TM Connect


Use "My TM" for log in & register.

Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Archive | June, 2010

Is Obama Already Bored with a Dying Gulf, Dead Dolphins and Dying Whales?

By on 30 June 2010

Thank the gods for Huffington Post. At least they’re keeping the BP blowout up front, as the hurricane season brings “oil surf.”

Meanwhile, nobody but cable hosts are screaming about energy. Is there anything more important? Pres. Obama’s already on to immigration tomorrow.

Everyone is working towards what media talking heads are now calling the “triple crown,” health care, financial regulation, and hopefully energy passing. But we don’t need just any energy legislation. We need an F.D.R. wide, green jobs revolution.

I know, screw the vision thing. It’s so John F. Kennedy.

As for finreg, Kevin Drum, please read Ezra Klein, but both of you need to understand that Sen. Russ Feingold. I’ve disagreed with before, too; it was Feingold who voted against Mikulski’s amendment on reproductive funds for women.

It’s clear on finreg that Feingold has simply had enough of taking the good, when it’s not only not perfect, but won’t get the job done.

Wall Street and its allies have been calling the shots in Congress for decades, so they must be glad to see how things are shaping up on financial regulatory reform. Congress is about to vote on a final bill that fails to fix the key flaws in the bills passed by both the House and Senate. At the start of this process I made clear that I had a simple test for financial reform — will it stop another financial meltdown? This bill fails that test, and I won’t support legislation that fails to protect the people of Wisconsin from the pain of another economic disaster. And I don’t need to be lectured about this issue by people who supported the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which paved the way for this terrible recession. …

Chris Bowers has a detailed win, lose draw layout. He’s for it, saying it must be done.

However, what “done” means is another matter entirely. Obama loyalists ready to chalk up another “accomplishment,” while all I hear is Dylan Ratigan in my ear, mainly because I think he’s right, as is Feingold.

I’m just not impressed that a Democratic majority isn’t using it’s power more impressively, but is more easily seduced by any win at all.

Meanwhile, I just keep thinking about our dying Gulf… the animals and birds. The lack of any effort or enthusiasm to truly rally the nation to fix this problem, which would take a revolutionary new outlook in our lifestyles and priorities.

Since the BP blowout, I’m sensing the same drift as when George W. Bush missed the opportunity after 9/11 to rally the nation to a common cause and purpose. Where everyone started pitching in to do something about energy, including the way we use it, talk about it and think about it going forward.

I want the country to mobilize, but it all seems so business as usual still.

It’s alarming when cable hosts are crying out louder and more regularly on energy than Pres. Obama, whose presidential style mimics a teen with ADD.

Read full story · Comments { 23 }

Emasculating Democrats

By on 30 June 2010

If Bill Clinton was our first black president, as Toni Morrison once proclaimed, then Barack Obama may be our first woman president. [...] No, I’m not calling Obama a girlie president. But . . . he may be suffering a rhetorical-testosterone deficit when it comes to dealing with crises, with which he has been richly endowed. – Obama: Our first female president

Save us from Pulitizer Prize winning females who don’t know what they’re talking about when it comes to the politics of sex. Both Kathleen Parker and Maureen Dowd evidently missing Pres. Obama’s tough sacking of McChrystal, but also his appointment of Petraeus, which signals cagey triangulation where Afghanistan is concerned.

Bill Clinton was too randy. Now we’ve got both Kathleen Parker and Maureen Dowd making Barack Obama into — wait for it — a woman.

It’s the same old, same old from the usual suspects. Democrats are either too soft are too hard, as was their judgment of Hillary. But we all know what would happen if Pres. Obama showed his inner disgust at the stuff Republicans are pulling lately, everyone would be rising up against the “angry black man” in the White House. Showing his inner intellect now makes him either a “humanoid” or our “first female president.”

Parker hides her confusion by citing “evolutionary achievement.” Then she makes a preposterous remark about women’s alleged conformity: Women tend to be coalition builders rather than mavericks (with the occasional rogue exception). Ah yes, Sarah Palin. …and on the Democratic side? But that’s nothing compared to her chatty Cathy comparison:

Obama is a chatterbox who makes Alan Alda look like Genghis Khan.

Then Ms. Parker goes on to confuse bad political judgment and poor management of BP to “rhetorical style.” Wrong, it was just bad leadership.

One of the things that allows Parker and Dowd to get away with this drivel is that Democrats aren’t showing any strength by using their majority like Republicans would. That’s actually the foundation of all of this. It’s interesting, however, that neither Parker or Dowd makes mention of Obama’s national security hawk decisions that mimic George W. Bush. Maybe these ladies don’t follow things like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Bagram, Gitmo, international assassination programs, etc.

Dowd also weighed in:

“He doesn’t connect when he could and he waits…His mother was an anthropologist and he has that anthropologist side of just waiting and looking, which isn’t really a male or female trait, it’s a problem,” Dowd told me on “GMA.” [...] “He‘s had to develop a lot of shields. He’s come up, you know basically as Michelle says he was raised by wolves,” Dowd said. “So you know he has a lot of shields so he’s thin-skinned.

Ms. Dowd has spent a career bitching about Bill Clinton’s sexuality, not to mention Hillary’s faults as a woman. Now she turns her gaze on Obama and completely ignores that being “thin-skinned” is a trait of ego, but also a result of Barack Obama being handled by the press with kid gloves during the 2008 election season.

Kathleen and Maureen are stuck in a 1950s time warp. We can be thankful, however, that at least Ms. Dowd won’t co-host a cable show, but it gives you an idea of the nonsense we’re going to hear on CNN once Spitzer and Parker’s new show hits the screen.

Read full story · Comments { 17 }

If Thurgood Marshall Won’t Work, Go After Women

By on 30 June 2010

Republican senators have reached a new low. I didn’t think it was possible. NRO and their “elves” on the right are on the warpath. Since smearing Thurgood Marshall wasn’t enough, now they’re going after Kagan using women as a shield.

Amidst this, we learned what I believe is very good news in the smoke signals out of Kagan’s confirmation hearings. Sam Stein reported it yesterday.

“I do think that the continuing holding of Roe and Doe v. Bolton, is that women’s life and women’s health have to be protected in abortion regulation,” Kagan said. “Now, the Gonzalez case [Gonzales v Carhart (2003)] which said that with respect to a particular procedure, that the statute congress passed, which passed a statute without a health exception and with only a life exception, was appropriate because of the large degree of medical uncertainty involved.” “But with respect to abortion generally, putting that procedure aside, I think that the continuing holdings of the court are that the woman’s life and that the woman’s health must be protected in any abortion regulation,” Kagan went on.

That’s as close as you’re ever going to get, I believe, to an affirmative on upholding precedent and also women’s individual freedoms. It’s a lot more than we got from Ms. Sotomayor.

The display of the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee has been a despicable display of ignorance met by overreach and partisan indulgence. It really can’t get any worse than targeting the brilliant firebrand and 20th century Thomas Jefferson, Thurgood Marshall. It seemed to escape Senators Session, Kyl, Grassley and Kornyn that Justice Marshall successfully argued Brown vs. Board of Education. Their disrespect waving like a flaming flag. So, since they couldn’t get Kagan for clerking for Marshall, going after the great justice himself, Republicans are now hitting Kagan on a political memo she did while working Clinton, while ignoring the final memo she co-signed on behalf of Clinton’s legal team.

With the help of Fox News channel, Shannen W. Coffin, who in her NRO bio says she was the deputy assistant attorney general in charge of the defense of the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act during the Bush administration, is coming at Ms. Kagan for work she did in the Clinton administration, taking aim at a memo Kagan on abortion. It’s Coffin’s concluding paragraph that is laughable, citing Kagan’s advice to “override a scientific finding.” This coming from a Bush official, you know, the dinosaur existed with people crowd.

Miss Kagan’s decision to override a scientific finding with her own calculated distortion in order to protect access to the most despicable of abortion procedures seriously twisted the judicial process. One must question whether her nomination to the Court would have the same effect.

The other problem is that the memo Coffin cites came the year before Kagan advised, along with Bruce Reed, that Clinton endorse Daschle’s views over Feinstein’s, though “both the Feinstein and the Daschle amendments prohibit post-viability abortions generally.” In fact, Daschle’s amendment was more “stringent” than Feinstein’s, the penalties harsher, $100,000 fine vs. $10,000.

Most critically, both amendments contain a health exception, though of different kinds. The Feinstein legislation would exempt an abortion if, “in the medical judgment of the attending physician, the abortion is necessary to … avert serious adverse health consequences to the woman.” This language is essentially identical to the language you have used in calling for a health exception to the Partial Birth Act. The Daschle language is more stringent. It exempts an abortion when the physician “certifies that continuation of the pregnancy would … risk grievous
injury to [the mother's] physical health.” “Grievous injury” is then defmed as “a severely debilitating disease or impairment specifically caused by the pregnancy, or an inability to provide necessary treatment for a life-threatening condition.” [...]

… We recommend that you endorse the Daschle amendment in order to sustain your credibility on HR 1122 and prevent Congress from overriding your veto. You have spent many months calling on Congress to pass a bill that contains a sufficiently protective, but also appropriately confined, health exception — as you said in a letter to the Cardinals, illl! a health exception that “could be stretched to cover most anything,” but a health exception that “takes [, effect illlIx where a woman faces real, serious adverse health consequences." Especially given \J ACOG's endorsement of the Daschle amendment, it will be difficult for you to make the case that Daschle's language does not adequately safeguard women's health. In these circumstances, - declining to support the amendment will weaken your position and increase the chance that Congress will override your veto.

As Media Matters illustrates, not only is Fox News incorrect, but so is Ms. Coffin, while also using a memorandum that wasn't Kagan's final analysis on the subject.

Additionally, the charge Coffin is making on Kagan distorting science is actually false, with the case Coffin's making and the right is pushing actually a lie. According to the 1997 Reed-Kagan memo to Pres. Clinton, the "American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists today endorsed the Daschle amendment, stating that it "provides a meaningful ban [on post-viability abortions] while assuring women’s health is protected.”

The real issue is that Pres. Clinton, which means also his lawyers, were determined to protect women’s individual freedoms through the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments, on which Roe v. Wade was founded.

This is exactly what Pres. Obama has done in nominating Elena Kagan, for which I am extremely grateful, heartened and relieved, once her views on precedent and women’s freedoms were expressed.

That’s the right’s real rub. As I’ve written innumerable times, they believe individual freedom is just for men, and will go to any lengths to keep it that way.

UPDATE: Mahablog has more.

This essay has been updated.

Read full story · Comments { 18 }

Matt Taibbi Tees Off on Lara Logan

By on 29 June 2010

“I didn’t fire McChrystal. The White House fired McChrystal. I believe they used this opportunity to get rid of someone they weren’t happy with.” – Michael Hastings on Stephen Colbert

Michael Hastings’ Rolling Stone article continues to ricochet.

I think what Hastings said on Colbert last night is wholly believable. Crisis meets opportunity, Pres. Obama acted. It would have helped Lara Logan on Sunday to have more political insight into the situation.

When Howard Kurtz tweeted about his interview with Lara Logan on Sunday what she said was astonishing; the tweet quoting Logan as saying that Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings hadn’t served his country like McChrystal had. Hardly the point, was my response to Kurtz. Lara Logan has been an important correspondent, but her rant targeting Michael Hastings, particularly her reasoning behind it, smacks of access ass kissing.

Matt Taibbi went nuclear on her in “Lara Logan, You Suck.” Lara Logan, come on down! You’re the next guest on Hysterical Backstabbing Jealous Hackfest 2010! …and that’s just Taibbi getting started.

Anyone who wants to know why network television news hasn’t mattered since the seventies just needs to check out this appearance by Logan. Here’s CBS’s chief foreign correspondent saying out loud on TV that when the man running a war that’s killing thousands of young men and women every year steps on his own dick in front of a journalist, that journalist is supposed to eat the story so as not to embarrass the flag. And the part that really gets me is Logan bitching about how Hastings was dishonest to use human warmth and charm to build up enough of a rapport with his sources that they felt comfortable running their mouths off in front of him. According to Logan, that’s sneaky — and journalists aren’t supposed to be sneaky:

“What I find is the most telling thing about what Michael Hastings said in your interview is that he talked about his manner as pretending to build an illusion of trust and, you know, he’s laid out there what his game is… That is exactly the kind of damaging type of attitude that makes it difficult for reporters who are genuine about what they do, who don’t — I don’t go around in my personal life pretending to be one thing and then being something else. I mean, I find it egregious that anyone would do that in their professional life.”

When I first heard her say that, I thought to myself, “That has to be a joke. It’s sarcasm, right?” But then I went back and replayed the clip – no sarcasm! She meant it! [...]

Logan’s “element of trust” quotient amounts to nothing less than protecting your source from revealing his inner jackass. I can hear Ms. Logan now: Sorry, sir, you might want to rethink what you just said, you know, because if I report that you’ll get in big trouble with The Boss.

Another word for it is journalistic collusion. See Richard Wolffe or Jonathan Alter; or any number of insider traditionalist hacks who get “scoops” because they play nice with all the right people, not only Pres. Obama, making sure to protect the person’s image above all.

All reporters need access, which is true of foreign correspondents trying to report on the war, but the reason they get it is because of the audience they reach, so there is trust that runs beyond the subject being interviewed. It’s obvious that Logan thinks Hastings’ interview has made everyone more cautious, which she resents. Not to mention he got the scoop of a lifetime and she didn’t, which for anyone is a burn.

Again, the real news isn’t simply that McChrystal unloaded, but that in unloading he revealed the real status of our Afghanistan strategy.

As for Logan doing protective duty for potential sources, sending a message to them by slamming Hastings, for someone of her caliber it’s embarrassing.

Read full story · Comments { 11 }

Petraeus, Afghanistan and U.S. Nation Building

By on 29 June 2010

When Sen. McCain questioned Gen. Petraeus, he asked him if at time during the briefing if anyone in the military advised Pres. Obama to set a specific date to begin withdrawal. Petraeus said he was not aware of any. The video is below.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

At the end of the hearing, a gentleman was shouting that money is needed in Michigan not Afghanistan, with Code Pink members adding their voice as well. At one point Sen. Levin turned to say, “I live there, do you?” Then he walked out of the hearing room.

As I’ve written before, it’s not simply a war, what we’re doing in Afghanistan is nation building. Democrats are ignoring those two words like the plague. It’s just one reason The Hill is writing that the Petraeus appointment puts “some Democrats in an awkward spot.” Anyone against our efforts in Afghanistan should use them at every opportunity. The question that needs to be asked is: Should we be nation building in Afghanistan considering our challenges at home?

It’s clear from Gen. Petraeus today that rules of engagement will indeed be relaxed, which has been coming for some time, because COIN in Afghanistan has failed. Of course, you’ll hear people say it hasn’t, but Gen. McChrystal’s implosion says otherwise, his frustration boiling over at the hard slog that has delivered a setback, with seriously difficult months ahead.

This post has been updated.

Read full story · Comments { 8 }

Spy Novel Plot Under Our Noses

By on 29 June 2010

I’d like to introduce you to “Richard Murphy,” “Cynthia Murphy,” “Donald Howard Heathfield,” “Tracey Lee Ann Foley,” “Michael Zottoli,” Patricia Mills,” “Juan Lazaro,” and “Vicky Pelaez.” One alleged Canadian citizen is still at large, “Christopher R. Metsos.” They’re all on the hot seat for felony violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, and what looks like money laundering on the side. From the 37-page complaint:

9. Upon completion of their training, Russian illegal agents are generally provided with new — false — identities; and illegal’s false identity is referred to as his “legend.” The cornerstone of an illegal’s “legend” are false documents. These false documents concern, among other things, the identity and citizenship of the illegal. Through the use of these fraudulent documents, illegals assume identities as citizens or legal residents of the countries to which they are deployed, including the United States. Illegals will sometimes pursue degrees in target-country universities, obtain employment, and join relevant professional associations; these activities deepen an illegal’s “legend.” Illegals often operate in pairts — being placed together by Moscow Center while in Russia, so that they can live together and work together in a host country, under the guise of a married couple. Illegals who are placed together and co-habit in the country to which they are assigned will often have children together; this further deepens an illegal’s “legend.”

10. The FBI’s investigation has revealed that a network of illegals (the “Illegals”) is now living and operating in the United States in the service of one primary, long-term goal: to become sufficiently “Americanized”such that they can gather information about the United States for Russia, and can successfully recruit sources who are in, or are able to infiltrate, United States policy-making circles.

…and on it goes.

I’m reminded of A.G. John Ashcroft, as well as Republicans in the late 1990s. If Ashcroft hadn’t been chasing hookers in New Orleans during Bush’s first months, and the Republican House during Clinton less concerned with his extramarital sex life, all of which lands on FBI Director Louis Freeh’s doorstep, something Secret Service Director Lew Merletti, head of the detail over Clinton, acknowledges in Ken Gormley’s “Death of American Virtue,” who knows what may have been uncovered before 9/11.  Priorities matter.  But I digress…

Espionage, it’s something out of the Cold War era. Nice-looking, ordinary couple living in Cambridge, and as Jeff Stein writes in Spy Talk, “Perfect location, too: ground zero of the area’s academic-industrial-scientific-government complex.”

The desire for other nations to know what we’re doing in areas of foreign policy remains. From the New York Times, the story having broke late yesterday:

… An F.B.I. investigation that began at least seven years ago culminated with the arrest on Sunday of 10 people in Yonkers, Boston and northern Virginia. The documents detailed what the authorities called the “Illegals Program,” an ambitious, long-term effort by the S.V.R., the successor to the Soviet K.G.B., to plant Russian spies in the United States to gather information and recruit more agents.

The alleged agents were directed to gather information on nuclear weapons, American policy toward Iran, C.I.A. leadership, Congressional politics and many other topics, prosecutors say. The Russian spies made contact with a former high-ranking American national security official and a nuclear weapons researcher, among others. But the charges did not include espionage, and it was unclear what secrets the suspected spy ring — which included five couples — actually managed to collect. [...]

One of the alleged Russian spies on Linked-in, Don Healthfield (via Jeff Stein), was doing very well and getting exemplary ratings from people with whom he worked. But take a look at all of the associations on his Linked-in page. They guy was taking his “legend” to the max. And don’t you just love the look on his face?

It’s obvious that America agreed with the spies.

Point to Mother Russia on resuscitating cold war ingenuity, but if you’re keeping score, we got you.

Read full story · Comments { 10 }

Bill Clinton on Gulf Catastrophe: ‘Blow Up the Well’

By on 28 June 2010

“… Unless we send the Navy down deep, to blow up the well, and cover the leak with piles and piles and piles of rock and debris, which may become necessary. You don’t have to use a nuclear weapon by the way, I’ve seen all that stuff, just blow it up. Unless we’re going to that, we are dependent on the technical expertise of these people from BP. … “ – Pres. Bill Clinton

Obama’s getting a bum wrap, says former Pres. Bill Clinton. Then he goes on to talk about the empathy perception, but also the reality that with people unhappy with their own lives they’re not crazy about Pres. Obama, which happens to all presidents.

Pres. Clinton also becomes another voice to the blow the well up contingent, of which I became one weeks ago, when Matthew Simmons suggested it on Dylan Ratigan’s show.

Read full story · Comments { 79 }

Mean Monday: Ivy League Supreme Court Amidst Krugman’s Dire Warning

By on 28 June 2010

“It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense. And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.” – Paul Krugman



more at Huffington Post

Justice Stevens retires today. At the same time the Supreme Court has upheld the Second Amendment against a Chicago suburb to limit handgun rights (the correct decision, I believe), though the Court is getting close to having enough votes to limit gun rights in some cases, according to many constitutional experts.

As Kagan steps up, it’s a good time to ask what does the current Supreme Court know about the average life of an American who just lost his or her unemployment benefits, with no job on the horizon? The answer is absolutely nothing. But on we trudge to an elitist court with nominees who prop up the status quo.

Frankly, I know Ms. Kagan is qualified and has done the track expected. She’s a woman, which is needed on the court, but I find the hearings uninspiring, this choice predictable for an insider Democratic president, who might have been a community organizer once, but is simply forwarding the usual status quo, elitist pick that all presidents prefer.

That Republicans are looking for a way to attack Kagan is just as bad, their hypocrisy legendary when it comes to whining about someone who is a solid mind and as insider as they pretend they’re not.

The whole thing is a pathetic charade. We’ll learn nothing, except which senator grandstands the most. Any debate long since substituted for partisanship, because the Senate doesn’t think anymore.

Segue to Elena Kagan:

“Mr. Chairman, the law school I had the good fortune to lead has a kind of motto, spoken each year at graduation. We tell the new graduates that they are ready to enter a profession devoted to “those wise restraints that make us free.” That phrase has always captured for me the way law, and the rule of law, matters. What the rule of law does is nothing less than to secure for each of us what our Constitution calls “the blessings of liberty” – those rights and freedoms, that promise of equality, that have defined this nation since its founding. And what the Supreme Court does is to safeguard the rule of law, through a commitment to even-handedness, principle, and restraint.

[...] “The idea is engraved on the very face of the Supreme Court building: Equal Justice Under Law. It means that everyone who comes before the Court – regardless of wealth or power or station – receives the same process and the same protections. What this commands of judges is even-handedness and impartiality. What it promises is nothing less than a fair shake for every American.

[...] “[T]he Supreme Court is a wondrous institution. But the time I spent in the other branches of government remind me that it must also be a modest one – properly deferential to the decisions of the American people and their elected representatives. What I most took away from those experiences was simple admiration for the democratic process. That process is often messy and frustrating, but the people of this country have great wisdom, and their representatives work hard to protect their interests. The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. But the Court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people.”

[...] “I’ve led a school whose faculty and students examine and discuss and debate every aspect of our law and legal system. And what I’ve learned most is that no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. I’ve learned that we make progress by listening to each other, across every apparent political or ideological divide. I’ve learned that we come closest to getting things right when we approach every person and every issue with an open mind. And I’ve learned the value of a habit that Justice Stevens wrote about more than fifty years ago – of ‘understanding before disagreeing.’

[...] I will make no pledges this week other than this one – that if confirmed, I will remember and abide by all these lessons. I will listen hard, to every party before the Court and to each of my colleagues. I will work hard. And I will do my best to consider every case impartially, modestly, with commitment to principle, and in accordance with law.”

There isn’t anyone in charge who understands the plight of the American people. Democrats don’t make Republicans actually filibuster, so needed funds won’t get to the desperate. The long hot summer is turning meaner by the minute as the hurricane season revs up.

This post has been updated.

Read full story · Comments { 10 }

Sen. Robert Byrd: From KKK to Voting for Obama

By on 28 June 2010

“The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice. “There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The twin towers fell because a world-wide terrorist group, Al Qaeda, with cells in over 60 nations, struck at our wealth and our influence by turning our own planes into missiles.” – Sen. Robert Byrd

The picture that will never leave my mind is Sen. Byrd railing at his Senate colleagues, because on the eve of the Iraq war no one was in the Senate chamber. That image of a lonely Sen. Byrd said it all at the time. Too many Democrats caved to cowardice to give George W. Bush leverage he didn’t deserve without a declaration of war. Byrd understood this. It was Sen. Byrd was the only one who warned Pres. Obama of his own Executive Branch power grabs, something that mimicked the Bush-Cheney era.

Sen. Byrd was the longest serving member of Congress. There is no one who knew the Senate more deeply or who loved it more.

One of the first people Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to win over when she became New York’s junior senator was the Dean of the Senate, Robert Byrd. When it came time for her to run for president, it wasn’t hard to understand why Sen. Byrd endorsed Barack Obama.

As a young man Byrd was the “exalted cyclops” of the Ku Klux Klan. He was a separatist who filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but in 2008 voted for Barack Obama. Byrd apologized for his Klan past many times, but the right will never let him forget it, though it was clear at the end of his life Sen. Byrd had come farther on the issue than the Republican Party and their cousins in the Tea Party.

Robert Byrd made bad decisions when he was young, but this was in the mid-20th century. No one can make excuses for Rand Paul, who obviously has issues himself on race at the beginning of the 21st century. There is a difference, but today on the right that’s not what you’ll hear.

Sen. Byrd’s memoir, “Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency,” is the story of George W. Bush, a man who Byrd clearly thought trampled the constitution. He had help. On this day we lose Sen. Byrd, a side note is saved for the man who helped Bush do what he did, Dick Cheney, who has battled coronary disease for a very long time and over the past few days was admitted to the hospital. Mark Knoller tweeted this yesterday about Cheney: A medical source tells CBS News that Mr Cheney is responding to I.V. treatment but his cardiac status is “tenuous.” Sen. Byrd’s contempt for the Bush-Cheney administration was palpable every time he talked about their reckless leadership. It’s a sad fact that Pres. Obama has decided to follow them in many areas, adding to that awful legacy.

Via Nate Silver, here are the vacancy laws in West Virginia.

I can still see Sen. Robert Byrd waving a small American flag as Sen. Teddy Kennedy’s hearse drove through Washington on its way to Arlington National Cemetery. The giants of the Senate have left the building a lesser chamber.

Our political parties have reduced the Senate and the House to a tiny shadow of what the founders intended. With Sen. Byrd’s passing there is no one to remind us of the Senate’s grandeur and importance, or the stature of what a senator should be, which goes beyond a rubber stamp for the Executive Branch or any political party when it is doing work the people don’t want. We are in an age of the small.

Read full story · Comments { 10 }

Hard Truths About Afghanistan

By on 27 June 2010

“I think we put all our eggs in the Petraeus basket at this stage.” – Sen. Diane Feinstein (on Fox News Sunday)

Fire the ambassador!

Fire Richard Holbrooke!

That was Sen. Feinstein, saying that if there’s a problem and Gen. Petraeus can’t work with certain elements of the civilian leadership they should be “changed.”

Now, that may be so considering where we now find ourselves in Afghanistan, but it further illustrates the dire straights of our strategy. Never mind that Feinstein’s quote at the top was what Pres. Obama and the administration was hoping to hear. In fact, it’s what they’re counting on from the political establishment on both sides.


Play while reading.

As someone who’s supported Pres. Obama since the beginning on Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal made it clear that we’re floundering our way to a very bad end. Sebastian Junger spoke for me today, especially on ethnic minorities, but also regarding the women of Afghanistan, with Tom Ricks, Gen. McCaffrey and others today on “Meet the Press,” the entire conversation important. Possibilities for short-term progress in Afghanistan, though I never bought the notion of “winning,” now lie in the rubble of McChrystal’s career. Not because he was the only man who could “succeed,” but because through COIN, and because the Afghan country and culture itself, there is no way to impact the progress needed in the time the American people will allot for the mission. Simply put, this is a 15-year effort, with Obama in year two; because you can’t count the Bush-Cheney years after 2003, which is when it all began to unravel, as did any hope of salvaging the country on our terms, though you could argue that was none of our business from the beginning. It’s simply up to the Afghans, with whatever we can do now never going to amount to what was once possible.

It’s the real reason why Gen. McChrystal’s stunning Rolling Stone interview was so explosive. Beyond the insubordination and the atmosphere MsChrystal allowed to rise around him from his staff, there is simply no way a military man as seasoned, gifted and tested as he was would have vented if the situation over which he had command wasn’t in horrible shape, in fact, deteriorating uncontrollably.

Fast track nation building through COIN is an abysmal failure; nation building being the primary event underway. If you don’t take anything away from McChrystal’s implosion that much should be clear. I’ve never bought the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan canard, because they’re in Pakistan, with Leon Panetta reiterating the reality today on “This Week.” Being part of the Vietnam generation, I also have always believed the Taliban will just wait us out, so the fact that Karzai will eventually bring even the worst aspects of this fundamentalist force into his government has to be reconciled. We’ll simply never stay long enough to tilt the culture away from the Taliban. The “Runaway General” article pointed to the fact that Biden’s CT-plus is evidently enjoying wider acceptance (mentioned before). The mounting casualties are part of why COIN is not succeeding, but also points to the general strategy (no pun intended) not working.

It gets back to the old saying that you don’t teach an old dog new tricks, which isn’t exactly true, because given enough time you can make headway. Correlated to the U.S. military deployed in Afghanistan and implementing COIN strategy, the challenge is that Afghanistan is one of the most unruly, unsophisticated and untamed areas in the world, with corruption rampant and drug trafficking prolific, while being rich in all sorts of exploitable resources. Simply put, we’re asking our military to fight warlords and insurgents with one hand tied behind their backs; putting civilian casualties above their own safety, though I’m not saying COIN is failing because we’re not killing enough people.

From Michael Cohen at Democracy Arsenal:

We should go out of our way to protect civilians in Afghanistan, but if in doing so it undermines the war effort there or leads to likely failure then we shouldn’t take the gloves off – we should adopt a new strategy that takes into account the actual capabilities of our armed forces. The question at hand is whether US troops are properly trained, equipped, resources and supported to carry out a COIN mission in Afghanistan. If their experience over the past six months is any indication – it appears they aren’t.

Cohen’s the national security expert, I just meet him on the foreign policy meets the political landscape, but I think he misses something here, though his analysis is always terrific. The truth is that COIN is failing because, as McChrystal revealed, the military, diplomatic and civilian components, which in Afghanistan reveal a cultural and reality chasm miles wide, prohibits the intersection of critical aspects of COIN in order to make it successful, particularly given the time frame strictures. Afghanistan and America are miles apart in every respect.

Many aren’t getting this. There is a very odd article in the Washington Post today that brings up interesting points while proving my point. It seems everyone is puzzled and alarmed about the turnover in high command. The writer of the piece, Greg Jaffe asks this question: For the military, this record of mediocrity raises a vexing question: What is wrong with the system that produces top generals? The setting for the question is the Afghan and Iraq wars.

Well, how about that these two wars and the missions in each were wrong in the first place? Civilian diplomatic missions are also confusing when you’re armed to the teeth and told to walk softly; you don’t carry a gun in dangerous territory without being ready to fire if challenged. (If someone comes into my home unannounced, I’m not going to ask any questions or pause for explanation.) In war that means offense; so perhaps war means war and fighting men shouldn’t be asked to do missions that are loosely defined and merge military force with diplomacy in a land where Afghans have relatives who are Taliban. Afghanistan was a righteous war after 9/11, but once Bush took his eye off the target to focus on Iraq, at the same time as Gen. Tommy Franks let Osama bin Laden escape at Tora Bora, anything we might have accomplished slipped through our fingers. Iraq was quite simply the largest misadventure in U.S. history.

As for where we stand today, just days before Gen. Petraeus’ confirmation hearing the facts are stark. Maybe what we’re trying would have worked before Bush-Cheney walked away and let Afghanistan unravel. But the simple truth I’ve come to after supporting Pres. Obama’s efforts from the start is that it can’t work as currently prescribed, which is another reason for the choice of Gen. Petraeus. It’s nakedly obvious. Still, when I look out on July 2011 as a drawdown target, with McChrystal’s revelations and the failure of COIN in Afghanistan clear, nobody has proven the longer timetable required is worth more U.S. blood and treasure.

We can thank Gen. McChrystal, not only for his service to our country, but for his rant in Rolling Stone for finally stripping the bark off the battle. We learned a very important thing about what we’re doing in Afghanistan through his career-ending candor.

It’s over. …unless we commit for a 15 years, which we won’t, because there isn’t the political or civilian will. But as Tom Ricks rightly said today, just because you walk out of a movie doesn’t mean it’s over.

Read full story · Comments { 11 }

Josh Marshall ‘Not Sure He Had It In Him’

By on 27 June 2010

Feh.

Now he tells us.

Who can forget Josh Marshall during the primaries where Hillary was concerned? Remember this? His “Obama blog” became notorious for singing every song for Barack Obama. Hey, everyone can have a favorite; I sure did. You just don’t expect someone to show such rank malpractice and loose-lipped blathering at a point of high drama for their chosen one.

On Wednesday, in a post entitled “Heckuva Time To Be Out”, Josh Marshall stated flatly that he wasn’t sure if Obama had it in him to fire Gen. McChrystal. No, I’m not kidding:

I was out for most of the last three hours. So I only caught the breaking news today in pings on my iPhone. My initial sense is, honestly, I wasn’t sure he had it in him. And the, I think, inspired decision (politically clever and on policy and operational grounds too) to replace McChrystal with Petraeus hadn’t occurred to me at all. More soon.

Although I disagree with Pres. Obama’s handling of many things, including health care, but especially his management of the aftermath of the BP blowout. If I didn’t think Obama had it in him to uphold the Constitution and perform serious commander in chief duties, I never in a million years would have voted for him, let alone written that he and Biden were worthy of your vote.

This important point escaped Marshall this past week.

Going further, I never at any time leading up to McChrystal’s sacking ever intimated that I believed Obama didn’t have it in him, quite the contrary. In fact, when it happened I believed it was the finest moment in his presidency so far.

Well, Marshall’s “I wasn’t sure he had it in him” post must have thrown his readers for a loop, because later the same day he started scrambling:

Earlier today I said in a couple posts that I wasn’t sure if President Obama had it in him to fire Gen. McChrystal. And then I wrote at the end of my afternoon post …

And yet, as I said a few moments ago, I’m not sure I thought he had it in him. But he did. I’ve learned something.

A number of you have written in to ask what the hell I was saying or what I meant. So I thought I’d expand briefly on what I said. …

The post continues (emphasis Marshall’s):

“First, and maybe this goes without saying, but I’m not sure I meant anything.”

Huh?

He continues…

So when I woke up this morning I still couldn’t quite see how President Obama could not fire McChrystal. But I also couldn’t quite imagine him doing it.

The rest of his backtracking, non-analytic stumbling is even worse. But at least he’s responsive to what his readers expect.

I can only imagine what would have happened had I given “I wasn’t sure if President Obama had it in him to fire Gen. McChrystal” analysis after Pres. Obama sacked him and appointed Petraeus. Let alone “I still couldn’t quite see how President Obama could not fire McChrystal. But I also couldn’t quite imagine him doing it.” The squeals would have shattered computer screens, and dozens of possible entries to my hate mail page would have slammed my email inbox. That’s not to mention all the caterwauling I’d have heard from the Obama “you’re still holding a grudge” ensemble.

Choir, know your conductor.

Read full story · Comments { 26 }

Sunday News Round-Up

By on 27 June 2010

Snowy Plover nest endangered by the oil spill

Good morning!


Factoid: On this day in history, June 27, 2010, In 1844 Mormon leader Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois.

Link round-up:

~Here’s the Sunday talk show lineup (H/T Firedoglake). Liz Cheney will naturally be spouting her infinite wisdom on Fox News as she seems to have a permanent home there.

~As everyone knows by now, the U.S. soccer team lost to Ghana yesterday. Bummer.

~One of the complaints of soldiers serving in Afghanistan is that the rules of engagement limit their ability to fight the Taliban and to defend themselves adequately. As it turns out, many soldiers and their families were not pleased with Gen. McChrystal’s view of the rules as applied to the COIN strategy and thus Gen. Patraeus will be reviewing them and perhaps, modifying them.

~Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown is now threatening to withhold support for the financial reform legislation and thus the Democrats may not be in the clear yet. It’s interesting that now that a Democrat is in office the Republicans won’t allow anything to pass unless there is a super-majority. To say the filibuster is being abused is an understatement. I seem to remember the Republicans crying foul every time it was used against them. Reaction to the financial reform package is mixed, with some saying that the Big Banks got off easy.

~Everybody is keeping an eye on Tropical Storm Alex in the hopes that it won’t disrupt the oil clean-up efforts.

~Speaking of the BP oil spill, McClatchy has a depressing story about the botched oil-landfall prevention efforts taking place in Mississippi- the oil was containable but according to people on the ground, no one is in charge and all the boats that were sent to skim the oil are all just floating around not doing much of anything.

~In a telling comment, NYT reporter Deborah Solomon refers to the era of Zionist terrorism as “romantic” during an interview with Israeli opposition leader (of Kadima) Tzipi Livni. Some have pointed to the interview as evidence of a double-standard with respect to what is, and isn’t, considered terrorism.

~President Obama, in a move that will further anger unions, promised at the G8 yesterday to push for Congressional ratification of a long-stalled free-trade agreement with South Korea.

~An interesting commentary in the Washington Post about how the endless war in Afghanistan has helped create an environment conducive to the arrogance displayed by McChrystal and his staff.

~The Obama administration has decided against prosecuting the private security (mercenary) firm Blackwater for its [alleged] violations of federal law, specifically sanctions violations, illegal exports and bribery as it attempted to obtain lucrative contracts in Sudan and other countries. The reason Obama is letting them off the hook? Because had Blackwater been found guilty, they would be barred from any further federal contracts and given they pretty much prop up our military missions in Afghanistan, Iraq (and allegedly Pakistan and possibly other countries where we are engaging in covert black ops), the administration doesn’t want to even attempt to hold them accountable.

~House Democrats are considering putting forth standalone jobs bill after Republicans in the Senate killed the jobs legislation last week.

Read full story · Comments { 18 }

Mass Die Off in Gulf

By on 25 June 2010

Gov. Bobby Jindal’s message has been loud and clear, using language such as “We will only be winning this war when we’re actually deploying every resource,” “They (the federal government) can provide more resources” and “It’s clear the resources needed to protect our coast are still not here.” But nearly two months after the governor requested – and the Department of Defense approved the use of 6,000 Louisiana National Guard troops – only a fraction – 1,053 – have actually been deployed by Jindal to fight the spill. – Gulf Coast Governors Leaving National Guard Idle – Thousands of Troops Called Up to Fight Oil Spill Haven’t Been Deployed

Al Gore tweeted the headline I used above. The story from MSNBC reveals the grim Gulf Coast reality that could lead to a mass die off.

Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again.

Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange — and troubling — phenomena.

Fish and other wildlife are fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast. But that is not the hopeful sign it might appear to be, researchers say.

The animals’ presence close to shore means their usual habitat is badly polluted, and the crowding could result in mass die-offs as fish run out of oxygen. Also, the animals could easily get devoured by predators. [...]

Greenpeace marine biologist John Hocevar says the impact of the BP blowout is just beginning. The news in the months ahead is only going to get worse where the ecosystem and the animals, birds and other wildlife are concerned.

Read full story · Comments { 16 }

Drudge Wins, David Weigel Resigns

By on 25 June 2010

I began Journolist in February of 2007. It was an idea born from disagreement. Weeks, or maybe months, earlier, I had criticized Time’s Joe Klein over some comments he made about the Iraq War. He e-mailed a long and searching reply, and the subsequent conversation was educational for us both. Taking the conversation out of the public eye made us less defensive, less interested in scoring points. I learned about his position, and why he held it, in ways that I wouldn’t have if our argument had remained in front of an audience. [...] – On Journolist, and Dave Weigel

I don’t know what posseses people to trust listservs, automatically assuming you’re safe. They can be dangerous to your career if you don’t understand that all emails are public on them. There are always leaks, which in this case caused Weigel his job. From MediaBistro, which broke the story:

FishbowlDC has confirmed that WaPo conservative-beat blogger Dave Weigel has resigned after a slew of his anti-conservative comments and emails surfaced on FishbowlDC and Daily Caller over the past two days.

A spokesperson for the Post said the paper will not offer additional comments but confirmed that the writer’s resignation was accepted.

Politico has more.

Weigel’s words:

•”This would be a vastly better world to live in if Matt Drudge decided to handle his emotional problems more responsibly, and set himself on fire.”

•”Follow-up to one hell of a day: Apparently, the Washington Examiner thought it would be fun to write up an item about my dancing at the wedding of Megan McArdle and Peter Suderman. Said item included the name and job of my girlfriend, who was not even there — nor in DC at all.”

•”I’d politely encourage everyone to think twice about rewarding the Examiner with any traffic or links for a while. I know the temptation is high to follow up hot hot Byron York scoops, but please resist it.”

•”It’s all very amusing to me. Two hundred screaming Ron Paul fanatics couldn’t get their man into the Fox News New Hampshire GOP debate, but Fox News is pumping around the clock to get Paultard Tea Party people on TV.”

I’ve gone after Weigel on his faulty Rand Paul analysis several times. Tough lesson learned the hard way.

This post has been updated.

Read full story · Comments { 8 }

Inside the Tea Party

By on 25 June 2010

Max Blumenthal goes inside the Tea Party from Ram Bam on Vimeo.

Read full story · Comments { 28 }

Republicans Stiff Unemployed

By on 24 June 2010

Senate Democrats on Thursday failed for a third time to advance legislation to extend unemployment benefits through November. In a 57-41 vote, the Senate failed to end debate on the legislation. – The Hill

The Tea Party has Republicans by their inner deficit hawk. Because they sure didn’t have any problems with adding to the deficit under George W. Bush, when not even the war funding was in the budget.

I doubt they can explain the next step for the unemployed. Food stamps? Welfare? …and from where does that money appear? Thin air?

Will Republicans say no to the states, too? What will they do?

Republicans have no solutions. All they can say is no.

Read full story · Comments { 40 }

Al Gore’s Paula Jones

By on 24 June 2010

Drudge is hoping for a comeback to his glory days, giving the Gore story the Clinton treatment.

After the Edwards scandal and the media spiking the story for years, The Oregonian at least printed some details, including the fact that the case wasn’t investigated because there wasn’t sufficient evidence. It’s been picked up by the AP, Washington Post, and every right-wing blog you can name.

The details of the case coming so close after the Gores’ separation provide lots of fodder. Former Vice President Al Gore’s office didn’t respond to my query for further comment, with Kalee Kreider having given this statement to the
Oregonian, which is where they’re leaving it: “Not only has there not been a settlement, we haven’t been approached about one nor can we imagine any basis for one.”

John Powerline asks a stupefying question: I know the “imagine if it were a Republican” theme gets tedious, but still: is it conceivable that if there were a police report accusing Dick Cheney of a sexual assault, it would not be the occasion for the biggest media frenzy of recent years? If this happened and if a “media frenzy” resulted it would be because the very event of a “sexual assault” would likely kill the man.

Not even the National Enquirer, who broke the story, seems to be taking this as seriously as they did the never ending John Edwards scandal. The documents that detail the alleged event are hilarious, though I fully realize that if this were true there would be nothing funny about it. I just find the entire storyline the stuff of romance novels, complete with repetitive plot line we’ve seen before.

[...] She also detailed why she didn’t flee, claiming she was fearful she might be shot or tasered by the retired politician’s security detail.

However, when Detective Cheryl Daul of Portland Police, quizzed the masseuse further, she later admitted she saw no security in or near the hotel suite; a contradiction that she apparently did not grasp.

After first being rebuffed, Gore tried another tactic, according to the woman, “pleading for the release of his second chakra ” — a euphemism for sexual activity, she claimed. [...]

… The woman alleged Gore tried to take off her top and then told her to come into the bedroom and listen to his iPod, a song by Pink “about the current president, Bush, that would shock me,” she told police.

Gore then played “Dear Mr. President” and according to the police documents, that was the trigger for things to get rougher.

But Mr. Gore has finally got his Paul Jones, with a splash of Lewinski added in for drama. Gore’s accuser calls him “a crazed sex poodle.” Oh, it gets better:

After fleeing Gore’s suite, the woman returned home to discover, a la Lewinsky, “stains on the front of my black slacks.” Suspecting that the stains were Gore bodily fluids, the woman made sure not to clean them. “I carefully hung them up and decided to be sure not to launder them until I knew more what to do with what had happened. Just my intuition.” While the masseuse hired a civil attorney, “I was not interested in making any money from this case,” she told cops. “I did not want to be labeled a gold digger like the women in this situation are often labeled.” The woman recently eased off this principled stand when she offered to sell her story to the National Enquirer for $1 million.

I mean, really.

The D.A. closed the case for lack of evidence:

Law enforcement authorities in Portland, Oregon said Wednesday they had investigated complaints by a 54-year-old masseuse that she was “subjected to unwanted sexual touching” by former Vice President Al Gore in 2006, but that the case was closed for insufficient evidence.

“Insufficient evidence” is why she’s taking her case to the media.

Statute of limitations for this drama, which would be considered a “third-degree sex abuse” charge, runs out in 2013. The alleged victim has not filed a civil suit.

Maybe some new Republican “elves”* will surface to help Al’s accuser out.

*“Elves” – Coined by Michael Isikoff, it once referred to right-wing lawyers, two of whom were Richard Pryor and Jerome Marcus, with the Federalist Society their common political bond, who provided anonymous and pro bono legal help to Paul Jones on the condition that they not be identified. Anne Coulter would later surface among the Jones’ “elves,” too. In fact, the “elves” reached out to Ken Starr before he was independent counsel. Some of his friends included the Independent Women’s Forum, which reportedly had respected conservative “luminaries,” to use Ken Gormley’s words. Ken Starr not only advised Jones’ attorneys, but filed a “friend of the court” brief on behalf of Jones before he got the job he coveted running the OIC. See Salon.com for more.

Read full story · Comments { 10 }

So, You Want Out of Afghanistan?

By on 24 June 2010

…But in turning to the nation’s most prominent general, Obama has embraced a commander who may become a formidable advocate for slowing, or arresting outright, the pace of troop reductions next summer. [...] – Petraeus could provide calming influence after leadership change

Pres. Obama and the administration have succeeded in squeezing the left and the right on Afghanistan, with the vice grip tighter with the pick of Gen. Petraeus to replace McChrystal. Perhaps having Petraeus as a buffer is exactly what Obama and his national security team have in mind. According to the Times, Biden, Gen. James L. Jones, Adm. Mike Mullen, and Rahm Emanuel, who knows triangulation better than anyone in the Administration because of his Clinton years, were the most influential. Obama’s Afghanistan strategy is pure Clintonian. It has put the anti-Afghanistan war left in a box of their own making.

I’ve supported Pres. Obama’s Afghanistan strategy from the start, simply because we had to repair the damage done by the neglect of Bush-Cheney, but also because of the lift it gave women, without whom Afghanistan will never be stable. However, I’m now in a wait and see mode after McChrystal’s implosion. Along with the grim casualty reminders, which were predicted with COIN, McChrystal airing his frustrations publicly reveals a sort of pain that his strategy isn’t working. Nothing could be more obvious.

For 16 months I’ve been writing that what we’re doing in Afghanistan is nation building. Pres. Obama and his team have avoided that framing for a good reason. The COIN component allows for it, because of the military action that is coupled with the civilian interaction component, as well as other diplomatic features built in to COIN. As casualties rise, which was predicted through the COIN strategy, with little progress and the “surge” delayed, it’s clear that the U.S. and NATO allies are risking far too much for little results.

However, both the anti-Afghanistan left and right have blown it by being seduced by Pres. Obama’s “war in Afghanistan against al Qaeda/Taliban” talking point. The general American public understands this framing because of 9/11; we are also a country that doesn’t like the notion that we’ve lost a campaign, so any withdrawal or campaign against the “Afghanistan war” drives into the Administration’s framing that we must “win the war.”

But are we winning at nation building? That’s the question no one is asking, because Obama has succeeded in convincing people that’s not what we’re doing when it is.

As long as it’s framed as the “war in Afghanistan,” the right will be with Obama. However, if the right, including people like Sen. McCain was pressed on the nation building component by someone who knew the facts and wasn’t timid, he’d be in quite a fix with his Tea Party opponents.

What it would also do is get the debate where it belongs.

Anyone against the Afghanistan war, especially those openly campaigning against it, should be utilizing any variation on this theme: Why are we nation building in Afghanistan when we should be nation building at home? You could replace “at home” with “the Gulf Coast,” “by creating green jobs to get us off of oil,” the list is endless. I’m sure you have your own ideas on that theme.

Instead, the anti-Afghanistan left (and right, for that matter) is focused on the question: Can we win the war? It was shouted at Obama after his Rose Garden address yesterday and picked up by several, including Rachel Maddow. It’s the exact question Pres. Obama wants asked, because it accepts the framing that what we’re doing is a classic war situation.

For the left, nation building has always been important. However, Democrats have a history of what can happen when interventionism goes off the wheels, so they’ve been wary on this one. The problem is they’re fighting a Democratic president whose more right than left on issues of national security, though his supporters got sucked in by his anti Iraq war speech. If this weren’t true he would never have kept SecDef Gates or appointed Hillary Rodham Clinton to State. The gap between candidate Obama and Pres. Obama’s actions is what is weighing down his support.

For the right these two words, nation building, have been the battle cry against Democratic foreign policy strategy for decades. If Republicans were truly conservatives they’d pick it up and run on it in 2010 and beyond. But since they’ve been co-opted by neoconservatism they won’t. Even the Tea Party queen, Sarah Palin, has been snookered by Randy Shoeneman, with her foreign policy “strategy” anything but conservative.

Pres. Obama’s pick of Gen. Petraeus was brilliantly inspired because it keeps the framing where he wants it on “winning the war in Afghanistan,” ignoring that as we try to drive out the Taliban, who will be there long after we’re gone, what we’re actually doing is nation building.

How the American people and voters would react to Pres. Obama doing nation building in Afghanistan versus “a war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban” remains to be seen. Given our economic challenges and the money being spent in Afghanistan for such little payback, the anti-Afghanistan left should try to find out.

Read full story · Comments { 14 }

TM.com Readers Agree with Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll

By on 24 June 2010

Americans are more pessimistic about the state of the country and less confident in President Barack Obama’s leadership than at any point since Mr. Obama entered the White House, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. – Confidence Waning in Obama, U.S. Outlook

Perhaps the sacking of Gen. McChrystal and the brilliant stroke of putting Gen. Petraeus in his place will make a dent in the new numbers revealed by the new WSJ/NBC poll. I’m not sure, because when Afghanistan is explained further I’m not sure people will buy why we’re still there. However, for right now, what I’ve written about the BP blowout and Obama’s management of the crisis, particularly on containment, has come true. The crude has dragged him down.

Independents have bolted, Hispanics and women, too, with African Americans remaining his only solid support. If you’ve been reading the site for the last year you have followed the storyline, because everything I have written is proof why Obama’s numbers have finally skidded. People were just waiting for a tipping point and his public management of the BP blowout was it.

In politics, if you’re explaining, you’re losing. Recently, when the White House was defending Obama against charges that Pres. Obama going golfing this past weekend equated to Tony Hayward on a yacht, people saw the correlation, even though I did not. Not even the fact that Obama and Biden were golfing on Father’s Day weekend made a difference. Most people sending me emails thought Obama golfing was insensitive. The issue did give Republicans a chance to change the subject. Strike back after Joe Barton’s BP apology blunder.

Now, as I expected, because oil experts warned of this happening, BP has suffered another setback in containing the oil, because the flow has increased due to troubles at the well head. To find out that BP is being allowed to drill in Alaska on a well that is considered risky, well, it’s insane. Interior Sect. Ken Salazar should have been fired long ago.

But about three miles off the coast of Alaska, BP is moving ahead with a controversial and potentially record-setting project to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters.

I sent out my summer newsletter this week talking about the comparison between Hayward and Obama, yachting v. golfing. This is a response on Facebook about the issue, which I included in my newsletter:

“I don’t wanna be a dick about this, but I’m sorry, the optics suck and both events reek of elitist tone-deafness. I’m not giving Obama a pass on this. There’s plenty of equivalency.” – RB

After seeing RB’s response, LS emailed in this:

Golf and tone deafness. “… the optics suck and both events reek of elitist tone-deafness….” I couldn’t agree more. – LS

Below are a few other emails I received over the day. The first from a very angry Gulf coaster:

I am sorry but I have to agree with those equating the BP Ceo going yachting with Obama playing golf..in fact I would go further ..he played golf ..walked in nature , had the NY Yankees to the White House and other athletes , and kept giving WH concerts..while we on the gulf were breathing air that was unbreahtable and exposed us to god knows what..while 300 miles away on the Gulf our air burned our eyes, throats and gave us horrible headaches, while feeling like a 10 ton elephant was sitting on our chests..when we culd get no answers from our government..none!!!!!!!!!!!! While BP took over our beaches, our air, our water, our coast guard, our national guard,.and refused help from Fla Scientists..maybe you don’t want to hold Obama accountable..but I damn sure do!! It was under Obama that BP submitted their “spill plan”…bullshot only goes so far. My back Yard is the Gulf..and I will forever hold Obama accountable for ignoring his responsibilities to we the people when we needed a damn leader the most and got nothing from him! Hope his golf game was worth all of us being exposed to horrible, toxins..and god know what! He did not protect we the people ..and that is his damn job! – Arlene

As readers know, I have held Pres. Obama accountable from the start. He and his Administration, especially Salazar, have blown the containment aspect terribly. But the deal made last week with BP was important. There is just no comparison in culpability between Tony Hayward and Pres. Obama, not in any way. I do, however, believe Obama’s energy policy mimics any regular Republican.

More are below, though some are shortened due to length.

Is there anything our president can do that won’t bring criticism??? He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. He cannot win with the wingnuts!! He’s under a lot of stress and if a few holes of golf help him relieve some of that stress on Father’s Day week-end, I say “do it”. It’s not like he’s spending a third of his presidency on vacation!! – GA

obama is in charge of protecting america period. it does not matter from what. the oil spill will wipe out the sea food industry in the gulf and affect millions of people and the fool is doing nothing to protect us from it. [...] – mrks

As far as Obama golfing – where was the howls when GWB went to Crawford to clear brush? I’m not happy with Obama right now. I’m not happy with the entire political scene. As far as I’m concerned we have a bunch of politicians who are totally incompetent and in the game for whatever it can get them. I don’t see them serving the people in anything they do. If I had my way I’d vote them all out and put in new faces. I’m sick of the whole system. Why I’m becoming an independent. – JA

Well, I think Obama golfing is kind of worse. For one thing he’s taken one damned vacation after another all spring throughout this crisis. [...] Obama needs to take control of both the cleanup and the well away from BP, and get some American oilmen in there. Americans might care a little more about getting something done and done right. I know we have some pretty smart people in the oil industry. We have scientists and we have engineers. We can’t do worse than BP has so far. – A.

Pres. Obama’s steely resolve on the McChrystal matter should help his poll numbers, but considering Afghanistan casualties are going to start rising even higher, it all depends on if news and cable focuses on the facts. Right now, however, the White House political team is stuck explaining how they let this happen.

Read full story · Comments { 60 }

2010: Conservative Women on a State House Roll

By on 23 June 2010

Even before Haley had officially become the nominee, the Republican Governors Association had all-but-endorsed her — recognizing that an Indian-American woman as their nominee was a terrific national storyline. Given Haley’s background and the primacy of South Carolina in the 2012 Republican presidential primary process, she will almost certainly become a national figure in short order. – Chris Cilizza

Our politics are not the same, including that I’m a feminist and she isn’t. However, Nikki Haley’s candidacy is exciting, because she’s an unabashed conservative that is also policy savvy. She’s certainly not Meg Whiman either, because she had to get through the primaries the old fashion way. She earned it, she didn’t buy it; though guys have been doing that for a long time, so it’s just a new thing for women.

In fact, Mrs. Haley’s win is being written up over at Commentary as “Nikki fever.”

From ABC:

Women are running to break the political glass ceiling in eight states that have never had a female governor, including California , New Mexico and Minnesota . Currently, six women — three Democrats and three Republicans — serve as governors. [...]

… What’s significant about 2010, Walsh said, is that “we are seeing more Republican women stepping up and taking the risk.” In the past, she said, female GOP candidates have been more moderate than their male counterparts. This year, a fresh brand of female conservatives is having more success in primaries.

Several of those candidates, including Haley, have been endorsed by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

“Most of these women are not just Republicans, they are conservative Republicans,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, which supports female politicians who oppose abortion rights. “This is the moment to seize because the environment is right,” she said.

Sarah Palin has got to be having more fun than she ever had as Alaska’s governor.

Read full story · Comments { 18 }