Haunting the Web Since 1999
With indictments — and resignations — now the likely result of Patrick Fitzgerald‘s investigation into Plamegate, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) gamely floats the “Aw, who cares about a little perjury?” defense. Somehow, I don’t think that that dog’s gonna hunt.
(Which reminds me, Sen. Hutchison, you once voted to convict a president on “some perjury technicality”…ask your staffers about it.)
With the administration’s numbers in a continuing death spiral ever since their sheer incompetence, blatant cronyism, and general heartlessness was exposed by Katrina, several recent anti-Dubya speeches of note:
President Clinton: “Now, what Americans need to understand is that means every single day of the year, our Government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts. We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else…We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don’t think it makes any sense. I think it’s wrong.“
John Kerry: “‘Brownie is to Katrina what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq, what George Tenet is to slam-dunk intelligence, what Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad, what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy, what Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning, what Tom DeLay is to ethics and what George Bush is to ‘Mission Accomplished’ and ‘Wanted Dead or Alive.‘”
John Edwards: “I might have missed something, but I don’t think the president ever talked about putting a cap on the salaries of the CEOs of Halliburton and the other companies . . . who are getting all these contracts…This president, who never met an earmark he wouldn’t approve or a millionaire’s tax cut he wouldn’t promote, decided to slash wages for the least of us and the most vulnerable.“
Bill Maher: (I forgot where I saw this one first, but it’s a toss-up between Booknotes and Follow Me Here.) “On your watch, we’ve lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you’re just not lucky. I’m not saying you don’t love this country. I’m just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: ‘Take a hint.’ “
A study in contrasts at the UN: While Clinton tries to save the world, Dubya needs a bathroom break.
“The president gazed intently at poll data and then turned to his wife. ‘Women,’ he announced, ‘want to know why you stayed with me.’ There was an awkward pause among the group of political operatives. But Hillary Clinton did not seem embarrassed. Instead, a half-smile crossed her face. ‘Yes,’ she responded, ‘I’ve been wondering that myself.'” John Harris plugs his new book on the Clinton White House with an excerpt on Hillary’s lessons learned — and possible strategy — for 2008.
“The Republicans’ hands aren’t clean on this either. What we did with Bill Clinton’s nominees — about 62 of them — we just didn’t give them votes in committee or we didn’t bring them up.” On ABC’s This Week, Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) pretty much announces he’s not voting for the nuclear option. “‘My goodness,’ Hagel said, ‘you’ve got 100 United States senators. Some of us might be moderately intelligent enough to figure this out. We would, I think, debase our system and fail our country if we don’t [work it out.]”
Clinton aide Sandy Berger pleads guilty to taking (and shredding) classified papers concerning Clinton-era anti-terrorism efforts. Um, what the hell was he thinking? His actions were unconscionable, unacceptable, and downright dumb. Thanks for feeding the freak-show Vince-Foster-conspiracy types, Sandy.
In a nod to her husband’s V-Chip triangulation strategy of 1996, Senator Hillary Clinton joins perennial bluenoses Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Rick Santorum (R-PA) in calling for a new ratings system for television, video games, and the like. Ok, fine, if this helps Sen. Clinton gain cred with Bush-leaning soccer moms, so be it…a uniform ratings system isn’t the end of the world. But I’d be more heartened if Hillary spent less time trying on the moralistic protective camouflage of the GOP and more time articulating the differences between the Democratic and GOP conceptions of “moral values.”
For example, Republicans love to throw the Bible around. Well, last I checked, the New Testament has more to say about compassion, tolerance, the hypocrisy of self-appointed moral arbiters, and the excesses of the wealthy than it does to recommend the small-minded bigotry and pro-corporate, devil-take-the-hindmost avarice of today’s Republican party. The Dems would do well in 2006 and beyond to draw attention to these huge shortfalls in GOP “values,” rather than rush to appropriate their shallow, scapegoating dramaturgy. (In fact, perhaps they should take a page from groups like the surging evangelical-environmental movement.)
“If you think you have seen this movie before — ‘Dean Against the Machine’, you have…Then, as now, Dean inspired an outside-the-Beltway, Net-based crusade whose shock troops adored his social progressivism and his fearless opposition to war in Iraq. Then, as now, a party establishment — based in Congress, governors’ mansions and Georgetown salons — viewed him as a loudmouthed lefty whose visibility would ruin the Democratic brand in Red States.” Writing in breathless hyperbole mode as usual, Newsweek‘s Howard Fineman surveys the consensus anti-Dean reaction among DNC poobahs (purportedly being led by the 2008-conscious Clintons.)
I remained pretty agnostic about Dean’s candidacy last winter – when he seemed he had the big mo, I was all for the party getting behind him. But, I can’t say I was heartbroken by any means after the Iowa collapse. (In retrospect, of course, it’s hard to think of a single state that Kerry won that Dean also wouldn’t have carried.) That being said, to my mind Dean as DNC chair makes for a much better fit. The job of DNC chair is to fire up the grass roots and get Dems elected, and Dean has already shown a marked ability to achieve the former. Plus, it was the protective-camouflage, middle-of-the-road DNC’ers that foisted Terry McAuliffe on us, and he was an out-and-out embarrassment from start to finish. (Don’t agree? Go look at the November results again.)
As many others have noted, Dean isn’t nearly as lefty as he’s being made out to be — He’s a fiscally conservative governor. As such, the reaction he has fostered among the insider crowd has very little to do with governing ideology and a lot to do with one faction desperate to maintain controlling power over the party. Dean or no, if the DNC chairmanship is filled by another unenterprising flunky along the lines of McAuliffe, we’ve already started down the road to more of the same in 2008, right down to the losing.
Punctuating a frustrating week for Democrats, Bill Clinton suffers chest discomfort and may need quintuple-bypass surgery as early as tomorrow. Get well soon, Mr. President, and best wishes on a speedy recovery. (Clinton’s diet, exercise level, and family history notwithstanding, to my mind the Zellout now has even more to answer for.) Update: The operation was apparently a success, although Clinton will probably not recover fast enough to hit the road before Election Day. Get your rest, Mr. President — we need you for the long haul.
“Although parts of the book are dull, the memoir as a whole is a rewarding and revealing portrait of an endlessly fascinating man. Those who write histories of Clinton and his time — as many people, of course, will do — will find this memoir an essential starting point.” Also in the new Prospect (which, I know, is getting a lot of links today), Alan Brinkley takes a gander at Clinton’s My Life.