“Although it’s obviously too soon to situate the Bush administration in history, it’s possible…that it may be leading us into a period where politics is defined according to the old spoils system rather than the technocratic assumptions ushered in by the Progressive Era.” With the Miers pick in mind, Slate‘s David Greenberg reviews the sordid history of Supreme Court cronyism from Jackson to LBJ.
Category: The Dubya Era
Harriet the Spy?
“She may turn out to be the greatest thing since Antonin Scalia, but when will we know that?” Two days after the Harriet Miers pick, and despite news reports accentuating her strong evangelicism, conservatives are still openly perturbed by the choice (George Will is particularly livid.) As for how she stands on the issues, we still know very little, other than her mixed record on gay rights and probable pro-life stance. (Well, presumably, she’s also pro-lottery.) Nevertheless, it sounds like she’s probably already got Harry Reid’s vote.
House of Shame.
“Thus began [in 1994] what historians will regard as the single most corrupt decade in the long and colorful history of the House of Representatives…[N]ever before has the leadership of the House been hijacked by a small band of extremists bent on building a ruthless shakedown machine, lining the pockets of their richest constituents and rolling back popular protections for ordinary people” By way of Cliopatria, Newsweek‘s Jonathan Alter surveys the corruption of Boss DeLay’s ring, with an eye to history. Update: And, wouldn’t you know it, Boss DeLay has been indicted again, this time for money laundering.
Round 2: Miers.
In the early morning, Dubya chooses White House Counsel Harriet Miers as the next Supreme Court nominee. (Searching far and wide again, I see.) Well, let the vetting begin. On the plus side, the fundies seem perturbed, and she has some Dem donations in her past. On the other hand, she’s a rabid Bush loyalist, calling him “the most brilliant man she had ever met.” (Get out much?) Update: The Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol is disappointed, depressed, and demoralized by the Miers pick, while Legal Times was already unenthused about her. Update 2: Slate‘s Dahlia Lithwick and Emily Bazelon are similarly nonplussed: “Can anyone really imagine that she’d be the nominee if she weren’t a woman and the president’s friend and loyal adviser? Cronyism and affirmative action: It’s a nasty mix.“
Leakin’ Libby & Ramblin’ Rove.
“As the CIA leak investigation heads toward its expected conclusion this month, it has become increasingly clear that two of the most powerful men in the Bush administration were more involved in the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame than the White House originally indicated.” Bringing the somewhat bizarre recent revelation of Judith Miller’s source to bear on the story, the Washington Post surveys the roles of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby in Plamegate. “[Lawyers with inside info] surmise that [Special Prosecutor Patrick] Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials..”
Empire Falls.
(Ring-)Breaking news: As with two of his Texas cronies, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, Boss DeLay has been indicted on criminal conspiracy charges this morning, in connection with the grand jury probe into money laundering at TRMPAC. (TRMPAC itself was indicted a few weeks ago.) As a result, DeLay will be forced to step down as Majority Leader, to be replaced by (corrected, after a possible last-minute switcheroo) Roy Blunt of Missouri. (Of course, even if he beats this indictment, Boss DeLay is also being investigated by federal authorities for his role in the Casino Jack story.)
In 1994, the Republican Contract with America stated that the GOP would “restore accountability to Congress [and] end its cycle of scandal and disgrace.” Today, with the Republicans controlling both sides of Congress and the Oval Office, their leader in the House has been indicted as a criminal, their leader in the Senate is under dual investigations for insider trading, and the top moneyman in the White House was arrested only last week for lying and obstruction. (And that’s not even counting the inquiries into footsoldiers like Casino Jack Abramoff and Randy “Duke” Cunningham, or the continued investigation into Karl Rove’s role in Plamegate.) Simply put, the GOP leadership have broken their promise and embarrassed the nation with their rampant cronyism and illegality. It is time for them to go.
Update: While a vituperative Boss DeLay calls the charges “one of the weakest, most baseless indictments in American history,” (now that‘s a bold statement), the GOP look to Roy Blunt of Missouri (who will share power with Dreier) as their new leader.
New Deal, Raw Deal.
“It was during the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman that such great progressive policies as Social Security, protective labor laws and the GI Bill were adopted. But with them came something else that was quite destructive for the nation: what I have called ‘affirmative action for whites.’ During Jim Crow’s last hurrah in the 1930s and 1940s, when southern members of Congress controlled the gateways to legislation, policy decisions dealing with welfare, work and war either excluded the vast majority of African Americans or treated them differently from others.” With Katrina as a newspeg, Columbia’s own Ira Katznelson previews his new book on New Deal racial exclusion in the Washington Post.
Dubya’s 2nd Round Draft Pick.
“I will pick a person who can do the job. But I am mindful that diversity is one of the strengths of the country.” As the Roberts nod goes to the full Senate (my thoughts on Roberts below), Dubya hints at a woman and/or minority justice for O’Connor’s seat. With these parameters in mind, Salon‘s Tim Grieve surveys the most likely choices. Among them are faces familiar — Edith Clement, Priscilla Owen, and Janice Rogers Brown, for example — and unfamiliar, such as Maureen Mahoney, the “female John Roberts.” (And, of course, there’s always Gonzales, although his star seems to have dimmed.)
Making Hay while the Cities Drown.
Looka points the way to a truly horrifying breakdown of Operation Offset, the House Republicans’ disgusting, abhorrent proposal to pay for Katrina reconstruction (without, of course, touching a red cent of Dubya’s millionaire tax breaks) So, guess who foots the bill?
“The Republicans would freeze funding for the Peace Corps, the Global AIDS Initiative, U.N. peacekeeping operations and a wide variety of third-world development programs; eliminate the EnergyStar program, eliminate grants to states and local communities for energy conservation, reduce federal subsidies for Amtrak, eliminate funding for new light-rail programs and cancel the president’s hydrogen fuel initiative; eliminate state grants for safe and drug-free schools because ‘studies show that schools are among the safest places in the country and relatively drug free’; and eliminate the teen funding portion of Title X, which provides ‘free and reduced-price contraceptives, including the IUD, the injection drug Depo-Provera, and the morning-after pill’ to poor teenagers.
Along the way, they’d find a way to punish — or simply eliminate — some of their enemies, real and imagined. They’d cut funding for the District of Columbia, eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, eliminate subsidized student loans for graduate students, terminate the Legal Services Corporation, eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and kill the National Endowment for the Humanities…
[T]he Republican plan also calls for ‘rational reforms to Defense and Homeland Security.’ Does this mean cutting weapons systems at the expense of big defense corporations? Well, no. But it does mean closing schools for the children of soldiers, cutting grants for local responders and offering National Guard members the ‘option’ to purchase a less comprehensive healthcare plan.”
So, just to clarify: Rather than roll back the Dubya tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% of Americans, which almost alone would raise the necessary funds, Boss DeLay and the House GOP want to cut a Grover Norquist-style swath of destruction through our government and foist the clean-up bill on everyone but their fatcat cronies. I must say, I am consistently surprised by the current GOP leadership’s ability to plumb new depths of repugnance.
Up the Bagman Food Chain.
Curiouser and curiouser…Already inexorably tied to Boss DeLay and Grover Norquist, “Casino Jack” Abramoff also boasted of a direct connection to Karl Rove two years ago, while helping Tyco and other corporate conglomerates try to avoid tax penalties for moving their operations overseas. Boy, pull at one brick in this rotten edifice of right-wing cronyism and the whole darned structure threatens to topple.