Our Limited Choices

If you're wondering what's wrong with American politics these days, it's as simple as this:



UPDATE: You can find more about this graph, and the test behind it, on the Political Compass Web site. You can see where George Bush falls on the scale, compared to other world leaders (far to the right of any others, and almost as authoritarian as Robert Mugabe), and take the test yourself.

Does Bush Have Any Friends Left?

As Bush casts about for people to fill all the vacancies being created in his Administration, Keith Olbermann asks who he can possibly turn to. The answer? James Moore says Bush has little choice because competent, experienced people don't want to work in the White House right now.

So the pool of applicants is limited to his cronies.

That's why Clay Johnson -- Bush's old roommate and fraternity brother -- may soon head up the Department of Homeland Security. A man with no background in law enforcement, security, or terrorism.

But he was once an executive with Frito Lay. I'm sure he'll do a heck of a job.

He had us at "hello"

Larry Craig didn't do himself any favors opening his press conference with "Thank you all very much for coming out today."  H/T to Stub Farlow for the "head's up."

Bush now the embarrassing uncle to Republicans

Gary Younge had an interesting column up on the Guardian last week suggesting Bush's dream of realigning American politics is now completely over, and he is seen as a pariah among Republicans.

Bush's problems stem from his method of politics.

Bush did not create the partisan split in America; he inherited it, just as Al Gore would have if he had won the supreme court case in 2000. But while the split was broad (the difference was less than 5% in 13 states from New Mexico to New Hampshire), it was Bush who made it deep and rancorous.

For unlike Thatcher or Reagan he sought to achieve his ends not by exploiting division in order to forge a new, more rightwing consensus but rather to exploit new divisions in order to crush a growing consensus. The majority of the country was, for example, pro-choice and in favour of granting equal rights to gay couples in almost all areas. So the Bush administration chose to leverage gay marriage and late-term abortion - two issues that could act as a wedge - to rally his base. Crude in execution and majoritarian in impulse, it sought not to win over new converts but simply to mobilise dormant constituencies. His legacy will be rightwing policies - but not a more rightwing political culture.

By choosing wedge issues, Bush and Rove hoped to peel away Hispanics, Catholics, and white married women, who traditionally vote Democratic. But his failure to govern -- think the politicization of basic government functions, think Iraq, think Katrina -- kept these constituencies from considering him seriously. Add to that the dust up over immigration reform, and there is no remaining rationale for the Republican Party. "In 2006 Catholics backed the Democrats; white women broke even. According to a Wall Street Journal poll, Americans would prefer the next president to be a Democrat by 52% to 31%."

Now, with his big plan in tatters, a track record of unmitigated disasters, and his Boy Genius gone, Bush is all alone.

There is even talk that Republicans might not invite Bush to their convention. "If they're smart, no," the Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio told Newsweek. "Especially if things don't change in Iraq, we'll have the problem the Democrats had in 1968 with Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam. The question becomes: where do we hide the president?"

Poor George. Without any successes in his life to point to, he now finds himself alone, as the Republican Party -- and the country -- try to figure out how to undo the damage he's done.

I guess the GOP is deciding the first order of business is to hide the source of their embarrassment. Now if only they'll take away the keys.

Bush's Immigration Policy: Why he's really for it

From Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/08/23/top-gop-leader-bush-empl_n_61535.html

Breaking Politics News, U.S. Republican Party, George W. Bush
stumbleupon :Top GOP Leader: Bush Employs Thousands Of Undocumented Workers digg: Top GOP Leader: Bush Employs Thousands Of Undocumented Workers reddit: Top GOP Leader: Bush Employs Thousands Of Undocumented Workers del.icio.us: Top GOP Leader: Bush Employs Thousands Of Undocumented Workers

If President Bush is serious about getting tough on U.S. employers who hire illegal aliens, he can start with his own administration, which employs thousands of unauthorized workers, says the top Republican on the House immigration subcommittee.

A 2006 audit showed federal, state and local governments are among the biggest employers of the half-million persons in the U.S. illegally using "non-work" Social Security numbers -- numbers issued legally, but with specific instructions that the holders are not authorized to work in the U.S.

James Moore: The News is Nuts

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/the-news-is-nuts_b_61275.html

Posted August 21, 2007 | 12:13 PM (EST)


"The wild roller coaster sells the amusement park tickets, not the merry-go-round."
- Chris Newlin, Eclectic Productions, Houston

There is no doubt the news is nuts. And the evidence is in every story and broadcast we hear, see, or read. Without conflict or drama, the news is uninteresting and when there is no conflict or drama, it must be manufactured.

"Hurricane Dean is approaching Central Mexico but that doesn't mean those of us in Houston are yet out of the Cone of Danger!!!! We are watching a high pressure system over Texas and if it weakens this storm could turn north right up the Gulf Coast and devastate every city in its path. Hell, it might even back up, go out in the gulf, power up to a category 5, and then run back on shore throwing giant waves, horrendous winds, and millions of illegal immigrants at us!!! Be prepared."

Sure, that's hyperbole, but it's also based in fact and protocol. TV weather people sound distraught when the storm misses their towns. Even political reporters would turn maudlin when disagreement turned to compromise. Who cares about resolution? Congress has to fight the president and he has to be contemptuous of Congress or there are no viewers and if there are no viewers there is no advertising and if there is no advertising there is no money and if there is no money there is no Wolf Blitzer. Hey, wait a minute, is that a bad thing?

Recent subpoenas issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the president's warrantless domestic wiretapping program caused Blitzer to say over and over and over that the Democrats were taking on the White House. He just would not have it any other way, (as first pointed out by Media Matters) regardless of what his own correspondents were telling him. Wolf had his storyline and he was sticking to it. Two of the correspondents he had just interviewed, and political analyst Paul Begala, had all pointed out to Wolf that the three most senior Republicans on the committee had sided with the Democrats in issuing the subpoenas. Cooperation by the two parties on this controversy was not a development that interested Mr. Blitzer, however, so he ignored information from his own experts and kept repeating the notion that "it's the latest in a series of showdowns between congressional Democrats and the White House."

On camera, Dana Bash tried to subtly correct the anchorbeard by explaining the overwhelming vote and its political implications. "That means that many, if not most, of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee actually thought that this was a good idea because this warrantless surveillance program has certainly been controversial in both parties, Wolf."

Elaine Quijano, who was also on one of the big screens in the situation room and was covering the subpoena story, reminded Blitzer of what he had just been told, apparently hoping the two correspondents could get him correctly on the record. "But as we heard Dana just point out," Quijano explained, "This was a bipartisan vote, Wolf, so Republicans are also on board with this. Wolf?"

The situation in the situation room was getting increasingly lame. Ignoring both of his correspondents, the newsman brought in Begala and asked him a question that made it sound like Blitzer had heard nothing that had just been said.

"Is there a possibility," he wanted to know, "that the Democrats might overreach in issuing all of these subpoenas, Paul, to this Republican administration? Sort of the way that Republicans overreached during the Clinton administration when you were a key figure in the White House? You understand the question?"

Begala explained to the tunnel-visioned Blitzer that the vote had been 13-3, which indicated that the majority of Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were behind the idea. Wolf, though he had now been told three times, must have been looking at those paltry ratings numbers for the situation room because when the next hour of his show was broadcast at 7 p.m. that evening, he hadn't relented from his narrative. Wolf needed what the fiction writers refer to as "dramatic tension" and he wasn't about to surrender it, regardless of whether his own reportorial staff was telling him he had it all wrong.

"Tonight," Wolf said, as the soundtrack thumped beneath the shadows cast by his beard and furrowed brow, "a potential constitutional confrontation between congressional Democrats and the White House in the making, happening now."

Nah, not really. It wasn't happening now or earlier in the day or ever, actually. It was only happening in Wolfworld, where the armies of Armageddon have assembled, goodness and light have collided with the great dark, and only Wolf can sort it out. So stay tuned; it's all coming up next on the situation room.

I am not sure if life imitates art or art imitates life or they just bang their heads together regularly to no purpose. But Wolf's intransigence reminds me a scene in The Shipping News, the fine Annie Proulx novel turned into a movie. One of the central characters, Quoyle, has just landed a job at a small town paper and is getting a bit of advice from the publisher/editor on how to write a good piece.

Billy: It's finding the center of your story, the beating heart of it, that's what makes a reporter. You have to start by making up some headlines. You know: short, punchy, dramatic headlines. Now, have a look, what do you see? [Points at dark clouds at the horizon]

Billy: Tell me the headline.

Quoyle: Horizon Fills With Dark Clouds?

Billy: Imminent Storm Threatens Village.

Quoyle: But what if no storm comes?

Billy: Village Spared From Deadly Storm.

This happened to me in Omaha about 25 years ago when I was a young TV news correspondent. There was a forecast for a blizzard to dump a foot of snow on the city but "tragedy was narrowly averted" as the storm went north about 30 miles. Unfortunately, we had dispatched several crews to sound the alarm of impending chaos and to save ourselves from looking stupid we had to do a follow-up story the next day to explain. An editor had heard the storm might have done damage to a little college town named Blair, which was about a half hour north. I was ordered to fly up in the news chopper and survey the potential devastation. The mayor met me at the airstrip for an interview.

"You have any problems yesterday, Mr. Mayor?"

"Aw, no. We got the folks out of the college and everybody home early. It wasn't bad at all."

"Were you able to keep the roads clear?"

"Sure, not that much snow, really. You can see."

I sure could. From the helicopter, brown cornstalks dominated the landscape and there were a few white spots of old drifts from a previous snowfall. Stupidly, I went on the air and reported, "It also snowed in Blair yesterday. They too plowed their streets. But they also avoided problems as the snowfall was just as minimal as it was in Omaha. As you can see from our Action News Chopper, there was hardly any snow on the ground in Blair this morning."

I kept my job. Barely.

In the nascent days of TV, Ernie Kovacs was famously quoted as saying, "Television is called a medium because it is neither rare nor well-done." But it's not even a medium any more, especially television news.

It could be, though, if anyone had the courage to give it a try.

Democrats and Libertarians: A new longterm alliance?

When I read lead stories like this in the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18 - Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include - without court approval - certain types of physical searches of American citizens and the collection of their business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/washington/19fisa.html?hp

...I begin to wonder if Democrats and Libertarians may be finding good reason soon to align for the long  term.  It used to be that Democrats and Lib's held each other in mutual suspicion--Dem's being the party of the "nanny state" or "big government." Civil liberties was always there as common ground, but there was common ground on the "leave the individual alone" front with Republicans, too.

Now, after 7 years of Bush-Cheney big brotherist-like tactics, I have to wonder if Republicans can ever plausibly lay claim to libertarian territory. Look at Giulani and Romney--their position is more secret prisons, more surveillance, more security, less liberty. Permanent war requires permanent suspension of the Bill of Rights.

Who will stand up against such incursions on the Republican side? When will that party dislodge itself from the Rovian security for election wins strategy? My guess is...they've got nothing else to run on for a long time. Fiscal restraint is gone. Small government is gone. They have nothing but security as their issue and that means more 1984 style violations of privacy and civil rights. Can the American people stomach that? Methinks not. Me hopes not.

RAW STORY - Bill Moyers: 'Greed and God won four elections in a row' for Rove

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Bill_Moyers_Greed_and_God_won_0816.html

08/16/2007 @ 9:21 pm

Filed by David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Bill Moyers will consider the departure of Karl Rove in a video essay released early by PBS to RAW STORY. Moyers, a Texan like Rove and Bush, is not easily swayed by the commentators and administration figures who have been quick to describe Rove as "brilliant ... mastermind ... boy genius."

"Karl Rove figured out a long time ago," says Moyers, "that the way to take an intellectually incurious, draft-averse naughty playboy in a flight jacket with chewing tobacco in his back pocket and make him governor of Texas was to sell him as God's anointed."

"Rove turned religion into a weapon of political combat," explains Moyers. "Never mind that in stroking the base's bigotry of true believers you coarsen both politics and religion."

"Rove was also shaking down corporations for campaign cash," Moyers continues. "Crony capitalism became a biblical injunction. Greed and God won four elections in a row. ... But the result has been to leave Texas under the thumb of big money, with huge holes ripped in its social contact, and the US government in shambles."

Moyers' final reaction to Rove's departure is to wonder, given that Rove has "confessed to friends his own agnosticism ... how all those folks on the Christian right must feel discovering they were used for partisan reasons by a skeptic, a secular manipulator."

Partial transcript:

What struck me about my fellow Texan, Karl Rove, is that he knew how to win elections as if they were divine interventions. You may think God summoned Billy Graham to Florida on the eve of the 2000 election to endorse George W. Bush just in the nick of time, but if it did happen that way, the good lord was speaking in a Texas accent.

Karl Rove figured out a long time ago that the way to take an intellectually incurious draft-averse naughty playboy in a flight jacket with chewing tobacco in his back pocket and make him governor of Texas, was to sell him as God’s anointed in a state where preachers and televangelists outnumber even oil derricks and jack rabbits. Using church pews as precincts Rove turned religion into a weapon of political combat -- a battering ram, aimed at the devil’s minions, especially at gay people.

It’s so easy, as Karl knew, to scapegoat people you outnumber, and if God is love, as rumor has it, Rove knew that, in politics, you better bet on fear and loathing. Never mind that in stroking the basest bigotry of true believers you coarsen both politics and religion.

At the same time he was recruiting an army of the lord for the born-again Bush, Rove was also shaking down corporations for campaign cash. Crony capitalism became a biblical injunction. Greed and God won four elections in a row - twice in the lone star state and twice again in the nation at large. But the result has been to leave Texas under the thumb of big money with huge holes ripped in its social contract, and the U.S. government in shambles - paralyzed, polarized, and mired in war, debt and corruption.

Rove himself is deeply enmeshed in some of the scandals being investigated as we speak, including those missing emails that could tell us who turned the attorney general of the United States into a partisan sockpuppet. Rove is riding out of Dodge city as the posse rides in. At his press conference this week he asked God to bless the president and the country, even as reports were circulating that he himself had confessed to friends his own agnosticism; he wished he could believe, but he cannot. That kind of intellectual honesty is to be admired, but you have to wonder how all those folks on the Christian right must feel discovering they were used for partisan reasons by a skeptic, a secular manipulator. On his last play of the game all Karl Rove had to offer them was a hail mary pass, while telling himself there’s no one there to catch it.

The video will appear on Friday on PBS's Bill Moyers Journal at: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html

Cheney in 1994: Don't take Baghdad

Americans United: Trouble In Texas - School Board Chairman Seeks Religion In Science Class

August 9th 2007

The Texas Freedom Network (TFN) on Tuesday revealed a side of “intelligent design” proponents rarely seen by the public at large. The group released a transcript  and recording of an extraordinarily candid speech given in 2005 by recently named State Board of Education Chairman Ron McLeroy.

McLeroy told a gathering at Grace Bible Church in Bryan, Texas, of his efforts to expunge evolution from the state’s high school biology textbooks. “Back in November 2003, we finished [the]…adoption process for the biology textbooks in Texas…. I want to tell you all the arguments made by all the intelligent-design group, all the creationist intelligent design people, I can guarantee the other side heard exactly nothing,” he said.

He went on, condemning other Christian board members for not following his lead.

“[T]he four really conservative, orthodox Christians on the board were the only ones who were willing to stand up to the textbooks and say they don’t present the weaknesses of evolution,” he said. “Amazing.”

He admonished the audience not to bicker over the finer points of creationism because they were united under a “big tent” against evolution.

“Whether you’re a progressive creationist, recent creationist, young-Earth, old-Earth, it’s all in the tent of intelligent design,” McLeroy said. “And intelligent design here at Grace Bible Church is actually a smaller tent than you would have in the intelligent design movement as a whole, because we are all Biblical literalists…. So because it’s a bigger tent, just don’t waste our time arguing with each other about…all of the side issues.”

“Modern science today,” McLeroy complained, “is totally based on naturalism,” thus “it is the naturalistic base that is [our] target.” 

The remainder of McLeroy’s speech focused on strategy.  He quoted fondly from Phillip Johnson’s “Wedge Document,” which has as its purpose to “defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies” and “to replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.”

Following a long spiel about biblical truth, McLeroy told the audience to ignore intelligent design’s religious foundation when talking to the general public. Not to worry though, the “time to address [Biblical issues] will be after we have separated materialistic prejudice from scientific fact.”

The second step, he said, is to point out that evolution wrongly depends on “naturalism;” that supernaturalism or divine influences are unfairly excluded from the conversation. Finally, forget the scientists and target people without a firm grasp on evolutionary theory.

McLeroy lamented the fact that he failed to convince fellow board members that “are good, strong Christians” to see it his way in 2003.  Even though they were active in church, he said, they didn’t even care that evolution conflicted with their Christian worldview. He was sure he would have gotten a few more votes if he’d just mentioned evolution ignores God.

So, step one: lie about your motives; step two: change the definition of science; step three: target the most impressionable among you.

McLeroy’s perspective is incredibly dangerous. His effort to replace science with theology has implications not just for Texas, but for school children nationwide.Texas is a major market for textbook publishers because it has so many children in its public system. Therefore, the textbooks available to school districts around the country tend to reflect Texas school officials’ choices.

TFN’s press release noted that the 2006 school board elections shifted the balance of power, giving McLeroy and his allies a slim majority. The board is slated to revise science standards this school year.

By Lauren Smith

Emerson on Friendship

A beautiful poem about friendship, and when I read it, I can think of the friends of mine which this poem describes.

A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs,
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.
I fancied he was fled,
And, after many a year,
Glowed unexhausted kindliness
Like daily sunrise there.
My careful heart was free again, --
O friend, my bosom said,
Through thee alone the sky is arched,
Through thee the rose is red,
All things through thee take nobler form,
And look beyond the earth,
And is the mill-round of our fate
A sun-path in thy worth.
Me too thy nobleness has taught
To master my despair;
The fountains of my hidden life
Are through thy friendship fair.

-RW Emerson

Rove's Legacy is Sedition

A great sendoff to the biggest turd to draw a government paycheck in a long, long time:

Thanks, Jim Moore!

While our nation is in a war that is largely a product of Rove-designed deceptions, he leaked the name of an agent [Plame] who has put her life at risk to protect our country from weapons of mass destruction and he did so for no other reason than silence future critics of the administration and exact revenge. The fact that Karl Rove has not been tried for sedition and treason ought to trouble every American who still believes in those things that have long been held to be good and right and true about our country.

Here

Welcome Stub Farlo, blogger in Colorado!

I'd like to extend a warm welcome to "Stub Farlo" whose epoynymous author is a valued colleague of mine. SF is quite astute politically, not least about matters of Colorado, and war and morality. I think we'll all benefit from his rants, diatribes, musings, pontifications, and semi-conscious noises.

Welcome, Stub!

Loving the Troops to Death

In his NYT column, Frank Rich looks at the behavior of "unreconstructed Iraq hawks" who hide behind the troops as they continue to defend their colosal mistake. Noting the paralells between this administration and Nixon's -- with their lies, cover-ups, and addictions to secrecy -- Rich finds a few distinctions, including the fact that no one died in Watergate.

There is another significant difference as well. Washington never drank the Nixon Kool-Aid. It kept a skeptical bipartisan eye on Tricky Dick throughout his political career, long before the Watergate complex had even been built. The charmed Mr. Bush, by contrast, got a free pass; both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and both liberals and conservatives in the news media were credulous enablers of the Iraq fiasco. Now a reckoning awaits, and the denouement is getting ugly.

The context-free invoking of "the troops" and ""nine-eleven" has become an uncontrollable tic with war supporters, who seem to feel the mere uttering of the words makes them so.

Which makes sense, I suppose, when "the troops" you're supporting are really just GI Joe figures in your head, and not the actual people you believe should be sent off to fight in an endless, pointless war. Given that crucial distinction, there is no need to explain why a "troop supporter" should block funding for body armor, reinforced Humvees, or Farsi translators -- what does that have to do with it? My GI Joe action figure doesn't need any of those things!

Rich argues, though, that the few remaining dead-enders are having increasing trouble blinkering reality, as support for the war wanes, and their jingoism, name-calling, and non sequiturs lose their power. Jim Webb calls out Lindsay Graham on Meet the Press for putting his political views "into the mouths of soldiers." The public -- and even active military -- turn against the war. Walter Reed Hospital becomes a national scandal.

My question remains, why has it taken this long for the tide to turn? I remember joining a crowd of tens of thousands of people, stretching from the steps of the Capitol in Austin all the way across the Town Lake Bridge, in March of 2003. (The local news said "hundreds" of people were there.) It seemed everyone there realized the administration was lying about the pretext for war. Millions of people around the world marched on that day -- Bush called it a "focus group."

And the press, with its embarrassing tolerance for being lied to, lent their resources to the proaganda effort. Now that the inevitable consequences of those lies are all around us, the Washington "consensus" has shifted, and it's so safe to aknowledge it that even Democrats are willing to say so.

But why did it take so long? And why does Bush still have the ability to coerce Congress into giving him ever more concentrated powers? I guess the Kool Aid in Washington is a hard addiction to break.

Bush clearing brush?

It's August and I haven't seen any footage of Bush clearing brush.
Either it's all cleared or the White House finally decided that
"brush clearing" wasn't doing much for Bush's image.

Either possibility is interesting to contemplate.

Why Has the MSM Narrowed the Democratic Field to Two Already?

I am trying to figure out why the media keeps treating Hillary and Obama as if they were the only two candidates in the field. When I listen to Dodd, Richardson, Biden and Edwards, I think, “well, these are serious people who could really compete for the presidency.” When I listen to Gravel and Kucinich, I think, “These are people whose progressive ideas may sound radical, but if you look at the polls, are voicing concerns and issues that the public really cares about.”

Yes, the media (MSM) see Hillary and Obama as the Two Serious Ones because of fundraising and polling. But the truth is, the primaries and early caucuses matter a lot. A serious slip by H or O in Iowa or New Hampshire and we’ve got a totally different race.

The media understand this point, so they must have other motives for wanting the field so narrowed down already. Could it be that editors know that in an age of cutbacks and short staffs in newspaper offices, they don’t have the money to cover five candidates—so they pick two to protect their own bottom line?

The Administration's "Enzo the Baker" Moment

Sydney Blumenthal has another great analysis up on Salon about the Attorney General scandal, and the absolute need Bush has to protect Gonzales.

Omertà (or a code of silence) has become the final bond holding the Bush administration together. Honesty is dishonorable; silence is manly; penitence is weakness. Loyalty trumps law. Protecting higher-ups is patriotism. Stonewalling is idealism. Telling the truth is informing. Cooperation with investigators is cowardice; breaking the code is betrayal. Once the code is shattered, however, no one can be trusted and the entire edifice crumbles.

If you're wondering why Bush lets this scandal, which has sapped the entire Administration of its political capital -- and, I would say, even its plausibility as a government -- Blumenthal explains:

Bush cannot afford to have Gonzales resign or be removed. Gonzales' leaving would ratchet up the administration's political crisis to an intense level. Bush could not nominate a replacement without responding to the Senate Judiciary Committee's inevitable request for information on every matter that he has attempted to keep secret. On every unresolved and electrified issue the Senate would demand documents -- the entire cache on the development of policy since 2001 on torture, the gutting of the Civil Rights Division, the U.S. attorneys and much more. Only Gonzales' perpetuation in office holds back the deluge.

It's definitely worth the read.