational talk. But the bottom line, for now, is that the Third Way activists have at least defined one of the Democratic party’s core challenges, going forward.
Take, for instance, the party’s checkered efforts to court the average middle-class voter.
It’s a basic truism in national politics that whoever wins the white middle-class electorate wins the election. Care to guess which party has been losing lately?
Two Democratic camps in recent years have often squabbled, at times acrimoniously, about the best way to woo the white middle class: the liberal wing has argued that the party needs to craft a populist message that stands up for the little guy who is getting screwed by the rich and the special interests (big oil, big pharmaceuticals, big corporations that send our jobs overseas); however, moderate and pro-business Democrats have been arguing since the mid-‘80s that such a message is too gloomy and too combative, that most middle-class voters actually aspire to be rich, and that a more sunny, upbeat message will work best with that key electoral cohort.
The last two Democratic presidential candidates tried to straddle these two camps, without much success. Al Gore tried a populist message in 2000 (“the people versus the powerful”), and while it worked with wavering labor voters, it was basically phony, because (as I wrote at the time) Gore himself was hardly a working-class hero. By mid-summer that year, he had raised $30 million from the special-interest sector that he was publicly railing against.
As for John Kerry, he also tried a populist message, claiming that dark economic forces were threatening the middle class, and assailing “Benedict Arnold CEOs” who shipped jobs overseas. But this was somewhat phony too, because (as I also wrote at the time), Kerry had voted in the Senate for free trade agreements such as NAFTA, and he had also taken campaign money from “Benedict Arnold” firms and executives.
So, to review: The last two Democratic nominees adopted populist language that didn’t really suit them...and didn’t attract the white middle-class anyway. The stats say it all: In 2000, George W. Bush beat Gore among white middle-class voters by 15 points; that same year, with those same voters, Republican congressional candidates beat their Democratic opponents by 14 points. In 2004, Bush beat Kerry among those voters by 22 points, and congressional Republicans won them by 19 points.
Hence, the internal Democratic debate about how to woo the middle class is still very much alive. The latest salvo was launched this week by a trio of Democratic activists who believe that something is fundamentally wrong when the party that styles itself as the champion of the middle class can’t even win over white voters who make between $30,000 and $75,000 a year. (And that's quite a non-achievement, considering the fact that, as the polls indicate, the Republicans are still widely viewed as the party of the rich.)
Writing in a new publication, The Democratic Strategist, the authors, all of whom have ties to a new group called Third Way (which bills itself as “a strategy center for progressives”), lowered the boom on the party’s penchant for populist rhetoric:
“Democrats must first realize that they have a problem -- no, actually a crisis -- with the middle class....(In 2000 and 2004) we got slaughtered among the white middle class....Folks, if bashing rich people, the oil industry, and the drug companies were an effective political strategy, jets would be landing at Michael Dukakis National Airport in Washington.”
Anne Kim, Adam Solomon, and Jim Kessler are basically contending that the Democrats should quit their rhetoric about powerful forces threatening the little guy, because, they say, the little guy is actually an optimist by nature, and tend to respond more favorably to a sunny, aspirational message. The kind of message that the GOP has virtually trademarked since Ronald Reagan.
They write: “Whether it's the ‘people versus the powerful’...or John Kerry's ‘Benedict Arnold companies’ where American workers see their factories ‘unbolted, crated up, and shipped thousands of miles away,’ the Democratic economic message is pervasively pessimistic. Democrats see the American Dream fading, the middle class being squeezed, jobs disappearing, schools crumbling, and wages stagnating. That is not the way middle-class Americans view their own lives.” Basically, they say that modest wage earners aren’t motivated by resentment against the rich; rather, these earners want to BE rich.
The Kim-Solomon-Kessler argument is bound to enrage many Democratic liberals who would prefer to draw sharp contrasts between the parties and avoid any rhetoric that might sound like me-too Republicanese (such as a sunny Reaganesque message)....although I was somewhat surprised this morning to see a semi-friendly critique on the Daily Kos website.
During the runup to the ‘08 Democratic primaries, we will see this debate play out among the candidates. John Edwards’ “two Americas” message, for instance, appears more populist than Evan Bayh’s middle-class aspirational talk. But the bottom line, for now, is that the Third Way activists have at least defined one of the Democratic party’s core challenges, going forward.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Paraphrasing Rummy, we go to press with the president we have...
We interrupt our normally scheduled broadcast for this brief digression:A spirited and lengthy debate broke out on this blog last Friday, in the comments section, over whether I can or should be ideologically labeled in some fashion. As normally happens in such exchanges, various fuzzy definitions of ”bias” and “opinion” quickly surfaced, and nothing much was decided one way or the other. But thanks to all who sustained that impromptu symposium, especially those who don’t much like this online column, yet continue to read it.
Maybe I can help clarify matters, by framing my own declaration of principles (to borrow a phrase from Citizen Kane): I am a columnist. A good columnist doesn’t just spout opinions off the top of his or her head; rather, he or she does the requisite empirical reporting, then makes professional judgments based on the facts. (I addressed some of these issues in a June post, and that post was discussed on Monday, here.)
And it is natural that a good political columnist, empowered by the rigors of inductive reasoning, will focus most intensely on the people in power. Right now, the people in power happen to be Republicans, and they have amassed a track record. It behooves anyone in my position to examine that track record, assess any gap between promise and performance, and fact-check rhetorical claims.
There are many Republicans, and defenders of President Bush, who can’t seem to accept the fact that, if you control all the levers of government, you have to expect to be held accountable by independent voices. They keep talking about the need for more press “balance,” when, in fact, they have spent years working (successfully) to achieve a power imbalance in their favor. Hence, the disproportionate press scrutiny that such an imbalance warrants.
The same yardsticks should apply to whoever has the power, from whatever party. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, we go to press with the president we have. Consider, for instance, this passage, from an article that ran on Dec. 20, 1998, at the height of Bill Clinton’s Lewinsky scandal:
“At so many critical junctures, Clinton, whether by instinct or calculation, chose deception and recklessness over candor and restraint - in his deposition and grand jury testimony; in his semantic legalese; in his frontal attacks on independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr; in his early refusal to settle the (Paula) Jones case; and in his willingness to conduct secret trysts with Lewinsky while a sexual-harassment lawsuit was hanging over his head and while Starr and other hostile players were watching his every move.” The piece also rebuked Clinton for “his reluctance to take responsibility, his willingness to deceive, his tendency to see himself as a victim, and his eagerness to please the audience at hand...”
I wrote all that in the Inquirer. The subsequent abuse from Democratic readers and Clinton defenders was considerable. So be it. The facts and track record shaped my professional judgement -- then as now. It’s a disputatious world out there, especially in the increasingly polarized world of politics, and adoration is not part of this job description. I like the credo from J. J. Gittes, the private detective played by Jack Nicholson in Chinatown. As he told his client, “I may not be in business to be loved, but I am in business.”
-------
Now it’s back to business:
President Bush, in the midst of his Katrina redemption tour, made some questionable remarks yesterday in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams. They came during an exchange about 9/11 and its aftermath. The topic was whether Bush had adequately summoned Americans to give of themselves in a spirit of shared national purpose.
Williams asked, “The folks who say you should have asked for some sort of sacrifice from all of us after 9/11 -- do they have a case looking back on it?”
Bush replied, “Americans are sacrificing. (pause) I mean, we are, we are, you know, we pay a lot of taxes. The Americans sacrificed when they, you know, when the economy went in the tank. Americans sacrificed when, you know, air travel was disrupted. American taxpayers have paid a lot to help this nation recover. I think Americans have sacrificed.”
When Williams asked the question, I assumed that Bush would slam-dunk it by simply noting that Americans have already been sacrificing in Iraq (at last check, 2637 dead soldiers and 19,323 wounded) as part of the global terror war. But he went in a different direction, with a response that will no doubt please his restive tax-averse conservative base, but this is where his claims become questionable.
Back in World War II (the war that the Bush administration is now equating with the war on terror), Americans sacrificed by weathering gas, coffee and food rationing. They also flocked to national service programs. Most tellingly, they also paid higher taxes -- as have Americans during every major war.
So here’s what’s wrong with Bush’s comment that Americans are sacrificing simply because they “pay a lot of taxes”:
1. In point of fact, the tax burden on most Americans is actually smaller than it used to be. The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities headlined a 2002 report this way: “Overall Federal Tax Burden On Most Families -- Including Middle-Income Families -- At Lowest Levels In More Than Two Decades.” In fact, the study stated, median income taxes for a family of four were at the lowest level in 44 years.
2. Bush, through his tax cuts, has further lightened this alleged American sacrifice. In fact, in the years since 9/11 and the war on Iraq, this spirit of national sacrifice has been eased most for the rich. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the effective tax rate on the top one percent of taxpayers fell by 20 percent between the spring of 2001 and the spring of 2004; by contrast, the effective tax rate for middle-income taxpayers fell during that same period by only 9.3 percent.
3. And even if you want to define paying taxes as the key measure of sacrifice, Americans aren’t sacrificing nearly as much as the rest of the western world. According to the latest data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international group founded in 1948 to help administer the Marshall Plan, married Americans with two kids have one of the lightest tax burdens, when compared to equivalent families elsewhere. Out of 30 democracies, the U.S. tax bite ranks 28th. Only Iceland and Ireland families have it easier.
So maybe it’s the removal of shoes at the airport that should be counted as a true sacrifice.
-------
A hat tip to Jim Geraghty at National Review Online for this one...
Here's Democratic strategist/pollster/firebreather James Carville two years ago, looking ahead to the 2004 presidential election: "If we can't win this damn election, with a Democratic Party more unified than ever before, with us having raised as much money as the Republicans, with 55 percent of the country believing we're heading in the wrong direction, with our candidate having won all three debates, and with our side being more passionate about the outcome than theirs — if we can't win this one, then we can't win s---! And we need to completely rethink the Democratic Party."
Here's James Carville this summer, looking ahead to the 2006 congressional election: "We have to go back to 1974 (during Watergate) to find such a favorable environment (for Democrats). If we can't win in this environment, we have to question the whole premise of the party.''
No wonder the Democrats can't seem to come up with a creative and compelling message. Even their portents of doom are recycled.
Maybe I can help clarify matters, by framing my own declaration of principles (to borrow a phrase from Citizen Kane): I am a columnist. A good columnist doesn’t just spout opinions off the top of his or her head; rather, he or she does the requisite empirical reporting, then makes professional judgments based on the facts. (I addressed some of these issues in a June post, and that post was discussed on Monday, here.)
And it is natural that a good political columnist, empowered by the rigors of inductive reasoning, will focus most intensely on the people in power. Right now, the people in power happen to be Republicans, and they have amassed a track record. It behooves anyone in my position to examine that track record, assess any gap between promise and performance, and fact-check rhetorical claims.
There are many Republicans, and defenders of President Bush, who can’t seem to accept the fact that, if you control all the levers of government, you have to expect to be held accountable by independent voices. They keep talking about the need for more press “balance,” when, in fact, they have spent years working (successfully) to achieve a power imbalance in their favor. Hence, the disproportionate press scrutiny that such an imbalance warrants.
The same yardsticks should apply to whoever has the power, from whatever party. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, we go to press with the president we have. Consider, for instance, this passage, from an article that ran on Dec. 20, 1998, at the height of Bill Clinton’s Lewinsky scandal:
“At so many critical junctures, Clinton, whether by instinct or calculation, chose deception and recklessness over candor and restraint - in his deposition and grand jury testimony; in his semantic legalese; in his frontal attacks on independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr; in his early refusal to settle the (Paula) Jones case; and in his willingness to conduct secret trysts with Lewinsky while a sexual-harassment lawsuit was hanging over his head and while Starr and other hostile players were watching his every move.” The piece also rebuked Clinton for “his reluctance to take responsibility, his willingness to deceive, his tendency to see himself as a victim, and his eagerness to please the audience at hand...”
I wrote all that in the Inquirer. The subsequent abuse from Democratic readers and Clinton defenders was considerable. So be it. The facts and track record shaped my professional judgement -- then as now. It’s a disputatious world out there, especially in the increasingly polarized world of politics, and adoration is not part of this job description. I like the credo from J. J. Gittes, the private detective played by Jack Nicholson in Chinatown. As he told his client, “I may not be in business to be loved, but I am in business.”
-------
Now it’s back to business:
President Bush, in the midst of his Katrina redemption tour, made some questionable remarks yesterday in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams. They came during an exchange about 9/11 and its aftermath. The topic was whether Bush had adequately summoned Americans to give of themselves in a spirit of shared national purpose.
Williams asked, “The folks who say you should have asked for some sort of sacrifice from all of us after 9/11 -- do they have a case looking back on it?”
Bush replied, “Americans are sacrificing. (pause) I mean, we are, we are, you know, we pay a lot of taxes. The Americans sacrificed when they, you know, when the economy went in the tank. Americans sacrificed when, you know, air travel was disrupted. American taxpayers have paid a lot to help this nation recover. I think Americans have sacrificed.”
When Williams asked the question, I assumed that Bush would slam-dunk it by simply noting that Americans have already been sacrificing in Iraq (at last check, 2637 dead soldiers and 19,323 wounded) as part of the global terror war. But he went in a different direction, with a response that will no doubt please his restive tax-averse conservative base, but this is where his claims become questionable.
Back in World War II (the war that the Bush administration is now equating with the war on terror), Americans sacrificed by weathering gas, coffee and food rationing. They also flocked to national service programs. Most tellingly, they also paid higher taxes -- as have Americans during every major war.
So here’s what’s wrong with Bush’s comment that Americans are sacrificing simply because they “pay a lot of taxes”:
1. In point of fact, the tax burden on most Americans is actually smaller than it used to be. The nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities headlined a 2002 report this way: “Overall Federal Tax Burden On Most Families -- Including Middle-Income Families -- At Lowest Levels In More Than Two Decades.” In fact, the study stated, median income taxes for a family of four were at the lowest level in 44 years.
2. Bush, through his tax cuts, has further lightened this alleged American sacrifice. In fact, in the years since 9/11 and the war on Iraq, this spirit of national sacrifice has been eased most for the rich. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the effective tax rate on the top one percent of taxpayers fell by 20 percent between the spring of 2001 and the spring of 2004; by contrast, the effective tax rate for middle-income taxpayers fell during that same period by only 9.3 percent.
3. And even if you want to define paying taxes as the key measure of sacrifice, Americans aren’t sacrificing nearly as much as the rest of the western world. According to the latest data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an international group founded in 1948 to help administer the Marshall Plan, married Americans with two kids have one of the lightest tax burdens, when compared to equivalent families elsewhere. Out of 30 democracies, the U.S. tax bite ranks 28th. Only Iceland and Ireland families have it easier.
So maybe it’s the removal of shoes at the airport that should be counted as a true sacrifice.
-------
A hat tip to Jim Geraghty at National Review Online for this one...
Here's Democratic strategist/pollster/firebreather James Carville two years ago, looking ahead to the 2004 presidential election: "If we can't win this damn election, with a Democratic Party more unified than ever before, with us having raised as much money as the Republicans, with 55 percent of the country believing we're heading in the wrong direction, with our candidate having won all three debates, and with our side being more passionate about the outcome than theirs — if we can't win this one, then we can't win s---! And we need to completely rethink the Democratic Party."
Here's James Carville this summer, looking ahead to the 2006 congressional election: "We have to go back to 1974 (during Watergate) to find such a favorable environment (for Democrats). If we can't win in this environment, we have to question the whole premise of the party.''
No wonder the Democrats can't seem to come up with a creative and compelling message. Even their portents of doom are recycled.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Terrorism as the central front in election '06
With each passing day, it becomes increasingly easy to discern the fundamental divide in the '06 congressional elections.
The White House, GOP headquarters, and most Republican candidates will argue this autumn that we are engaged in a global struggle more treacherous than World War II, that the war in Iraq is a front in that global struggle, and that any deviation from this GOP agenda is a sign of weakness. Witness Vice President Cheney's speech yesterday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Reno, Nevada, as well as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's speech yesterday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Reno, Nevada.
In the other camp, the Democrats will argue that we are indeed engaged in a global struggle, but that the war in Iraq is a wasteful diversion that weakens our ability to effectively wage that global struggle. And it would appear -- for the moment anyway -- that the Democratic argument is winning.
For the first time, a majority of Americans are telling the pollsters that they do not view the global war on terror as a seamless, one-size-fits-all crusade; rather, they now view Iraq as a distinctly separate issue. That's a renunciation of what the Bush administration has been arguing since 2002. It's hard to see how Cheney and Rumsfeld can advance the administration's argument by preaching to the choir in Reno, as opposed to making the case in crucial swing congressional districts.
Nor is it clear how they can regain lost ground by recycling old lines. (For instance: Cheney said yesterday, “We were not in Iraq on September 11, 2001, and the terrorists hit us anyway.” Can’t that line be interpreted in the opposite way that Cheney intends? In other words, that since we weren’t in Iraq when 9/11 happened, we need not have responded to 9/11 by going into Iraq?)
Nevertheless, despite new forecasts that the Democrats are well positioned to retake the House in November, and despite a new Pew poll which reports that most likely voters don't consider terrorism to be a top priority matter, I am skeptical. I can’t help noticing that Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is now making the Bush argument about a global war against “Islamic fascism,” and that he’s tightening the race against Bob Casey. Perhaps there is no direct connection, and that the fascism line is not a turn-on for Santorum's conservative base. But I have also been reading a New Republic piece by law professor Cass Sunstein (no friend of conservatives), who cites some interesting research in a new behaviorial field known as “mortality science.”
The upshot of the study was that when Americans, even self-identified liberals, are reminded of their own mortality in connection with terrorism fears, they tend to view the current commander-in-chief more favorably. Granted, this research took place in 2004, during the Bush-Kerry election, but, Sunstein argues, “Unless circumstances have relevantly changed since 2004, Bush--and almost certainly Republican candidates more generally--are likely to benefit from any reference to terrorism or the September 11 attacks. So Karl Rove knows exactly what he is doing.”
Sunstein says the Democrats basically have two choices: "show the same firmness and resolve -- and capacity for aggression -- that people have associated with Bush," or "try to keep terrorism out of the news." The latter is a loser, and impossible anyway. And the former will be a real challenge for Democrats, especially when the Republicans orchestrate autumn congressional hearings on domestic surveillance (a GOP strength, since most Americans say they favor security over civil liberties), and especially if Bush springs an October surprise by jaw-boning Iran over nuclear weapons.
On the other hand (we mainstream media types are always adept at saying on the other hand), I should acknowledge that even one of Bush's most slavish conservative pundits, Fred Barnes, seems somewhat downbeat about GOP prospects this fall:
"As favorable as recent trends have been (for Bush), they are not nearly enough to spare Republicans a nasty defeat, including the loss of the House and perhaps the Senate. The country is in a disagreeable mood and ready for a change. The Republican base is grumpy and apathetic. Bush may be America's choice to fight terrorism, but he falters on other issues. His boost in the polls doesn't mean he's now popular. He's merely less unpopular. And the August bounce may prove to be ephemeral, as earlier upticks have. There's much to do. Standing pat and expecting terrorism to dominate the campaign would be foolhardy. Grim reminders of the threat on the fifth anniversary of September 11 won't make terror the paramount issue. Nor will presidential speeches or lacerating Republican TV ads. Neither Democrats nor the media will play along. It's Bush's actions, not his words, that will matter."
-------
On another matter: A few weeks ago, I got knocked around in the usual fashion by the usual partisan readers when, in a print column about Bush's political difficulties in the Middle East, I invoked a famous line coined by a famous writer. (My lead paragraph: "In the midst of a 19th-century crisis, American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that 'events are in the saddle, and ride mankind.' It's hard to imagine he would think any differently about today's bloodshed in the Middle East, or about the seeming inability of the world's most powerful leader to seize the reins.") The basic charge among Bush fans was that I used the great Emerson to dress up my obvious "Bush-hating."
Well, on this very day, here comes a noted conservative pundit, riding to my rescue. Thank you, Rich Lowry:
"The Gulf Coast disaster exists against the backdrop of the Iraq War, where America has been seemingly powerless to impose order on the country's warring factions or rebuild a country devastated by 30 years of tyranny and now a budding civil war. If there were a theme to the past two years it would be Ralph Waldo Emerson's 'events are in the saddle, and ride mankind.' Nothing is so damaging to a political leader. Bush's presidency will remain diminished until he finds a way to vindicate human ingenuity's power over events, and show that he again is in the saddle."
The White House, GOP headquarters, and most Republican candidates will argue this autumn that we are engaged in a global struggle more treacherous than World War II, that the war in Iraq is a front in that global struggle, and that any deviation from this GOP agenda is a sign of weakness. Witness Vice President Cheney's speech yesterday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Reno, Nevada, as well as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's speech yesterday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Reno, Nevada.
In the other camp, the Democrats will argue that we are indeed engaged in a global struggle, but that the war in Iraq is a wasteful diversion that weakens our ability to effectively wage that global struggle. And it would appear -- for the moment anyway -- that the Democratic argument is winning.
For the first time, a majority of Americans are telling the pollsters that they do not view the global war on terror as a seamless, one-size-fits-all crusade; rather, they now view Iraq as a distinctly separate issue. That's a renunciation of what the Bush administration has been arguing since 2002. It's hard to see how Cheney and Rumsfeld can advance the administration's argument by preaching to the choir in Reno, as opposed to making the case in crucial swing congressional districts.
Nor is it clear how they can regain lost ground by recycling old lines. (For instance: Cheney said yesterday, “We were not in Iraq on September 11, 2001, and the terrorists hit us anyway.” Can’t that line be interpreted in the opposite way that Cheney intends? In other words, that since we weren’t in Iraq when 9/11 happened, we need not have responded to 9/11 by going into Iraq?)
Nevertheless, despite new forecasts that the Democrats are well positioned to retake the House in November, and despite a new Pew poll which reports that most likely voters don't consider terrorism to be a top priority matter, I am skeptical. I can’t help noticing that Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is now making the Bush argument about a global war against “Islamic fascism,” and that he’s tightening the race against Bob Casey. Perhaps there is no direct connection, and that the fascism line is not a turn-on for Santorum's conservative base. But I have also been reading a New Republic piece by law professor Cass Sunstein (no friend of conservatives), who cites some interesting research in a new behaviorial field known as “mortality science.”
The upshot of the study was that when Americans, even self-identified liberals, are reminded of their own mortality in connection with terrorism fears, they tend to view the current commander-in-chief more favorably. Granted, this research took place in 2004, during the Bush-Kerry election, but, Sunstein argues, “Unless circumstances have relevantly changed since 2004, Bush--and almost certainly Republican candidates more generally--are likely to benefit from any reference to terrorism or the September 11 attacks. So Karl Rove knows exactly what he is doing.”
Sunstein says the Democrats basically have two choices: "show the same firmness and resolve -- and capacity for aggression -- that people have associated with Bush," or "try to keep terrorism out of the news." The latter is a loser, and impossible anyway. And the former will be a real challenge for Democrats, especially when the Republicans orchestrate autumn congressional hearings on domestic surveillance (a GOP strength, since most Americans say they favor security over civil liberties), and especially if Bush springs an October surprise by jaw-boning Iran over nuclear weapons.
On the other hand (we mainstream media types are always adept at saying on the other hand), I should acknowledge that even one of Bush's most slavish conservative pundits, Fred Barnes, seems somewhat downbeat about GOP prospects this fall:
"As favorable as recent trends have been (for Bush), they are not nearly enough to spare Republicans a nasty defeat, including the loss of the House and perhaps the Senate. The country is in a disagreeable mood and ready for a change. The Republican base is grumpy and apathetic. Bush may be America's choice to fight terrorism, but he falters on other issues. His boost in the polls doesn't mean he's now popular. He's merely less unpopular. And the August bounce may prove to be ephemeral, as earlier upticks have. There's much to do. Standing pat and expecting terrorism to dominate the campaign would be foolhardy. Grim reminders of the threat on the fifth anniversary of September 11 won't make terror the paramount issue. Nor will presidential speeches or lacerating Republican TV ads. Neither Democrats nor the media will play along. It's Bush's actions, not his words, that will matter."
-------
On another matter: A few weeks ago, I got knocked around in the usual fashion by the usual partisan readers when, in a print column about Bush's political difficulties in the Middle East, I invoked a famous line coined by a famous writer. (My lead paragraph: "In the midst of a 19th-century crisis, American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that 'events are in the saddle, and ride mankind.' It's hard to imagine he would think any differently about today's bloodshed in the Middle East, or about the seeming inability of the world's most powerful leader to seize the reins.") The basic charge among Bush fans was that I used the great Emerson to dress up my obvious "Bush-hating."
Well, on this very day, here comes a noted conservative pundit, riding to my rescue. Thank you, Rich Lowry:
"The Gulf Coast disaster exists against the backdrop of the Iraq War, where America has been seemingly powerless to impose order on the country's warring factions or rebuild a country devastated by 30 years of tyranny and now a budding civil war. If there were a theme to the past two years it would be Ralph Waldo Emerson's 'events are in the saddle, and ride mankind.' Nothing is so damaging to a political leader. Bush's presidency will remain diminished until he finds a way to vindicate human ingenuity's power over events, and show that he again is in the saddle."
Monday, August 28, 2006
Fox News specials: Faith over science, Biden inserts foot, Rockey on message
The great thing about Fox News is its ability to keep hope alive for the deniers of factual reality. Witness the soliloquy yesterday morning by resident conservative analyst William Kristol, as he inveiged against science while discussing the FDA's Aug. 24 approval of the non-prescription sale of the emergency contraceptive "morning after" pill.
Notwithstanding the fact that, back in 2003, the Food and Drug Administration's own science expert advisory panel voted 23-4 in favor of non-prescription sales, concluding that the pill's availability would not encourage promiscuity, and notwithstanding the fact that a 2002 field study published in the British Medical Journal concluded the same thing (as referenced here), and notwithstanding the fact that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, along with the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine all have concluded the same thing, Kristol nevertheless said yesterday that he still has faith:
"I don’t know, I came into Fox this morning and one of our younger colleagues who works here, a guy just out of college a couple of years, said all his friends who are still college are very happy about this — all his guy friends, his male friends who are still in college are happy about this. They have a wild night. Precautions aren’t taken. The burden is now totally off them. They tell their girlfriend to go out and get this drug and no problems at all. And I don’t think that’s a very good thing for the the country."
Stop the presses: Heresay from one young Fox News employe trumps science!
Kristol, of course, was merely reflecting the views of the FDA official who essentially blocked the pill's non-prescription approval back in 2004. That would be Dr. W. David Hager, a Christian conservative gynecologist whom President Bush appointed two years earlier to chair an FDA health advisory panel. Put it this way: For the past two years, and until the FDA reversed itself last week, scientific evidence was deemed less persuasive than the views of a guy who once wrote that he used Jesus as a model for how he treated women in his medical practice. (Hager left the FDA panel last year.)
The Christian right is exploring legal options, in the hopes of blocking the FDA's action. In the meantime, one prominent group is firing up the rhetoric, blaming the Democrats ("the party of death") for pressuring the FDA to give its OK, and even accusing Bush of "caving in." The bottom line is that, as usual, there is never any finality in America's culture wars. Not as long as a single Fox employe can be cited as compelling evidence.
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Last Thursday, I examined the latest John McCain recalibrations, as the purported man of candor learns to pander. For more on the topic, check out this lengthy Washington Post Sunday magazine submission.
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I wrote a print column yesterday about the political legacy of Katrina, and the potential '06 damage for Bush and the GOP. Ever wonder what kind of email I receive? Here is a typical entry, received this morning. I have removed the language that is more suitable for Deadwood on HBO:
"(Bleep) New Orleans. I will never go there, and I urge all Americans to boycott this (bleep) of corrupt murdering racists. After the savagely libelous way the mainstream media and Louisiana hack commie-crat incompetents have attacked european americans, I hope the whole place rots in the sun for a couple more years before it is washed into the gulf. Nagin, Landrieu, the governor and all the (bleepy) democrat (bleeps) who live in New Orleans can go (bleep) themselves. Hooray for George Bush. He was responsible for the fastest, most comprehensive aid in world history , but it was no match for the corruption, incompetence, and racism of the tawdry ingrates who bit his hand like rabid dogs. Drop dead, democrat (bleeps)!"
I guess this emailer missed the memo from his president, urging citizens to discuss politics with greater "civility and respect."
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Joe Biden, the Democratic senator who on occasion has exhibited the symptoms of foot-in-mouth disease, made a bizarre remark yesterday on the aforementioned Fox News Sunday show. It has already been "YouTubed" (which I suppose should be listed in the dictionary as a new transitive verb).
Host Chris Wallace, noting that Biden was touring South Carolina to test his long-stymied presidential prospects, asked how the man from Delaware might fare in a southern primary against home boys like John Edwards and Mark Warner. Biden replied that he would do well, because, "My state was a slave state. My state is a border state..."
What was he talking about, anyway? Surely he wasn't suggesting that he can successfully woo southern whites because they would feel an affinity for somebody who hails from a former slave state? What's he saying, 'Hey white guys, vote for me, my state used to tolerate slavery'?" Is he doing a reprise of the infamous '03 Howard Dean remark which implied that southern whites are still closet Confederates?
Fox reports, you decide.
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And lastly, today we have Fox News filling its most familiar role, as designated media echo chamber for the governing party. Where else, after all, could President Bush's favorite Katrina victim --that would be failed Republican office seeker Rockey Vaccarella -- enjoy national airtime, as a series of softballs are gently lobbed his way?
Here was a tragedy where the disproportionate share of victims were African-American...and the one victim who gets national exposure at the White House is a white guy from the local GOP who wishes that Bush could get a third term. Enter Fox News. Here's the exchange today, complete with incisive journalistic queries.
NEIL CAVUTO: "You know what happens with an anniversary like this. You blame the authorities, the conventional wisdom, blame the big guy, blame the President. You met with the big guy, you met with the President. You’re saying, 'Too much of that'.”
VACCARELLA: "Whatcha mean, I’ve been saying 'too much of that'?"
CAVUTO: "— that the criticism’s been unfair? The criticism’s been unfair?"
VACCARELLA: "Well, you know what, like I told many people, I’m an optimistic-type person, I kinda look at the glass half-full instead of half-empty. And one of the things I wanted to thank the President for, part of what we went there for, is for all the FEMA trailers. I mean, here, you can always point the fingers and say shoulda, coulda, woulda, and been a Monday-morning quarterback. But I’m not a Monday-morning quarterback. I have a roof over my head, my family’s living there, we have air conditioning, we have running water, I can take a shower, shave. I can move on as I rebuild. I mean, the President didn’t order the Hurricane Katrina, she just came through with her whipping winds. And instead of, you know, sitting around complaining and saying, 'This is what they shoulda did, what they coulda did,' well, you know what? You ought to be thankful for what we got."
I guess Rockey didn't get the 600-page House Republican memo last March about what the Bush administration shoulda coulda woulda: "a failure of initiative...a failure of leadership...a blinding lack of situational awareness and disjointed decision-making needlessly compounded and prolonged Katrina's horror."
Notwithstanding the fact that, back in 2003, the Food and Drug Administration's own science expert advisory panel voted 23-4 in favor of non-prescription sales, concluding that the pill's availability would not encourage promiscuity, and notwithstanding the fact that a 2002 field study published in the British Medical Journal concluded the same thing (as referenced here), and notwithstanding the fact that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, along with the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine all have concluded the same thing, Kristol nevertheless said yesterday that he still has faith:
"I don’t know, I came into Fox this morning and one of our younger colleagues who works here, a guy just out of college a couple of years, said all his friends who are still college are very happy about this — all his guy friends, his male friends who are still in college are happy about this. They have a wild night. Precautions aren’t taken. The burden is now totally off them. They tell their girlfriend to go out and get this drug and no problems at all. And I don’t think that’s a very good thing for the the country."
Stop the presses: Heresay from one young Fox News employe trumps science!
Kristol, of course, was merely reflecting the views of the FDA official who essentially blocked the pill's non-prescription approval back in 2004. That would be Dr. W. David Hager, a Christian conservative gynecologist whom President Bush appointed two years earlier to chair an FDA health advisory panel. Put it this way: For the past two years, and until the FDA reversed itself last week, scientific evidence was deemed less persuasive than the views of a guy who once wrote that he used Jesus as a model for how he treated women in his medical practice. (Hager left the FDA panel last year.)
The Christian right is exploring legal options, in the hopes of blocking the FDA's action. In the meantime, one prominent group is firing up the rhetoric, blaming the Democrats ("the party of death") for pressuring the FDA to give its OK, and even accusing Bush of "caving in." The bottom line is that, as usual, there is never any finality in America's culture wars. Not as long as a single Fox employe can be cited as compelling evidence.
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Last Thursday, I examined the latest John McCain recalibrations, as the purported man of candor learns to pander. For more on the topic, check out this lengthy Washington Post Sunday magazine submission.
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I wrote a print column yesterday about the political legacy of Katrina, and the potential '06 damage for Bush and the GOP. Ever wonder what kind of email I receive? Here is a typical entry, received this morning. I have removed the language that is more suitable for Deadwood on HBO:
"(Bleep) New Orleans. I will never go there, and I urge all Americans to boycott this (bleep) of corrupt murdering racists. After the savagely libelous way the mainstream media and Louisiana hack commie-crat incompetents have attacked european americans, I hope the whole place rots in the sun for a couple more years before it is washed into the gulf. Nagin, Landrieu, the governor and all the (bleepy) democrat (bleeps) who live in New Orleans can go (bleep) themselves. Hooray for George Bush. He was responsible for the fastest, most comprehensive aid in world history , but it was no match for the corruption, incompetence, and racism of the tawdry ingrates who bit his hand like rabid dogs. Drop dead, democrat (bleeps)!"
I guess this emailer missed the memo from his president, urging citizens to discuss politics with greater "civility and respect."
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Joe Biden, the Democratic senator who on occasion has exhibited the symptoms of foot-in-mouth disease, made a bizarre remark yesterday on the aforementioned Fox News Sunday show. It has already been "YouTubed" (which I suppose should be listed in the dictionary as a new transitive verb).
Host Chris Wallace, noting that Biden was touring South Carolina to test his long-stymied presidential prospects, asked how the man from Delaware might fare in a southern primary against home boys like John Edwards and Mark Warner. Biden replied that he would do well, because, "My state was a slave state. My state is a border state..."
What was he talking about, anyway? Surely he wasn't suggesting that he can successfully woo southern whites because they would feel an affinity for somebody who hails from a former slave state? What's he saying, 'Hey white guys, vote for me, my state used to tolerate slavery'?" Is he doing a reprise of the infamous '03 Howard Dean remark which implied that southern whites are still closet Confederates?
Fox reports, you decide.
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And lastly, today we have Fox News filling its most familiar role, as designated media echo chamber for the governing party. Where else, after all, could President Bush's favorite Katrina victim --that would be failed Republican office seeker Rockey Vaccarella -- enjoy national airtime, as a series of softballs are gently lobbed his way?
Here was a tragedy where the disproportionate share of victims were African-American...and the one victim who gets national exposure at the White House is a white guy from the local GOP who wishes that Bush could get a third term. Enter Fox News. Here's the exchange today, complete with incisive journalistic queries.
NEIL CAVUTO: "You know what happens with an anniversary like this. You blame the authorities, the conventional wisdom, blame the big guy, blame the President. You met with the big guy, you met with the President. You’re saying, 'Too much of that'.”
VACCARELLA: "Whatcha mean, I’ve been saying 'too much of that'?"
CAVUTO: "— that the criticism’s been unfair? The criticism’s been unfair?"
VACCARELLA: "Well, you know what, like I told many people, I’m an optimistic-type person, I kinda look at the glass half-full instead of half-empty. And one of the things I wanted to thank the President for, part of what we went there for, is for all the FEMA trailers. I mean, here, you can always point the fingers and say shoulda, coulda, woulda, and been a Monday-morning quarterback. But I’m not a Monday-morning quarterback. I have a roof over my head, my family’s living there, we have air conditioning, we have running water, I can take a shower, shave. I can move on as I rebuild. I mean, the President didn’t order the Hurricane Katrina, she just came through with her whipping winds. And instead of, you know, sitting around complaining and saying, 'This is what they shoulda did, what they coulda did,' well, you know what? You ought to be thankful for what we got."
I guess Rockey didn't get the 600-page House Republican memo last March about what the Bush administration shoulda coulda woulda: "a failure of initiative...a failure of leadership...a blinding lack of situational awareness and disjointed decision-making needlessly compounded and prolonged Katrina's horror."
Friday, August 25, 2006
The GOP message: Maybe we're not so great, but (insert enemy name) is even worse!
This morning I was catching up on my backlogged emails (mostly marketing junk, political propaganda, and random diatribes) when I chanced upon a standard submission from the Republican National Committee. It began this way:
“WHO IS MARKOS MOULITSAS ZUNIGA? A Partisan ‘Nutroot’ Who Turned His Hate-Filled Blog Daily Kos Into A Leadership Post In The Democrat Party.”
(By the way, this business about the "Democrat" party, a label clearly intended as a pejorative, is getting a little old. Wouldn't it sound equally dumb for the Democrats to refer to their opponents as the "Repub" party?)
Anyway, the email proceeded, at considerable length, to attack the blog proprietor for various alleged financial, political, and ideological sins. The GOP even attacked him for going on vacation in El Salvador, although I was unaware that El Salvador had been deemed by the governing party to be an unacceptable locale for the expenditure of leisure funds.
What’s most instructive here is not the bill of particulars amassed against a blogger whom most Americans still probably haven’t heard of; rather, it’s the fact that GOP headquarters opted to launch the attack at all. And the reason is clear: at a time when the party is down in the polls, and in danger of losing at least one chamber on Capitol Hill this November, the GOP is casting around for an enemy, any enemy, who might rile up the conservative base voters and get them out to the polls en masse.
It’s easy to see why the Republicans are worried. The Pew Research Center pollsters report that Democrats are 16 points more likely than Republicans to say that they are pumped up to vote this November; moreover, just 42 percent of Republicans and GOP-friendly independents are feeling good about the party’s track record in power -- and that’s down nearly 20 points from two years ago.
All the more reason to target somebody who might get the base to forget its beefs with President Bush and the GOP Congress, and instead direct its anger at the other camp. Most recently, the party has tried out a number of prospects: Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont (soft on terrorists), Nancy Pelosi (depicted in party emails as a wide-eyed zombie), Howard Dean (depicted in full scream mode), and, of course, the old reliable, Michael Moore (depicted in full scruffy mode). Now they’re trying out a blogger.
I suppose the big question, however, is whether conservative base voters on the GOP mailing list will now be motivated to forget their grievances about the GOP Congress’ red-ink budgets, as well as the president’s record on Katrina and Iraq...and be roused to storm the polls and strike down all Democratic candidates just because a liberal blogger says things like (gasp) "the French are right" and charges advertisers (gasp) $2400 a week for the most visible position on his home page.
Here’s how GOP strategist Rich Galen sees the November election (he predicts modest Democratic gains, but no takeover): “People will go into the polls somewhere between ambivalent with, and angry at, Republicans in the Congress. But, as they prepare to pull the lever, or press the button, or punch out the chad they (will) say to themselves, ‘I'm not happy with these guys, but I am very uncomfortable with the notion of putting the MoveOn.org/Al Sharpton wing of the Democratic Party in charge of national security.’”
Move over, Kos. In the hunt for enemies who might change the subject, there’s always Al and MoveOn. But the GOP’s big problem is that even some of their own incumbents don’t seem to believe that it’s possible to change the subject, given the current political climate.
Witness the latest news from vulnerable Connecticut congressman Christopher Shays -- who now says that he plans to unveil a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq. In a conference call yesterday, he said: “Our troops cannot be there indefinitely. We should be able to tell the American people what kind of timeline we can have to begin to draw down our troops.”
That’s precisely the kind of talk that GOP headquarters is attacking, when uttered by the likes of Ned Lamont...or the proprietor of Daily Kos. This autumn, it may be tough for the GOP to change the subject when its friends start talking like its foes.
“WHO IS MARKOS MOULITSAS ZUNIGA? A Partisan ‘Nutroot’ Who Turned His Hate-Filled Blog Daily Kos Into A Leadership Post In The Democrat Party.”
(By the way, this business about the "Democrat" party, a label clearly intended as a pejorative, is getting a little old. Wouldn't it sound equally dumb for the Democrats to refer to their opponents as the "Repub" party?)
Anyway, the email proceeded, at considerable length, to attack the blog proprietor for various alleged financial, political, and ideological sins. The GOP even attacked him for going on vacation in El Salvador, although I was unaware that El Salvador had been deemed by the governing party to be an unacceptable locale for the expenditure of leisure funds.
What’s most instructive here is not the bill of particulars amassed against a blogger whom most Americans still probably haven’t heard of; rather, it’s the fact that GOP headquarters opted to launch the attack at all. And the reason is clear: at a time when the party is down in the polls, and in danger of losing at least one chamber on Capitol Hill this November, the GOP is casting around for an enemy, any enemy, who might rile up the conservative base voters and get them out to the polls en masse.
It’s easy to see why the Republicans are worried. The Pew Research Center pollsters report that Democrats are 16 points more likely than Republicans to say that they are pumped up to vote this November; moreover, just 42 percent of Republicans and GOP-friendly independents are feeling good about the party’s track record in power -- and that’s down nearly 20 points from two years ago.
All the more reason to target somebody who might get the base to forget its beefs with President Bush and the GOP Congress, and instead direct its anger at the other camp. Most recently, the party has tried out a number of prospects: Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont (soft on terrorists), Nancy Pelosi (depicted in party emails as a wide-eyed zombie), Howard Dean (depicted in full scream mode), and, of course, the old reliable, Michael Moore (depicted in full scruffy mode). Now they’re trying out a blogger.
I suppose the big question, however, is whether conservative base voters on the GOP mailing list will now be motivated to forget their grievances about the GOP Congress’ red-ink budgets, as well as the president’s record on Katrina and Iraq...and be roused to storm the polls and strike down all Democratic candidates just because a liberal blogger says things like (gasp) "the French are right" and charges advertisers (gasp) $2400 a week for the most visible position on his home page.
Here’s how GOP strategist Rich Galen sees the November election (he predicts modest Democratic gains, but no takeover): “People will go into the polls somewhere between ambivalent with, and angry at, Republicans in the Congress. But, as they prepare to pull the lever, or press the button, or punch out the chad they (will) say to themselves, ‘I'm not happy with these guys, but I am very uncomfortable with the notion of putting the MoveOn.org/Al Sharpton wing of the Democratic Party in charge of national security.’”
Move over, Kos. In the hunt for enemies who might change the subject, there’s always Al and MoveOn. But the GOP’s big problem is that even some of their own incumbents don’t seem to believe that it’s possible to change the subject, given the current political climate.
Witness the latest news from vulnerable Connecticut congressman Christopher Shays -- who now says that he plans to unveil a timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq. In a conference call yesterday, he said: “Our troops cannot be there indefinitely. We should be able to tell the American people what kind of timeline we can have to begin to draw down our troops.”
That’s precisely the kind of talk that GOP headquarters is attacking, when uttered by the likes of Ned Lamont...or the proprietor of Daily Kos. This autumn, it may be tough for the GOP to change the subject when its friends start talking like its foes.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Straight talk and the art of counter-pandering
It’s fascinating these days to watch the reputed straight-talker as he tailors his tongue to the political exigencies of the moment.
John McCain, with his eye on the '08 GOP nod, has been toiling for months on his top priority task -- making friends with all the conservatives who treated him like dirt during the '00 campaign. But clearly he and his handlers fear that Operation Pander has the potential to mess with his maverick image, and sour the old McCainiacs who see him as a font of integrity.
This is one of those times.
To be an effective panderer, McCain must repeatedly declare unswerving devotion to President Bush, because nothing is more prized by the Bush loyalists than loyalty itself. The problem, however, is that Bush loyalists now comprise no more than 1/3 of the general population, and the share of Americans who dislike Bush's handling of the Iraq war is now in the neighborhood of 65 percent.
That leaves the straight-talker with two options: He can keep pandering, or he can retool the talk. He has chosen the latter.
In Ohio the other day, McCain gave a stump speech assailing the execution of the Iraq war that could easily have been delivered by Hillary Clinton. The key passages:
""I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required. 'Stuff happens,' 'mission accomplished,' 'last throes,' 'a few dead-enders.' I'm just more familiar with those statements than anyone else because it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be....(That kind of talk) has contributed enormously to the frustration that Americans feel today because they were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking."
What's with all the sarcasm from McCain, all of a sudden? "Stuff happens" was one of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's gems, his dismissive shrug at critics who were questioning why the war was going badly. "Mission accomplished"...well, you all know that one. "Last throes"...again, you're undoubtedly familiar with Vice President Cheney's predictive track record. How about "dead-enders?" That was another Rumsfeld verbal misfire.
By the way, McCain may wish to pin all the blame on the Bush administration for assuring the public that the war would be a day at the beach, but he too wore rose-colored glasses on occasion. On MSNBC's Hardball, on the eve of war in 2003, Chris Matthews asked McCain, "Are you one of those who holds up an optimistic view of the post-war scene? Do you believe that the people of Iraq or at least a large number of them will treat us as liberators?" And McCain replied: "Absolutely. Absolutely." Two weeks later, McCain was back on the show and said that "there’s no doubt in my mind that we will prevail and there’s no doubt in my mind, once these (remaining terrorists) are gone, that we will be welcomed as liberators."
But I digress. Clearly there is a concern among McCain's advisers that his ongoing displays of slavish loyalty to the Bush team could backfire with the moderate voters who liked him in the past. Yes he needs to prove his bona fides to the right-leaning activists who dominate the GOP, but no politician wants to be seriously out of sync with mainstream public opinion. Hence, the recalibrated straight talk. It's also noteworthy that it happened in Ohio, where support for Bush and the war has tanked, and where Republican Senator Mike DeWine (for whom McCain was campaigning) is ranked high on the list of endangered '06 incumbents.
And his outburst comes during the same week that the New York Times, clearly with the help or acquiesence of the McCain team, listed some of the foreign policy mavens who seem poised to join McCain's nascent brain trust. The names included a trio of Iraq war skeptics: Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser to Bush's father; ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell; and Powell deputy Richard Armitage.
So is McCain tacking back toward true independence? Not necessarily. He has prominent neoconservative pals as well, notably William Kristol. The bottom line is that McCain is probably just hedging his bets, covering all bases, doing the pander while trying to protect his image and vice versa. That purported Straight Talk Express will need to chart many crooked paths on the road to power.
John McCain, with his eye on the '08 GOP nod, has been toiling for months on his top priority task -- making friends with all the conservatives who treated him like dirt during the '00 campaign. But clearly he and his handlers fear that Operation Pander has the potential to mess with his maverick image, and sour the old McCainiacs who see him as a font of integrity.
This is one of those times.
To be an effective panderer, McCain must repeatedly declare unswerving devotion to President Bush, because nothing is more prized by the Bush loyalists than loyalty itself. The problem, however, is that Bush loyalists now comprise no more than 1/3 of the general population, and the share of Americans who dislike Bush's handling of the Iraq war is now in the neighborhood of 65 percent.
That leaves the straight-talker with two options: He can keep pandering, or he can retool the talk. He has chosen the latter.
In Ohio the other day, McCain gave a stump speech assailing the execution of the Iraq war that could easily have been delivered by Hillary Clinton. The key passages:
""I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required. 'Stuff happens,' 'mission accomplished,' 'last throes,' 'a few dead-enders.' I'm just more familiar with those statements than anyone else because it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be....(That kind of talk) has contributed enormously to the frustration that Americans feel today because they were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach, which many of us fully understood from the beginning would be a very, very difficult undertaking."
What's with all the sarcasm from McCain, all of a sudden? "Stuff happens" was one of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's gems, his dismissive shrug at critics who were questioning why the war was going badly. "Mission accomplished"...well, you all know that one. "Last throes"...again, you're undoubtedly familiar with Vice President Cheney's predictive track record. How about "dead-enders?" That was another Rumsfeld verbal misfire.
By the way, McCain may wish to pin all the blame on the Bush administration for assuring the public that the war would be a day at the beach, but he too wore rose-colored glasses on occasion. On MSNBC's Hardball, on the eve of war in 2003, Chris Matthews asked McCain, "Are you one of those who holds up an optimistic view of the post-war scene? Do you believe that the people of Iraq or at least a large number of them will treat us as liberators?" And McCain replied: "Absolutely. Absolutely." Two weeks later, McCain was back on the show and said that "there’s no doubt in my mind that we will prevail and there’s no doubt in my mind, once these (remaining terrorists) are gone, that we will be welcomed as liberators."
But I digress. Clearly there is a concern among McCain's advisers that his ongoing displays of slavish loyalty to the Bush team could backfire with the moderate voters who liked him in the past. Yes he needs to prove his bona fides to the right-leaning activists who dominate the GOP, but no politician wants to be seriously out of sync with mainstream public opinion. Hence, the recalibrated straight talk. It's also noteworthy that it happened in Ohio, where support for Bush and the war has tanked, and where Republican Senator Mike DeWine (for whom McCain was campaigning) is ranked high on the list of endangered '06 incumbents.
And his outburst comes during the same week that the New York Times, clearly with the help or acquiesence of the McCain team, listed some of the foreign policy mavens who seem poised to join McCain's nascent brain trust. The names included a trio of Iraq war skeptics: Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser to Bush's father; ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell; and Powell deputy Richard Armitage.
So is McCain tacking back toward true independence? Not necessarily. He has prominent neoconservative pals as well, notably William Kristol. The bottom line is that McCain is probably just hedging his bets, covering all bases, doing the pander while trying to protect his image and vice versa. That purported Straight Talk Express will need to chart many crooked paths on the road to power.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Signs of trouble: soldiers, Santorum, and Scarborough
Here's an announcement that is sure to underscore the public's general pessimism about the Iraq conflict, further complicate President Bush's efforts to regain his former popularity as a war leader, and discomfit congressional Republicans who are trying to win re-election in November:
The U.S. military, already severely strained by the war, is being forced to take drastic steps to put enough soldiers back in the field. The Marines have now decided to call up former active-duty members -- people now classified as reservists, who thought that their overseas service was over -- and ship them back to the war, because apparently there aren't enough volunteers anymore who want to risk their lives for Bush's "freedom agenda."
It is hardly the exclusive province of "Defeatocrats" (as the Bush political team now calls Democrats) to argue these days that the military is being stretched too thin by the administration's stay-the-course policies.
As referenced here, military expert Frederick Kagan at the conservative American Enterprise Institute says that the Marines' decision "is one of an avalanche of symptoms that the ground forces are overstretched by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan." Recently, meanwhile, a Pentagon study conducted by Army Lt. Col. Andrew F. Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments concluded that the U.S. military is stretched into a "thin green line." In the spring of 2005, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a similar warning in congressional testimony, and, during the previous December, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, head of the Army Reserve, wrote a letter to colleagues expressing "deepening concern" about the readiness of his 200,000 solidiers, who were, in his words, "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."
The political danger for Bush and the GOP is that these pressures on the military could further sour the mood of military families and friends -- in other words, people who normally would be inclined to support a wartime president and his party.
The biggest GOP fear this year is that its base will not motivated; it won't help the party if voters in military communities are frustrated. Meanwhile, the general public mood is already downbeat; in a new poll released last week, the Pew Research Center found record-high pessimisim about the war. Fifty-five percent now say the war isn't going well (that stat was 44 percent last January), and, by a margin of 52 to 41 percent, most Americans want to set a timetable for troop withdrawal. The Marines' decision certainly won't nudge those numbers in Bush's favor.
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Rick Santorum and Bob Casey Jr., combatants in the nation's marquee '06 Senate race (unless we count Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont), have agreed to debate at least four times, starting on Labor Day. Swell. There goes my holiday barbecue. But seriously, those events should at least help Pennsylvania voters figure out whether they really want to fire Santorum in November.
Democrat Casey for many months has hewed to a strategy of saying as little as possible, and saying it soporifically, with the apparent intent of keeping the spotlight on Santorum -- in the hopes that Santorum's devotion to Bush would be sufficient ammo. The debates will change that dynamic. Casey will have to show up on the same stage with an opponent who is far more verbally nimble than he is, and he will be pressed to thrust and parry in ways that thus far he has been able to avoid. This visual contrast might not work to Casey's benefit; the potential result could be a tighter race.
On the other hand, I generally wonder whether debates matter all that much. Santorum still has to battle against a mood that bodes ill for Republicans, and even the conservative Washington Times reports that his own base is restive and unenthused, and not just because of the GOP's high-spending ways on Capitol Hill. At home, Santorum's '04 support for Arlen Specter, at a time when that moderate senator was being challenged in a primary by a conservative upstart, still ticks off a lot of conservatives. The Washington Times quoted Charlie Clift, a longtime Santorum supporter in suburban Philadelphia:
"'I still feel the knife in my back from (2004),'" Mr. Clift said. 'We worked very hard for Pat Toomey. All [Mr. Santorum] had to do was keep his mouth shut, and we'd all be fat, dumb and happy supporting him right now. I won't lift a finger to help him....I'm not pulling the Santorum lever this time. I'll write my own name in before I'll vote for him.'"
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And speaking of restive conservatives, let's check in with former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC show host who infuriated the White House last week by running a segment entitled, "Is Bush an Idiot?" And he wasn't kidding, as evidenced by this new Salon interview that was posted today. The key excerpt:
"A lot of Republican loyalists are unhappy. But again, the only thing I did was ask publicly what a lot of conservatives have been saying privately since Katrina and the Harriet Miers nomination....staying in power is (deemed to be) more important than staying true to the values that put you in power in the first place. Again, there are more and more conservatives behind the scenes that are voicing concerns, but most of them are afraid to say anything publicly, because they know if they do they'll be branded as traitors to the cause."
The question is, will these concerns be reflected in the voting (or non-voting) on election day? Control of Congress may well hinge on that.
The U.S. military, already severely strained by the war, is being forced to take drastic steps to put enough soldiers back in the field. The Marines have now decided to call up former active-duty members -- people now classified as reservists, who thought that their overseas service was over -- and ship them back to the war, because apparently there aren't enough volunteers anymore who want to risk their lives for Bush's "freedom agenda."
It is hardly the exclusive province of "Defeatocrats" (as the Bush political team now calls Democrats) to argue these days that the military is being stretched too thin by the administration's stay-the-course policies.
As referenced here, military expert Frederick Kagan at the conservative American Enterprise Institute says that the Marines' decision "is one of an avalanche of symptoms that the ground forces are overstretched by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan." Recently, meanwhile, a Pentagon study conducted by Army Lt. Col. Andrew F. Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments concluded that the U.S. military is stretched into a "thin green line." In the spring of 2005, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a similar warning in congressional testimony, and, during the previous December, Lt. Gen. James Helmly, head of the Army Reserve, wrote a letter to colleagues expressing "deepening concern" about the readiness of his 200,000 solidiers, who were, in his words, "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."
The political danger for Bush and the GOP is that these pressures on the military could further sour the mood of military families and friends -- in other words, people who normally would be inclined to support a wartime president and his party.
The biggest GOP fear this year is that its base will not motivated; it won't help the party if voters in military communities are frustrated. Meanwhile, the general public mood is already downbeat; in a new poll released last week, the Pew Research Center found record-high pessimisim about the war. Fifty-five percent now say the war isn't going well (that stat was 44 percent last January), and, by a margin of 52 to 41 percent, most Americans want to set a timetable for troop withdrawal. The Marines' decision certainly won't nudge those numbers in Bush's favor.
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Rick Santorum and Bob Casey Jr., combatants in the nation's marquee '06 Senate race (unless we count Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont), have agreed to debate at least four times, starting on Labor Day. Swell. There goes my holiday barbecue. But seriously, those events should at least help Pennsylvania voters figure out whether they really want to fire Santorum in November.
Democrat Casey for many months has hewed to a strategy of saying as little as possible, and saying it soporifically, with the apparent intent of keeping the spotlight on Santorum -- in the hopes that Santorum's devotion to Bush would be sufficient ammo. The debates will change that dynamic. Casey will have to show up on the same stage with an opponent who is far more verbally nimble than he is, and he will be pressed to thrust and parry in ways that thus far he has been able to avoid. This visual contrast might not work to Casey's benefit; the potential result could be a tighter race.
On the other hand, I generally wonder whether debates matter all that much. Santorum still has to battle against a mood that bodes ill for Republicans, and even the conservative Washington Times reports that his own base is restive and unenthused, and not just because of the GOP's high-spending ways on Capitol Hill. At home, Santorum's '04 support for Arlen Specter, at a time when that moderate senator was being challenged in a primary by a conservative upstart, still ticks off a lot of conservatives. The Washington Times quoted Charlie Clift, a longtime Santorum supporter in suburban Philadelphia:
"'I still feel the knife in my back from (2004),'" Mr. Clift said. 'We worked very hard for Pat Toomey. All [Mr. Santorum] had to do was keep his mouth shut, and we'd all be fat, dumb and happy supporting him right now. I won't lift a finger to help him....I'm not pulling the Santorum lever this time. I'll write my own name in before I'll vote for him.'"
-------
And speaking of restive conservatives, let's check in with former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC show host who infuriated the White House last week by running a segment entitled, "Is Bush an Idiot?" And he wasn't kidding, as evidenced by this new Salon interview that was posted today. The key excerpt:
"A lot of Republican loyalists are unhappy. But again, the only thing I did was ask publicly what a lot of conservatives have been saying privately since Katrina and the Harriet Miers nomination....staying in power is (deemed to be) more important than staying true to the values that put you in power in the first place. Again, there are more and more conservatives behind the scenes that are voicing concerns, but most of them are afraid to say anything publicly, because they know if they do they'll be branded as traitors to the cause."
The question is, will these concerns be reflected in the voting (or non-voting) on election day? Control of Congress may well hinge on that.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
A conversation with Chris Dodd
Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, a former national Democratic chairman and prospective ‘08 presidential candidate, stopped in Philadelphia yesterday to stump for some House candidates and seed some terrain for himself. His people asked if I was interested in a sitdown, and I said sure. With Democrats trying to run this fall as strong national security stewards, even while being undercut by independent hawk (and Dodd colleague) Joe Lieberman, it seemed worthwhile to sit on a hotel terrace and kick this stuff around.
I asked whether he thought that his friend Lieberman would complicate the Democrats’ task this fall by messing with the party message. Lieberman, in the early days of his independent bid to retain his Senate seat, has been echoing the Bush-Cheney argument that liberal Democrats are soft on terrorists. Isn’t Dodd concerned about that?
“Not at all,” he said, which is what we would expect him to say. Yet he did appear genuinely confident that Lieberman and his new best friends are on the wrong side of the issue, given the fact that the ongoing woes in Iraq have nearly erased the traditionally lopsided GOP advantage on national security. Dodd said, “If I was advising Joe, I’d say, ‘This (Democrats are softies charge) is not a good argument to make. Get back to talking about being a good senator, and having good constituent services.’” He thinks that Lieberman’s embrace of the Bush administration line is “politically dangerous.”
Dodd made these remarks, however, shortly before the release of the latest USA Today-Gallup poll that suggests a Bush bounce in the aftermath of the terrorist arrests in London. The survey reports that 55 percent of Americans like the way Bush is handling the terrorism issue, with 43 percent dissenting. And 67 percent say they have a great deal or moderate amount of confidence in the Bush administration’s ability to protect Americans from future attacks. Today I spoke to one Republican pollster who is somewhat wary about those rosy numbers, yet it’s also true that, in recent weeks, CBS News and Newsweek polls have both reported that Republicans are still (narrowly) preferred over the Democrats as protectors of the homeland.
The wiretap issue is also a potential Democratic vulnerability. It’s noteworthy that most prominent Democrats were mute last week when a federal judge ruled that Bush’s warrantless surveillance program was in violation of the U.S. Constitution and statutory law. Only two ‘08 hopefuls, John Kerry and Russ Feingold, praised the ruling. Clearly there’s a fear that standing up for civil liberties is a loser on the stump, especially when pitted against visceral concerns about personal safety.
I asked Dodd about that fear. He said: “It takes several sentences to explain to people what the Democratic position is” -- and that’s an eternity in today’s sound bite politics. Dodd explained that, yes, Democrats think that wiretaps are essential in the war on terror, but that, no, they should not to be conducted without warrants or without approval from the special federal court established by law in 1978...“See, I’ve already taken several sentences to explain it to you,” he said. “That’s one reason why Democrats aren’t anxious to jump on that issue.” He suggested that perhaps it’s preferable to just let the judge’s ruling speak for itself. As Dodd sees it, “Sometimes the best sermon is not to say anything.”
But, in reality, saying nothing is probably not an option. The GOP message machine is already road-testing one of its autumn accusations -- that Democrats are wimps who won’t use all the necessary tools to combat terrorists -- and that will warrant a response. So how would Dodd, as an ‘08 hopeful trying to earn IOUs in ‘06, boil down those sentences?
Dodd replied: “Begin the conversation by saying, ‘We’ll do everything to be secure, but the idea of letting the president do whatever he wants to is dangerous.’ Maybe I’m being naive, but I don’t think so.”
Actually, there are tougher issues for Dodd right now, most notably some of his bona fides as a prospective presidential candidate. The shorthand goes like this: Why would the Democrats want to nominate another New England liberal senator, just two years after John Kerry tanked? And why indeed would they want to nominate a senator at all, given the thousands of floor and committee votes that are ripe for GOP cherry-picking, and given the fact that only one sitting Democratic senator (JFK in 1960) has ever captured the White House?
Dodd, a Senate denizen since 1981, thinks that, post-9/11, voters want to see experience and a track record; therefore, “the liability becomes an asset in this window (of time).” As for his Connecticut pedigree, he thinks it’s unfair to penalize a northerner: “We’ve done Jimmy Carter and Al Gore (losers in 1980 and 2000, respectively), yet I don’t hear people saying we shouldn’t have another southerner.”
He argues, “People don’t lose because of where they’re from. They lose because they don’t connect with (voters)...The voter wants to know, ‘does this individual know what I’m going through?’..You either have that (empathy) or you don’t.” A presidential campaign, he said, “is not just rational, it’s primal...If people don’t like you, they won’t care what your ideas are.”
Those remarks can easily be read as knocks on Kerry and Gore; neither of those guys would ever win the award for Mr. Warmth. Nor would Hillary Clinton be a contender for Ms. Warmth; on this score, she lacks her husband’s skills. Dodd, by reputation a more garrulous people person, clearly thinks he can better connect with the average citizen’s hopes and pains (notwithstanding his 31 years on Capitol Hill). He tried an historical analogy, telling the story about how a mourner for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945 had remarked, “I didn’t know him, but he knew me.” (House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi uses the same story in speeches.)
But the ‘06 campaign takes precedent for now, and that brought me back to the Joe Lieberman factor. Here’s a guy who is not only using the Bush-Cheney message, but, in his active trolling for Republican votes in Connecticut, he has just hired, as his pollster, the veteran Republican Neil Newhouse, whose top clients include Jeb Bush and Rick Santorum. So I asked the devil’s advocate question: What are the Democrats going to do about that? If Lieberman wins re-election, why would you Senate Democrats allow him to caucus with you?
Because, he essentially replied, winning power takes precedence over holding grudges, and pragmatism trumps purity. If Lieberman’s presence in the caucus gives the Democrats the one-vote margin for taking power in the Senate, then nothing else matters.“Hey, we used to want (pro-Bush Democrat) Zell Miller to caucus with us,” said Dodd. “If we can get a Senate majority, then I get to be chairman of the Banking Committee...And then we can really slow those (Republicans) down.”
I asked whether he thought that his friend Lieberman would complicate the Democrats’ task this fall by messing with the party message. Lieberman, in the early days of his independent bid to retain his Senate seat, has been echoing the Bush-Cheney argument that liberal Democrats are soft on terrorists. Isn’t Dodd concerned about that?
“Not at all,” he said, which is what we would expect him to say. Yet he did appear genuinely confident that Lieberman and his new best friends are on the wrong side of the issue, given the fact that the ongoing woes in Iraq have nearly erased the traditionally lopsided GOP advantage on national security. Dodd said, “If I was advising Joe, I’d say, ‘This (Democrats are softies charge) is not a good argument to make. Get back to talking about being a good senator, and having good constituent services.’” He thinks that Lieberman’s embrace of the Bush administration line is “politically dangerous.”
Dodd made these remarks, however, shortly before the release of the latest USA Today-Gallup poll that suggests a Bush bounce in the aftermath of the terrorist arrests in London. The survey reports that 55 percent of Americans like the way Bush is handling the terrorism issue, with 43 percent dissenting. And 67 percent say they have a great deal or moderate amount of confidence in the Bush administration’s ability to protect Americans from future attacks. Today I spoke to one Republican pollster who is somewhat wary about those rosy numbers, yet it’s also true that, in recent weeks, CBS News and Newsweek polls have both reported that Republicans are still (narrowly) preferred over the Democrats as protectors of the homeland.
The wiretap issue is also a potential Democratic vulnerability. It’s noteworthy that most prominent Democrats were mute last week when a federal judge ruled that Bush’s warrantless surveillance program was in violation of the U.S. Constitution and statutory law. Only two ‘08 hopefuls, John Kerry and Russ Feingold, praised the ruling. Clearly there’s a fear that standing up for civil liberties is a loser on the stump, especially when pitted against visceral concerns about personal safety.
I asked Dodd about that fear. He said: “It takes several sentences to explain to people what the Democratic position is” -- and that’s an eternity in today’s sound bite politics. Dodd explained that, yes, Democrats think that wiretaps are essential in the war on terror, but that, no, they should not to be conducted without warrants or without approval from the special federal court established by law in 1978...“See, I’ve already taken several sentences to explain it to you,” he said. “That’s one reason why Democrats aren’t anxious to jump on that issue.” He suggested that perhaps it’s preferable to just let the judge’s ruling speak for itself. As Dodd sees it, “Sometimes the best sermon is not to say anything.”
But, in reality, saying nothing is probably not an option. The GOP message machine is already road-testing one of its autumn accusations -- that Democrats are wimps who won’t use all the necessary tools to combat terrorists -- and that will warrant a response. So how would Dodd, as an ‘08 hopeful trying to earn IOUs in ‘06, boil down those sentences?
Dodd replied: “Begin the conversation by saying, ‘We’ll do everything to be secure, but the idea of letting the president do whatever he wants to is dangerous.’ Maybe I’m being naive, but I don’t think so.”
Actually, there are tougher issues for Dodd right now, most notably some of his bona fides as a prospective presidential candidate. The shorthand goes like this: Why would the Democrats want to nominate another New England liberal senator, just two years after John Kerry tanked? And why indeed would they want to nominate a senator at all, given the thousands of floor and committee votes that are ripe for GOP cherry-picking, and given the fact that only one sitting Democratic senator (JFK in 1960) has ever captured the White House?
Dodd, a Senate denizen since 1981, thinks that, post-9/11, voters want to see experience and a track record; therefore, “the liability becomes an asset in this window (of time).” As for his Connecticut pedigree, he thinks it’s unfair to penalize a northerner: “We’ve done Jimmy Carter and Al Gore (losers in 1980 and 2000, respectively), yet I don’t hear people saying we shouldn’t have another southerner.”
He argues, “People don’t lose because of where they’re from. They lose because they don’t connect with (voters)...The voter wants to know, ‘does this individual know what I’m going through?’..You either have that (empathy) or you don’t.” A presidential campaign, he said, “is not just rational, it’s primal...If people don’t like you, they won’t care what your ideas are.”
Those remarks can easily be read as knocks on Kerry and Gore; neither of those guys would ever win the award for Mr. Warmth. Nor would Hillary Clinton be a contender for Ms. Warmth; on this score, she lacks her husband’s skills. Dodd, by reputation a more garrulous people person, clearly thinks he can better connect with the average citizen’s hopes and pains (notwithstanding his 31 years on Capitol Hill). He tried an historical analogy, telling the story about how a mourner for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945 had remarked, “I didn’t know him, but he knew me.” (House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi uses the same story in speeches.)
But the ‘06 campaign takes precedent for now, and that brought me back to the Joe Lieberman factor. Here’s a guy who is not only using the Bush-Cheney message, but, in his active trolling for Republican votes in Connecticut, he has just hired, as his pollster, the veteran Republican Neil Newhouse, whose top clients include Jeb Bush and Rick Santorum. So I asked the devil’s advocate question: What are the Democrats going to do about that? If Lieberman wins re-election, why would you Senate Democrats allow him to caucus with you?
Because, he essentially replied, winning power takes precedence over holding grudges, and pragmatism trumps purity. If Lieberman’s presence in the caucus gives the Democrats the one-vote margin for taking power in the Senate, then nothing else matters.“Hey, we used to want (pro-Bush Democrat) Zell Miller to caucus with us,” said Dodd. “If we can get a Senate majority, then I get to be chairman of the Banking Committee...And then we can really slow those (Republicans) down.”
Allen upbraided, Romney absolved
A couple quick and telling observations about GOP '08 hopefuls George Allen and Mitt Romney, courtesy of the conservative media:
1. On the Wall Street Journal website today, Brendan Miniter tackles Allen's "macaca" misadventure (which I have written about here and here), and explains why it's politically important that Allen poked fun at a dark-skinned man standing in an all-white crowd, calling him a name that is a synonym for a monkey. Miniter sees the incident as an important character issue:
"(Virginia senator) Allen's problem is neither that he is a vicious campaigner nor that he is a modern-day George Wallace. Rather, it is that for more than two decades in state and federal office, he has displayed a dismaying indifference to his adoptive state's racial history. And it is this political tone-deafness that is now weighing down his political future with Southern baggage....A legacy of the South's long struggle with racism is that today its elected officials must take a stand on racially sensitive issues. What Mr. Allen is finding out is the same thing Trent Lott learned a few years ago: that Southern politicians who don't appreciate the sensitivity of race issues may pay a political price."
Allen has also slid in the polls since this incident occurred. His '08 prospects appear damaged.
2. On a lighter note, Kate O'Beirne of the National Review came up with his factoid about Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. It's a twist on what I reported here, about the Christian conservative discomfort with Romney's Mormon faith. Note the irony at the close of O'Beirne's item:
"The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Governor Mitt Romney's great-grandfather had multiple wives, and two great-great grandfathers had 10 wives each. The article allows that Romney 'is a confirmed monogamist of nearly four decades and polygamy has been absent from his family going back two generations.' While some might note the upside of generously sharing those handsome Romney genes in the past, current history is noteworthy. Should Mitt Romney join a 2008 race that included John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and George Allen, the only guy in the GOP field with only one wife would be the Mormon."
1. On the Wall Street Journal website today, Brendan Miniter tackles Allen's "macaca" misadventure (which I have written about here and here), and explains why it's politically important that Allen poked fun at a dark-skinned man standing in an all-white crowd, calling him a name that is a synonym for a monkey. Miniter sees the incident as an important character issue:
"(Virginia senator) Allen's problem is neither that he is a vicious campaigner nor that he is a modern-day George Wallace. Rather, it is that for more than two decades in state and federal office, he has displayed a dismaying indifference to his adoptive state's racial history. And it is this political tone-deafness that is now weighing down his political future with Southern baggage....A legacy of the South's long struggle with racism is that today its elected officials must take a stand on racially sensitive issues. What Mr. Allen is finding out is the same thing Trent Lott learned a few years ago: that Southern politicians who don't appreciate the sensitivity of race issues may pay a political price."
Allen has also slid in the polls since this incident occurred. His '08 prospects appear damaged.
2. On a lighter note, Kate O'Beirne of the National Review came up with his factoid about Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. It's a twist on what I reported here, about the Christian conservative discomfort with Romney's Mormon faith. Note the irony at the close of O'Beirne's item:
"The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Governor Mitt Romney's great-grandfather had multiple wives, and two great-great grandfathers had 10 wives each. The article allows that Romney 'is a confirmed monogamist of nearly four decades and polygamy has been absent from his family going back two generations.' While some might note the upside of generously sharing those handsome Romney genes in the past, current history is noteworthy. Should Mitt Romney join a 2008 race that included John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and George Allen, the only guy in the GOP field with only one wife would be the Mormon."
Monday, August 21, 2006
Today's shootout at Credibility Gap
President Bush held a press conference this morning, and more verbal adventures ensued. The spirits of Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) and Joseph Heller (Catch-22) are alive and well.
While seeking to promote his "freedom agenda" for Iraq and the Middle East, he again repeated his favorite talking point (also heard in 2003, 2004, 2005, and at other times in 2006) about how he was inspired to invade Iraq because of what happened in America on Sept. 11, 2001. As he put it this morning, "The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East."
Suddenly, a journalist from the reality-based community asked a question. Here's the exchange:
Q: "What did Iraq have to do with it?"
BUSH: "What did Iraq have to do with what?"
Q: "The attack on the World Trade Center."
BUSH: "Nothing..."
Well, that's very interesting...given the fact that Dick Cheney and other Bush war planners repeatedly and publicly sought to convince Americans that Iraq was very much involved. Cheney went on Sunday morning TV with his claim (long since disproved by intelligence officials) that one of the terrorists who crashed into the World Trade Center was seen meeting in Prague with a Saddam Hussein agent. Cheney and company were so successful with their rhetorical linkage that, according to the polls, more than 40 percent of the public wound up thinking that Hussein had helped plan the attacks.
But let's return to what Bush said today. Here's his entire answer:
"Nothing. Except it’s part of -- and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- Iraq -- the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq."
Nobody's ever "suggested" it? Another stunner. Bush himself has "suggested" it on many occasions. For instance, during a press conference on the eve of the war, while talking about Saddam, he reportedly invoked Sept. 11 eight times.
The conclusion is inescapable: By accident or design, Bush is now issuing factually-challenged denials about his previous factually-challenged assertions. His credibility woes, as consistently measured by the polls over the past year, aren't likely to improve in the wake of such behavior.
Meanwhile, one noteworthy sidebar on the press conference: At another point, while discussing Iraq, Bush said, "Sometimes I'm frustrated...War is not a joy."
Oh, so now he is frustrated?
Poor Tony Snow. Last week, after press reports circulated that the president had conveyed frustration about Iraq in a private meeting with foreign policy experts, press secretary Snow rushed into the breach to insist that the president was not frustrated at all (a word that might convey a sense of doubt, even weakness); rather, he said the president was determined (stronger word, more resolute).
Well, so much for last week's flackery. It can't be fun to have the boss hang you out to dry.
While seeking to promote his "freedom agenda" for Iraq and the Middle East, he again repeated his favorite talking point (also heard in 2003, 2004, 2005, and at other times in 2006) about how he was inspired to invade Iraq because of what happened in America on Sept. 11, 2001. As he put it this morning, "The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East."
Suddenly, a journalist from the reality-based community asked a question. Here's the exchange:
Q: "What did Iraq have to do with it?"
BUSH: "What did Iraq have to do with what?"
Q: "The attack on the World Trade Center."
BUSH: "Nothing..."
Well, that's very interesting...given the fact that Dick Cheney and other Bush war planners repeatedly and publicly sought to convince Americans that Iraq was very much involved. Cheney went on Sunday morning TV with his claim (long since disproved by intelligence officials) that one of the terrorists who crashed into the World Trade Center was seen meeting in Prague with a Saddam Hussein agent. Cheney and company were so successful with their rhetorical linkage that, according to the polls, more than 40 percent of the public wound up thinking that Hussein had helped plan the attacks.
But let's return to what Bush said today. Here's his entire answer:
"Nothing. Except it’s part of -- and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- Iraq -- the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq."
Nobody's ever "suggested" it? Another stunner. Bush himself has "suggested" it on many occasions. For instance, during a press conference on the eve of the war, while talking about Saddam, he reportedly invoked Sept. 11 eight times.
The conclusion is inescapable: By accident or design, Bush is now issuing factually-challenged denials about his previous factually-challenged assertions. His credibility woes, as consistently measured by the polls over the past year, aren't likely to improve in the wake of such behavior.
Meanwhile, one noteworthy sidebar on the press conference: At another point, while discussing Iraq, Bush said, "Sometimes I'm frustrated...War is not a joy."
Oh, so now he is frustrated?
Poor Tony Snow. Last week, after press reports circulated that the president had conveyed frustration about Iraq in a private meeting with foreign policy experts, press secretary Snow rushed into the breach to insist that the president was not frustrated at all (a word that might convey a sense of doubt, even weakness); rather, he said the president was determined (stronger word, more resolute).
Well, so much for last week's flackery. It can't be fun to have the boss hang you out to dry.
The Dems' message to New Hampshire: what makes you so special, anyway?
As a scribe who has weathered the winter indignities of New Hampshire during the last four presidential primary seasons, I can vouch for the storied charms of the Granite State, and especially its flinty citizens, who take quite seriously their longstanding responsibility of getting up close and personal with the White House hopefuls, right at the starting gate.
It's a fair bet that many of my colleagues feel much the same way about the state's traditional first-in-the-nation status, although admittedly we also have a selfish interest in saying so. New Hampshire is a great place for a journalist working on the ground. Most of the campaigning takes place in the populous southern zone, around cities like Manchester and Concord and Portsmouth, which means that (weather permitting) most events are generally no more than 45 minutes away from each other, and that often translates into plenty of time to file a story and still hit Manchester at a decent hour for a decent dinner.
Maybe this is why columnist Willam Safire, a decade ago, referred to the New Hampshire primary as "a media-saturated joke," and its citizens as "overexposed, overpolled." No matter. We kept coming anyway, because the candidates kept coming. And because it was fun to have impromptu reunions at the Wayfarer Hotel bar.
Neverthleless, it's beyond debate that, demographically speaking, New Hampshire does not reflect the diversity of America. Roughly 0.8 percent of the population is African American, and another 2.1 percent are Hispanic. The state boasts about 1.2 million residents, and that's about the same number who live just in the city of San Diego.
And for Democrats in particular, the state's demographics are truly problematical. It's not just the low percentage of blacks and Hispanics. It's also the fact that traditional blue-collar and working-class voters are becoming more scarce in a state that has been trending toward white-collar, high-tech, service-worker affluence. How can Democratic presidential candidates prove their national appeal to blue-collar voters when, in New Hampshire, they first have to tailor their appeal to upscale, well-educated, latte-sipping suburban Volvo drivers?
Which brings me to the decision announced this past weekend by the Democratic National Committee to dilute New Hampshire's starting-gate status by crowding the early '08 primary calendar with early events in Nevada and South Carolina. Nevada is increasingly populated by working-class and lower-middle-class Hispanics; many are also union members, whereas unions are relatively weak in New Hampshire. As for South Carolina, a huge percentage of the likely Democratic primary electorate in that state -- perhaps 40 percent -- is African American.
New Hampshire is already squawking about this blow to its honor, and its secretary of state is now threatening to move the '08 primary date perhaps into 2007, so that it can be alone without the interlopers crowding it. (Ego is not the sole reason, of course. Money talks, too. If fewer candidate entourages and fewer journalists show up, the state's economy takes a hit. In the 2000 primary season, New Hampshire reportedly raked in $264 million from its visitors.)
What the state's promoters generally don't like to acknowledge, however, is that, aside from the demographic issues, an important myth about the New Hampshire primary has been shattered in recent elections. In the old days, it used to be said that nobody gets elected president in November without first winning New Hampshire back at the starting gate. Not true anymore. Bill Clinton finished second in the '92 Democratic primary, but won the presidency. George W. Bush finished second in the '00 GOP primary, losing by 18 percentage points, but won the presidency. Other candidates have lost the New Hampshire primary and still won their party's nomination; witness Democrats George McGovern in 1972 and Walter Mondale in 1984.
So the Democratic National Committee sought this weekend to put New Hampshire in a more realistic perspective. Whether they have done so in the most rational fashion, however, is another issue entirely. By crowding those early weeks with two extra contests -- now there will be four, including the unrepresentative Iowa caucuses -- the Democrats have merely further "front-loaded" the calendar, thereby putting even more pressure on the candidates to raise exorbitant amounts of money, this year and next, just to buy into the accelerated process, with its farflung geography. That format is a serious threat to New Hampshire's best asset: its retail politics, as exemplified by the "town hall" events where voters get to quiz the candidates in detail.
In the best of all possible worlds (to quote Candide), the parties would pick out one demographically representative state and put the first primary there. I nominate Missouri -- the classic swing state of the heartland. It's 26 percent blue collar, 11 percent black, big cities, small towns, and since 1900 it has voted for the winning presidential candidate in every single election except for one time (1956). Granted, it's population is only about two percent Hispanic....Well, no wonder the Democrats still can't figure out how to come up with the ideal calendar. Who can?
It's a fair bet that many of my colleagues feel much the same way about the state's traditional first-in-the-nation status, although admittedly we also have a selfish interest in saying so. New Hampshire is a great place for a journalist working on the ground. Most of the campaigning takes place in the populous southern zone, around cities like Manchester and Concord and Portsmouth, which means that (weather permitting) most events are generally no more than 45 minutes away from each other, and that often translates into plenty of time to file a story and still hit Manchester at a decent hour for a decent dinner.
Maybe this is why columnist Willam Safire, a decade ago, referred to the New Hampshire primary as "a media-saturated joke," and its citizens as "overexposed, overpolled." No matter. We kept coming anyway, because the candidates kept coming. And because it was fun to have impromptu reunions at the Wayfarer Hotel bar.
Neverthleless, it's beyond debate that, demographically speaking, New Hampshire does not reflect the diversity of America. Roughly 0.8 percent of the population is African American, and another 2.1 percent are Hispanic. The state boasts about 1.2 million residents, and that's about the same number who live just in the city of San Diego.
And for Democrats in particular, the state's demographics are truly problematical. It's not just the low percentage of blacks and Hispanics. It's also the fact that traditional blue-collar and working-class voters are becoming more scarce in a state that has been trending toward white-collar, high-tech, service-worker affluence. How can Democratic presidential candidates prove their national appeal to blue-collar voters when, in New Hampshire, they first have to tailor their appeal to upscale, well-educated, latte-sipping suburban Volvo drivers?
Which brings me to the decision announced this past weekend by the Democratic National Committee to dilute New Hampshire's starting-gate status by crowding the early '08 primary calendar with early events in Nevada and South Carolina. Nevada is increasingly populated by working-class and lower-middle-class Hispanics; many are also union members, whereas unions are relatively weak in New Hampshire. As for South Carolina, a huge percentage of the likely Democratic primary electorate in that state -- perhaps 40 percent -- is African American.
New Hampshire is already squawking about this blow to its honor, and its secretary of state is now threatening to move the '08 primary date perhaps into 2007, so that it can be alone without the interlopers crowding it. (Ego is not the sole reason, of course. Money talks, too. If fewer candidate entourages and fewer journalists show up, the state's economy takes a hit. In the 2000 primary season, New Hampshire reportedly raked in $264 million from its visitors.)
What the state's promoters generally don't like to acknowledge, however, is that, aside from the demographic issues, an important myth about the New Hampshire primary has been shattered in recent elections. In the old days, it used to be said that nobody gets elected president in November without first winning New Hampshire back at the starting gate. Not true anymore. Bill Clinton finished second in the '92 Democratic primary, but won the presidency. George W. Bush finished second in the '00 GOP primary, losing by 18 percentage points, but won the presidency. Other candidates have lost the New Hampshire primary and still won their party's nomination; witness Democrats George McGovern in 1972 and Walter Mondale in 1984.
So the Democratic National Committee sought this weekend to put New Hampshire in a more realistic perspective. Whether they have done so in the most rational fashion, however, is another issue entirely. By crowding those early weeks with two extra contests -- now there will be four, including the unrepresentative Iowa caucuses -- the Democrats have merely further "front-loaded" the calendar, thereby putting even more pressure on the candidates to raise exorbitant amounts of money, this year and next, just to buy into the accelerated process, with its farflung geography. That format is a serious threat to New Hampshire's best asset: its retail politics, as exemplified by the "town hall" events where voters get to quiz the candidates in detail.
In the best of all possible worlds (to quote Candide), the parties would pick out one demographically representative state and put the first primary there. I nominate Missouri -- the classic swing state of the heartland. It's 26 percent blue collar, 11 percent black, big cities, small towns, and since 1900 it has voted for the winning presidential candidate in every single election except for one time (1956). Granted, it's population is only about two percent Hispanic....Well, no wonder the Democrats still can't figure out how to come up with the ideal calendar. Who can?
Friday, August 18, 2006
Remember "freedom is on the march?" How's that working out these days?
So there I was yesterday, trolling through a New York Times story about the current state of play in President Bush's Iraq democracy project, and after I had digested all the latest statistics about the expanding sectarian violence, the record-high number of roadside bomb attacks on U.S. soldiers, the soaring number of U.S. injuries, and the growing pessimism of defense intelligence officials -- after all that, I reached the most important info, down around the 20th paragraph. Here's how the article closed:
Yet some outside experts who have recently visited the White House said Bush administration officials were beginning to plan for the possibility that Iraq’s democratically elected government might not survive.
"Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy," said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity. "Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect...but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy."
Naturally, the White House moved late yesterday to knock down that little news nugget, telling conservative commentator Rich Lowry that no such consideration of alternatives is being contemplated, and Lowry spread the word on the National Review website. But I think the Times item signals a lot of unrest and concern within the Bush administration about their chosen war; even the official White House line is that we still face "huge challenges" in Iraq. And the willingness of a White House briefee to leak this to the administration's number one enemy news outlet is also a signal that not everyone who deals with the White House feels obligated anymore to echo the company line on Iraq. Particularly when factual reality conflicts with that company line.
It's also impossible to imagine that the White House would officially confirm its strong concern for the viability of its Iraq democracy project on the eve of an election season. That would hardly buoy Bush's ratings, since only three weeks ago he was still voicing his dream of a "free and democratic Iraq." Nor would it help the imperiled Republican congressional candidates (particularly in Northeast swing districts) who are already burdened by the war. And an admission that the democracy project is in deep trouble would also put the squeeze on Bush's favorite independent/Democratic hawk, Joe Lieberman, who is trying to hang onto his Connecticut Senate job with Bush's virtual blessing; it was Lieberman, after all, who wrote last December that "the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation...to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood."
On the other hand, even if the White House was to openly acknowledge that it is exploring "alternatives other than democracy," would that be such a big deal? After all, back when Bush was trying to sell the idea of invading Iraq, he didn't say it was part of any grand vision to build a democracy in the heart of the Middle East. The main rationale for war was not Woodrow Wilson idealism; it was the (now discredited) argument that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed because he was poised to strike America with WMDs. As Rich Lowry himself told me in a conversation we had several years ago, a democracy project would have been too tough a sell. No, Bush didn't start to stress the neoconservative dream about a democratic Iraq until his postwar woes began to pile up, when the search for WMDs came up empty -- and when it was clear that he would have to frame a new rationale.
Which means that, yes, an admission that the Maliki government might fail, that the democracy project itself might fail, would indeed compound Bush's political problems at home. And worse yet, such an admission might not be necessary. The new violence statistics, the news reports of spreading civil war tensions, and the impending release this autumn of a military study that will pinpoint U.S. failures in Iraq ("the results won't be pretty," one author says) -- all of these will enable '06 voters ( particularly the much-wooed "security moms") to draw their own conclusions, regardless of what the White House chooses to say.
And that seems to be happening already. As Republican pollster/strategist David Winston told the Washington Post today, married women in particular seem more concerned about Iraq than about the general terror threat. He said that, while many still support the mission, "they are increasingly unwilling to sustain the sort of sacrifices that we have to make over there."
Yet some outside experts who have recently visited the White House said Bush administration officials were beginning to plan for the possibility that Iraq’s democratically elected government might not survive.
"Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy," said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity. "Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect...but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy."
Naturally, the White House moved late yesterday to knock down that little news nugget, telling conservative commentator Rich Lowry that no such consideration of alternatives is being contemplated, and Lowry spread the word on the National Review website. But I think the Times item signals a lot of unrest and concern within the Bush administration about their chosen war; even the official White House line is that we still face "huge challenges" in Iraq. And the willingness of a White House briefee to leak this to the administration's number one enemy news outlet is also a signal that not everyone who deals with the White House feels obligated anymore to echo the company line on Iraq. Particularly when factual reality conflicts with that company line.
It's also impossible to imagine that the White House would officially confirm its strong concern for the viability of its Iraq democracy project on the eve of an election season. That would hardly buoy Bush's ratings, since only three weeks ago he was still voicing his dream of a "free and democratic Iraq." Nor would it help the imperiled Republican congressional candidates (particularly in Northeast swing districts) who are already burdened by the war. And an admission that the democracy project is in deep trouble would also put the squeeze on Bush's favorite independent/Democratic hawk, Joe Lieberman, who is trying to hang onto his Connecticut Senate job with Bush's virtual blessing; it was Lieberman, after all, who wrote last December that "the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation...to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood."
On the other hand, even if the White House was to openly acknowledge that it is exploring "alternatives other than democracy," would that be such a big deal? After all, back when Bush was trying to sell the idea of invading Iraq, he didn't say it was part of any grand vision to build a democracy in the heart of the Middle East. The main rationale for war was not Woodrow Wilson idealism; it was the (now discredited) argument that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed because he was poised to strike America with WMDs. As Rich Lowry himself told me in a conversation we had several years ago, a democracy project would have been too tough a sell. No, Bush didn't start to stress the neoconservative dream about a democratic Iraq until his postwar woes began to pile up, when the search for WMDs came up empty -- and when it was clear that he would have to frame a new rationale.
Which means that, yes, an admission that the Maliki government might fail, that the democracy project itself might fail, would indeed compound Bush's political problems at home. And worse yet, such an admission might not be necessary. The new violence statistics, the news reports of spreading civil war tensions, and the impending release this autumn of a military study that will pinpoint U.S. failures in Iraq ("the results won't be pretty," one author says) -- all of these will enable '06 voters ( particularly the much-wooed "security moms") to draw their own conclusions, regardless of what the White House chooses to say.
And that seems to be happening already. As Republican pollster/strategist David Winston told the Washington Post today, married women in particular seem more concerned about Iraq than about the general terror threat. He said that, while many still support the mission, "they are increasingly unwilling to sustain the sort of sacrifices that we have to make over there."
Thursday, August 17, 2006
She ruled against Bush? She must be insane, senile, and Democratic
Now it's Anna Diggs Taylor's turn to be painted as a friend of terrorists and enemy of America.
Taylor, a federal judge in Michigan, decreed in a milestone ruling today that President Bush, by sanctioning and defending his warrantless domestic surveillance program, has managed to violate a congressional resolution, the separation-of-powers doctrine in the Constitution, the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and federal statutory law. As she acidly argued, "the office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America..."
Taylor's court becomes the second federal judicial body to declare that Bush cannot simply do whatever he wants; as I wrote here back on June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court made the same argument when it ruled that Bush's special military tribunals for terrorist suspects violated both U.S. law and the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The high court said, in its Guantanamo case, that Bush didn't have a "blank check" to limit the legal rights of the accused, when laws and treaties said otherwise. Taylor echoed this kind of reasoning today, when she ruled that Bush's warrantless surveillance of Americans "indisputably" and "obviously" violated the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.
Anyway, there's no point in spending much time on Bush's latest judicial slapdown, not with all the breathless cable-friendly developments about Jon Benet in play today. Suffice it to say that, even though the plaintiffs against Bush included Larry Diamond (a former adviser to Bush's Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq) and writer Christopher Hitchens (a war hawk who recently called Iraq "a war to be proud of," Bush's defenders have quickly dismissed Taylor's message -- by focusing instead on the messenger.
Notwithstanding the fact that Taylor followed the general reasoning of the Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo (in which 3 of the 5 majority judges were GOP appointees); and the fact that, in support of her ruling, she cited the reasoning of a federal district judge appointed by the senior George Bush; and the fact that, to support her ruling, she frequently quoted a key opinion by the late high court justice Lewis Powell, another Republican appointee -- despite all that, the Bush defenders have checked her bio and found what they wanted:
1. Taylor was named to the federal bench in 1979...by President Jimmy Carter.
2. Also, she used to be married (until 1971) to a Democratic congressman.
Meanwhile, she is being dismissed elsewhere in the Bush-friendly blogosphere as "senile" (she is 74), as possibly insane, and as having written an opinion that echoes "the rhetoric of the moonbats."
This is what happens these days when a judge tries to defend the Constitution. At the very least, this ruling will refuel conservative activists' efforts to place more like-minded judges on the federal bench.
Taylor, a federal judge in Michigan, decreed in a milestone ruling today that President Bush, by sanctioning and defending his warrantless domestic surveillance program, has managed to violate a congressional resolution, the separation-of-powers doctrine in the Constitution, the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and federal statutory law. As she acidly argued, "the office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America..."
Taylor's court becomes the second federal judicial body to declare that Bush cannot simply do whatever he wants; as I wrote here back on June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court made the same argument when it ruled that Bush's special military tribunals for terrorist suspects violated both U.S. law and the 1949 Geneva Conventions. The high court said, in its Guantanamo case, that Bush didn't have a "blank check" to limit the legal rights of the accused, when laws and treaties said otherwise. Taylor echoed this kind of reasoning today, when she ruled that Bush's warrantless surveillance of Americans "indisputably" and "obviously" violated the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.
Anyway, there's no point in spending much time on Bush's latest judicial slapdown, not with all the breathless cable-friendly developments about Jon Benet in play today. Suffice it to say that, even though the plaintiffs against Bush included Larry Diamond (a former adviser to Bush's Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq) and writer Christopher Hitchens (a war hawk who recently called Iraq "a war to be proud of," Bush's defenders have quickly dismissed Taylor's message -- by focusing instead on the messenger.
Notwithstanding the fact that Taylor followed the general reasoning of the Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo (in which 3 of the 5 majority judges were GOP appointees); and the fact that, in support of her ruling, she cited the reasoning of a federal district judge appointed by the senior George Bush; and the fact that, to support her ruling, she frequently quoted a key opinion by the late high court justice Lewis Powell, another Republican appointee -- despite all that, the Bush defenders have checked her bio and found what they wanted:
1. Taylor was named to the federal bench in 1979...by President Jimmy Carter.
2. Also, she used to be married (until 1971) to a Democratic congressman.
Meanwhile, she is being dismissed elsewhere in the Bush-friendly blogosphere as "senile" (she is 74), as possibly insane, and as having written an opinion that echoes "the rhetoric of the moonbats."
This is what happens these days when a judge tries to defend the Constitution. At the very least, this ruling will refuel conservative activists' efforts to place more like-minded judges on the federal bench.
Dual loyalty is the American way
I have spoken on occasion about American politics to groups of foreign visitors, and they're always astounded to hear some of the bizarre factoids about our imperfect democracy.
Recently, for instance, somone asked me, "I hear that, in America, the state officials who supervise elections are actually partisans who have close ties to political parties. Is that really true?" To which I said, "Absolutely. In fact, some of these supervisers even work for the candidates who are running in the elections that they are supervising!" Looking aghast, the guy refused to believe my explanation of the dual loyalty tradition. I assured him that it was true.
I saw it confirmed last week in Connecticut, when the entire '06 state Democratic ticket assembled for a unity pep talk, and Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz (a Democratic candidate herself) was up there nodding and applauding all the anti-Bush rhetoric. Nobody in attendance, including the local press, seemed to think there was anything wierd about that.
I recalled all this today while reading this piece by Jill Lawrence of USA Today. She highlights an underreported story: Because, in our democracy, secretaries of state are openly identified as partisan Republicans or Democrats, and indeed because they get elected while wearing partisan labels, they have increasingly become political footballs. In the wake of charges that Katherine Harris in Florida and Ken Blackwell in Ohio both aided the GOP on ballot issues in 2000 and 2004 respectively (while both were holding positions in the Bush campaign), a number of Democratic groups are pushing hard this year to tilt the future playing fields by helping to finance secretary of state candidates in key battleground states. Those states include Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada (all pro-Bush in 2004), as well as Michigan and Minnesota (pro-Kerry).
The article quotes '08 presidential prospect Tom Vilsack, the governor of Iowa: "There's a growing concern about whether votes are cast and if, so, whether they're properly counted. We have to restore people's confidence in the system." Meanwhile, John McCain reportedly has been aiding GOP secretary of state candidates in Michigan, South Carolina, and New Mexico (the latter went narrowly for Bush in 2004, and narrowly against him in 2000).
New Mexico was a battleground in 2004, because the state GOP charged at the time that the secretary of state -- a Democrat -- was aiding her party by pushing rules that made it too easy for newly registered voters to participate. The Democratic secretary of state in Iowa was also hit with GOP complaints that he was bending absentee voting rules to drive up the Democratic vote. On the other side of the coin, I recall that the Republican secretaries of state in Nevada, Arizona, and Misouri were openly active in Bush's re-election campaign. In Ohio, Blackwell had two jobs: chief election official, and co-chairman of Bush's state campaign.
Maybe Blackwell was just being professional that year when he insisted that new voter registrations should not be accepted unless they were submitted only on paper stock of a certain weight. Or maybe not. The point is, secretaries of state with partisan labels are bound to rouse suspicions, particularly in a highly polarized environment. The perception problem is inescapable, and it will grow as national campaigns further their efforts to target those jobs for political gain.
Not long ago, a bipartisan group offered these comments: "We cannot build confidence in elections if secretaries of state responsible for certifying votes are simultaneously chairing political campaigns....To minimize the chance of election meltdown and to build public trust in the electoral process, nonpartisan structures of election administration are very important, and election administrators should be neutral, professional, and impartial....States could select a nonpartisan chief elections officer by having the individual subject to approval by a super-majority of two-thirds of one or both chambers of the state legislature. The nominee should receive clear bipartisan support. This selection process is likely to yield a respected consensus candidate or, at least, a nonpartisan candidate."
So concluded the Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired last autumn by Republican James Baker (the famed Bush family fixer), and Jimmy Carter (the famed Democratic one-termer). It's also worth pointing out (as noted here) that the nonpartisan election supervision model is employed by Canada, Spain, most emerging democracies...and Afghanistan. But in Washington, blue-ribbon reports are generally destined for oblivion. The current targeting of secretary of state races is evidence of that.
Recently, for instance, somone asked me, "I hear that, in America, the state officials who supervise elections are actually partisans who have close ties to political parties. Is that really true?" To which I said, "Absolutely. In fact, some of these supervisers even work for the candidates who are running in the elections that they are supervising!" Looking aghast, the guy refused to believe my explanation of the dual loyalty tradition. I assured him that it was true.
I saw it confirmed last week in Connecticut, when the entire '06 state Democratic ticket assembled for a unity pep talk, and Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz (a Democratic candidate herself) was up there nodding and applauding all the anti-Bush rhetoric. Nobody in attendance, including the local press, seemed to think there was anything wierd about that.
I recalled all this today while reading this piece by Jill Lawrence of USA Today. She highlights an underreported story: Because, in our democracy, secretaries of state are openly identified as partisan Republicans or Democrats, and indeed because they get elected while wearing partisan labels, they have increasingly become political footballs. In the wake of charges that Katherine Harris in Florida and Ken Blackwell in Ohio both aided the GOP on ballot issues in 2000 and 2004 respectively (while both were holding positions in the Bush campaign), a number of Democratic groups are pushing hard this year to tilt the future playing fields by helping to finance secretary of state candidates in key battleground states. Those states include Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, Nevada (all pro-Bush in 2004), as well as Michigan and Minnesota (pro-Kerry).
The article quotes '08 presidential prospect Tom Vilsack, the governor of Iowa: "There's a growing concern about whether votes are cast and if, so, whether they're properly counted. We have to restore people's confidence in the system." Meanwhile, John McCain reportedly has been aiding GOP secretary of state candidates in Michigan, South Carolina, and New Mexico (the latter went narrowly for Bush in 2004, and narrowly against him in 2000).
New Mexico was a battleground in 2004, because the state GOP charged at the time that the secretary of state -- a Democrat -- was aiding her party by pushing rules that made it too easy for newly registered voters to participate. The Democratic secretary of state in Iowa was also hit with GOP complaints that he was bending absentee voting rules to drive up the Democratic vote. On the other side of the coin, I recall that the Republican secretaries of state in Nevada, Arizona, and Misouri were openly active in Bush's re-election campaign. In Ohio, Blackwell had two jobs: chief election official, and co-chairman of Bush's state campaign.
Maybe Blackwell was just being professional that year when he insisted that new voter registrations should not be accepted unless they were submitted only on paper stock of a certain weight. Or maybe not. The point is, secretaries of state with partisan labels are bound to rouse suspicions, particularly in a highly polarized environment. The perception problem is inescapable, and it will grow as national campaigns further their efforts to target those jobs for political gain.
Not long ago, a bipartisan group offered these comments: "We cannot build confidence in elections if secretaries of state responsible for certifying votes are simultaneously chairing political campaigns....To minimize the chance of election meltdown and to build public trust in the electoral process, nonpartisan structures of election administration are very important, and election administrators should be neutral, professional, and impartial....States could select a nonpartisan chief elections officer by having the individual subject to approval by a super-majority of two-thirds of one or both chambers of the state legislature. The nominee should receive clear bipartisan support. This selection process is likely to yield a respected consensus candidate or, at least, a nonpartisan candidate."
So concluded the Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired last autumn by Republican James Baker (the famed Bush family fixer), and Jimmy Carter (the famed Democratic one-termer). It's also worth pointing out (as noted here) that the nonpartisan election supervision model is employed by Canada, Spain, most emerging democracies...and Afghanistan. But in Washington, blue-ribbon reports are generally destined for oblivion. The current targeting of secretary of state races is evidence of that.
New Allen defense: He's poop, not a monkey
From the man who would be president, it just gets better.
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Virginia senator and GOP White House hopeful George Allen has been trying to defend himself after singling out a Democratic worker in the audience, and twice calling the young Indian-American "macaca," which is (a) a synonym for monkey, and/or (b) a common European racial slur. Allen followed this up by telling the guy, "Welcome to America," not knowing that he was a native Virginian. I said yesterday that Allen was basically blaming the press (surprise!) for his predicament.
But now we have a new defense, and this is not a parody:
Allen wasn't trying to call him a monkey or to racially slur him at all; rather, the senator was only trying to say that S. R. Sidarth was the equivalent of the doggy doo that you scrape off your shoe.
From the respected National Journal Hotline: "According to two Republicans who heard the word used, macaca was a mash-up of mohawk, referring to Sidarth's distinctive hair, and caca, Spanish slang for excrement." According to this explanation, members of Allen's entourage coined this nickname for Sidarth, who has been tracking Allen's speeches on behalf of Democratic opponent James Webb, and Allen picked it up. Therefore, it wasn't a racial putdown at all; as one Republican close to the campaign explained to the Hotline, Allen was trying to tell his overwhelmingly white audience that the dark-skinned man in their midst was really just "a s--thead."
Gaffes like this can dog a candidate; columnist Margaret Carlson takes the broader perspective here. After all, even if we accept the contention that Allen aides made up a word that coincidentally is a real synonym for a rhesus monkey...this still leaves us with Allen's best defense: That what he really meant to say was, "Welcome to America, s--thead!"
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, Virginia senator and GOP White House hopeful George Allen has been trying to defend himself after singling out a Democratic worker in the audience, and twice calling the young Indian-American "macaca," which is (a) a synonym for monkey, and/or (b) a common European racial slur. Allen followed this up by telling the guy, "Welcome to America," not knowing that he was a native Virginian. I said yesterday that Allen was basically blaming the press (surprise!) for his predicament.
But now we have a new defense, and this is not a parody:
Allen wasn't trying to call him a monkey or to racially slur him at all; rather, the senator was only trying to say that S. R. Sidarth was the equivalent of the doggy doo that you scrape off your shoe.
From the respected National Journal Hotline: "According to two Republicans who heard the word used, macaca was a mash-up of mohawk, referring to Sidarth's distinctive hair, and caca, Spanish slang for excrement." According to this explanation, members of Allen's entourage coined this nickname for Sidarth, who has been tracking Allen's speeches on behalf of Democratic opponent James Webb, and Allen picked it up. Therefore, it wasn't a racial putdown at all; as one Republican close to the campaign explained to the Hotline, Allen was trying to tell his overwhelmingly white audience that the dark-skinned man in their midst was really just "a s--thead."
Gaffes like this can dog a candidate; columnist Margaret Carlson takes the broader perspective here. After all, even if we accept the contention that Allen aides made up a word that coincidentally is a real synonym for a rhesus monkey...this still leaves us with Allen's best defense: That what he really meant to say was, "Welcome to America, s--thead!"
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
The Allen defense: I blame the press for my not knowing that I had called him a monkey
This is what I have always cherished about politicians: Whenever they screw up and embarrass themselves, they try to blame it on the media.
The latest is George Allen, the Republican senator from Virginia who is mapping an '08 presidential bid (see last Friday's post). His contribution to the art of scapegoating goes something like this: While stumping for re-election to the Senate the other day, he singles out a young guy in the overwhelmingly white crowd who is known to be working for his Democratic opponent. This guy, S.R. Sidarth, is dark-skinned, of Indian descent. Allen says, "This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is...Let's give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia." It turns out that macaca is a common term for a type of monkey; alternatively, it's a common racial slur. Allen later protests that he doesn't know what the term meant. Allen is also informed that his "welcome to America and the real world of Virginia" was a tad off base -- given the fact that the guy he singled out was an American born in Virginia.
So what did Allen say about all that? In a statement released yesterday, he absolved himself, saying that his comments "have been greatly misunderstood by members of the media."
This incident isn't likely to sink Allen's re-election bid; he's far ahead of Democrat James Webb, and his aw-shucks Reaganesque style is popular with the conservative base in Virginia (as is media-bashing). And let us not forget that Democratic Sen. Joe Biden got in trouble recently for his quip about not being able to go into a 7-11 without hearing an Indian accent. But I've often heard that, politically speaking, George Allen is not the sharpest knife in the GOP drawer, and this macaca incident may well underscore that perception.
You can watch this incident, via YouTube (Allen's remarks were captured by Sidarth, who follows Allen around and records him -- a standard practice these days that all campaigns employ). The web posting, in itself, is noteworthy. Not too many years ago, political observers were saying that, because C-Span seemed to be everywhere on the campaign trail, there was no way anymore for candidates to screw up or misspeak or just have a bad day without the world knowing about it. But C-Span is horse and buggy technology when compared to the Internet. Candidates beware, there is no place left to hide.
-------
On the other hand, even we folks in the dead-tree media sometimes manage to record some doozies. What follows is perhaps the most entertaining candidate exchange of the year (as well as fresh evidence that the quality of our political dialogue continues to degenerate), courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Last week, the paper covered a radio debate between former U.S. Attorney J. B. Van Hollen and a county district attorney named Paul Wucher. They're competing for the GOP nomination for state attorney general.
OK, gentlemen:
"Will you ever listen? That's why you suck, Paul, because you only listen to people who agree with you."
"I don't suck. I resent that."
The latest is George Allen, the Republican senator from Virginia who is mapping an '08 presidential bid (see last Friday's post). His contribution to the art of scapegoating goes something like this: While stumping for re-election to the Senate the other day, he singles out a young guy in the overwhelmingly white crowd who is known to be working for his Democratic opponent. This guy, S.R. Sidarth, is dark-skinned, of Indian descent. Allen says, "This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is...Let's give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia." It turns out that macaca is a common term for a type of monkey; alternatively, it's a common racial slur. Allen later protests that he doesn't know what the term meant. Allen is also informed that his "welcome to America and the real world of Virginia" was a tad off base -- given the fact that the guy he singled out was an American born in Virginia.
So what did Allen say about all that? In a statement released yesterday, he absolved himself, saying that his comments "have been greatly misunderstood by members of the media."
This incident isn't likely to sink Allen's re-election bid; he's far ahead of Democrat James Webb, and his aw-shucks Reaganesque style is popular with the conservative base in Virginia (as is media-bashing). And let us not forget that Democratic Sen. Joe Biden got in trouble recently for his quip about not being able to go into a 7-11 without hearing an Indian accent. But I've often heard that, politically speaking, George Allen is not the sharpest knife in the GOP drawer, and this macaca incident may well underscore that perception.
You can watch this incident, via YouTube (Allen's remarks were captured by Sidarth, who follows Allen around and records him -- a standard practice these days that all campaigns employ). The web posting, in itself, is noteworthy. Not too many years ago, political observers were saying that, because C-Span seemed to be everywhere on the campaign trail, there was no way anymore for candidates to screw up or misspeak or just have a bad day without the world knowing about it. But C-Span is horse and buggy technology when compared to the Internet. Candidates beware, there is no place left to hide.
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On the other hand, even we folks in the dead-tree media sometimes manage to record some doozies. What follows is perhaps the most entertaining candidate exchange of the year (as well as fresh evidence that the quality of our political dialogue continues to degenerate), courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Last week, the paper covered a radio debate between former U.S. Attorney J. B. Van Hollen and a county district attorney named Paul Wucher. They're competing for the GOP nomination for state attorney general.
OK, gentlemen:
"Will you ever listen? That's why you suck, Paul, because you only listen to people who agree with you."
"I don't suck. I resent that."
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