Dahlia, it’s Chucky’s problem, not ours
Dahlia Lithwick is frustrated some on the Right think Chucky Schumer’s approval of Mukasey discredits him:
Poor Bill Kristol. His followers’ contempt for liberals is so extreme that he needed to bracket both ends of his weekend endorsement of President’s Bush’s new pick for attorney general by urging them not to blame Michael Mukasey for the fact that Sen. Chuck Schumer likes him. If the mere fact that liberals such as Glenn Greenwald at Salon, Nan Aron at Alliance for Justice, and my colleague Emily Bazelon do not reflexively loathe him proves to be Judge Mukasey’s greatest political liability, we are now so far gone down the road of hysterical partisanship that we may never recover.
She talks as if Schumer is the soul of judiciousness and balance. But this is not something conservatives arrived at ex nihilo. Schumer is a reflexive, angry and unreasoning opponent of any nominee with conservative credentials. He would have opposed Mother Theresa for HHS secretary due to her position on abortion. He is one of the most harshly partisan Democrats in a caucus thickly populated with them.
He hammers judicial nominees over abortion, attacks them when they are evasive, and then attacks them if they answer. He declares, ipso facto, that any judicial nominee who disagrees with his policy views is “out of the mainstream.”
Chucky is rabid, Dahlia. It’s his problem, not ours.
But that said, Chucky’s acquiescence may tell us nothing about this nominee. As Bill Kristol argues, we should give the nominee that benefit of the doubt. Also, see Beldarblog agreeing with Kristol.
Lindsey Graham takes Iraq seriously
Lindsey Graham is a favorite whipping boy of the right, often for good reason. He often seems to be a McCain wannabe just for the sake of it, or more for the sake of gaining the admiration of an elite establishment alienated in the Lewinsky affair, when he was a manager for the House case in the Senate.
But I am very impressed with the cogency and focus of his approach to the Patreaus hearing, as outlined by David Broder here. Unlike most questioners–including Obama–he used his time to draw out some very focused responses and establish a beachhead for real progress — underlining the urgency of success while remaining less than giddy about the probabilities:
When I talked with Graham on Thursday, he said he had asked those questions because “I am sick and tired of people posing choices between the two extremes; I want reality-based policy. [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid is as bad as Rumsfeld was in rejecting reality. He said in April that the war is lost, and he refuses to accept anything else.”
But Graham said that he thought Crocker was “making a pretty major statement that the clock is running out on the Maliki government — and we can have an effect on it by what we do here.”
“There are alternatives,” he said — Shiite political leaders who are willing, for example, to tour the Baghdad jails with Graham and be photographed with Sunnis who are protesting the imprisonment of so many of their coreligionists. “The good news,” Graham said, “is that Kurds and Sunnis and Shiites are ready to play politics. Judges feel more secure because of the surge, and that is important, because all of them have experienced rough justice.
“What we do can affect the outcome. But if we don’t see progress on two of the three big issues — oil revenues, de-Baathification, provincial elections — in the next 90 days, it may not happen. And Iraq could be a failed state.”
I respect his reasoned analysis, and I’m surprised and disappointed at how rare it is in Congress.
Lighten up, Mitchy baby: you’re too tight
The defining diff between the Left and the Right on the Constitution is that the Right, bless their sentimental souls, thinks there is one.
A compromise bill is about to pass the Senate which would give D.C. a congressional vote, in exchange for a seat in Utah–a partisan hostage exchange. Politically, it seems fair. But Mitch McConnell thinks this is a bad idea because, well, it violates the plain language of the Constitution?
“The votes are very close,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said at a news conference yesterday. “I think this is something the District of Columbia and Utah deserve,” he added, pledging “to see if I can get 60 votes.”
But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) strongly opposes the legislation, saying it violates the Constitution’s instructions that House members come from states. “Senator McConnell’s Constitution is getting worn out from showing it to reporters,” said his spokesman, Don Stewart.
Supporters of the bill don’t seem the least bit embarrassed about this seemingly obvious problem. This is odd for the Utah advocates, who at least give lip service to strict construction.
But the Dems are never burdened by such scruples. Their response is to paraphrase the immortal words of Washington Redskins fullback John Riggins, who at a dinner party turned to Sandra Day O’Connor, just before he literally slid under the table, and said, “Lighten up, Sandy Baby: you’re too tight.”
Bereft of ideas, devoid of substance
Any ideas about best questions?
Good bites.
[This pic is not photoshopped. HT: Doug Ross, via Don Surber.]
Good thing he’s not running for president
At least, not really running, eh? Dennis Kucinich just voted against commemorating 9/11. His explanation sounds like that of a dysfunctional old pill who turns everything, no matter how tangential, into an opportunity to remind someone of some affront. Relatives, those who don’t avoid him outright, understand to avoid anything that prompts the reflex:
“I believe the best way to honor the memory of those who died on Sept. 11 is to tell the truth of what the administration did in the wake of Sept. 11,” Kucinich said in a statement. “The Bush administration launched a war against Iraq, conflating the true tragedy of September 11 with lies about weapons of mass destruction.”
Obama disses the grown-ups
Obama? Obbbaaammmma! Put away you compact and look at the camera. It’s your turn to ask your “questions.”
It must be oddly frustrating for a Senator and Ambassador steeped in experience to be cross-examined by the crotchety mediocrities and wet-behind-the-ear pop icons who comprise the U.S. Senate.
Obama, for example, launches a long, mind-numbing tirade retracing ground from 2003 to the present–so as to remind us all that he didn’t vote for the war. Then he “stipulates” a handful of inane stipulations to the effect that the surge ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. He stipulates that the success in Anbar has been political, not military [I’m not kidding; I think he was reading his talking points upside down], ignoring the inextricable bond between the two.
At the end of this long, rambling pirouette, Obama finally asks one question, which merely serves to demonstrate that he was not been listening all along:
OBAMA: And if we’re there the same place a year from now, can you please describe for me any circumstances in which you would make a different recommendation and suggest it is now time for us to start withdrawing our troops? Any scenario? Any set of benchmarks that had not been met?
CROCKER: Senator, I described for Senator Sununu a little bit ago some of the things that I think are going to be very important as we move ahead.
OBAMA: Can you repeat those? And I know I’m out of time, so I’m just going to ask for both the general and the ambassador to answer.
Memo to the intellectual lightweight with the thin resume: the least you can do is listen and take notes when the grown-ups are speaking.
Guffaw
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky that Craig “made a difficult decision, but the right one. “”It is my hope he will be remembered not for this, but for his three decades of dedicated public service,” McConnell said.
Sure thing, Bub. Just like OJ is remembered for his Heisman and Monica for her typing skills.
Baird v. Obama? No brainer.
From my new Congressional hero, the only one who got it right on both ends so far: Brian Baird.
A confirmed anti-war Democratic congressman, Brian Baird of Washington, after spending two weeks in Iraq, warned that if we leave prematurely, “Iran will expand its influence in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. Terrorist organizations, the people who cut off the heads of civilians, stone women to death, and preach hatred and intolerance, will be emboldened by our departure.”
I’m willing to say that, knowing what I know now, going into Iraq was a mistake. Or at least the mistakes since going in have been manifold. But I have zero tolerance for those who–whether they supported or opposed the invasion–now want to fold our tent and leave the job unfinished.
Brian Baird understands collective accountability. Barack Obama does not, and that alone disqualifies him for the presidency.
This sounds like fun
Just a second honey, gotta use the john …
Craig has not been seen in public since delivering a defiant public statement Tuesday afternoon, He is on vacation with his wife, according to aides.
[That comma splice comes to you courtesy of the Washington Post.]
Rice & Pelosi: a coalition for failure?
What do Condoleeza Rice and Nancy Pelosi have in common, except for gender? Apparently, a very naive foreign policy view. David Ignatius has a disturbing column today asserting that Iran’s meddling in the Iraqi election undermined the outcome and set the stage for political failures that followed. The U.S. knew this was occurring, and the CIA had a plan to counter, but this was scuttled:
Behind Allawi’s comment lies a tale of intrigue and indecision by the United States over whether to mount a covert-action program to confront Iran’s political meddling. Such a plan was crafted by the Central Intelligence Agency and then withdrawn — because of opposition from an unlikely coalition that is said to have included Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who was then House minority leader, and Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser.
As recounted by former U.S. officials, the story embodies the mix of hubris and naivete that has characterized so much of the Iraq effort. From President Bush on down, U.S. officials enthused about Iraqi democracy while pursuing a course of action that made it virtually certain that Iran and its proxies would emerge as the dominant political force.
Rice’s obliviousness does not surprise me. Pelosi is what I find odd. Not that she would be wrong. Heaven’s she went to Syria and wore a hijab and wanted to go on to Tehran. What puzzles me is why a minority leader utterly committed to the failure of the Iraq project would be leveraging any power at all on this kind of decision.
The lesson of Haditha? War is hell.
Another marine cleared by the investigating officer in the Haditha incident, where marines were accused–by Rep. Murtha and others–of grisly murders as revenge for a buddy who was killed. The consistent story emerging is that of decent boys reacting according to their training in a nearly impossible situation:
Investigating officer Lt. Col. Paul Ware said the evidence was too weak for a court-martial. Tatum shot and killed civilians, but “he did so because of his training and the circumstances he was placed in, not to exact revenge and commit murder,” Ware wrote.
“I believe (Lance Cpl.) Tatum’s real life experience and training on how to clear a room took over and his body instinctively began firing while his head tried to grasp at what and why he was firing,” Ware wrote. “By the time he could recognize that he was shooting at children, his body had already acted.
Anyone who has read Malcom Gladwell’s Blink will immediately recognize in this event his description of the inevitable manner in which cops under fire tunnel their vision and stop absorbing the kind of contextual information that would help them recognize nuances, and how all of this occurs within 1-3 seconds of reaction time.
If you have not read Blink, you should. It does a tremendous job of explaining how cops [and soldiers] react under stress, and how to limit erroneous snap decisions. Blink is noteworthy because Gladwell is black, and he does a great job balancing the role of subliminal prejudice–which is real–without condemning or simplifying.
The lesson of Haditha may simply be that life is complicated, war is hell, and Congressmen like Rep. Murtha should shut the hell up until investigations are complete.
As to those whose ideological agenda is so entrenched that they will insist that these recommendations are a whitewash: shame on you.
Doolittle: No apologies from pork king
How’s this for timing?
Today the Sacramento Bee announced that an influential former county GOP chairman had public trashed Rep. Doolittle over his atrocious Club for Growth pork scores: “I think when this conservative district sees how John spends their money, I think John doesn’t have a chance,” Campbell said.
Moments before a friend calls up with that tip, we get this form mail email from Doolittle, whom we had pestered about his pork addiction. His response? “I support the process of earmarking.” He goes on to explain that earmarking is constitutionally sanctioned and, because it is constitutional, he is damn well obliged to engage in it.
Well, John, lots of things are constitutionally protected. Like adultery. As they say in German, “Na, und?”
Favorite paragraph:
[L]ocal officials make better decisions on what projects merit funding instead of bureaucrats who do not have a working knowledge of the real value of a project. If we abandon the practice of earmarking, important decisions about which projects should receive funding will be made by tens of thousands of bureaucrats who were not elected and have no direct accountability to taxpayers and voters.
So instead, John, we’ll have Congress choose projects based on how much campaign cash they can coax from developers or other vested interests, and how many votes they can get from from grateful constituents who get funding for dumb-ass projects no one in their right mind would pay for.
[Club for Growth reaction here.]
Snarling and foaming
Liberal blogger Matt Stoller is snarling at 38 moderate House Dems he calls “Bush Dogs,” because they bucked Lefty pressure to bug out of Iraq. Their goal is to target 2-3 of them in primaries, and scare others Leftward.
Yet, as Politico notes,
Many of the targeted Democrats – 15 of the 38 by Politico’s count – will likely be facing highly competitive reelection campaigns. Nearly all of them represent solidly Republican districts that President Bush carried handily in 2004.
The problem is that the Dems already exceed their natural high water mark. The Dems Stoller calls out are occupying districts many have no business in:
“To truly reverse the damage the Bush administration has done will take electing more Democrats, not challenging the ones that have won very tough districts,” said one Democratic strategist.
But where are “more Democrats” coming from? You already occupy all your natural seats AND many you can’t really own. To find more, you’ll have to fundamentally alter either demographics or voter perspectives. The Nutroots should be engaging the American voter, not condemning their representatives.
Congress angles for ratings in sweeps month
Congress is just another TV show, and it’s sweeps month folks, so expect some really intense framing efforts by the major networks, er, parties, as they try to shape your impressions of whatever the hell they’ve been doing for the past year. Heaven forbid that they actually do anything. As with the ethics bill and the national security CYA, it’s all about impression management.
Democrats and Republicans are mounting a fierce battle to shape voter impressions of Congress during August’s political lull, convinced that they must define the story line of the 2008 congressional election before voters are swamped by the presidential campaign.
The opening salvo of television and radio advertisements, automated calls and fundraising appeals is unusually intense this early in the election cycle, and it comes just seven months after the Democrats took control of Congress.
Feeling dumb?
They didn’t read it, OK? They were in a hurry and they couldn’t go on recess without a little national security CYA. So they passed this blinkin FISA bill, but it’s not their fault that it gives expanded powers beyond what Bush asked for:
The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought.
Three observations are in order, for the one or two of you who are shocked by this:
- Members of Congress are not that smart. They are sometimes more ambitious, and often less scrupulous, sometimes of average intelligence, and sometimes somewhat above. But on average, they are very average.
- They often don’t read bills or know what’s in them. Usually this is on things like prescription drug benefits, catastrophic health care for the elderly, education reform, transportation bills … things that no one ever calls them on.
- They generally don’t care what is in them. Most bills are symbolic gestures. They care what the title is and how key interests will interpret it. Witness the recent “ethics” reform, which everyone knew actually weakened recent earmark reforms. But everyone was afraid to oppose it because, well … it was ethics reform.
WaPo draws a key and threatened distinction
Just because I disagree with someone, doesn’t make him a demon. The Washington Post, which is more susceptible to reason than, for example, the New York Times, has echoed the equally reasonable voice of Dianne Feinstein in calling for Judge Leslie Southwick to be confirmed to the 5th Circuit:
For that reason, and because of his relatively pinched approach to judging, Judge Southwick wouldn’t have been our first choice for this vacancy. Nor do we like the results in the custody and racial slur cases. But we cannot find fault with Judge Southwick’s narrow but ultimately legitimate interpretation of the law in those cases, and we do not find in his record the anti-gay, anti-worker caricature his opponents have drawn. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the lone Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote in favor of his confirmation, got it right when she concluded that if senators were to examine Judge Southwick’s entire career, including his stint as a judge advocate in Iraq, they would find a “qualified, circumspect person.”
The ideological lockstep of the other nine members of that Judiciary committee is quite indefensible. Thank you to WaPo for helping to make this even more obvious.
A weak pulse in candidate recruitment
RealClear’s Jay Cost surveys GOP candidate recruitment woes. Bottom line: the party is lacking strong candidates for presumably competitive seats in both the Senate and the House.
Candidates will not risk their time, money, careers or reputations in a likely losing cause. There is a self-fulfilling prophecy here. Quality candidates produce better results, but they shy away if they think the tide is hostile. So, naturally, the tide turns out to be hostile.
Sometimes the perceived tide evaporates, however. Look at 1992, when all of the experienced Democratic candidates stayed off the field because George Bush had soaring poll numbers after the Gulf War. Then a slight recession, a broken promise on taxes, the Perot lunacy, and suddenly we had a route indeed, but in the other direction. Bill Clinton was in some ways an accident of history who can thank a bad read of the coming tide for his clear shot to the nomination.
Still, there are always quality candidates willing to take that risk on the White House. It’s a much harder sell on the other House.
Kudos to Rep. Baird
Is the surge working? From Harry Reid’s perspective, it has been an unqualified disaster. His triumphalism of a few months ago when he confidently declared the cessation of major hostilities in Iraq and the imminent withdrawal of our defeated troops is now slipping into a chaotic and unfriendly picture for the majority leader.
Week by week, his own troops are crumbling around him, his once confident front collapsing into chaos. The eerie silence of Anbar province, the steadily increasing confidence of Sunni allies, the pronouncements of progress from unlikely sources such as Germany’s Der Spiegel and Senator Dick Durbin, the hasty backtracking of Democratic presidential candidates …
Today, the bad news continues with yet another high profile defection.
[The defections, by the way, seem to have much to do with traveling to Iraq. If Sen. Reid wants to stem the hemorrhaging, he might consider a moratorium on this nonsense.]
This defection is Congressman Brian Baird (D-WA) who voted against the war in 2002, but now says we should not leave in haste. Why? Two reasons, NRO reports:
Baird said he would not say this if he didn’t believe two things:
• “One, I think we’re making real progress.”
• “Secondly, I think the consequences of pulling back precipitously would be potentially catastrophic for the Iraqi people themselves, to whom we have a tremendous responsibility … and in the long run chaotic for the region as a whole and for our own security.”
This is, of course, what I and many others have been saying all along. Both dimensions are essential, and kudos to Baird for framing them right. And more kudos to Baird for recognizing that this is not Bush’s war, it is America’s war–it is our rep, our moral obligation.
In my four way breakdown of war stances, the stance Baird has taken is the most honorable. It’s easy to defend your own mistake (Bush). It’s easy to defect and pretend you never were really for it (Hillary). And it’s easy to say you were never for it and so it’s not your problem (Obama). But to oppose the war and then have the guts to recognize a collective responsibility where others like Harry Reid see a partisan opportunity is statesmanship.
Want us to hunker down till 2009? Make the case
The good news is that indicators of success on the ground continue to come in. The bad news is the administration’s poor record of explaining its case to the American people. For once, the American people need to persuasively and respectfully briefed [and persuaded] on stakes, progress and time frames.
The scary thing is we need to stay for two more years, not ten more months. Hugh Hewitt has summarized some very intersesting interviews along these lines. Read the whole thing. Sample here from exchange with Fred Kagan:
HH: Max Boot says we’ve got to be prepared to be there well into 2009 with 140,000 troops. Do you agree with that, Fred Kagan?
FK: I can’t give you a troop number, but we need to be prepared to be there with a very substantial force, certainly through 2009, absolutely.
HH: Have you heard any of the opposition to the war on the Hill to begin to echo the reality that we’ve got to make a statement that we’re going to be staying?
FK: Well, I think you’ve had a lot of people come back, and some surprising people like Senator Durbin, and even, I understand, Congressman Murtha came back and have made comments that the surge is succeeding militarily. And then they focus on the political problems, and I think that’s going to be the nature of the debate in September, but I think it’s a false debate, because the truth of the matter is if you’re improving security, the logic of the surge all along was that political progress follows that. Well, if the surge is working, and the question is should we continue, it seems to me the answer is pretty clear, and I would hope that the Democratic leadership will come to that obvious conclusion as well.
Dumping piles of fish on a man’s head
Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll die young from heavy metal poisoning. But dump piles and piles of fish on the man’s head year after year, and you’ll totally distort his economy.
That seems to be the message of CARE’s recent decision to phase out U.S. farm aid. They say the aid is hurting those it supposed to help. But this is nonsense. It is supposed to help the American farmer, and I don’t see them complaining.
The program works like this: the U.S. buys food products from U.S. agribusiness, ships them on U.S. flagged ships, and gives them to charities, which sell them and use the profits for their charitable projects. The steady infusion of cheap food products reduces the market for domestic food production, which reduces the supply. And the cycle starts again.
The nongovernmental organizations “have been ignoring this evidence for years that there’s a negative impact on the prices farmers receive,” Mr. Matlon said.. He is involved in an effort by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, financed with an initial $150 million, to increase the productivity of Africa’s farmers.
The Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan, investigative arm of Congress, also concluded this year that the system was “inherently inefficient.” CARE and Catholic Relief Services — who rank first and second in money raised through the current system — say they recover only 70 to 80 percent of what the United States paid for the commodities and shipping.
I find this issue hard to parse from the outside. Jimmy Carter is critical of the program, which of course speaks strongly in its favor. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, eh? And agribusiness and the congressional pork caucus is heavily in favor of it.
I’m putting my money with CARE’s assessment that the program sucks.
