Category: Politics

Von Spakovsky says good-bye to that job at the FEC | Political Insider

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Hans Von Spakovsky resigns from the FEC, though the Bush Administration has not withdrawn his nomination.

This is a man whose professional career has been, “Keeping N***ers from Voting”, and the fact that he is exiting the scene is a good thing.

One final, more trivial note:

Between that picture, which looks like a Waffen SS photo, which, juxtaposed with his name, just gives me the creeps.

Of course, he’s not a Nazi SS member. He’s a bigot, and a lier, and a follower of Jim Crow.

All par for the course for a nomination from Bush and His Evil Minions™.

Classism

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Timothy Egan of the Times has a very interesting post about the establishment’s antipathy towards Huckabee. It sounds a lot like their rap on Bill Clinton (Rhodes Scholar) and Jimmy Carter (59th out of 820 at Annapolis) too.

Amazing it appears that the Washington Hive Mind™ is Republican, and that it hates authentic Southerners (GW Bush was born in Connecticut, and went to Phillips Andover and Yale).

The rap against Mike Huckabee, the Baptist preacher and ex-Arkansas governor now doing for the Republican Party establishment what three-alarm chili does for an afternoon nap, is that he’s too inexperienced to be president, too naïve — a rube straight out of Dogpatch.

Few of Huckabee’s critics have actually come out and said what many of them think. The language is coded, as it usually is with class and race in this country. The Wall Street Journal, the anti-tax jihadists at the Club For Growth, the National Review – these pillars of Old School Republicanism have signaled that Huckabee is Not One of Ours. But they’re careful to say it’s not about class, because, of course – it is!

Go Read the rest.

Schadenfreude: Scaife Edition

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I posted about this in October when the WaPo covered this, and now Vanity Fair has a much more extensive writeup of the Scaife divorce.

So, the man who did his best to get a president impeached for sleeping around is himself a philanderer. He is a hypocrite who deserves any pain he gets.

FWIW, he should let his wife have that damn dog. In a divorce, you try to get out with your balls intact, the dog is a distraction.

Tom Lantos Retiring

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The reason given is esophageal cancer, but doubtless the challenge of Jackie Speier in the primary, where she was leading by 30% in the polls, had a lot to do with that too.

It comes down to the fact that he was a very strong hawk on Iraq, and any Iraq Hawk deserves to lose their seat.

FWIW, part of his statement is very disingenuous.

It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a Member of Congress. I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country.

Of course, Leon Blum (France), Bruno Kreisky (Austria), both of whom were holocaust survivors and not in America, and, of course, Menachem Begin in Israel were all PMs and Holocaust survivors. (H/t The Reality Based Community)

This kind of ahistorical American exceptionalism is de regeur in US politics, and dangerous, because it leads to things like invading Iraq.

Heads of the 911 Commission Claim That the CIA Deliberately Obstructed Their Investigation

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The money quote is, “As a legal matter, it is not up to us to examine the C.I.A.’s failure to disclose the existence of these tapes. That is for others. What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.

Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton have just made a specific allegation of a crime, obstructing a federal investigation.

There are people in the Bush Administration, and among the professional staff in the intelligence agencies, who

More Obama Asshattery

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This time, he appears to be going after Gore and Kerry.

In a speech this afternoon in central Iowa, Barack Obama seems to have widened his criticism of the politics of the past to encompass not only Hillary Clinton but John Kerry and Nobel Laureate Al Gore. Making an argument for his electability, Obama said, “I don’t want to go into the next election starting off with half the country already not wanting to vote for Democrats — we’ve done that in 2004, 2000,” according to a person at the event.

The first comment to the post says it very well, “His arrogance and sense of entitlement are not just inaccurate, his remarks are insulting and stupid.”(emphasis mine)

I would add that Al Gore got more votes than George Bush, and the problem with both campaigns is that they were unwilling to call out George W. Bush specifically, and the Republicans generally for their incompetence and corruption.

You also have Barack Obama going after Labor Unions political involvement:

And top union officials who support Obama’s rivals are in turn accusing the Illinois Democrat, who once sought their endorsements, of trying to damage labor’s political role. “I’m taken aback that somebody like Obama would think that Oprah Winfrey has a greater right to participate in the political process than the 4 million people I represent,” Edward J. McElroy, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, which has spent $799,619 on New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s behalf, said, referring to the television host’s high-profile support for Obama. “It’s sour grapes. It sounds just like the charges the Republicans make.”

It appears that there is no Democratic constituency that he is unwilling to “Sistah Soljah”.

More Peculiarities in Bhutto Assassination

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First, we have reports that the Pakistani police prevented an autopsy, and now we have reports that Bhutto was to hand over evidence of vote rigging to US lawmakers on the day of her death.

“Where an opposing candidate is strong in an area, they [supporters of President Pervez Musharraf ] have planned to create a conflict at the polling station, even killing people if necessary, to stop polls at least three to four hours,” the document says.

The report also accused the government of planning to tamper with ballots and voter lists, intimidate opposition candidates and misuse U.S.-made equipment to monitor communications of opponents.

What’s that phrase, “Will no one rid me of that troublesome priest?”

Musharraf definitely bears some of the responsibility for her death, as they clearly skimped on security in an attempt to reign in her campaigning, but it is increasingly looking as if his responsibility is broader and deeper.

The Definitive Word on Partisan “Gridlock”

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Greg Seargant nails it when he says, “The way to reduce “Partisan Gridlock” is to further weaken the GOP.

….

These questions are kind of relevant. Partisan gridlock happens because people — and by extension, political parties — disagree about stuff. One party wants to do one thing on a particular issue. Another party says No. The first party offers a few concessions. The second party still says No. That’s where “partisan gridlock” comes from — underlying disagreement on issues — and in our current case, the fault for our “partisan gridlock” isn’t equally distributed between the two parties. Rather, it’s almost exclusively the fault of the Republicans.

You aren’t allowed to say this, but it’s true. If you don’t believe me, ask the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. They proposed a bunch of solutions to Iraq. The Democrats largely embraced these solutions. The Republicans, by contrast, didn’t. ….

In fact, I would argue that over the past 30 years, the Republican party has lost any interest in governing. Instead, what we have is a desire for power and wealth.

I went to school at UMass with former Tom Delay Deputy Chief of Staff, and now a convicted member of Abrahmoff’s “entourage”, Tony Rudy.

I served in the SGA Senate with him with him, and we were both nominally “Conservatives” in that body*, and we got along fairly well, he was the first to shake my hand when Nummo News†, the Black Student newspaper, condemned me on its front page for calling for their sanctions as a result of illegal electioneering in the SGA presidential race. We got along, and we sometimes traded private snarky comments during debates.

This has given me some insight into Tony’s feelings on governance, and considering the positions that he has held since UMass, it is not unreasonable to extend those views to a significant portion of the Republican party.

Republicans, with the qualifiers listed above, believe government to be evil. If a government program exists, it is a bad thing™. If it is successful it is even more evil, because it weakens our morality‡ and compromises out strength.

When you come to government service with this philosophy, there are only two reasons for that service, money and power.

This makes Republican obstructionism fairly easy. There is no other goal to be accomplished.

It’s why, at least for now, reaching across the aisle is a waste of time. There are no Everett Dirksens in the current Republican Party leadership.

*It’s not that I had an epiphany and became a liberal. It’s that the left wing of the SGA Senate were all the “US Out of North America” crowd.
†Seriously, I think that half the Senate shook my hands before someone told me why….Strange political experience.
‡Yes, it does seem like General Jack D. Ripper’s “Purity of Essence” from Dr. Strangelove.

Developments in Pakistan, and A Possible Real Effect in Iowa

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It looks like Pakistan will be delaying elections for a few weeks in the wake of the Bhutto assassination.

Considering the unrest, it’s probably a good idea, though considering the iron grip that Musharraf has of the electoral process, I also think that it is not unlikely that the accusation of Bhutto’s PPP, that this is an attempt to game the system is true, but with at least 11 elections offices torched, there is not much of an option.

However, the effect on the US presidential campaign might be more than people have believed.

Specifically, with the appointment of Bilalwal Bhutto as the PPP party head, albeit in a purely ceremonial manner, with the acting head being the phenomenally corrupt (even by Pakistani standards!!!) Asif “Mr 10%” Ali Zedari, it raises dynastic issues, and might make people wonder as to whether the electoral process in the United states is more like Pakistan than we would like to think.

The entire Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton thing may very well bite Hillary, though the effect is likely

Conservative Affirmative Action in Action: Bill Kristol Edition

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It looks like the New York Times will be offering Bill Kristol a columnist gig for the next year.

It seems to be rather more limited than usual, with only 1 column a week, normally it’s 2, and only a year long contract.

While not as egregious a case as Jonah Goldberg*, Bill Kristol is the beneficiary of “Conservative Affirmative Action”, much as is the brothers Kagan, who all seem to dance from position to position based on little more than who their parents were.

Nepotism is a problem because you end up with idiot sons managing things that they have no business managing. You can refer to Andrew Sullivan’s post about John Podhoretz becoming editor of Commentary if you want it in the short form with lots of snark.

I’m not a fan of Mr. Sullivan, but when he’s on, he can be amusing.

*Seriously, I’m embarrassed by this guy because we share the same nationality†, I know his mom is a “person of note” in the community, but you need to find someone with more of a flair for original thought, like Jayson Blair of Stephen Glass.
†Carrot Top fills me with the same feelings too.

Why Obama’s Talking of Reconciliation is Both Naive and Dangerous

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Lambert of Corrente makes the point that Barack Obama’s speeches on reconciliation are dangerously naive, and I’d tend to agree.

He makes the point that much of the “flying wing-nut monkey” aspects of American conservatism have been the result of very people, primarily those got their money from dead ancestors as opposed to working for a living, have had a direct economic interest in the “flying wing-nut monkey” policies. It’s more than ideology, it is a deliberate and effective accumulation of both additional wealth and power.

If he is right, and my recent dust-up with the readers of The National Review over a comment about a writing gig for Ramesh Ponnuru*, whose career has largely been bankrolled by these interests, is evidence of the nature of the structures put in place by wealthy heirs for their own benefit.

To quote Lambert, who also got a nod from Krugman:

For these billionaires, the ROI of the Conservative Movement is absolutely spectacular. At the micro level, for example, if you want to create an aristocracy, then you want to eliminate any taxes on inherited wealth, despite what Warren Buffet or Bill Gates might say about the values entailed by that project. So, the Conservative Movement goes to work, develops and successfully propagates the term “death tax” — which they may even believe in, as if sincerity were the point — and voila! Whoever thought that “family values” would translate to “feudal values” and dynastic wealth? At the macro level, their ROI has been spectacular as well. Real wages have been flat for a generation; unions have been disempowered; the powers of corporations greatly increased; government has become an agent for the corporations, rather than a protector of the people; the safety net has been shredded; and so on and on and on.

Ponnuru is where he is because the right wing infrastructure recognizes him as an asset that offers a very good return on investment.‡

What the supporters of Obama maintain, at least the ones that I deal with in my Pinko Commie circles, is that this is largely a campaign tactic, and that he recognizes it as the reality of the situation, or to quote “Amadan” a poster on the (by invitation only) Stellar Parthenon BBS,

But let’s face it, Obama has to dance around in a tutu and fairy wings or he goes from “friendly magical Negro who just might be electable” to “Angry Scary Black Man.

Personally, I’m not inclined to believe this. Even if was the intent, behavior becomes internalized through habit. Eventually, you become what you are pretending to be.

*No, I’m not picking a fight, or implying a lack of intellect, but according to the NRO’s bio of him, he graduated summa cum laude from Princeton’s history department, Wiki says with a BA degree.

The BA is not the professional degree in History, the PhD. is, hence the jokes about history majors delivering pizzas, so normally the career path would involve an MA, JD (law degree), or PhD in something more specific.

As a result of his work on The Sentinel, a now-defunct conservative campus magazine at Princeton† and other venues, he was recognized, and recruited, as a writer/editor/fellow at various right wing institutions.

†I love “the Google” as a research tool.

‡I actually mean this as a compliment. Seriously.