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

Tag Archives | Nancy Pelosi

It’s Getting Noisy Out There

By on 04 September 2009

A health reform bill without a robust public option will not achieve the health reform this country so desperately needs. We cannot vote for anything less. – Congressional Progressive Caucus

That noise. It keeps getting louder. And not just from the left. They’re even ranting at people in wheel chairs! I hope Pres. Obama is listening. It’s not going to get any quieter over Labor Day weekend.

“A bill without a strong public option will not pass the House. …” – Speaker Nancy Pelosi

The good news is Obama still has time to do what’s required to make health care reform mean something. That is, make the public option a central part of your speech coming up. Now, I don’t think any reform is meaningful without addressing prevention (diet, weight, exercise and other issues). But no one wants to admit lifestyle choices we make every day impact our health as much as anything. So Obama standing up for a public option is better than nothing.

However, no one is expecting that to happen right now.

The bad news is that even with a public option, no one is going to quiet the crazies at this point.

I don’t know who in the White House decided to let months go by without framing health care reform, but allowing the wingnuts to do it themselves has been very costly. Joe Klein:

I was later told by a local observer that many of these vomitous, disgraceful notions were the fruit of Glenn Beck’s fruitful imagination. “We are living Glenn Beck’s fantasy life,” said this audience member. The amazing thing remains not only the unwillingness of responsible Republicans–a term that is in danger of becoming an oxymoron–to call bull– on this, but also the willingness of many prominent Republicans to join in the slinging of garbage. Michelle Cottle reports that there are Republican-sanctioned efforts afoot to have parents not send their children to school on September 8 because the President is scheduled to address the nation’s school-children that day and they are afraid that he will fill their little heads with socialist propaganda. That is somewhere well beyond disgraceful.

The likes of Sarah Palin leading the “death panels” charge caused such a ruckus that she knocked everyone, including Obama and his White House team, so far back on their heels that not even traditional media and all the cable shows together could dispel the nonsense once the noise started coming out of the town brawls.

We all know Barack Obama is not an ideologue. That he wants to bring people together, sharing ideas and creating legislation that everyone can get behind. Laudable goals. Very 1983. But the people keeping their children at home so they won’t have to listen to the President of the United States aren’t listening.

Meanwhile, the more progressive members of Congress have now in no uncertain terms drawn a line in the sand as to the bottom line on what health care reform means.

Some of the people that helped get Obama elected have tuned out the noise and are less enamored with consensus, because they aren’t willing to sacrifice principle and good policy on the White House hill and certainly won’t “do almost anything it takes” to get a health care bill just so Pres. Obama can say he passed one.

Oh, and if Pres. Obama thinks he can save the Blue Dogs with something less than the public option as an ode or down payment to reform, that’s wishful thinking. Because as the volume continues to rise, the Blue Dogs may go from endangered species to extinct in one election cycle.

Then it really will get noisy.

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Obama to Address Joint Session of Congress Sept. 9

By on 02 September 2009

–updated below–

jointsession

The speech will be on Tuesday. ABC, then MSNBC broke the news. It’s clear that if Pres. Obama doesn’t put the full weight of his office behind moving health care forward immediately after things resume next week, it only gets harder from there.

Reuters has the story now too:

Obama’s speech, first reported by ABC News, comes after White House officials said he was preparing to lay out a new strategy to promote his goal of healthcare reform, which has spurred doubts among lawmakers and found increasing public opposition.

Haven’t received official word from White House yet.

To add… Below is the text of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid’s letter to Obama inviting him to address Congress:

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

Our nation is closer than ever to achieving health insurance reform that will lower costs, retain choice, improve quality and expand coverage. We are committed to reaching this goal.

We would like to invite you to address a Joint Session of the Congress on Wednesday, September 9, 2009 on health insurance reform.

Thank you for considering this invitation to speak to the Congress and the nation.

Sincerely,

NANCY PELOSI
Speaker of the House

HARRY REID
Majority Leader of the Senate

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Obama Throws Pelosi Under a Bus for ‘Un-american’ Rant

By on 11 August 2009

“I think there’s actually a pretty long tradition of people shouting at politicians in America,” White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One when asked about the comments. – ABC News

Well, this was predictable. After yesterday’s op-ed, where Pelosi and Hoyer went out on a very long limb calling the town hall brawl inciters “un-American,” today we get the White House sawing off the branch.

…and launching a new website to counter the crazies: Health Insurance Reform Reality Check. The New York Times instant review gives you how traditional media will frame it:

But in introducing the Web site, White House officials were tacitly acknowledging a difficult reality: they are suddenly at risk of losing control of the public debate over a signature issue for Mr. Obama and are now playing defense in a way they have not since last year’s campaign.

Predictable.

As for Obama and Pelosi-Hoyer, I used the same term the other day, labeling Eric Cantor’s rhetoric in Israel un-American, because on foreign soil he offered an opposing foreign policy to the sitting commander in chief. I stand by it and think that’s fitting, especially when you’re doing so in the Middle East, which is fraught with danger on policy. No doubt the White House would disagree, though I have no intention of making a softer statement about what Cantor did, as I know exactly what would have happened if a Dem would have done such a thing to a Rep. president.

But as much as we need to label, ostracize and shame the wingnut town hall mob crew, calling them un-American just sets up their people higher up in the conservative food chain. Peter Daou made that very argument yesterday.

You also have to expect the White House to say something like they did, with Burton’s full statement, he was clear to offer caveats on what he called “our pretty long tradition.”

Now, if you just want to come to a town hall so that you can disrupt and so that you can scream over another person, he doesn’t think that that’s productive.

Last week Robert Gibbs labeled the brawlers as “manufacturing” their outrage.

As I said earlier, labeling the town hall crazies won’t be enough. The “un-American” line simply succeeded in fueling conservatives up the political food chain, got the President involved, who felt he had to cut Pelosi and Hoyer loose.

We’ll see how the President feels after his next town hall.

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Obama Mistakes in Marketing Health Care Costly

By on 20 July 2009

“If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo,” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said yesterday during a conference call with conservative activists. “It will break him.” – Alliances Splinter

This video brought to you by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), taking advantage of Pres. Obama’s fumbling of the health care reform debate. But when someone isn’t driven by a policy passion for universal health care, what do you expect?

Putting it bluntly, if the Obama administration had embraced the progressive new media coalition (Health Care Now, SEIU, Firedoglake, OpenLeft, Digby and others) driving the universal health care debate from the start, he wouldn’t be in this mess right now.

But since Pres. Obama is so sure of himself, letting his poll numbers go to his head, someone should remind him that on an issue that has scuttled every single president who’s tried it before him, it’s embarrassing it took him this long to come to the rescue of something that a plurality of Americans want done. The progressive new media coalition knew what was coming, from our own Democratic coalition as well. Obama just now getting the message shows a president way behind the curve.

There has been a lot of stupidity on our side in making health care reform a reality, but the marketing and effort from the White House has been the absolute worst.

“The bottom line is that I think the president believes that the richest 1% of this country has had a pretty good run of it for many, many, many years.” – Robert Gibbs, White House spokesperson

Whether The Rich have had a “pretty good run of it for many, many, many years” is immaterial, especially if you’re trying to sell something that is critically important to this country, businesses and our health as a nation, but also by the way, The Rich. That Gibbs’s statement sounds like petty punishment born from envy, which is an appallingly bad reason to make the foundational plan for paying for health care reform a surtax on the wealthiest 1%, should have dawned on Gibbs immediately. It’s not that The Rich can’t afford it. Nobody is going to argue that, least of all them. It’s that if this is the best idea Obama’s got for paying for health care, as he continues to plead that reform won’t increase the deficit, it’s simply not going to sell, because there aren’t enough rich to pay for what Obama’s proposing. It’s the math, stupid.

Even Speaker Pelosi has blinked. That she did so on the very idea of what the House passed should not go unnoticed.

The bill now moving through the House would raise taxes for individuals with annual adjusted gross incomes of $280,000, or families that make $350,000 or more.

“I’d like it to go higher than it is,” Pelosi said Friday.

The speaker would like the trigger raised to $500,000 for individuals and $1 million for families, “so it’s a millionaire’s tax,” she said. “When someone hears, ‘2,’ they think, ‘Oh, I could be there,’ because they don’t know the $280,000 is for one person.

“It sounds like you’re in the neighborhood. So I just want to remove all doubt. You hear ‘$500,000 a year,’ you think, ‘My God, that’s not me.’”

This was all so predictable. Letting the fundamental necessity of health care reform get hijacked by a talking point that gives ammunition to others hoping to change the subject. Brilliant. Because the moment you get away from the urgency of health care reform you’ve lost the thread.

Steve Benen floats the idea that this was the idea all along. If so, Democrats are even dumber than I thought, which I really didn’t think was possible.

If you’re sensing annoyance here, well, that’s putting it mildly.

After the debacle of “Hillarycare,” that Pres. Obama and the Democrats have allowed “Obamacare” to sink, with the notion of universal health care now sounding like a sickness instead of the cure, makes you wonder if they actually believed that because Obama is who he is and he has a Dem majority in Congress that he wouldn’t face the traditional head winds against health care reform, just like Clinton. Bill Kristol now offering the same thing that we heard in the 1990s: “kill it, and start over.”

Now the AP is reporting that the midsummer budget numbers are being delayed until August, making last week’s “no” on health care reform cost cutting from the CBO reverberate even louder.

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Obama – Congressional – CIA War Breaks Out

By on 09 July 2009

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had “misled members” of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. “This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods,” said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers. – Democrats Say C.I.A. Deceived Congress for Years

You really have to go back to Panetta’s May 15th statement to CIA employees to understand what’s unraveling right now. It begins:

There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I’m gone.

CQ reported this week that House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Reyes wrote to Rep. Hoekstra (the Republican leader on the Committee) that the CIA indeed “affirmatively lied to” Congress during briefing sessions.

“These notifications have led me to conclude this committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to,” Reyes wrote.

The letter pictured above requests CIA Director Panetta to “publicly correct” his May 15th statement, given his subsequent June 26th letter. He has declined.

Speaker Pelosi has been in a running battle over intelligence briefings for months, with her critics believing this is all about providing her cover.

As for the Intelligence Authorization Bill, President Obama has issued his first veto warning if the bill includes an expansion of congressional participants in classified briefings that goes beyond the “Gang of Eight,” to include entire members of the intelligence committees.

The bottom line is that Panetta evidently told congressional leaders on June 26th, however obliquely and without pointing a direct finger at George Tenet or the Bush-Cheney administration, that Congress had indeed been misled. But if you read Panettas May 15th statement, that it is “not our policy or practice to mislead Congress, That is against our laws and our values…” The difference between what was done during the tenure of another director and under a different Administration, doesn’t negate CIA policy and practice, according to Panetta. He also states in that statement that leaders were “briefed truthfully” on Abu Zubaydah. This directly refutes Speaker Pelosi, but doesn’t go any further to include other briefings referenced in the June 26th letter, which Reyes and others are insisting Panetta make official.

As for briefing a larger number of congressional people on sensitive covert and national security actions, Obama is right to keep control of who is briefed and how many. I still don’t understand why a provision isn’t written in that members who are briefed can be permitted through statute to seek official legal counsel that has a further channel to find remedy, if what they’re hearing in those briefings alarms them.

The reality is that Panetta has to protect the integrity of the Agency. If he sells out, so to speak, a prior director or employees for following orders, how much trust will he have with his people?

Another reality is that Obama can’t allow sensitive national security information to be in the hands of a wide group of congressional representatives, especially in the partisan atmosphere of Capitol Hill, where not everyone is a grown up and partisan politics takes precedence.

But making clear what Bush-Cheney allowed the CIA to do with briefings to Congress, which is mislead them directly or by omission, is important and goes well beyond any cover people are saying it offers Pelosi. It sets the record straight on what we already know happened through Cheney’s bullying of Agency analysts. It’s been reported, congressional Democrats simply now want it made official.

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Around the World

By on 24 May 2009

–updated–

Starting at home, with one lone Republican thinking casting Speaker Pelosi as “Pussy Galore” is “reprehensible, irresponsible and unpersuasive.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told Politico Saturday:

“I thought it was reprehensible, irresponsible and unpersuasive. If we’re going to regain the credibility of the American people, we’re going to have to stop with silly antics like that. It may get a snide chuckle inside the Beltway, but it offends most people. We have to get away from the politics of personal destruction,” he said of the video.

Of course, some in the conservative chorus would prefer to keep the R(Rush) N(Newt) C(Cheney) Party relegated to minority status. Fine with me, but the fact they are so defensive, while attacking what I wrote yesterday (see Memeorandum today), illustrates how cluelessly tone deaf the Republican base remains, even after getting shellacked in November. What Republicans refuse to admit, even when they are dragged to admit Steele’s ad is not helping them, is that implying that any woman, but especially the first female Speaker of the House in U.S. history, be called “Pussy” is undeniably offensive in the real world. But according to right wing bloggers I’m “hyperventilating.” The most hilarious part of the attacks are their lack of analytic prowess, opining that my problem is of the nudity implied in the “Pussy Galore” imagery. Evidently, not only can’t conservatives understand the offense, but they can’t even get the attack on the messenger (me) correct. If right wing bloggers are attacking you, you’re winning.

From STARS (and Stripes): Troops prepare to counter opium-poppy harvest in Afghanistan.

Tom Ridge opines on Rush:

Pennsylvania Republican Tom Ridge is taking direct aim at Rush Limbaugh, telling CNN’s John King the conservative talk radio host can be “shrill” and uses language in a way “that offend very many.”

Maybe this is part of the “emerging” Republican Party to which Colin Powell spoke about recently. To add, that Gen. Powell has become the latest veteran to run into the conservative buzz saw, which happens with any soldier or veteran who dares to buck the Republican line.

Next to the subject of Israeli settlements. Bush-Cheney may be gone, but they’re still gumming up the works in progress:

The Obama administration is pressing the Israeli government to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas, U.S. and Israeli officials said, seeking a visible symbol of progress on peace that might inspire Arab states to consider normalizing relations with Jerusalem. The administration’s effort is being accompanied by greater willingness by U.S. lawmakers to complain publicly about settlements, but it has been complicated by an unwritten agreement on the issue between Israel and the United States reached during the Bush administration. …


Video: Mexico Jailbreak.

LA Times has a story on Al Qaeda: Al Qaeda recruits back in Europe, but why?

Onward to Pakistan, where reporting is that Pakistan has “intensified” their offensive against the Taliban.

BBC has a story on this as well.

The military says the city is surrounded, most of the militants’ ammunition dumps are destroyed and their supply routes cut off.

The BBC’s Shoaib Hassan, in Islamabad, says it is the most important battle yet in the army’s offensive against the Taliban in Swat.

A swift victory would bolster public support for a greater fight against the militants, our correspondent adds.

Long War Journal has more, with an Al Qaeda twist.


Video: Sri Lanka.

And a question, What will Obama do?

.. In the past 10 months, for example, about a half-dozen midlevel financiers and logistics experts working with Al Qaeda have been captured and are being held by intelligence services in four Middle Eastern countries after the United States provided information that led to their arrests by local security services, a former American counterterrorism official said. …

Hope everyone is enjoying the Memorial Day weekend. Fly the flag. Thank a soldier.

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RNC Tags Pelosi ‘Pussy Galore’ in Video

By on 23 May 2009

At the end it says “Democrats Galore.” Imposed with a naked woman behind the tag line. Get it? Subtle it is not. But check out the video at around :40 seconds; a split screen that says it all. “Pussy Galore” is shown with “Starring Nancy Pelosi the Speaker” over “Pussy’s” image.

But hey, it’s good to have a sense of humor about these things right? And who doesn’t love the Bond films, especially those Sean Connery classics?

The RNC, however, is not celebrating the women in these classic movies, even by 1960′s standards. Nor are they empowering women through utilizing one of the the cunning female villains who parade around in them by equating her with Speaker Pelosi. I shouldn’t have to spell it out any further, though if the RNC doesn’t have women in their leadership ranks or men who get this stuff and know bad taste when they see it, the Rush, Newt and Cheney Party (as they were aptly called on “Hardball” yesterday) is truly nothing more than a frat boy institution. No offense to fraternities meant.

That a woman, let alone Speaker of the House, should never be hinted to in any public way through the use of “Pussy” insinuations should be obvious. That this is being used by a once major political party in the 21st century is stunning.

But this is one way to skin an adversary, especially if she’s a woman. Ladies, especially Clinton supporters, have been here before.

From Politico:

Earlier this week, Pittsburgh radio host Jim Quinn referred to the speaker on his program as “this bitch”; last week, syndicated radio host Neal Boortz opined “how fun it is to watch that hag out there twisting in the wind.”

[...] But “hag”? The P-word? Really? Not only is it bad form, say Democrats and women’s advocates, it’s bad politics.

“They can’t seem to distinguish between a backroom smirk among the boys and something you put out in public,” says former Hillary Clinton senior adviser Ann Lewis of the RNC video. …

As an aside, the video shown on Garance Franke-Ruta’s post, linked to by Ben Stein, seems different from the one now up on the RNC website, which you can see here. The earlier web video “removed by user.” hmmmm… Wonder why?

If the RNC thinks this is the way to attract people to their Party they’ve evidently decided that women won’t be a respected member of their tribe.

Someone needs to tell the Republican Party it’s not 1964 anymore.

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Poll Finds Pelosi Ahead of CIA

By on 18 May 2009
Nancy Pelosi
by Paul Szep
(Welcome back, Paul!)

But not by much: 43% say it’s “somewhat likely” the CIA misled Speaker Pelosi; with 22% saying it’s “very likely.”

People are closely watching this story.

Sixty-five percent (65%) of voters say they’re following news about Pelosi and the CIA at least somewhat closely. Democrats are less interested in the story than Republicans and unaffiliateds.

The toughest statistic going forward for Pelosi is that her unfavorables are demonstrably higher than the CIA.

However, Pelosi’s clarifying statement on Friday, which is what it seems like to me, could bring with it further scrutiny, because it seems she’s attempting to walk back her “CIA misled Congress” statement, trying to turn her criticism towards the Bush Administration instead.

“We all share great respect for the dedicated men and women of the intelligence community who are deeply committed to the safety and security of the American people. My criticism of the manner in which the Bush Administration did not appropriately inform Congress is separate from my respect for those in the intelligence community who work to keep our country safe. What is important now is to be united in our commitment to ensuring the security of our country; that, and how Congress exercises its oversight responsibilities, will continue to be my focus as we move forward.”

You can’t throw the president and the CIA director under the bus and not expect a little Administration heat to come your way. Pelosi’s swipe at the CIA in her press conference last week obviously put Obama in a tough spot, but Panetta in particular had no choice but to respond, which we’ve already discussed. Though it should be noted that Panetta wasn’t challenging what Pelosi has continued to say about how she was briefed. We all know the Bush Administration stovepiped information to benefit the case they were making on Iraq. Just because it isn’t the CIA’s habit to misinform Congress doesn’t mean Cheney’s people didn’t do it.

Unfortunately, along with her clarifying statement pointing the finger away from the CIA and towards Bush-Cheney, Speaker Pelosi made a strategic mistake turning down the Sunday shows. This doesn’t help her public case at all. It’s the polar opposite of what Rep. Jane Harman did when she was accused. Harman was everywhere pushing back hard. Instead, Pelosi’s absence allowed her opponents to nail her across the dial. It’s an example of how not to handle a public relations crisis.

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Bush-Cheney, Torture and Iraq

By on 15 May 2009

The Republicans want to make sure that they don’t go down on Bush-Cheney torture, so they’ve decided to try to drag Speaker Pelosi down into it. They may have miscalculated because Pelosi is fighting back. The most extraordinary take on the fight that just boiled over comes from Dan Baltz.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s extraordinary accusation that the Bush administration lied to Congress about the use of harsh interrogation techniques dramatically raised the stakes in the growing debate over the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies even as it raised some questions about the speaker’s credibility.

… But in attempting to defend herself, Pelosi took the remarkable step of trying to shift the focus of blame to the CIA and the Bush administration, claiming that the CIA accounts represented a diversionary tactic in the real debate over the interrogation policies. That amounted to a virtual declaration of war against the CIA at a time when the Obama administration already has rattled morale at the agency with the release of Justice Department memos authorizing the harsh interrogation techniques.

Someone needs to tell me why it’s an “extraordinary accusation” that the Bush administration lied to Congress.

This is our problem and has been since the run up to the Iraq war. Many in the traditional media were, and evidently still are, willing to ignore what was done by the Bush White House on the run up to the war, which now includes the bombshell that Dick Cheney wanted people waterboarded hoping their flushed out confessions would lead to the WMDs that went missing.

As for Obama’s problems with the “rattles morale at the agency,” well, tough. We’ve got bigger problems than an unwilling President to do the job he promised, or turning the page from the cherry-picking, stove piping CIA of the Bush-Cheney years. Let them sweat.

Yesterday the Bush-Cheney torture plot thickened, advancing a horrific possibility that could change this debate forever. Did Dick Cheney push torture to try to get evidence on WMD in Iraq? After the invasion failed to lead to Saddam’s alleged stockpiles, did Dick Cheney push torture to prove they were right?

Robert Windrem has evidence that leads to the answer:

In his new book, Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq, and in an interview with The Daily Beast, Duelfer says he heard from “some in Washington at very senior levels (not in the CIA),” who thought Khudayr’s interrogation had been “too gentle” and suggested another route, one that they believed has proven effective elsewhere. “They asked if enhanced measures, such as waterboarding, should be used,” Duelfer writes. “The executive authorities addressing those measures made clear that such techniques could legally be applied only to terrorism cases, and our debriefings were not as yet terrorism-related. The debriefings were just debriefings, even for this creature.”

Duelfer will not disclose who in Washington had proposed the use of waterboarding, saying only: “The language I can use is what has been cleared.” In fact, two senior U.S. intelligence officials at the time tell The Daily Beast that the suggestion to waterboard came from the Office of Vice President Cheney.…

But what people are missing is that if we don’t follow the threads we’ll never be able to turn this page. That what Vice President Dick Cheney did or wanted done or pushed to have done will be on all of us. If President Obama doesn’t do anything about it, however, we will never be rid of it.

Peter Daou nails it:

But as always, the progressive community, a far more efficient thinking machine than a handful of strategists and advisers, is looking ahead and raising a unified alarm. The message is this: anything less than absolute moral clarity from Democrats, who now control the levers of power, will enshrine Bush’s abuses and undermine the rule of law for generations to come.

However, as I’ve been saying for a while now, the results of Obama ignoring the gravity of this situation go way beyond the immediate. While the Republicans target Pelosi, Dick Cheney’s side bet continue to rides, which I wrote about days ago. That he can develop a narrative and put it into the political bloodstream that America allegedly became “less safe” the moment Obama began dismantling the Bush-Cheney torture policies. He’s betting that when the day comes that we’re hit again, whenever that is, he can point to that day, when he was warning that Bush-Cheney policies kept us safe. With Cheney believing all the blame will then fall on Democrats, because people have short memories, with the Rep. having another chapter in the “Dems are soft on national security” book they can exploit. Cynical, but that’s Cheney. He’s seeing down the field. Dems are not. This needs to change and fast.

We need to find out if the allegations against Cheney on torture and the Iraq war are real, because this goes beyond simply keeping America safe. It goes to the tactics used by the Bush administration and the lengths they would go to in order to save themselves. Remember back to when no WMDs were found? The Republican argument for preemptive war and their foreign policy collapsed on this revelation. That we went to war on a lie. If torture is wrapped up in proving the Iraq war was worth it, the lies that took us into Iraq will be compounded, Bush-Cheney’s role in torture fully revealed. They tortured to save themselves.

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Pelosi Accuses CIA of ‘Misleading the Congress’

By on 14 May 2009

Speaker Pelosi’s press conference was a stunner (transcript here).

“… Like all members of Congress who are briefed on classified information, I have assigned oaths pledges not to disclose any of that information. This is an oath I have taken very seriously, and I’ve always abided by it. The CIA briefed me only once on enhanced interrogation techniques in September 2002 in my capacity as ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. I was informed then that the Department of Justice opinions had concluded that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques were legal. The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed. Those conducting the briefing promised to inform the appropriate members of Congress if that technique were to be used in the future. …”

Now the trouble for Republicans is that she’s not playing along. Not only has she upped the ante, but she’s driven the narrative back to Iraq, Bush’s lies right before that election, and what Bush and Cheney were doing to drive this country to war. That the foundation of Bush-Cheney foreign policy was lies and distraction. It’s what is at the center of all the dust currently being kicked up.

“This is a diversionary tactic, to take the spotlight off of those who conceived, developed, and implemented these policies, which all of us [Democratic leaders] opposed,” (Pelosi) said. “Understand — this is their policy, all of them.”

The story began with Bush-Cheney getting a lot of heat on EIT, fresh off the release of the OLC memos. So much heat that Dick Cheney blasted on to a media torture tour, with his daughter batting clean-up. The job was to make sure everyone understood how important torture was to the Bush administration, but also that what they did was legal; and to mark the moment Obama dismantled the program to make us “less safe.” Oh, and because it was legal it wasn’t torture. In the sense that Bush and Cheney had lawyers distort the law through creatively written legalistic memos, which were intended as cover for the Administration.

In the midst of the Cheney torture tour, someone decides they need another target, a Democrat, someone who they believe is a good focus to shift the blame, if not totally, then to say top Democrats knew about the torture policies and approved. They choose Pelosi, because she was briefed in 2002.

Then the Republican machine gears into the action of distraction.

We don’t know how this will end, but one thing is clear. Republicans might have made a fatal error in stirring Pelosi’s ire. If they’re trying to keep a Truth Commission from gearing up they just screwed up. They went after Speaker Pelosi without the goods to get her. Now she’s mad as hell and isn’t in the mood to suffer fools.

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Round the Pelosi Merry-go-Round

By on 13 May 2009

How many times are we going to get traditional media stories about Pelosi and EIT, which say the same thing over again while trying to posture that something new has been added. Today it’s CNN:

A source close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now confirms that Pelosi was told in February 2003 by her intelligence aide, Michael Sheehy, that waterboarding was actually used on CIA detainee Abu Zubaydah.

Source says Nancy Pelosi didn’t object about waterboard usage because she wasn’t personally briefed about it.

Source says Nancy Pelosi didn’t object about waterboard usage because she wasn’t personally briefed about it.

This appears to contradict Pelosi’s account that she was never told waterboarding actually happened, only that the administration was considering using it.

Holy obtuseness, people. Notice the date in the report above?

Mrs. Pelosi was briefed once, something that has not been contested, and that briefing happened in 2002.

As seems obvious to me, once Michael Sheehy, her intel aide, found out about the EIT in 2003, including possible waterboarding, does anyone believe Pelosi wasn’t told? But that’s not the issue of the one briefing Pelosi had, so there is no contradiction, because hearing something through an aide, assuming she did, is quite different from an intel briefing from the Administration directly.

Now, whether this is a distinction that doesn’t matter in the larger scheme is another point. But it doesn’t change the fact that we have no proof Pelosi was briefed personally on waterboarding.

Anyone knowing of torture and doing nothing about it, including putting their questions and skepticism, even disapproval in writing in some form, are partially responsible. However, the facts learned in classified briefings are not allowed to be made public, including what lawmakers are told about techniques. That is illegal. That Pelosi felt compelled to say explicitly what she wasn’t told does present a problem, which we’re seeing play out now.

Does any of this excuse Democrats for standing by, for not making a record of their disapproval? Absolutely not, but that’s a different topic altogether.

But let’s get something clear. Pelosi has become the target to take the spotlight off of Bush-Cheney and the people who not only concocted their torture policy, but the people at the top who signed off on it.

Look over here!, they cry. Ignore the masterminds behind the curtain.

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Pelosi Plotline Thickens

By on 09 May 2009

But the fact remains that there remains no evidence that Speaker Pelosi was personally briefed on waterboarding in her single briefing in September 2002, one month after the CIA waterboarded Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded over six dozen times. In 2003, a top Pelosi aide was. Briefings that none of the participants were allowed to talk about, which compounds the problem when things go wrong. And, according to Greg Sargent, Pete Hoekstra is promising details on Pelosi.

However, in 2003 the information about EIT briefings was shared more broadly, if still in a manner that left questions about what exactly was being done. This is in keeping with Bush-Cheney secrecy that we all know pervaded the previous Administration. More, with Michael Sheehy the aide spoken of below:

A top aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended a CIA briefing in early 2003 in which it was made clear that waterboarding and other harsh techniques were being used in the interrogation of an alleged al-Qaeda operative, according to documents the CIA released to Congress on Thursday.

Pelosi has insisted that she was not directly briefed by Bush administration officials that the practice was being actively employed. …

[...]Harman was surprised at what she learned, particularly that intelligence officials had video of the waterboarding of Abu Zubaida and were planning on destroying it. Captured in early 2002, Abu Zubaida, whose real name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein, faced months of standard interrogations before being sent to a CIA-run facility where the harsher techniques were used.

Harman wrote to the CIA’s general counsel on Feb. 10, 2003, to question whether the methods “are consistent with the principles and policies of the United States. Have enhanced techniques been authorized and approved by the president?”

But any reading of the contagion of stories on the issue of waterboarding reveals that Democrats eventually did know about the procedure, even if they weren’t personally briefed, some as early as 2003. Pelosi not being personally briefed, when her aide was, but also Harman who wrote a letter to which Pelosi openly admits she agrees, reveals some sort of guilty knowledge about what was going on. As does the information that Rockefeller, someone who has never been a profile in courage on anything (that I remember), was also aware of what was going on.

Pelosi’s denial of being briefed on waterboarding continues to stand. But will the distinctions she’s making make a difference as we learn the wide circle of Democrats who eventually had inklings of what was going on inside the interrogations? It seems clear that knowledge flowed to Pelosi from others, even if she wasn’t personally briefed.

Neither Pelosi nor her staff would comment on how she learned of the techniques she now considers torture, and Harman said in an interview that she “did not recall” discussing the issue with Pelosi. Sheehy was Pelosi’s top aide on the intelligence committee when she served as the ranking Democrat on that panel, and he remained her top national security aide until he left the speaker’s office this year.

Pelosi never filed any official letter of protest, but some lawmakers said such objections to the Bush administration at that time were pointless.

“I felt that it was minimally responsive,” Harman said of the CIA’s response to her February 2003 letter. “It didn’t address the issue I asked.”

Let’s put the truth, the whole truth, on the table. No matter where it leads.

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Pelosi, EIT and the Briefing

By on 08 May 2009

As I said on Twitter last night, ABC doesn’t have the story they think they do. Greg Sargent offers some proof that this analysis is correct. The following graphic is from Greg:

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It clearly reveals that Pelosi was briefed on EITs (enhanced interrogation techniques), but the specifics are left out.

Nevertheless, breathless with a breaking fever, people have decided to report that Pelosi was briefed on EITs, assuming waterboarding was part of the package. There is absolutely no proof or actual conclusive evidence that Speaker Pelosi was specifically told that waterboarding would be used in the torture of prisoners. As of today there simply isn’t, though this is still unfolding, so we don’t know where it will lead.

Reports do prove that although Pelosi was indeed briefed on EIT, the specifics were missing in the single briefing she had.

…The CIA declined to comment on why the chart does not make it clear whether waterboarding was covered in the Pelosi briefing. But a federal official familiar with the list indicated that the agency’s records may not have been that specific.

[...] Although the records describe early briefings on the CIA program, they also indicate that the operation was shielded from the vast majority of lawmakers for years. It wasn’t until September 2006, four years after Goss and Pelosi initially were briefed, that the agency’s interrogation program was described to the full House and Senate intelligence committees.

Porter Goss pontificating on what should have been deduced means nothing if the specifics weren’t delineated. People are now assuming that a briefing on EITs automatically means that Pelosi knew that waterboarding was being used on prisoners.

There’s another wrinkle to the Pelosi story from Sargent as well. The CIA doesn’t even know if the notes of the briefings are accurate.

(U//FOUO) This letter presents the most thorough information we have on dates, locations, and names of all Members of Congress who were briefed by the CIA on enhanced interrogation techniques. This information, however, is drawn from the past files of the CIA and represents MFRs completed at the time and notes that summarized the best recollections of those individuals. In the end, you and the Committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened. …

Pelosi was briefed in September 2002. Abu Zubayda, as we now know, was waterboarded the previous month over six dozen times. You’d think if the Pelosi briefing included waterboarding numbers like this would certainly have stuck in the Speaker’s mind. It’s not something you’re likely to forget.

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Where Blue Dogs Hide

By on 07 May 2009
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When in power, centrism and moderation are bookend names for the terminal political disease known as leadership phobia. An unwillingness to grapple with political purpose. In good political times for a particular party, it’s an aversion to accepting what being in a majority means, taking action to put your priorities into policy; delivering on what voters were promised. Centrists and moderates are primarily guided by fears and insecurity about being too forward leaning, in other words, getting caught being bold. Guided by their willingness to bet what can’t pass, can’t work, and can’t further their own personal agenda. Forgetting entirely that they are not the island on which Democratic policy lives, breathes and is manifested, let alone what has built the foundation that is the Democratic Party. History isn’t cut on caution.

You can, however, have a big tent where centrists and moderates, even conservatives, are invited to join the debate, but they aren’t given the keys, because they have no clue where they’re going, what drives them. They also shouldn’t be confused with consensus, which is an end result, not a place where you begin.

Blue Dogs choose to hide behind mantels of “centrist” and “moderate” labels, which is just a springboard to failure when you’re the party with the numbers, the passion and a president willing to spend his capital to get what he promised done.

Voters can label themselves whatever they want: blue dog, centrist, moderate. Leaders cannot.

To her credit, Speaker Pelosi is listening to the Blue Dogs, but she has a job to lead, but also as Obama’s Speaker, to make sure his agenda is being forwarded. That means Obama’s priorities are more important than the Blue Dog Dems. While their self interest and self preservation never stops them from caving to supposed “centrism,” which is about as worthwhile to Democrats as your nearest obstructionist Republican.

From The Hill:

[...] Pelosi held a meeting on cap-and-trade last week with Blue Dog leaders, who told her that consensus was possible on cap-and-trade, but only if she takes a cautious approach that takes centrist views into account.

… But the idea of putting healthcare before climate change contravenes the wishes of President Obama, who met Tuesday with Energy and Commerce Democrats and reinforced that he wants the House to tackle cap-and-trade before healthcare.

Obama called the meeting after cap-and-trade appeared to bog down in committee, without the votes to pass. That is likely to be tested next week, when Waxman is expected to leapfrog the subcommittee to hold a full-committee vote. That plan got more complicated Wednesday when Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), vice chairman of the subcommittee, objected to the plan. …

Another trait of centrists and so-called moderates is that their incremental minds are guided by caution and fear moored in panic that something might go terribly wrong, which usually has a way of manifesting when that’s your focus, but really is about themselves and their own extinction.

In the end the Blue Dogs have a choice that will always keep them safe. They can vote no with the Republicans.

Choosing between when issues are equal is a favorite centrist/moderate straw man.

Those close to Pelosi say she figures healthcare has just as much chance to bog down.

“Reports of the death of cap-and-trade are premature,” said a Democratic aide. “The timing, momentum and dollars haven’t come together yet. The Speaker’s not in a panic about it.”

There is thinking within leadership that it’s better to have two complex issues going at one time, the aide said. When there’s only one, it draws all the fire. So Pelosi might keep cap-and-trade going, waiting for healthcare to become stalled, then return the emphasis to cap-and-trade.

When in power, either or choices have a way of delivering zip. Vision manifested is votes honored.

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BUSH-CHENEY TORTURE: Democrats Play Good Cop, Bad Cop

By on 24 April 2009
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The good news is that Holder and Craig seem to know what they’re doing, as the debate raged inside the Obama administration.

Now, Pres. Obama and Sen. Harry Reid are standing together against any official congressional inquiry into the Bush-Cheney torture policies. Senators Patrick Leahy and Russ Feingold, along with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, stand on the other side, which is the side of transparency and truth. Though Obama and his administration have smartly given their opposition the ammunition to move forward. With A.G. Eric Holder standing in the middle.

Now the ACLU won yet another victory under the FOIA, when a court ruled yesterday that 21 photos depicting treatment of detainees by the U.S. be released. These photos from Iraq and Afghanistan, where Bagram is still a PR problem waiting to explode for the Administration, will land like a thud in the middle of this argument of accountability.

The American public is about to get another shocker, which may bolster their feelings on holding Bush-Cheney accountable: Almost four in 10 favor criminal investigations and about a quarter want investigations without criminal charges. One-third said they want nothing to be done. (source) However, 70% believe waterboarding is torture. That’s because it is.

Sen. McCaskill, a former prosecutor, stating on MSNBC that there will be some form of congressional investigation is heartening (partial transcript via The Hill).

“I think there are enough members that want to make sure the information is all on the record, that we have certainly looked behind every nook and cranny to see exactly what happened,” she said. “So I’m sure there’ll be some form of investigation in Congress.”

The Missouri Democrat said that Justice Dept. lawyers shouldn’t get off for approving the controversial tactics, breaking with the Obama administration, which has indicated a preference that there be no criminal investigations.

“I think giving these lawyers a pass is a big problem because when you’re a lawyer, your job is to show what the law is, not to give somebody the political answer they want,” McCaskill said this morning during an appearance on MSNBC.

McCaskill opened the door to lawyers potentially being disbarred for the legal advice they provided Bush administration officials, as well.

“It may be malpractice, and they maybe should have their tickets pulled as lawyers because you are supposed to tell, when you’re asked, what the law is, not what your bosses want to hear,” she continued, adding that she’s “anxious” to read the outcome of an investigation into the memos by the Office of Professional Responsibility.

For now, however, Pres. Obama, along with other Democrats, look tentative about any inquiry at all. But don’t be confused by the good cop (Obama, Reid), bad cop (Leahy, Feingold, Pelosi) realpolitik playing out. Eric Holder has a job to do and no one should keep him from doing it, especially the President of the United States, who has no say in prosecuting the law.

This is a real spine test for the Obama administration. That it’s going to play out slowly works in their favor, as does the new ruling of photos being released. As Sect. Gates recently said, to think this stuff is going to stay under wraps is a fantasy. It’s bound to come out eventually. Surely Obama knows this, because he’s a very smart man. Getting on the side of the angles is the only place the President should want to be.

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Burden of Proof is On Obama

By on 10 April 2009

–updated–

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Reagan-era legal eagle Bruce Fein is miffed. He was an Obama supporter on many things, and let’s just say on this one he’s got lots of company. Some of us, as I’ve said before, are less surprised than others at what’s now unfolded. But as supporters of President Obama, in the end it all ends up the same. It’s another person getting executive fever thinking that being president in a democratic republic is good, but playing king is better.

The “state secrets” privilege has been around since 1953 and how it came into being is nothing that makes us proud. Dan Froomkin laid it out yesterday. It seems at this point the Obama administration is headed into making the same mistakes through their overreach of claiming that national security could be endangered in several cases if they produce documents, the trouble being that they’ll never have to prove their point. Not even to judges. That’s a problem and always has been, especially for Barack Obama who is now seen as going back on his word regarding transparency.

Greg Sargent reveals another issue, and has the screen capture as well. On the White House web site, the Administration is still crowing about the Bush administration even as they mimic what Bush did on “state secrets.

The only possible good news came in Attorney General Holder’s interview with Katie Couric, though he only went as far as to say a review was being done, also not guaranteeing we’d see the review, then citing one instance where the Obama administration could change its mind. Not exactly impressive.

Holder: … I have ordered a review of the state secrets doctrine. All the cases in which – we have invoked that doctrine. I think there are a total of maybe 20 or so, just to make sure that it was properly invoked. And to see, in those cases, where it was properly invoked, if there’s a way we can be more surgical, whether there is a way in which we can share more information.

A report is in the process of being prepared. I’ll expect I’ll have it in the not too distant future. And my hope is to be able to share the results of that report with the American people. So they’ll understand exactly – why we’ve had to use the state secret – state secrets doctrine in certain cases. And why we – decided not to use it in – in certain other cases.

Couric: So you think it’s appropriate to invoke it at certain times?

Holder: At certain times. But I want to make sure that we only do it where it’s absolutely necessary. I would only apply the doctrine where – national security was at stake, where the lives of the American people were at stake. Where sources and methods used by our intelligence – at – our intelligence assets were used. This is a very transparent administration.

This is going to be a very transparent Justice Department. But I’m not gonna sacrifice the safety of the American people or our ability to protect – the American homeland. And that is – as I said, first and foremost.

Couric: Having said that, do you believe the state secrets doctrine was abused by the Bush administration?

Holder: Well, I’m in the process of looking – that is being reviewed now. And so, I’ll see what the result of that – review is. And as I said, try to share the results of that review with the American people.

Couric: What’s your gut though?

Holder: Well, I don’t know. On the basis of the two, three cases that we’ve had to review so far – I think that the invocation of the doctrine was correct. We – we reversed – are in the process of looking at one case. But I think we’re likely to reverse it. …

Part of this whole problem began with one statement, impeachment is off the table, which unfortunately came from Speaker Pelosi, but which ended up sending a message, not only to Republicans, but especially to Democrats who don’t have the spine to hold Bush-Cheney accountable for their misdeeds, including investigations of possible crimes that have us looking back, including the act of torture, that was ordered on George W. Bush’s watch. As someone who was against impeachment of Bush, there can be no question that the lack of serious investigation of Bush administration actions helped cause the situation in which we now find ourselves. My point against impeachment was that it was putting the goal ahead of finding out what happened through serious investigation first. Unfortunately, that never happened. I also made it clear that due to the Iraq war I felt it was counterproductive on keeping our country’s eye on the ball when we were drowning in Iraq. But again, that shouldn’t have precluded Congress taking a strong investigative approach once the Dems got into power, but yet it actually did, because Pelosi’s singular statement became the facade behind which the Bush-Cheney administration remained in hiding, which now unfolds on to President Obama and his administration claiming the same types of egregious power grabs as his predecessor, while accountability goes poof. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi is caught in between, with her strong loyalty to Obama, and her job, stretched across a cleaver threatening to cut her power in two. Just watching her twist during Jon Stewart’s recent interview (as well as with Keith Olbermann) brought that reality into focus.

At the foundation, however, we have Barack Obama, someone who never presented himself when he was a candidate as someone who is confrontational or who seeks out to punish the power structure he sought to sit atop. As a candidate, Mr. Obama made it clear on FISA, voting in favor of warrantless wiretaps. So it’s really not a very far jump where we find ourselves today; that President Obama and his Justice department have claimed “state secrets” now that he’s part of the presidents’ club. His bipartisan zeal on the altar of allowing him to get things done, along with his passion to find common ground, also stops him, because he wants to make sure he has enough friends so that his agenda can get passed, because the goal of greatness is never far from any president’s mind.

The popularity of President Obama weighs down any inspiration he also might have for changing the page from Bush-Cheney “state secrets” privilege, citing national security, because at the foundation of the strategy is “protecting the American people,” something for which we all should be grateful, but which we should never allow to become a shield to protect the executive over the citizenry’s rights.

As in the case that began it all, United States v. Reynolds (1953), which Froomkin points to in his post, by the time the records are unsealed and the truth is known, the government culprits seeking cover are long gone and justice is too long denied to be served.

Sam Stein has more, including a statement from Justice on one case, Jewel v. NSA:

The administration recognizes that invoking the states secret privilege is a significant step that should be taken only when absolutely necessary. After careful consideration by senior intelligence and Department of Justice officials, it was clear that pursuing this case could unavoidably put at risk the disclosure of sensitive information that would harm national security.

An examination by the Director of National Intelligence and an internal review team established by the Attorney General determined that attempting to address the allegations in this case could require the disclosure of intelligence sources and methods that are used in a lawful manner to protect national security. The administration cannot risk the disclosure of information that could cause such exceptional harm to national security.

While the assertion of states secrets privilege is necessary to protect national security, the intelligence community’s surveillance activities are designed and executed to comply fully with the laws protecting the privacy and civil liberties of Americans. There is a robust oversight system to ensure this compliance.

What “robust oversight system”? At this point all we’re getting is that the Obama administration says so. Not good enough. President Obama has to prove it.

For my money, Louis Fisher was exactly correct. A “robust oversight system” would mean that a judge gets involved, behind closed doors so that no “state secrets” privilege claim can be violated, without knowing exactly who did it, a judge, which is unlikely, able to hear the Administration’s case, or seeing, at least in part, the national security issue that needs protecting. After seeing proof, then and only then can the “state secret” issue be satisfied through a “robust oversight system.”

No one wants national security violated.

But no citizen should allow the executive or judicial branches to protect themselves over the citizenry.

Via Glenn Greenwald, Sen. Feingold on the issue:

I am troubled that once again the Obama administration has decided to invoke the state secrets privilege in a case challenging the previous administration’s alleged misconduct. The Obama administration’s action, on top of Congress’s mistaken decision last year to give immunity to the telecommunications companies that allegedly participated in the warrantless wiretapping program, will make it even harder for courts to rule on the legality of that program. [...]

TPMMuckraker has been all over the issue as well. Along with the Jepesen case, as well as the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation regarding illegal wiretapping, where the Obama administration has claimed “state secrets,” long-time supporters of Barack Obama have found themselves betrayed, the trust they put in Mr. Obama used, with the result being a president just like Bush on these critical judicial matters for which Barack Obama, the candidate, lifted himself up.

The Obama administration does have some allies, however. Bill O’Reilly and the Red State crowd love pitting Obama against “the far left,” as they come down on Obama’s side because he’s supposedly “protecting national security,” all the while President Obama or his administration do not have to prove “state secrets” are actually at stake.

Emailing Dan Froomkin, Louis Fisher asks the bottom line question: “What check would exist for illegal actions by the executive branch?”

Under the Obama administration, just like Bush-Cheney, at this point, there are none.

UPDATE, 4-11: Obama is now also appealing the ruling re: three Bagram detainees.

Tina Foster, the executive director of the International Justice Network, which is representing the detainees, condemned the decision in a statement.

“Though he has made many promises regarding the need for our country to rejoin the world community of nations, by filing this appeal, President Obama has taken on the defense of one of the Bush administration’s unlawful policies founded on nothing more than the idea that might makes right,” she said.



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Pelosi Marsh Mouse Story ‘Total Fabrication’

By on 13 February 2009
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GOP staffers have too much time on their hands. They’ve pulled $30 million out of the stimulus to aim at Speaker Pelosi. I guess if you have no chance of dimming the new president’s popularity you might as well go after the Speaker of the House. No doubt setting up 2010 early. It all started when the Washington Times wrote it up: Pelosi’s mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese.

Greg Sargent:

But I just contacted the House GOP staffer who wrote the initial email laying out this talking point, and he conceded that the claim by conservative media that the mouse money is currently in the bill is a misstatement. “There is not specific language in the legislation for this project,” he said.

The staffer held to the claim that the mouse money would ultimately be spent, however, arguing that the bill’s passage would ensure that money would ultimately go to the unnamed agency. “If the bill passes, the project will be funded according to what the relevant agency told our staff,” he said. “The bottom line is, if this bill becomes law, taxpayers will spend 30 million on the mouse.”

Not quite, according to Pelosi’s office:

“There are no federal wetland restoration projects in line to get funded in San Francisco,” Pelosi spkesperson Drew Hammill said. “Neither the Speaker nor her staff have had any involvement in this initiative. The idea that $30 million will be spent to save mice is a total fabrication.”

Someone needs to tell the crew at “Morning Joe,” especially Joe, who was all over it yesterday. As for Mike Barnicle, as much as he bitches about the blogs maybe he should read them instead of the Washington Times, which has now updated their original article that helped spread the story in the first place.

Sean Hannity hit it on his radio show as well. But for Mr. Hannity the facts never matter.

This is how they do it. Create urban myths to attack Democrats, but since Obama is currently Mr. Popularity they simply had to find another target. Congress is always good for a whack, with Republicans putting Speaker Pelosi in the bull’s eye. Do a Google search on the subject and you’ll see how fast it spread.

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Stimulus Snag Solved

By on 11 February 2009

Frankly, I’ve been waiting to hear what was up with the noticeable absence of House leadership when Reid announced a “deal.”

The Senate leaders said it was done, with everyone running around yelling it was so. Turns out that education money was a sticking point, even at the point Reid announced it as final, when it actually wasn’t yet. Via CNN:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday afternoon, trying to persuade her to agree to the compromise bill.

Senate Democratic leadership aides said the holdup concerns the addition of $10 billion for school construction and modernization.

In the Senate version, $10 billion was added to the $44 billion allocated toward “state stabilization” to help school infrastructure.

But aides said House members would rather this $10 billion in funding go through Title I, which would assign the funds based on need, as opposed to giving the money to governors through the state stabilization vehicle.

Nadeam Elshami, a spokesman for Pelosi, said a meeting was under way in the Speaker’s office with House Democratic leadership, Senate representatives and White House representatives.

Somebody needs to tell the Senate that Speaker Pelosi isn’t someone you assume will follow in line with the Senate. Does Reid really have to be told this fact? Guess so.

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Kerry: 42% of Stimulus Tax Cuts

By on 07 February 2009

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Hello from D.C. Long couple of days, details for another time. Meanwhile… Imagine my surprise when I saw the numbers out from Think Progress on the talking heads split on stimulus talk. Republicans outnumber Dems by a mile. But RG is ever the good sport:

“On the day when we learned 3.6 million people have lost their jobs since this recession began, we are pleased the process is moving forward and we are closer to getting Americans a plan to create millions of jobs and get people back to work.” – White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

There’s a deal, but it won’t be voted on until Sunday. What’s in it?

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said the proposal breaks down this way: 42 percent is for tax cuts and 58 percent is new spending.

Yeah, because tax cuts worked so well during the Bush years.

That John McCain is mad doesn’t surprised me, especially since he doesn’t understand that spending is stimulus. Dean Baker:

Spending that is not stimulus is like cash that is not money. Spending is stimulus, spending is stimulus. Any spending will generate jobs. It is that simple. There is a question of whether the spending will go to areas that will provide benefits, long-term or short-term, to the economy, but there is no question that money that is spent will create jobs and therefore is stimulus.

And sometimes you’ve just got to love yourself some Nancy Pelosi:

“Washington seems consumed in the process argument of bipartisanship, when the rest of the country says they need this bill,” the California Democrat said, seeming to sweep aside the Obama administration initial desire to have broad GOP support for the plan.

If you’re not convinced of the urgency, see this chart from Pelosi’s office on the Republican Job Recession. It says it all.

As for all this bipartisanship ushered in by our non-ideological president, well, at least he took it to the Republicans in rhetoric, which will continue next week in a “blitz.” The problem is that the stimulus doesn’t do what it needs to do, mostly because of the weak-kneed half assers that are obviously oblivious to the F.D.R. vein running through our Democratic purpose.

The truth of the matter is that Republicans don’t know squat about the economy, see Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43. Listening to John McCain on it seals that debate.

So let the economic eggheads haggle over this all they want. President Obama wasn’t brave enough, the package is too small, and in the end it was Ben Nelson center stage. How’d the Democrats let that happen?

Because the progressives didn’t run this show, while Republicans only added what hasn’t worked before, throwing every elbow they could to get to the cameras for show.

Paul Krugman:

Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.

Andrew Sullivan sums up the problem, though he doesn’t realize it, in a post entitled “The Presider Gets Results,” ending with this line: It is the Age of Collins, Nelson and Obama. Obama comes in last, with Collins, a Republican, leading. Ironic and likely unintended, but telling.

So, in the end a very popular president who won by a healthy margin, partly on Democratic economics, lost the talking points war with Republicans who insisted that what George W. Bush did with tax cuts was still a good idea. Even though it was his policies that helped get us in the mess in the first place. Then a deal was made to incorporate what didn’t work the last eight years time in a stimulus package that isn’t bold enough to start.

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Operation So Long Dick… and George

By on 18 January 2009

Got executive orders? Expect a few, but manifestation will unfold slowly.

Then there is Speaker Pelosi on Fox today, which is getting a lot of play. Fox News has quite a headline: Pelosi Open to Prosecution of Bush Administration Officials.

“I think that we have to learn from the past and we cannot let the politicizing, for example, of the Justice Department, to go unreviewed,” Pelosi said. “Past is prologue. We learn from it.” Asked if she wants to see investigations, Pelosi responded, “Well, I want to see the truth come forth.” (via Think Progress)

“Prosecuting” and “investigating” seem to be the hyperbole of the day. I’m not buying it. “Unreviewed” is the word Pelosi used, along with “truth.” There is no inherent punishment implied in either.

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