“Judging from Gen. David Petraeus’ Senate testimony today, our military commitment to Iraq is open-ended and unconditional…Their unwavering stance amounted to this: Further pullouts might trigger defeat; the costs of defeat are too horrible to ponder; therefore, we shouldn’t ponder further pullouts.” Slate‘s Fred Kaplan takes the measure of yesterday’s Petraeus hearings, and the performances of Senators Obama [transcript | video], Clinton and McCain respectively. “Near the end of the afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama, the Democrats’ likely presidential nominee but a junior member of the foreign relations committee, finally got his turn to ask questions — and he homed in on one of the administration’s key conceptual failures…’I’m trying to get to an end point,’ he said. ‘That’s what all of us are trying to do.’ This is what many critics and thoughtful supporters of the war have been trying to do for five years now. The Bush administration hasn’t addressed the issue. And, ultimately, neither did Petraeus or Crocker today.”
Tag: John McCain
Dean sets a date. | The new new standard.
“‘I think it would be nice to have this all done by July 1,’ Dean said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program. ‘If we can do it sooner than that, that’s all the better.’” Howard Dean sets a date of July 1 at the latest for the primary election to end, meaning there’ll thankfully be no convention floor fight. I’m still thinking May 6 would be more preferable.
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton drops the electoral vote standard (for now) and picks an even more unwieldy statistic by which to judge the candidates: “”Right now, among all the primary states, believe it or not, Hillary’s only 16 votes behind in pledged delegates,’ said the former president, ‘and she’s gonna wind up with the lead in the popular vote in the primary states. She’s gonna wind up with the lead in the delegates [from primary states].‘” (The 18 caucus states, you may remember, don’t matter.) Clinton also went on to do more stumping for John McCain, calling him a “moderate” who “has given about all you can give for this country without dyin’ for it.“
Bill gets frantic | About that poll…
Meanwhile, over in his corner of the campaign trail, Bill Clinton does what he can to poison the well further, saying — now that chances of a re-do have come and gone, of course — that the Obama campaign was “desperate to disenfranchise Florida and Michigan.” Sigh…at this point, you have to wonder about the man’s mental health. Well, since the former president insists on continually behaving like an asshat, with no regard whatsoever for the Democratic party or his historical legacy, it bears repeating once more:
And, if we really want to talk about disenfranchising voters, perhaps it’s time to revisit the Clinton team’s casino caucus lawsuit in Nevada, and Bill Clinton’s open shilling for it back in January.
Honestly, it’s like they’re trying to beat us into submission through sheer, brazen, and unyielding idiocy. Mr. President, you will not be returning to the White House — deal with it.
Update: Today’s poll about disgruntled Clinton and Obama supporters is getting a lot of run. Now, one one hand, this illustrates the problem with the Clintons’ “audacity of hopelessness.” Their continued spewing of often-ridiculous vitriol, even despite the fact that everyone from David Brooks to Obama Girl now knows its over, is only breeding more angry and aggrieved dead-enders among the Clinton ranks. (Then again, have the Clintons ever put the good of the party before themselves? Nope.)
Still, to keep things in perspective, let’s look at the presumed defection rate in 2000: “In March of that year, the Pew Center for the People & the Press released a report titled ‘Bush Pays Price for Primary Victory.’ Following Bush’s victory in the 2000 primaries and McCain’s exit from the race, the Pew survey found that 51% of those who backed McCain during the primary campaign would vote for Gore in the general election. Only 44% of his supporters said that they would be casting their votes for Bush.” That purported 2000 defection rate is considerably higher than those causing consternation today. But, obviously that number didn’t hold up, or Gore would have been elected overwhelmingly in 2000.
The point being, this poll doesn’t tell us anything about the situation in November, only that tempers are running high here in March.
4,000 lost.
“President Bush believes that every life is precious, and he spends time every day thinking about those who’ve lost their lives on the battlefield.” And well he should: Following soon after our fifth anniversary in Iraq, a roadside bomb kills four soldiers on Easter Sunday, and the American death toll in Iraq reaches 4000, 3863 of which were killed after Dubya’s declaration of “Mission Accomplished” in May 2003.
I said when the death toll hit 2,000 in October 2005 that “ [t]wo thousand US men and women have been killed in the line of duty, and this blatantly amateurish administration still has no plan either to win or to disengage from a conflict they orchestrated, other than ‘stay the course.’” Two and half years and 2000 lives later, it’s sadly still true. Worse still, Dubya’s heir apparent, John McCain, now advocates extending this administration’s catastrophic incompetence into another presidential term. This is not a good idea.
The Security Gap | McCain’s Brain Drain.
“Senator Clinton says that she and Senator McCain have passed a ‘Commander in Chief test’ – not because of the judgments they’ve made, but because of the years they’ve spent in Washington. She made a similar argument when she said her vote for war was based on her experience at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. But here is the stark reality: there is a security gap in this country – a gap between the rhetoric of those who claim to be tough on national security, and the reality of growing insecurity caused by their decisions. A gap between Washington experience, and the wisdom of Washington’s judgments. A gap between the rhetoric of those who tout their support for our troops, and the overburdened state of our military…We have a security gap when candidates say they will follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, but refuse to follow him where he actually is.“
On the fifth anniversary of the war, Sen. Obama delivers a speech on Iraq and national security in Fayetteville, NC, and takes time to poke McCain for his apparent and frightening misunderstanding of Mideast affairs. “Just yesterday, we heard Sen. McCain confuse Sunni and Shiite, Iran and Al Qaeda. Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no Al Qaeda ties. Maybe that is why he completely fails to understand that the war in Iraq has done more to embolden America’s enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades.” Really, McCain’s oft-repeated error smacks of Dubya-level incompetence, and would be all over the news today if we were in general election mode, rather than collectively continuing to assuage Sen. Clinton’s vanity, by assuming she still has a chance. For shame.
Wright Wrong. Let’s Move On.
“Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.“
In response to the burgeoning controversy over remarks by his pastor, Sen. Obama discusses his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright at
Update: “‘I think there was recognition that he’s obviously on the verge of retirement, [that] he’s taking a sabbatatical and that it was important for him to step out of the spotlight in this situation,’ Obama said.” Wright is officially out. With all the bodies dropping in both campaigns now, I’m reminded of D’Angelo’s chess lesson in The Wire: “Pawns, man, in the game, they get capped quick, and be out the game early.” (Although I guess, in this case, Obama lost a bishop.)
Update 2: Sen. Obama also addresses the Wright issue on a new Youtube video going around.
Pelosi: No Effin Way.
“I think that the Clinton administration (sic) has fairly ruled that out by proclaiming that Senator McCain would be a better Commander in Chief than Obama. I think that either way is impossible.’” Sinbad aside, you really don’t want to tick off Speaker Pelosi. Calling a joint Obama-Clinton ticket “impossible” in an interview with New England Cable News today, Speaker Pelosi makes her displeasure obvious with the Clinton campaign for hyping McCain over the Senator from Illinois. “I wanted to be sure I didn’t leave any ambiguity.” Play with matches, Sen. Clinton, you were due to get burned. Update: Lest anyone missed the import, Pelosi says it again: “I do think we will have a dream team, it just won’t be those two names…Take it from me, that won’t be the ticket.”
Hillary stumps for McCain.
“‘I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold. I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy.’…Calling McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee a good friend and a ‘distinguished man with a great history of service to our country,’ Clinton said, ‘Both of us will be on that stage having crossed that threshold.’” Say what? Still happily in denial about her recent loss of the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton spouts more GOP talking points on national security in an attempt to wound Obama after the fact. (In case you missed it, she did the same sort of thing the other day.) Now, I remain unclear as to what national security qualifications McCain and especially Clinton assume they enjoy. (Lest we forget, Clinton didn’t even have a national security clearance during her tenure as First Lady.) That being said, this sordid wallowing in (and thus legitimizing of) right-wing agitprop is exactly why the party can’t afford to let Hillary Clinton sustain the delusion she will be our nominee. It is time for her to go.
The Man from Panama.
“‘There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent,’ said Sarah H. Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. ‘It is not a slam-dunk situation.’” Well, that explains the love for TR’s Big Stick diplomacy. As it turns out, Sen. John McCain was born in the Panama Canal zone, potentially complicating his constitutional eligibility for president. “The conflict that could conceivably ensnare McCain goes more to the interpretation of the archaic phrase ‘natural born’ when weighed against intent and decades of immigration law…Quickly recognizing confusion over the evolving nature of citizenship, the First Congress in 1790 passed a naturalization law that did define children of citizens ‘born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States to be natural born.’ But that law is still seen as potentially unconstitutional and was overtaken by subsequent legislation, which omitted the natural-born phrase.“
Hmmm. Maybe next time the GOP try to ratchet up the virulent xenophobia, we should perhaps remind them that at least our putative standard-bearer is definitively a “natural-born citizen” of the republic. And I wonder, will “activist judges” on the Supreme Court really forego a strict reading of our constitution and let this foreign-born fellow, John Sidney McCain, run for president? Strict constructionists should blanch at the thought. Update: Sen. Obama co-sponsors a bill to help McCain out.
Guess who’s back?
Now, this is a year where I definitely support Sen. Obama over Ralph Nader, and I hope that those voters who are thinking about pulling the lever for Nader do give Obama a long, hard look first. To my mind, as with John McCain (who might’ve been a decent president in 2000, particularly compared to the ultimate GOP alternative), Nader is now a candidate whose time has come and gone. That being said, I don’t know why we have to keep going over this, but Nader has every right to run, and, if people decide to vote for him over Obama, so be it. Nader’s potential votes are not and never will be the Democratic Party’s votes by fiat. They must be earned.
Dredging up a stale (and rather whiny) Election 2000 talking point, TPM’s Josh Marshall today calls Nader “Bush’s Chief Enabler,” and that’s not only wildly off the mark, but symptomatic of a type of narrow, scapegoating impulse that speaks poorly of Democrats in general. As I noted at the time, Al Gore lost the election of 2000 for many reasons, even notwithstanding the Supreme Court endgame: Gore lost his home state of Tennessee. He tried constantly to distance himself from the still very popular Bill Clinton — I’m looking at you, Joe Lieberman — and even refused to send Clinton to places where he could easily have made the difference for Gore, like Arkansas and West Virginia. He gave some thoroughly terrible debate performances. (Remember the sighing?) He asked for a targeted recount aimed at helping him, rather than a full statewide recount. And so on. So blaming Nader makes very little sense. (As Nader himself pointed out today, every single third-party candidate got more than the 537 votes Gore needed in Florida.) Here’s the question I’d put to Marshall, Chait, and anyone else who keeps up this sad Blame-Nader meme long past its sell date: Even notwithstanding all the people who voted Dubya in 2000, why would you blame the 2% of voters who followed the process enough to vote third-party in 2000, rather than the 40% of Americans who didn’t even bother to vote?
Now, with all that in mind, it’s interesting to look at Obama and Clinton’s respective responses to the Nader candidacy. First, here’s Sen. Obama. “I think anybody has the right to run for president if they file sufficient papers. And I think the job of the Democratic Party is to be so compelling that a few percentage of the vote going to another candidate is not going to make any difference” Speaking of Nader specifically, Obama said: “You know, he had called me and I think reached out to my campaign — my sense is is that Mr. Nader is somebody who, if you don’t listen and adopt all of his policies, thinks you’re not substantive. He seems to have a pretty high opinion of his own work. Now — and by the way, I have to say that, historically, he is a singular figure in American politics and has done as much as just about anybody on behalf of consumers. So in many ways he is a heroic figure and I don’t mean to diminish him. But I do think there is a sense now that if somebody is not hewing to the Ralph Nader agenda, then you must be lacking in some way.“
Notice how Sen. Obama respects Nader’s decision to enter the race, and agrees that all votes must be earned. Then, while calling Nader a “heroic figure” who “done as much as just about anybody on behalf of consumers,” he makes the case that Nader might just be missing the forest for the trees this time. This is in keeping with Obama’s usual argumentative method and the reason why his talk of bipartisanship is more than just a soundbite. Obama begins a conversation by respecting his ideological opponent, explaining what he sees as valuable in their view, and then goes on to argue his position. It’s a much more encompassing, inclusive rhetorical strategy, which respects differences and doesn’t accuse people of acting solely in bad faith.
[Update: At a campaign stop today, Sen. Obama pushed back on a Nader candidacy a little harder, saying: “I think his view is, unless you’re Ralph Nader, you’re not tough enough on any of these issues. He thought there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush, and eight years later, I think it’s obvious that he didn’t know what he was talking about.” Saying Nader was wrong in this regard, however, is not the same as saying the Bush presidency is Nader’s fault.]
Which brings us to Sen. Clinton. Now, her antipathy to Ralph Nader is well-documented. (There was her off-the-cuff remark in 2000 that killing Nader was actually worth contemplating, and just today a “senior adviser to the Clinton campaign” said of Nader, “‘Loathe’ isn’t a strong enough word.“) So, here’s her response to Nader’s announcement: “His being on the Green Party prevented Al Gore from being the greenest president we could have had, and I think that’s really unfortunate. I think we paid a big price for it. I’m pretty sad about that…Well that’s really unfortunate. I remember when he did this before. It did not turn out very well for anybody, most especially our country.”
Notice there’s that nothing nice said about Nader’s 40-year-career as a consumer advocate here, or anything other than “shame” offered to those who might be drawn to his candidacy. Rather, Clinton just perpetuates the weak-sauce, scapegoating contention that Nader caused Gore to lose. Frankly, her answer — pass around the Nader-Haterade! — reeks of the same sense of entitlement that seems to propel her candidacy, based as it is on the notion that Gore deserved Nader’s votes just because he was the Democratic candidate. Besides being a rather undemocratic way of looking at elections, this is emphatically NOT the way to rally possible Nader voters to your standard.
Fortunately, Sen. Clinton will be long out of the race before this really becomes an issue.