In time for Halloween, GOP specters are rising up to scare some sense into their Congressional heirs as they move zombielike toward a possible pyrrhic victory in the hope that poll numbers "may get worse for Democrats if they pass a health-care bill."
That prediction is the wisdom according to Karl Rove, who engineered the party's 2006 loss, but older, wiser Republican heads are emerging to warn against the short-term politics of being intractable on what all sides agree is a critical issue.
Former presidential candidate and Senate Leader Bob Dole tells an audience, "This is one of the most important measures members of Congress will vote on in their lifetimes. If we don't do it this year I don't know when we're going to do it" as he and another GOP Senate Leader Howard Baker prepare to join Tom Daschle in a statement urging passage of a bill.
This comes after still another Republican Senate Leader and physician, Bill Frist, tells CNN that he supports Sen. Olympia Snowe's trigger proposal for a public option in the legislation.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is among the still-active Republicans who have come out in recent days for some bipartisan sanity as his Washington confreres keep digging in their heels against any cooperation with the White House.
The underlying message is that this callow crop may be injuring their own party in the long run as well as the national welfare by continuing to play trick-or-treat with voters' hopes and fears.
Showing posts with label Karl Rove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Karl Rove. Show all posts
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Cheney, Rove and Sleeping Dogs
As the Bush Era recedes in the rear-view mirror, both friends and foes keep revisiting its glory days. The House Judiciary Committee makes public documents that show Karl Rove turning "law enforcement into a tool of partisan politics," and Dick Cheney wants it known that George W. Bush went soft on him in their second term and "turned out to be more like an ordinary politician in the end."
The former Vice President's rueful attitude will serve mainly to hype interest in his forthcoming memoirs, but the Rove revelations may affect the future of Bush's Brain in more drastic ways, with a New York Times editorial urging Congress to hold open hearings and the Justice Department to push its own investigation toward criminal charges in the firing of the US Attorneys:
"The materials released on Tuesday paint an ugly picture of fair-minded prosecutors under siege by the White House for refusing to politicize their offices. And it puts Mr. Rove, former President George W. Bush’s chief political operative, at the center of it."
The Obama Administration seems inclined to let sleeping dogs lie, but the Bush alumni show no signs of slinking off to snooze quietly.
Cheney is so incensed that his Presidential puppet fired his former mentor Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense after the 2006 elections and refused to pardon Scooter Libby for outing Valerie Plame before leaving office that he apparently can't wait for his memoirs to appear to vent his rage.
Rove, meanwhile, keeps savaging the Obama usurpers on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal, confident that he can escape prosecution in the US Attorney case by claiming he was only "a conduit" in the maneuverings to fire them.
In the days of raucous town halls about health reform, all this may get filed under the heading of stale news, but history will undoubtedly care.
The former Vice President's rueful attitude will serve mainly to hype interest in his forthcoming memoirs, but the Rove revelations may affect the future of Bush's Brain in more drastic ways, with a New York Times editorial urging Congress to hold open hearings and the Justice Department to push its own investigation toward criminal charges in the firing of the US Attorneys:
"The materials released on Tuesday paint an ugly picture of fair-minded prosecutors under siege by the White House for refusing to politicize their offices. And it puts Mr. Rove, former President George W. Bush’s chief political operative, at the center of it."
The Obama Administration seems inclined to let sleeping dogs lie, but the Bush alumni show no signs of slinking off to snooze quietly.
Cheney is so incensed that his Presidential puppet fired his former mentor Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense after the 2006 elections and refused to pardon Scooter Libby for outing Valerie Plame before leaving office that he apparently can't wait for his memoirs to appear to vent his rage.
Rove, meanwhile, keeps savaging the Obama usurpers on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal, confident that he can escape prosecution in the US Attorney case by claiming he was only "a conduit" in the maneuverings to fire them.
In the days of raucous town halls about health reform, all this may get filed under the heading of stale news, but history will undoubtedly care.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Stimulus Stew
The state of the economy, it's safe to say, is iffy at best but, less than six months after its passage, the market for badmouthing the stimulus bill is booming.
On the left, Paul Krugman insists that a "bad employment report for June made it clear that the stimulus was, indeed, too small" and "damaged the credibility of the administration’s economic stewardship."
From right field, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor tells us "the stimulus or so-called stimulus plan that spent almost $800 billion has not worked," while economist Karl Rove proclaims that "Obama can't be trusted with numbers" as he bashes the White House for being too slow in getting the money out the door.
In the center, Warren Buffet is musing about the need for a second round of pumping money into the economy, complaining that the first was "like taking half a tablet of Viagra and having also a bunch of candy mixed in...as if everybody was putting in enough for their own constituents."
Meanwhile, Joe Biden is on a tour touting positive results here and there, as the Recovery blog announces web seminars (Webinars) to spread the good news.
In this flurry of opinionating, the prize for empty news goes to USA Today for its headlined revelation, "Billions in aid go to areas that backed Obama in '08," which undermines itself by noting:
"Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work. The imbalance is so pronounced--and the aid so far from complete--that it would be almost inconceivable for it to be the result of political tinkering, says Adam Hughes, the director of federal fiscal policy for the non-profit OMB Watch. 'Even if they wanted to, I don't think the administration has enough people in place yet to actually do that,' he says."
Oh.
On the left, Paul Krugman insists that a "bad employment report for June made it clear that the stimulus was, indeed, too small" and "damaged the credibility of the administration’s economic stewardship."
From right field, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor tells us "the stimulus or so-called stimulus plan that spent almost $800 billion has not worked," while economist Karl Rove proclaims that "Obama can't be trusted with numbers" as he bashes the White House for being too slow in getting the money out the door.
In the center, Warren Buffet is musing about the need for a second round of pumping money into the economy, complaining that the first was "like taking half a tablet of Viagra and having also a bunch of candy mixed in...as if everybody was putting in enough for their own constituents."
Meanwhile, Joe Biden is on a tour touting positive results here and there, as the Recovery blog announces web seminars (Webinars) to spread the good news.
In this flurry of opinionating, the prize for empty news goes to USA Today for its headlined revelation, "Billions in aid go to areas that backed Obama in '08," which undermines itself by noting:
"Investigators who track the stimulus are skeptical that political considerations could be at work. The imbalance is so pronounced--and the aid so far from complete--that it would be almost inconceivable for it to be the result of political tinkering, says Adam Hughes, the director of federal fiscal policy for the non-profit OMB Watch. 'Even if they wanted to, I don't think the administration has enough people in place yet to actually do that,' he says."
Oh.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Drs. No
The American Medical Association is telling Congress it opposes public health insurance that "mandates physician participation” because “many physicians and providers may not have the capability to accept the influx of new patients that could result.”
The AMA is too discreet to say openly what its lobbyists have been telling such sympathizers as Karl Rove--that "many doctors limit how many Medicare patients they take" because they "can afford only so much charity care."
As one of 45 million beneficiaries of such medical profession largesse, I am reminded of a provision in the classic Hippocratic Oath:
"Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves."
In modern times, such prudish injunctions apparently do not extend to financial matters, and doctors want to preserve their freedom to do with their billing what may be prohibited in other areas.
When President Obama addresses the AMA next week, he will undoubtedly put it more tactfully, but the time has come to redefine that aspect of the classic doctor-patient relationship.
The AMA is too discreet to say openly what its lobbyists have been telling such sympathizers as Karl Rove--that "many doctors limit how many Medicare patients they take" because they "can afford only so much charity care."
As one of 45 million beneficiaries of such medical profession largesse, I am reminded of a provision in the classic Hippocratic Oath:
"Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves."
In modern times, such prudish injunctions apparently do not extend to financial matters, and doctors want to preserve their freedom to do with their billing what may be prohibited in other areas.
When President Obama addresses the AMA next week, he will undoubtedly put it more tactfully, but the time has come to redefine that aspect of the classic doctor-patient relationship.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Pariah Channel
If Barack Obama risks media overexposure, the no-shame threats to American values are getting equal time on the public stage.
With Dick Cheney leading the way, the should-be-hiding-in-disgrace are popping up everywhere. John Yoo, the torture memo author, writes a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Rupert Murdoch's book-publishing arm has signed up the memoirs of Sarah Palin, who helped wreck John McCain's presidential campaign with her aggressive ignorance.
If Karl Rove is a political analyst, can Bernie Madoff be far behind as a financial cable news commentator?
In an age long gone, as an editor and publisher, I declined to bid for the "inside stories" of criminals, crooks and celebrity liars, on the principle that reporting on their activities was a better journalistic and moral choice than going into business with them.
Silly me! I didn't know that I was being an unbearable gatekeeper against the public's bottomless right to know. Soon we may have a 24/7 pariah channel, or with Fox News on the job, would that be redundant?
With Dick Cheney leading the way, the should-be-hiding-in-disgrace are popping up everywhere. John Yoo, the torture memo author, writes a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Rupert Murdoch's book-publishing arm has signed up the memoirs of Sarah Palin, who helped wreck John McCain's presidential campaign with her aggressive ignorance.
If Karl Rove is a political analyst, can Bernie Madoff be far behind as a financial cable news commentator?
In an age long gone, as an editor and publisher, I declined to bid for the "inside stories" of criminals, crooks and celebrity liars, on the principle that reporting on their activities was a better journalistic and moral choice than going into business with them.
Silly me! I didn't know that I was being an unbearable gatekeeper against the public's bottomless right to know. Soon we may have a 24/7 pariah channel, or with Fox News on the job, would that be redundant?
Friday, April 10, 2009
Obama-Makes-Me-Crazy Syndrome
The President's persisting popularity is driving the Neo-Con elite into an alternate-universe frenzy, as reflected today in Charles Krauthammer's description of last week's White House trip:
"With varying degrees of directness or obliqueness, Obama indicted his own people for arrogance, for dismissiveness and derisiveness, for genocide, for torture, for Hiroshima, for Guantanamo and for insufficient respect for the Muslim world."
This follows Karl Rove's assertion that "no president in the past 40 years has done more to polarize America so much, so quickly. Mr. Obama has not come close to living up to his own standards. It took him less than 11 weeks to achieve the very opposite of what he promised."
These pronouncements are the latest emanations from the new Dick Cheney School of Logic, which holds that the President's refusal to torture is an invitation for another 9/11 attack.
Explaining such unhinged reasoning would normally be the province of Krauthammer, whose career arc has taken him from the practice of psychiatry to politics in the Carter Administration to Pulitzer-Prize punditry.
But it's doubtful that he will enlighten us on how the loony bin cliché of patients thinking they're Napoleon has morphed into depressed Neo-Cons thinking that Barack Obama is Osama bin Laden.
The 21st-century version of Elba is a crazy-making place.
"With varying degrees of directness or obliqueness, Obama indicted his own people for arrogance, for dismissiveness and derisiveness, for genocide, for torture, for Hiroshima, for Guantanamo and for insufficient respect for the Muslim world."
This follows Karl Rove's assertion that "no president in the past 40 years has done more to polarize America so much, so quickly. Mr. Obama has not come close to living up to his own standards. It took him less than 11 weeks to achieve the very opposite of what he promised."
These pronouncements are the latest emanations from the new Dick Cheney School of Logic, which holds that the President's refusal to torture is an invitation for another 9/11 attack.
Explaining such unhinged reasoning would normally be the province of Krauthammer, whose career arc has taken him from the practice of psychiatry to politics in the Carter Administration to Pulitzer-Prize punditry.
But it's doubtful that he will enlighten us on how the loony bin cliché of patients thinking they're Napoleon has morphed into depressed Neo-Cons thinking that Barack Obama is Osama bin Laden.
The 21st-century version of Elba is a crazy-making place.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Limbaugh/Rove: Separated at Birth?
If Spy Magazine had survived the Clinton era, its satire would have had a hard time competing with the news. What would the political pranksters have made of two rotund figures in the headlines this week?
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says with a straight face that Rush Limbaugh is the “voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”
Then Limbaugh lookalike Karl Rove complains on Fox News that Emanuel is practicing "old-style politics" in the White House:
"How does this serve the country for us at this point when we’re discussing these big, vital things like the budget and health care and the stimulus bill and the omnibus spending bill--how does it well serve the country for this little sideshow concocted in the chief of staff’s office in the West Wing?"
Rove, now a paid bloviator for Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, is not in the same paycheck league as Limbaugh, who has a talk radio contract worth $400 million, but as the biggest gasbags in the conservative alternate reality, there are striking similarities.
Limbaugh is thriving on the negative notice from the White House and the backtracking Republican Chairman Michael Steele, and Rove is putting a brave face on the upcoming Congressional grilling about his role in firing US Attorneys for not being political enough, calling it a "show trial."
All that's missing is Spy showing them side by side and asking, "Separated at Birth?"
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel says with a straight face that Rush Limbaugh is the “voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”
Then Limbaugh lookalike Karl Rove complains on Fox News that Emanuel is practicing "old-style politics" in the White House:
"How does this serve the country for us at this point when we’re discussing these big, vital things like the budget and health care and the stimulus bill and the omnibus spending bill--how does it well serve the country for this little sideshow concocted in the chief of staff’s office in the West Wing?"
Rove, now a paid bloviator for Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, is not in the same paycheck league as Limbaugh, who has a talk radio contract worth $400 million, but as the biggest gasbags in the conservative alternate reality, there are striking similarities.
Limbaugh is thriving on the negative notice from the White House and the backtracking Republican Chairman Michael Steele, and Rove is putting a brave face on the upcoming Congressional grilling about his role in firing US Attorneys for not being political enough, calling it a "show trial."
All that's missing is Spy showing them side by side and asking, "Separated at Birth?"
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Reckoning for Rove?
In his last White House days, George W. Bush left him a get-out-of-jail pass, but Karl Rove is still in the sights of the House Judiciary Committee over his role in the firing of the US attorneys.
Chairman John Conyers has issued a subpoena to Rove to appear for a deposition on February 2nd, saying, "Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it."
Previously, citing a letter from the Bush Justice Department, Rove's lawyer claimed he is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony" but was willing to grant an "informal interview" or answer written questions about the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, whose ouster Rove is accused of arranging.
Now his lawyer is saying Rove received a renewed privilege assertion from Bush before he left office but that he will consult with Obama's White House counsel about the new Administration's views on the subject.
It will be a test for the new president's future-oriented tolerance (see Lieberman, Joe), but Karl Rove has become a symbol for eight years of lawlessness in seeking political advantage at all costs.
Even the least blood-thirsty of observers will sympathize with Conyers' assertion, "After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him to talk."
Chairman John Conyers has issued a subpoena to Rove to appear for a deposition on February 2nd, saying, "Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it."
Previously, citing a letter from the Bush Justice Department, Rove's lawyer claimed he is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony" but was willing to grant an "informal interview" or answer written questions about the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, whose ouster Rove is accused of arranging.
Now his lawyer is saying Rove received a renewed privilege assertion from Bush before he left office but that he will consult with Obama's White House counsel about the new Administration's views on the subject.
It will be a test for the new president's future-oriented tolerance (see Lieberman, Joe), but Karl Rove has become a symbol for eight years of lawlessness in seeking political advantage at all costs.
Even the least blood-thirsty of observers will sympathize with Conyers' assertion, "After two years of stonewalling, it's time for him to talk."
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The Chutzpah of John Edwards
Emerging from the Democratic Party witness protection program, the former perpetual candidate is slouching toward redemption tonight for a discussion of last week's elections at Indiana University and next week to debate Karl Rove, his Republican counterpart in shamelessness, at an American Bankers Association meeting in San Francisco (paying them with taxpayer bailout money, no doubt).
There used to a timeline for public rehabilitation, but it has been erased, first by Rove's instant reincarnation from Bush's smear-master as a political pundit and now by John Edwards' popping up in public only three months after a weasel-worded admission of adultery for being caught red-handed by a tabloid.
If it were not for the presidential campaign, Edwards' attempt to regain political respectability might have started even sooner as the concept of shame disappears completely in national politics.
The next thing you know, we will see a convicted felon reelected to the Senate and a vice-presidential candidate who wrecked her party's campaign strutting and spouting off on network TV.
There used to a timeline for public rehabilitation, but it has been erased, first by Rove's instant reincarnation from Bush's smear-master as a political pundit and now by John Edwards' popping up in public only three months after a weasel-worded admission of adultery for being caught red-handed by a tabloid.
If it were not for the presidential campaign, Edwards' attempt to regain political respectability might have started even sooner as the concept of shame disappears completely in national politics.
The next thing you know, we will see a convicted felon reelected to the Senate and a vice-presidential candidate who wrecked her party's campaign strutting and spouting off on network TV.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Rooting Out Rove
A 390-page report by the Inspector General is only a small step for mankind in bringing Karl Rove to justice for what he did to the Justice Department in the firing of the nine US attorneys, but it's a start.
The internal investigation finds political pressure drove the 2006 dismissals but that refusal of major players at the White House and the department to cooperate in the year-long inquiry has left significant “gaps” in understanding what happened.
Investigators' doubts have led Attorney General Michael Mukasey to appoint Acting United States Attorney in Connecticut Nora Dannehy, who led the conviction of a former governor for corruption, to continue the probe and decide if anyone should be prosecuted.
The "anyone" list starts with Bush's White House toadies, Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, and goes on to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was overcome with memory lapses while testifying before Congress, and his cast of ideological helpers, including Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson, who the report says "abdicated their responsibility" in supervising the firings.
After stonewalling Congress while Bush remains in office, this bunch will be facing possible prosecution in a new atmosphere next year, one in which the criminal politicizing of everything in Washington comes to an end, and Justice reverts to its original mission of discovering and punishing actual crime.
In that event, Karl Rove could be practicing his punditry for Newsweek and Fox News from a new venue that will give him plenty of time to think deep thoughts about the new American political scene.
The internal investigation finds political pressure drove the 2006 dismissals but that refusal of major players at the White House and the department to cooperate in the year-long inquiry has left significant “gaps” in understanding what happened.
Investigators' doubts have led Attorney General Michael Mukasey to appoint Acting United States Attorney in Connecticut Nora Dannehy, who led the conviction of a former governor for corruption, to continue the probe and decide if anyone should be prosecuted.
The "anyone" list starts with Bush's White House toadies, Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, and goes on to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was overcome with memory lapses while testifying before Congress, and his cast of ideological helpers, including Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson, who the report says "abdicated their responsibility" in supervising the firings.
After stonewalling Congress while Bush remains in office, this bunch will be facing possible prosecution in a new atmosphere next year, one in which the criminal politicizing of everything in Washington comes to an end, and Justice reverts to its original mission of discovering and punishing actual crime.
In that event, Karl Rove could be practicing his punditry for Newsweek and Fox News from a new venue that will give him plenty of time to think deep thoughts about the new American political scene.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Elder Statesman of Sleaze
Karl Rove, who smeared John McCain out of the presidency eight years ago, finds his victim's use of those tactics now against Barack Obama a trifle too crude for his taste.
"McCain," Karl Rove said today on Fox News, "has...gone one step too far and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the '100 percent truth' test."
Rove, in effect, is criticizing his own protégés in the McCain campaign, saying "there ought to be an adult who says, 'Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don't we make our point and won't we get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don't include that one little last tweak in the ad?'"
Amid the talk about pigs and lipstick, Rove's remarks call to mind the old saying about thrift--using every porker part but the squeal. As a paid pundit for Fox, Rove has even found a way to profit from that.
"McCain," Karl Rove said today on Fox News, "has...gone one step too far and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the '100 percent truth' test."
Rove, in effect, is criticizing his own protégés in the McCain campaign, saying "there ought to be an adult who says, 'Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don't we make our point and won't we get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don't include that one little last tweak in the ad?'"
Amid the talk about pigs and lipstick, Rove's remarks call to mind the old saying about thrift--using every porker part but the squeal. As a paid pundit for Fox, Rove has even found a way to profit from that.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
The Truth About McCain-Palin Lies
Democrats are getting apoplectic about this year's flat-out lies by Republicans in their candidates' statements and TV commercials, with Obama supporters' fact-checking falling hopelessly behind the opposition output.
On his Washington Post blog, Michael Kinsley notes that "the routine acceptance of obvious lies now corrodes our politics as much as the money that was the subject of McCain’s famous act of Republican apostasy: McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform.
"McCain has described his motive for McCain-Feingold as a giant mea culpa for his involvement in the Keating Five scandal. Maybe when this is over, one way or another, McCain will swear off corrupt lying the way he has sworn off corrupt money."
Fat chance. FactCheck.org is as busy as Mickey Mouse, the Sorcerer's Apprentice in the Disney classic, trying to sweep up the misstatements, half-truths and whoppers flooding the national consciousness from the Karl Rove-trained McCain minions.
It all brings back my first experience with official lies as a reporter for the college newspaper. In an interview, a dean kept telling me things I knew weren't true, that he knew I knew weren't true but that he kept saying with a straight face.
In time, the dean went into his natural calling, politics, to become Deputy Mayor of New York but eventually had to resign in disgrace for misusing taxpayer money for personal purposes.
The happy ending to that story may have misled me into believing that liars are always eventually caught out, but this campaign is creating severe doubts.
Will McCain be able to do to Obama this year what Bush and Rove did to him in 2000? If he succeeds, we'll have to stop reading our children and grandchildren the Pinocchio story.
On his Washington Post blog, Michael Kinsley notes that "the routine acceptance of obvious lies now corrodes our politics as much as the money that was the subject of McCain’s famous act of Republican apostasy: McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform.
"McCain has described his motive for McCain-Feingold as a giant mea culpa for his involvement in the Keating Five scandal. Maybe when this is over, one way or another, McCain will swear off corrupt lying the way he has sworn off corrupt money."
Fat chance. FactCheck.org is as busy as Mickey Mouse, the Sorcerer's Apprentice in the Disney classic, trying to sweep up the misstatements, half-truths and whoppers flooding the national consciousness from the Karl Rove-trained McCain minions.
It all brings back my first experience with official lies as a reporter for the college newspaper. In an interview, a dean kept telling me things I knew weren't true, that he knew I knew weren't true but that he kept saying with a straight face.
In time, the dean went into his natural calling, politics, to become Deputy Mayor of New York but eventually had to resign in disgrace for misusing taxpayer money for personal purposes.
The happy ending to that story may have misled me into believing that liars are always eventually caught out, but this campaign is creating severe doubts.
Will McCain be able to do to Obama this year what Bush and Rove did to him in 2000? If he succeeds, we'll have to stop reading our children and grandchildren the Pinocchio story.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
The Smart/Shrewd Divide
After eight years of obstinate stupidity in the White House, the change voters should want most is a combination of common sense and common decency.
"You can't beat brains," JFK used to say, but this year's debate has somehow been shifted to a mistrust of intelligence--at first by Hillary Clinton's attacks on Barack Obama as naïve, followed by John McCain's claims of wisdom only through suffering and now by Sarah Palin's salty assertion of hockey-mom shrewdness.
What will be at stake in the next two months is how Americans judge the qualities of mind they want in a president. The threat of terrorism, the woes of the economy, the endangered environment require more than a sound-bite mentality and a determination to, in the most frequently used word in McCain's acceptance speech, "fight" and respond to mindless chants of "drill, baby, drill."
In the campaign, Barack Obama's open-mindedness is being distorted into irresolution, but what he would bring, as conservative David Brooks noted almost two years ago, is "a deliberative style to the White House [that] will multiply his knowledge, not divide it.”
So far, John McCain's campaign has been fueled by the same Karl Rovian "cleverness," the familiar cast of lobbyists, the cronyness of opportunists like Joe Lieberman and now the selection of a VP who puts a fresh face on the same stale ideas of the Religious Right and the Neo-Cons.
Obama himself and those who support him know he doesn't have all the answers, but he will be asking the right questions and bringing to bear what the best minds have to offer in searching for solutions.
If voters are going to risk the future on real change, they would do well to take their chances with brains in the White House rather revert to what Richard Hofstadter labeled "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" and "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" almost half a century ago.
"You can't beat brains," JFK used to say, but this year's debate has somehow been shifted to a mistrust of intelligence--at first by Hillary Clinton's attacks on Barack Obama as naïve, followed by John McCain's claims of wisdom only through suffering and now by Sarah Palin's salty assertion of hockey-mom shrewdness.
What will be at stake in the next two months is how Americans judge the qualities of mind they want in a president. The threat of terrorism, the woes of the economy, the endangered environment require more than a sound-bite mentality and a determination to, in the most frequently used word in McCain's acceptance speech, "fight" and respond to mindless chants of "drill, baby, drill."
In the campaign, Barack Obama's open-mindedness is being distorted into irresolution, but what he would bring, as conservative David Brooks noted almost two years ago, is "a deliberative style to the White House [that] will multiply his knowledge, not divide it.”
So far, John McCain's campaign has been fueled by the same Karl Rovian "cleverness," the familiar cast of lobbyists, the cronyness of opportunists like Joe Lieberman and now the selection of a VP who puts a fresh face on the same stale ideas of the Religious Right and the Neo-Cons.
Obama himself and those who support him know he doesn't have all the answers, but he will be asking the right questions and bringing to bear what the best minds have to offer in searching for solutions.
If voters are going to risk the future on real change, they would do well to take their chances with brains in the White House rather revert to what Richard Hofstadter labeled "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" and "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" almost half a century ago.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Preview of McCain's Acceptance Speech
Minneapolis, Sept 4, 2008--In a Capraesque moment for the 21st century, John Sidney McCain III told a stunned Republican Convention tonight:
"I accept your nomination for president of the United States but, in all good conscience, must reject the tactics that are being used to win that office for myself and my party."
To the bewildered, buzzing audience, McCain declared, "I take my text tonight from a source familiar to us all but too easily forgotten in the heat of political battle: 'For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?'
"My friends, I have tried to serve my country all my life with honor, and I will not trade that accomplishment for any office, no matter how exalted.
"In the past months, I have given in to the temptation to allow people who speak for me to paint my opponent as dishonest, deceitful and untrustworthy. From my own experience as his Senate colleague, I know that is simply not true.
"From this moment, all that will stop. In my heart, I believe I am better qualified to lead this country, and I will make my case to anyone who will listen. But I will not be part of a process that demeans others for my own advantage and damages the civilized American dialogue that has been the glory of our democracy for more than two centuries."
Sources close to McCain reveal that, prior to delivering his acceptance speech, the text of which was not made available in advance, the Republican candidate had dismissed all members of his staff associated with Karl Rove and the Bush campaigns of 2000 and 2004.
In what is being called "Operation Straight Talk Redux," the Senator has taped talking-head commercials outlining his positions on the economy, energy, health care and other issues, ending with the statement, "I'm John McCain, and you can bet your bottom dollar I approve this message."
Reaction from Republican convention goers has been mixed. "Even it works for him," said one Congressional candidate who declined to be identified, "there goes eight years of everything the rest of us got from following the Rove playbook."
Seasoned political observers are divided over whether the new McCain can win over enough Independents and disaffected Democrats to make up for expected losses among Conservative Republicans.
"In the long run," says one pollster, "honesty is the best policy. Except when it isn't."
"I accept your nomination for president of the United States but, in all good conscience, must reject the tactics that are being used to win that office for myself and my party."
To the bewildered, buzzing audience, McCain declared, "I take my text tonight from a source familiar to us all but too easily forgotten in the heat of political battle: 'For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?'
"My friends, I have tried to serve my country all my life with honor, and I will not trade that accomplishment for any office, no matter how exalted.
"In the past months, I have given in to the temptation to allow people who speak for me to paint my opponent as dishonest, deceitful and untrustworthy. From my own experience as his Senate colleague, I know that is simply not true.
"From this moment, all that will stop. In my heart, I believe I am better qualified to lead this country, and I will make my case to anyone who will listen. But I will not be part of a process that demeans others for my own advantage and damages the civilized American dialogue that has been the glory of our democracy for more than two centuries."
Sources close to McCain reveal that, prior to delivering his acceptance speech, the text of which was not made available in advance, the Republican candidate had dismissed all members of his staff associated with Karl Rove and the Bush campaigns of 2000 and 2004.
In what is being called "Operation Straight Talk Redux," the Senator has taped talking-head commercials outlining his positions on the economy, energy, health care and other issues, ending with the statement, "I'm John McCain, and you can bet your bottom dollar I approve this message."
Reaction from Republican convention goers has been mixed. "Even it works for him," said one Congressional candidate who declined to be identified, "there goes eight years of everything the rest of us got from following the Rove playbook."
Seasoned political observers are divided over whether the new McCain can win over enough Independents and disaffected Democrats to make up for expected losses among Conservative Republicans.
"In the long run," says one pollster, "honesty is the best policy. Except when it isn't."
Thursday, July 10, 2008
The Selective Reticence of Karl Rove
He is refusing to testify before Congress about Bush crimes but he just won't shut up in the Wall Street Journal about how Barack Obama is using his political genius for the '08 election.
Citing a letter from the Bush Justice Department, Karl Rove's lawyer claims he is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony" but is willing to grant an "informal interview" or answer written questions about the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, whose ouster Bush's Brain is accused of arranging.
But Rove is showing no such reticence in today's Journal claiming that "the Obama for President effort has cribbed an awful lot from the Bush-Cheney playbooks of 2000 and 2004."
On closer inspection, the "awful lot" turns out to be the nuts and bolts of modern electioneering, although Rove insists that "by setting a world indoor record for jettisoning past positions, Mr. Obama may be risking his reputation for truthfulness. A candidate's credibility, once lost, is very hard to restore, regardless of how fine an organization he has built."
Lost credibility is a subject Rove knows inside out and, if the Judiciary Committee can make its subpoenas hold up in court, he will get ample opportunity to expatiate on it under oath, not for pay by Fox News and the Journal, but under penalty for perjury.
Meanwhile, Obama and the rest of us may be excused for not wanting to hear the brilliant insights of the man who made the White House a cesspool of lies and deception.
Citing a letter from the Bush Justice Department, Karl Rove's lawyer claims he is "constitutionally immune from compelled congressional testimony" but is willing to grant an "informal interview" or answer written questions about the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, whose ouster Bush's Brain is accused of arranging.
But Rove is showing no such reticence in today's Journal claiming that "the Obama for President effort has cribbed an awful lot from the Bush-Cheney playbooks of 2000 and 2004."
On closer inspection, the "awful lot" turns out to be the nuts and bolts of modern electioneering, although Rove insists that "by setting a world indoor record for jettisoning past positions, Mr. Obama may be risking his reputation for truthfulness. A candidate's credibility, once lost, is very hard to restore, regardless of how fine an organization he has built."
Lost credibility is a subject Rove knows inside out and, if the Judiciary Committee can make its subpoenas hold up in court, he will get ample opportunity to expatiate on it under oath, not for pay by Fox News and the Journal, but under penalty for perjury.
Meanwhile, Obama and the rest of us may be excused for not wanting to hear the brilliant insights of the man who made the White House a cesspool of lies and deception.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
The True Test for McCain
As a Karl Rove protégé takes charge of his faltering campaign, a character question comes up: Does John McCain have it in him to get into the mud to win ugly?
Repelled by Rovian tactics in 2000 to the point of openly considering switching parties, McCain is clearly under pressure now to sign on to smearing Obama with the kind of dirt that did him in back then and the Swiftboating of John Kerry that he deplored in 2004.
Up to now, McCain has been willing to shift positions on issues to mollify the Republican Right and win the nomination but he clearly drew a line at personal attacks on his rivals in the primaries.
Now, amid all the talk about sharpening his message, the Republican standard bearer faces a different reality: With all the baggage of the Bush years, there is very little likelihood that McCain can win this election on policy issues, no matter how adroitly he frames them, and adroit has been in short supply so far.
The only way he can hope to prevail is by turning away from his lifetime dedication to personal honor and allow his campaign to sow the kind of fear and doubt about Obama that was used against him in South Carolina eight years ago.
Can a man in his seventies change that much? Along the way, McCain may want to consider the rueful wisdom of Adlai Stevenson, who lost the presidency twice half a century ago: "The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning."
Repelled by Rovian tactics in 2000 to the point of openly considering switching parties, McCain is clearly under pressure now to sign on to smearing Obama with the kind of dirt that did him in back then and the Swiftboating of John Kerry that he deplored in 2004.
Up to now, McCain has been willing to shift positions on issues to mollify the Republican Right and win the nomination but he clearly drew a line at personal attacks on his rivals in the primaries.
Now, amid all the talk about sharpening his message, the Republican standard bearer faces a different reality: With all the baggage of the Bush years, there is very little likelihood that McCain can win this election on policy issues, no matter how adroitly he frames them, and adroit has been in short supply so far.
The only way he can hope to prevail is by turning away from his lifetime dedication to personal honor and allow his campaign to sow the kind of fear and doubt about Obama that was used against him in South Carolina eight years ago.
Can a man in his seventies change that much? Along the way, McCain may want to consider the rueful wisdom of Adlai Stevenson, who lost the presidency twice half a century ago: "The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning."
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
A Deprogrammer or an Exorcist?
Like any family with a member who has gone off the rails, the Bushies are beside themselves with worry about poor Scott McClellan.
"It's sad," Dana Perino pouts. "This is not the Scott we knew."
"This doesn't sound like Scott," Karl Rove headshakes. "It really doesn't. Not the Scott McClellan I have known for a long time...sounds like somebody else, it sounds like a left-wing blogger."
Ari Fleischer is "heartbroken."
Former White House Counsel Dan Bartlett is dazed. "It's almost like we're witnessing an out-of-body experience," he says. "We're hearing from a completely different person we didn't have any insight into."
Now that McClellan has developed some kind of truth addiction, White House loyalists are holding a public intervention, not sure whether to consult a deprogrammer or an exorcist to bring back the good old lying Scott they used to know.
Rove echoes every family member who has gone through such an experience, wondering if he should have detected some sign of trouble.
"If he had these moral qualms," Rove says, "he should have spoken up about them. And frankly I don't remember him speaking up about these things. I don't remember a single word."
If only they had known, they could have increased the doses of Kool-Aid.
"It's sad," Dana Perino pouts. "This is not the Scott we knew."
"This doesn't sound like Scott," Karl Rove headshakes. "It really doesn't. Not the Scott McClellan I have known for a long time...sounds like somebody else, it sounds like a left-wing blogger."
Ari Fleischer is "heartbroken."
Former White House Counsel Dan Bartlett is dazed. "It's almost like we're witnessing an out-of-body experience," he says. "We're hearing from a completely different person we didn't have any insight into."
Now that McClellan has developed some kind of truth addiction, White House loyalists are holding a public intervention, not sure whether to consult a deprogrammer or an exorcist to bring back the good old lying Scott they used to know.
Rove echoes every family member who has gone through such an experience, wondering if he should have detected some sign of trouble.
"If he had these moral qualms," Rove says, "he should have spoken up about them. And frankly I don't remember him speaking up about these things. I don't remember a single word."
If only they had known, they could have increased the doses of Kool-Aid.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Scott McClellan's Slo-Mo Conscience
In his new book, Bush's former Press Secretary reveals his boss was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence and that some of his own statements in the White House briefing room podium were “badly misguided.”
For someone whose job it was to control information, Scott McClellan is not very good at it. It's encouraging that he is blowing the whistle on the Bush Administration, but his lips have been pursed for more than six months when his publisher leaked an excerpt last November:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
"There was one problem. It was not true.
"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself."
The next day McClellan's publisher explained that his author "did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him" but told him what "he thought to be the case" and "didn't know it was not true."
This week, advance copies of the book were given to selected reporters with an embargo on news from it until next Sunday, but Politico is spilling the beans tonight from a copy bought in a bookstore.
Now, McClellan will make a lot of money from royalties and lectures, but the question arises: Why did he wait to tell the truth until it was profitable for him to do so instead of quitting his job and going public when it might have helped save lives in Iraq and disempower some of the liars he was working with?
For someone whose job it was to control information, Scott McClellan is not very good at it. It's encouraging that he is blowing the whistle on the Bush Administration, but his lips have been pursed for more than six months when his publisher leaked an excerpt last November:
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
"There was one problem. It was not true.
"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself."
The next day McClellan's publisher explained that his author "did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him" but told him what "he thought to be the case" and "didn't know it was not true."
This week, advance copies of the book were given to selected reporters with an embargo on news from it until next Sunday, but Politico is spilling the beans tonight from a copy bought in a bookstore.
Now, McClellan will make a lot of money from royalties and lectures, but the question arises: Why did he wait to tell the truth until it was profitable for him to do so instead of quitting his job and going public when it might have helped save lives in Iraq and disempower some of the liars he was working with?
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Why Is NBC So Touchy?
Ed Gillespie only wants to help. Karl Rove's successor in the White House has embarked on a new career as media critic, judging NBC guilty of "deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline" and create an "utterly misleading and irresponsible" impression of a Presidential interview about his speech to the Israeli Knesset.
In times like these, Americans need all the media criticism they can get, particularly corrective analysis coming from such an informed source as a lifelong lobbyist whose clients have included Enron and, perhaps more pertinent in this case, Viacom, owner of CBS.
In 2003, the watchdog group Public Citizen called Gillespie an "embedded lobbyist" to further the interests of his "corporate benefactors" as Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
In his new incarnation, the Counselor to the President is urging NBC news honcho Steve Capus to reassure Americans that "blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don't hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division."
Capus reassured him that the Presidential interview "has been available, unedited, in its entirety, for the past day, on our website. Our reporting accurately reflects the interview...NBC News, as part of a free press in a free society, makes its own editorial decisions."
But why can't they see that Gillespie just wants to help?
In times like these, Americans need all the media criticism they can get, particularly corrective analysis coming from such an informed source as a lifelong lobbyist whose clients have included Enron and, perhaps more pertinent in this case, Viacom, owner of CBS.
In 2003, the watchdog group Public Citizen called Gillespie an "embedded lobbyist" to further the interests of his "corporate benefactors" as Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
In his new incarnation, the Counselor to the President is urging NBC news honcho Steve Capus to reassure Americans that "blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don't hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division."
Capus reassured him that the Presidential interview "has been available, unedited, in its entirety, for the past day, on our website. Our reporting accurately reflects the interview...NBC News, as part of a free press in a free society, makes its own editorial decisions."
But why can't they see that Gillespie just wants to help?
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Slicing and Dicing the Electorate
Whatever happened to the Melting Pot? Now we learn that "Barack Obama is faring better than might be expected among Jewish voters, beating John McCain in Gallup Poll Daily general-election matchups and trailing Hillary Clinton only slightly in Jewish Democrats' preferences for the Democratic nomination."
This crucial piece of information tells us what? That Jews don't blame Obama for the anti-Semitic outbursts decades ago by Louis Farrakhan, who is admired by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Is this something we need to know? A wise old editor I worked with used to say about such useless information, "Uninteresting, if true."
As pollsters and political "experts" turn this election year into a demographic nightmare, pinning labels on voters by race, gender, religious affiliation, age, income, education, everything but height and weight, the dominant theme of the campaign coverage has become parsing everything that divides Americans and deciding which politician profits from which.
Obama keeps talking about reaching across those divisions, but the media story line keeps magnifying them. All of this perpetuates the beliefs of Karl Rove et his ilk that the way to win elections is to divide and conquer.
Voters, who have seen how well that worked out for them in the past eight years, may be ready to defy the labels and surprise the experts. Now that would be interesting, if true.
This crucial piece of information tells us what? That Jews don't blame Obama for the anti-Semitic outbursts decades ago by Louis Farrakhan, who is admired by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Is this something we need to know? A wise old editor I worked with used to say about such useless information, "Uninteresting, if true."
As pollsters and political "experts" turn this election year into a demographic nightmare, pinning labels on voters by race, gender, religious affiliation, age, income, education, everything but height and weight, the dominant theme of the campaign coverage has become parsing everything that divides Americans and deciding which politician profits from which.
Obama keeps talking about reaching across those divisions, but the media story line keeps magnifying them. All of this perpetuates the beliefs of Karl Rove et his ilk that the way to win elections is to divide and conquer.
Voters, who have seen how well that worked out for them in the past eight years, may be ready to defy the labels and surprise the experts. Now that would be interesting, if true.
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