Real Democrats, Please Stand Up

Lieberman Will Petition
1:45 PM EDT, July 3, 2006
By MARK PAZNIOKAS, The Hartford Courant

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman announced today he will petition for a place on the November ballot as an "independent Democrat," giving him a chance to stay alive politically should he lose an Aug. 8 primary for the Democratic nomination.

I hope that the Democrats of Connecticut will have enough self respect to decline to vote for someone who cares more about holding office than belonging to the party.

Let me be clear. I do not expect any candidate not to try anything within legal bounds to get elected. I'm not surprised at this move by Lieberman. On a formal level, I can't even be critical of him as a self-interested candidate. He is acting within the laws of the state.

In fact, I'm not particularly emotionally engaged at this point. Joe Liberman has made clear that he is going to use the Democratic Party to further his own ends, and will turn away as soon as it is no longer in his interest to do so. Given that, the party should not extend him any time, energy or other resources, as he is not willing to be a party loyalist.

This is a different matter than voting a party line on legislation. In those cases, the office holder may think that the party has chosen a wrong-headed position or that the overall case is good, but would be bad for her constituents, particularly as an official must decide on behalf of people who may not have voted for her.

In an election, however, it is an exchange between an organization and a candidate. The organization is formally bound to select the candidate who will best represent the interests of the constituent members. It would be a different matter if a party asks someone already running for a seat if she would also represent their party, but that is clearly not the case here.

Joe Lieberman has, for all practical purposes, bolted the Democratic Party. He does not deserve the support of the party because he will not offer support in return. Given that he is still polling 15 point ahead of Lamont in a poll cited in the above article, there is still a strong chance he will take the primary. I'm watching for the new Quinnipaic tracking poll for a more accurate measure.

The article goes on to say:

"I've been a proud, loyal and progressive Democrat since John F. Kennedy inspired my generation of Americans into public service and I will stay a Democrat, whether I am the Democraitic party's nominee or a petitioning Democratic candidate on the November ballot," Lieberman said. He added that he would, even if re-elected as a petitioning candidate, remain a member of the Senate Democratic Caucus...

Lieberman began making courtesy calls to leading Democrats late this morning. Among them were Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Connecticut's Democratic state chairwoman, Nancy DiNardo.

Most other Democratic candidates already have said they would support the winner of the Aug. 8 primary.

This is where it gets politically interesting. The Democrats as a party had better stand squarely behind whomever wins the party nomination in August. To fail to do so would mean something far, far worse than returning Lieberman to the Senate. It would mean the end of the party as even pretending to represent the will of its members. I'm not talking about an individual politician saying "Joe's my friend and I support him." That's failing to be political. I'm talking about the Senate leadership, the DNC, the DLC, the DSCC and other party-identified organs, and their managing officers speaking in an official capacity.

That means you, Harry Reid. And you, Howard Dean. The entire DLC leadership. And most especially you, Chuck Shumer, since you've hinted at being a Lieberman-before-party supporter before.

Unlike a lot of blogospheric bloviators, I'm not saying this out of any deep, passionate dislike for Sen. Lieberman. My opinion of him is more negative than positive, but I figure he's not my senator and CT can send whatever idiot they feel best represents them. I am saying this out a keen regard for the way power works in the Congress and knowing we need party discipline to take back the government from the Rethuglican kleptocracy. I offer a sound, formal rule - support the local candidate for your party. Reward loyalty and punish defection in clear and consistent ways.

A party of rules and law, not of men and money.

Anglachel

Bush's War - the Spin

The LA Times does some more gratuitous Democrat bashing.

The mystery of Bush's War, of course, is why the regular press reports can document the failure of leadership and strategy in Iraq, and the polls clearly demonstrate that the US public is sick of the mess the Republicans are making of Bush's War, yet major papers can publish this kind of horseshit with a straight face:

WASHINGTON — President Bush says Democrats want to "wave the white flag of surrender" in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney accuses the opposition party's leaders of "defeatism" in the global war on terrorism. And House Republican leader John A. Boehner of Ohio charges Democrats who applauded last week's Supreme Court ruling on detainees with advocating "special privileges for terrorists."

Ever since the Sept. 11 attacks, Republicans have made an uncompromising stance against terrorism a cornerstone of their campaigns. It helped the GOP to take control of the Senate in 2002 and Bush to win reelection in 2004.

Now, in the face of increasing violence in Iraq and eroding public support for the war at home, Republicans are turning again to the theme of toughness — with gloves off.

The environment is not entirely hospitable. A car bomb killed scores of people in a busy Baghdad market Saturday, a day after the Army announced that American soldiers were accused of raping an Iraqi woman and then killing her and three family members. Polls find most voters say they want to see Democrats take control of Congress this fall.

But Republicans believe toughness still sells.

"Foreign policy looked like a minus for Republicans this year," GOP pollster Frank Luntz said, "but it's turning into a plus…. The public doesn't endorse the Republican policy, but they actually reject the Democratic alternative…. By comparison, the Republicans do well."

Republican strategists hailed last week's Supreme Court ruling on detainees at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, which held that Bush had overstepped his powers by refusing some legal protections for alleged terrorists.

"The Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo was a real blessing in disguise," said Whit Ayres, another GOP pollster. It "allows us to have a debate on whether terrorists should receive the same legal protections as American military personnel…. It's hard to see Republicans losing when that's the debate."

Democratic leaders say, at least in public, that they are confident they can win that debate.

But the Democrats' response so far has been less unified, less pointed and less memorable than the Republicans' attacks.

Where is the proof that this is so, except in the reporting insisting that it must be true? Why is this the frame through which the paper presents the war? It would be far more accurate to say that the Republican cling to an ineffective and pathetic "tough guy" image because they have nothing else to stand on. They sound unified because they have nothing else to say. The Democrats are less unified and pointed because they are treating the war as something serious, not as a political football, and are grappling with the fact that there are no good options left to us, as Al Gore pointed out in Rolling Stone. Democrats are trying to figure out how to salvage the economy, the military and the nation's international standing from the cesspool into which the Republicans have flung them.

Meanwhile, the LA Times joins the Republicans in the fantasy that this is all just politics. I wonder if the relatives of the murdered family in Mahmoudiyah appreciate how unified the Republicans sound in their tough guy pro-war stance. I wonder if the reporter who typed the words "American soldiers were accused of raping an Iraqi woman and then killing her and three family members" was thinking, "Ah, too bad for her, but, man, isn't it great that the Republicans are being tough about this? Stay the course! More of the same!"

The tough guy stance is going to get more people killed for the sake of poll ratings in the US. Doyle McManus and Peter Wallsten, you two gentlemen who wrote this article, do you really think that the rape and murder of this woman is an acceptable price for winning the election in November? How many votes do you think the Republicans will get for it? You know, maybe there can be a sliding scale. 1 vote per molestation without penetration, 3 votes for vaginal penetration, 5 additional for a subsequent murder, and 3 more for each related homicide (doubled when the victm is under 12, of course)?

Positions have consequences.

Anglachel

UPDATE: One of the authors of this Democrat bashing article is Peter Wallsten, who is the author of the piece in last week's Sunday LA Times saying that the Democrat's call for a withdrawal of troops was egg on their face because the White Hosue & Rethugs, after having mocked and name called over the Democratic proposal, adopted the same proposal. Read my write up here.

Bush's War - the Reality

The rape of an Iraqi woman and murder of her and her family by US soldiers near the town of Mahmoudiyah gets worse with every report:

BEIJI, Iraq -- Investigators believe American soldiers spent nearly a week plotting an attack in which they raped an Iraqi woman, then killed her and her family in an insurgent-ridden area south of Baghdad, a U.S. military official said Saturday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said the attack appeared "totally premeditated" and that the soldiers apparently "studied" the family for about a week before carrying out the attack.

According to the official, the Sunni Arab family had just moved into a new home in the religiously mixed area about 20 miles south of Baghdad. The Americans entered the home, separated three family members from the woman, then raped her and set fire to her body, the official said. The three others were also slain. A senior Army official who also requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing said one of the victims was a child .

U.S. officials said they knew of the deaths but thought the victims died due to sectarian violence. A local police official, Capt. Ihsan Abdul-Rahman, said Iraqi officials received a report March 13 alleging that American soldiers had killed the family in the Khasir Abyad district about 6 miles north of Mahmoudiya.

He said he did not relay that report to American forces.

The report is sketchy. I hope that the reporter simply omitted the soldiers killing the woman in question after raping her and before setting her on fire, not that they doused her with alcohol/lighter fluid and burned her alive.

Two soldiers in the same platoon who did not participate in the crime have produced testimony implicating five men in the crime, though only four are still in Iraq. One of the men in question has confessed. It is not explained why the Iraqi police official did not report the allegations to the Army, whether because he did not believe them, did not think it would do any good, or else feared retaliation for having knowledge of the crime. Given the Newsweek report on the Afghan who was detained and tortured after having saved the life of an American Special Forces soldier, you can't really blame someone for not wanting to come forward.

Why are we keeping our troops in a no-win situation where those who are criminals knowingly commit atrocities like this or like Abu Ghraib, and those who are not are put into situations where they must choose between bad and worse, such as the soldiers manning the checkpoints?

This is the Republican plan for leaving Iraq. Keep our troops there, exhausted and surrounded, let them fight it out with the local population, deny crimes when they happen, and shrug off the maiming and killing of the troops. See if you can gin up another war to keep polls high (even when the polls just go down and down), then run away as soon as you can foist the mess off on someone else.

Anglachel

Days of Obligation

Let's look at Iraq right now. Is there some way we can pull out?

We're going to have to pull out of there. But the hard truth is that even those of us who tried like hell to prevent this catastrophic mistake are now bound to share in the moral consequences of whatever choices we as a nation make in the manner of our leaving. We have to pursue two objectives simultaneously, and that's always hard. The first objective is to get the hell out of there as quickly as we can. The second objective is to avoid the moral mistake of doing even more harm to those people in the manner of our leaving than we did in the manner of our invasion. And, tragically, it is possible to do even more harm if we are not alert to the ethical choices that we have to make as we prepare to leave. Unfortunately there are no "good options," because Bush and Cheney have driven us into an ethical cul-de-sac. General Odom, who used to run defense intelligence, said last year that the invasion of Iraq "will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history."

Al Gore, 3.0
Rolling Stone, Issue 1005/1005

The last few days, I have been trying to think about the catastrophe that is Iraq and what our country can and should (the two not being the same) do with regards to ending our involvement.

The Republican plan is clear – do nothing, milk the situation for as many votes as possible, make sure that their constituents get a cut of the military money, then run like hell after the 2008 election when a Democrat takes the White House. They will then spend the next four years blaming the Democrat for "losing" George Bush’s war.

We know this up front. Whomever has the thankless job of following Bush in the Oval Office is going to be scraping W’s shit off the walls and carpet for every day of his or her tenure. This situation is simply a given, so what remains is what are the Democrats going to do about Iraq?

Here’s the brutal truth – the Democrats who say we cannot simply withdraw are right because we have incurred obligations to Iraq. This is not Colin Powell’s juvenile “Pottery Barn” analogy, as though America possesses another sovereign nation, but a sober acceptance that we have done irreparable harm to these people, and must do our best to do no more. Al Gore’s statement above is the best summary I have yet read about the conflicting obligations of our days – to do right by both our own nation and by the one we have wronged. Blustering about the criminality of the Cheneyites and proclaiming one’s own innocence in the conduct of the war is irrelevant to the reality. Iraq remains in agony because of the actions of our nation.

Any Democratic leader worth his or her salt will be caught between the devil and deep blue sea – facing demands for immediate, unconditional withdrawal and demands for open-ended waiting for Godot. Both are foolish, though the first has the advantage of fewer US troops dead and maimed as well as fewer Iraqis in a similar condition due to US troops’ actions. The second has no advantages as our presence is not enough to secure goods or conditions advantageous to the US, and it destabilizes Iraq. But taking one extreme or the other is simply evasion of the obligations laid upon us by the past acts of the nation.

The question, in truth, is not whether the US must leave, but what the continuing US presence in the area will look like. This is one of the points Wes Clark has been making all along, as he discusses here in The Way Forward, though I fear that the window of opportunity for many of his proposals may have closed. I think changing the rhetoric from "withdrawal" to "redeployment" is the right one to take, but only if it means exactly that – reorganization of our presence, not slinking off from the devastation and hope no one notices. Not only is the latter the Republican plan, it is morally indefensible.

We have entered the terrible days of obligation, when, to be Americans, we may not repudiate the acts of our nation, no matter how vile, with the claim that those other guys did it, not our fault, not our problem. In this way, more than any other, the legacy of Iraq will be like the legacy of global warming.

Anglachel

Haditha, Redux

And another atrocity commited in Iraq:

The investigation is the fourth into suspected killings of unarmed Iraqis by American soldiers announced by the military in June. In May, it was disclosed that the military was conducting an inquiry into the deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha last November.

The alleged rape and killings took place March 12 in the vicinity of the volatile market town of Mahmudiya, an insurgent stronghold about 20 miles south of Baghdad. The killing of the family was originally reported by the military as due to "insurgent activity," American officials said.

A senior police official in Mahmudiya said in a telephone interview that he received a report of the killings in March. The victims were a woman, her child, her husband and the husband's brother, he said. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said a sheik from the family's tribe immediately reported the episode to the police...

The alleged rape and killings came to light after a soldier felt compelled to talk about it in a "counseling-type session," after the discovery of the bodies of his kidnapped colleagues, The Associated Press reported. The soldier who originally disclosed the alleged killings had heard about them but had not taken part in them, The A.P. said.

One soldier has admitted his role and has been arrested; others have had their weapons taken away and are confined to their base in Mahmudiya, American officials said. The soldiers under investigation are apparently from the same platoon as the three killed in Yusufiya.

G.I.'s Investigated in Slayings of 4 and Rape in Iraq
By EDWARD WONG
Published: July 1, 2006
New York Times, may require registration

Other reports have hinted, though it is murky, that the kidnapping and torture slaying of the two Army men in Yusufiya may have been done in retaliation for the rape/murders being investigated in Mahmudiya.

This is what "staying the course" for the next two and a half years will mean. More violence against civilians, more retaliation against US troops, more opportunities for Iran and bin Laden to win otherwise moderate Iraqis over to their camps.

Anglachel

Adopting the Frames of the Right

I have read, half-amused, half-appalled, the savage attacks on Sen. Barack Obama over the last few days. I listened to the speech and read the transcript. Three sentences are being pulled out of context to make Sen. Obama sound like one of the hate-preachers of the right. The speech, in its entirety, is a sharp, smart, and strong condemnation of the right's use of religion as a club, as well as explicitly holding out a hand to believers who are unsure of where they belong in the religious divide the right is forcing on the nation.

People like my father. A decorated combat veteran, a life-long public servant, and a devout Catholic who gently argues with his secular humanist child about God, love, the Pope, human decency, and moral judgment. He is a political liberal - far more so than most of the "liberal" bloggers, and for many more decades - and a deeply humane person, but he dislikes the anti-religious rhetoric of the left. He has taken me to task for my less generous statements without ever speaking a harsh word, and his caring opposition has made me reconsider my own perspective. In short, he lives his faith through good works and personal humility. He is what I thought all Christians were like. When I think of religion as it should be, I think of him.

One of my earliest childhood memories is of being caught in tear gas on the UC Berkeley campus, my father having taken me with him to Sproul Plaza for a war protest. He thought it was important that we kids understood what democracy meant, but also that we understood Christ's message of peace. I was caught in tear gas three times by the time I reached first grade. It has never been difficult for me to know what side I am on - I just remember the burn of the gas in my eyes and on my face and remember who ordered it fired. Another of my early memories is of walking through the woods with him, having him point out the plants and animals, teaching me the Latin names of the trees, and imparting his profound love for God's creation. That I do not believe Christ is the son of God, or even that there is such a being as God, does not diminish the power of those lessons.

When I read the screeds against religion, religious language, and religious practice in the original posts and associated comment threads, I cannot help but think of how my father would answer them, which is with far more patience and forgiveness than I can summon. I also cannot help thinking that these people would heap their scorn and resentment upon him, and saunter away, smugly patting themselves on the back for having "defended" the separation of church and state. They would sneer at him for being socially conservative - he doesn't approve of divorce, gay marriage, or abortion - and ignore his support for desegregation, ending the Viet Nam war, the ERA, gun control, environmentalism, and nuclear disarmament.

In short, they have adopted wholesale the most beloved frame of the right, that of ever-narrowing litmus tests to demonstrate ideological purity.

As I read Sen. Obama's speech, and then the hate speech that followed, I understood that the people who would be lost are people like my father, for the "netroots left" will afford him no ground on which to stand as a complete person. That is a cruel choice to demand of someone. It struck me that the real message of Sen. Obama's speech was the difficulty of living as a complete person - to refuse to allow one's religion to seize politics as a tool of dogma, nor to allow one's politics to make a sham and mockery of one's faith.

The response to Obama makes mockery of progressive politics. A few sentences, plucked out of a very long speech, were deployed to provide the excuse for launching very personal attacks on the Senator. I watched an opportunity to provide a place in the world for liberals like my father be thrown in the trash in preference for Lieberman bashing and excoriating the "DINOs", exactly the way every attempt to discuss substantive policy with the right becomes an occasion to invoke 9/11 and call Democrats traitors.

That frame the netroots left has imported from the right wholesale.

It is more sad than ironic that in the same time the Republicans are assaulting the New York Times, demanding punishment for the traitors who endanger the nation, I can open almost any netroots left blog and read one post after another demanding (electoral) punishment for the traitors who endanger the liberal cause. I had not realized the degree to which Ann Coulter had become the rhetorical model for the self-proclaimed defenders of progressive politics.

Because I am less charitable than my father, I will say plainly that most critics of Sen. Obama obviously did not read or listen to the entire speech, but swallowed whole the right-wing framing of it - gutless Democrat hypocritcally pandering to hostile evangelicals. The speech, however, is an intensely personal self-criticism, a story of coming to faith and understanding that it does not protect one from the buffeting of doubt or the hard choices of justice. It is a speech by a believer to other believers, first and foremost, and it is a challenge to them. It is an unyielding criticism of progressive believers for not professing their faith and leaving a space in public discourse into which have slithered the serpents of the right.

So, I prefer to uphold the faith of my father than shackle myself to the frames of the right, no matter how politically expedient. I do not care for my faith in liberalism to be used as a bludgeon by some on the purist left any more than my father accepts the crude use of Christianity by the ruthless right. In this, we share our place in the world.

Anglachel

Entitlement and the Deserving Middle Class

Or, Real Issues vs. Netroots Masturbation

After a depressing evening of reading "netroots" "passion" (i.e., litmus-test hysteria, ad hominem smears, deliberate misrepresentation of a speech, and gratuitous condescension to African American voters) over whether Sen. Barack Obama is simply Karl Rove lite (no, really!), I was about ready to go play a round of Age of Empires when I decided to go check out The American Prospect, and had my faith in progressivism restored.

Robert Kuttner has a concise, interesting and nuanced article up on John Edwards' favorite theme, the Two Americas. I wasn't much impressed by Edwards during the '04 campaign. I don't watch TV and he came across badly on the radio, all cornpone and canned sound bites. Since then, however, my opinion has been rising because of his dedicated work on behalf of alleviating poverty in America. He is now, along with Al Gore and Wes Clark, one of my favorites for the presidential race precisely because he has a central driving issue which sets the terms for his overall view.

Kuttner has approving things to say about Edwards, but he has careful and solid criticism, too. First the praise:

Former senator John Edwards gave a terrific speech to the National Press Club Thursday, one that felt like eloquence from another age. His theme: America should end poverty in three decades, mainly by rewarding work and promoting opportunity.

"Poverty is the great moral issue of our time," Edwards declared. This speech was his de facto kickoff for a run at the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

Unlike most of the undeclared Democratic field, Edwards is not putting his finger to the prevailing wind. He's trying to change it. After his 2004 vice-presidential run, Edwards admirably went home to the University of North Carolina to head its Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity.

The War on Terror has served to camouflage the typical "more of the same" war on ordinary American's that the neocons have been waging since FDR - assiduously transferring wealth upwards. It slowed under Bill Clinton, but has raged as fiercely as Iraqi gun battles since Jaunuary 2001. The various congressional scandals documented by the invaluable TPM Muckraker is an account of the amateurs in this game, the poor saps left to hoover up the leavings and the congress critters stupid enough to get caught with payola. The real action is in things like repealing the estate tax (check out Robert Reich's post The Super-Rich Estate Tax (Don't Call it a Death Tax) from earlier this month) and in getting policies in place that favor entrenched wealth over social justice. Here is where Kuttner offers criticism of Edwards:

The right has managed to savage the institutions that produced increasing opportunity and a broader middle class in the decades after World War II -- minimum wages, trade unionism, job-security, decent health and retirement plans, affordable college and housing, Social Security that rose with inflation, and economic regulation to keep Wall Street from grabbing most of the winnings.

The middle class hasn't been so insecure since the depression. But today, unlike 1937, this epic reversal is off the political radar screen. The insecurity is experienced privately rather than as a national issue.

It's courageous of Edwards to tackle poverty. But if he wants to become a presidential contender by re-introducing unspoken realities of class to American political discourse, there is a far larger class of people taking an economic bath. It's four Americans out of five. The real "Two Americas" are not the poor and everyone else, but the mega-rich and everyone else.

If we want to help the poor, prevent giveaways to the elite, and anchor a secure middle -- let's get the working middle class and the working poor back in the same broad coalition. I look forward to Edwards' next speech on that.

Survival of the Richest
(emphasis added)

This is mild criticism, and is more in the shape of advice, but it carries a punch. America equates poverty with personal failure or perhaps unavoidable misfortune, and not with government policies. The right has a built in prejudice with which to batter the left - you want to coddle lazy poor non-white ( let's never forget the race card) welfare bums and give them our hard-earned money! Kuttner points out the obvious, the basic lesson drilled into every Poli Sci student's head for the last 50 years on why there is no Socialist party in America, namely, the social contract since FDR has been to offer not riches but economic security and demonstrable socio-economic gains from one generation to the next. Not for everyone and not guaranteed, but enough to secure the foundations of the American Way of Life.

That contract is being unravelled by the neocons who mobilize tribalism - most notably race, region, and religion - to make politics about personality and prejudice. Kinda like the "netroots" are doing now. As I've said before (Heros and Demons, Avatar Politics), the boogey men of the left do not have the visceral power of those on the right (Daddy Warbucks vs. Willie Horton), and we will lose in a game of avatar politics, much in the way computer game avatars can be out monstered. Electoral gains are cemented by redistricting to ensure safe seats and by entrenching aggressive redistibutive policies to snatch wealth and strangle middle class advancement programs. The game is won, in neocon eyes, if the crown jewel of the post-war settlement, Social Security, can be destroyed.

Thus, I agree with Kuttner that Edwards, indeed any Democratic candidate, needs to expand the argument and reframe the economic split - not the impoverished and the rest of us, but the ordinary American and the economic opportunists. It can't simply be an attack on "the rich" as the American Dream is to become part of that class. It must be upon interests who are trying to scam the people working hard to become rich.

Bill Clinton's famous invocation of "Those who work hard and play by the rules" is the argument that will resonate. Think about how many ways that simple phrase engages the American imagination - hard work, self-sufficiency, law abiding, moderate, self-controlled, and (most of all) deserving. Do not underestimate how much motivation comes from that sense of entitlement. This is how any reconstruction and expansion of the peculiarly American social contract must be presented.

There is a need for the left in this country to get more aggressive in returning fire from the bloviators of the right, going back and bitchslapping them when they try to play slime and defend politics. The "anger" of the "netroots", however, is reaching the point of diminishing returns. The faux arguments about who counts as a "real" progressive pale next to the horrific damage the neocons are inflicting on the body politic and on the bodies of our citizens. There needs to be an argument for the middle class that will move them from the middle of the road position.

Beating back the erosion of middle class entitlements is a winning proposition.

Anglachel

Kitty On the Mend

No pictures this time, just a short report that she's clearly on the mend and can now jump up on low surfaces. She's sitting at my feet purring away right now.

Anglachel

Not That Anyone Will Give Sen. Clinton Credit For It...

So the blogosphere is full of cheers for Sen. Harry Reid for saying the Democrats would block the Congress giving itself any more pay raises until and unless they also raise the minimum wag:

Democrats vow to block pay raises until minimum wage increased

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Democrats ratcheted up their election-year push for an increase in the federal minimum wage Tuesday by promising to block a congressional pay hike unless some of the lowest-paid hourly workers get their first raise in nearly a decade.

"Congress is going to have earn its raise by putting American workers first: A raise for workers before a raise for Congress," said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Reid refused to spell out exactly how he will block a $3,300 pay raise scheduled for January 1 for members of Congress, who currently earn $165,200 annually. He said with 40 Senate Democrats backing the maneuver, "We can stop anything they (Republicans) try to do with a congressional pay raise."

Democrats in the House and Senate want the $5.15-per-hour federal minimum wage, in place since 1997, to rise in 70-cent increments to $7.25 by January 1, 2009.

This is a long overdue move by the Dems., and is a winning issue. I'd be a lot more impressed by both Sen. Reid's "boldness" and the Left blogosphere's support if Sen. Hillary Clinton hadn't already proposed a much stronger measure back in April:

Senator Clinton Announces Legislation To Link Congressional Pay Raises With Increase In The Federal Minimum Wage

Washington, DC – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton announced today that she will introduce legislation when Congress returns to link Congressional pay increases to increases in the federal minimum wage. In addition to gradually raising the federal minimum wage, the bill would also require the federal minimum wage to be increased by the same percentage amount as Congressional salaries every year.

This is stronger than what Reid said, because it introduces a permanent indexing of the minimum wage, not an election year stunt. But acknowledging that Sen. Clinton is pushing a much more agressive and progressive measure that directly benefits working class Americans, more agressive than anything blogosphere darling Russ Feingold is proposing, would cause "progressive" heads to explode all over the blogosphere.

Sen. Clinton is not even in my top three of preferred presidantial candidates, but I trust her liberal credentials more than I trust those of the dominant left bloggers. She's actually done the work.

Anglachel

More of the Same - Bush's CYA

The book's opening anecdote tells of an unnamed CIA briefer who flew to Bush's Texas ranch during the scary summer of 2001, amid a flurry of reports of a pending al-Qaeda attack, to call the president's attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US." Bush reportedly heard the briefer out and replied: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

-- From "The Shadow War, In a Surprising New Light," a review of Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine by Barton Gellman, in the Washington Post

Think about this. Think about what Bush is saying here. "You've covered your ass, now." Just what is the briefer covering it from? That he (or she) will be asked why wasn't the President informed about a horrendous attack.

No, I don't think that the Cheneyites are behind the murders on 9/11. Their ineptitude with their wars in the Middle East pretty much demonstrate that tactical planning is not among their talents. They are 100% political operatives.

What it says is that Bush doesn't think the deaths of Americans are worth his time. The prospect of the imminent murder of citizens on American soil on his watch earned a sneer. The reporting of vital security news is nothing more than some CYA babble, because reality cannot be allowed to intrude on the fantasy that is BushWorld. It's simply unimportant.

Fast forward to today. More of the same. Bush cares nothing for the killing and crippling of American troops. He's willing to keep them in Iraq, fighting a war of attrition, so he has something to cover his ass. The war was begun on lies, has been run on lies, and will stagger along until Janaury of 2009 to preserve the lie of Bush the great war preznit.

As long as his ass is covered he does not care what happens to yours.

Anglachel

It's the Corruption, Stupid

In all the folderol over Kos, the original issue has become somewhat buried - the news of Jerome Armstrong's SEC conviction. Neil the Ethical Werewolf posted an interesting but fundamentally misguided argument on Ezra Klein's blog. He makes a claim that Kos is being influenced by Armstrong to uncritically promote Mark Warner's campaign. It is hedged about with caveats and maybes and so forth, but his basic argument is don't buy what Kos peddles about Warner because he stands in relation to Warner as the scammed stock-buyers stood in relation to the Bluepoint offerings, someone duped by Armstrong against his best interests.

Wrong.

There's a very serious issue with Mr. Armstrong, but it is not Markos saying nice things about Mark Warner. First of all, if a person is only now calling Kos' judgment into question, they either need to up their meds or get some new ones. This is the guy who publically called Maureen Dowd a bitch because she wrote a typically catty article on him. Like, Kos, dude, have you never heard about these newspaper thingies? Don't you pay attention to how they operate and what the different columnists' schticks are? You need to keep up with the times... [Removing tongue from cheek] In a strange way, I feel better about Kos for supporting Armstrong because it demonstrates how he treats his friends, with loyalty and trust. One can argue he should pick better friends, but then, isn't that true of everyone? Nor am I particularly perturbed by Kos strongly promoting candidates connected to Armstrong. Why not? It's a known quantity. Their business and personal connections are no secret, and I can factor that knowledge into any promotion. Frankly, if somone is so unthinking that s/he blindly supports whomever Kos says to, that's the supporter's problem and s/he would be likely to engage in similar behavior with another online celebrity.

The issue here is with Mark Warner's judgment and the issue is corruption.

DC is awash in the pay-to-play scandals of the K Street Project. Can we say Abramoff? Norquist? Ralph Reed? Duke Cunningham? Scams? Fornigate? Influence peddling and sale of access to elected officials? Hiring Jerome Armstrong as a consultant is a black mark against Warner because of the nature of the SEC conviction - conning people for a price, which is another way of saying Armstrong's integrity is for sale. Warner evidently does not mind having such a person on his payroll.

It matters who a candidate has around them. Isn't one of the objections of the left blogosphere the undue influence of political consultants on candidates? Well, this situation should be part of that objection. As long as Armstrong is playing a prominent role in the Warner campaign, I cross Warner off my list of acceptable candidates in order to protect my own interests. Is that unfair to Warner and/or Armstrong? Not really. They must have weighed the advantages and benefits of working together, and the objection of voters like myself to Jerome's criminal conviction was factored into that decision. Unless Warner hired Armstrong with no knowledge of the SEC conviction, in which case he will have to determine whether he, too, was scammed.

None of this, however, has anything to do with Markos. That's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish.

Anglachel

Update: Edited to be less accusatory towards Neil. I have no beef with him, only a difference of perspective on what matters to the left in the news about Armstrong.

Three Winning Candidates for Democrats

I posted earlier on the three winning issues for Democrats. Here are three winning candidates who neatly map onto these issues:

1. Al Gore (and here)- The environment, of course. Who is offering alternatives to the "hide their heads in the sand, more of the same" behavior of the Rethugs? Al, in perfect, wonky truth. He has always given a damn about our shared world, and will be not just an American leader, but what the President needs to be, the world's leader in the face of this threat to human survival. He isn't just an activist. He has grappled with the issues of ecology and human development for decades, and understands how you cannot sacrifice one for the other. He will give every last ounce of his soul for this.
   
2. Wes Clark - Military strategy and thinking of how to save our butts from the quicksand of Iraq. Good old President Cut and Run is just itching for the day when he can hand over the keys to the White Hosue and smirk at the new occupants "See ya, suckers!" As angry as that makes me, the truth is, like the truth of the environment, we have no choice but to deal with the mess. This situation will need to be handled by someone who can think and act intelligently for both political and military advantage. We also need someone who will be an advocate for the veterans the neocons are using up and throwing away liek toy soldiers.
   
3. John Edwards - One America, and restoring dignity and security to ordinary citizens. By far, the worst crime committed by the neocon hordes is the impoverishment of people who have to work for a living - small business owners, blue collar trades, service sector, and, increasingly, office workers. The transfer of wealth to the top sliver of the society (Bush's "base") has left those below stretched to own a home, raise their kids, pay their bills and cover basic medical care. Edwards has made this his issue, declaring that America can and should end poverty.
   

These are the core issues for Democrats. While the party can disagree about the best way to address these issues, this is what matters - our environment, our security, our families. These are leaders, intelligent and commited people who are both progressives and realists, who have deep expertise in these issues, yet also have broad backgrounds in other matters. They are curious about the world and care about the fate of other people. They stand for something, and are ready to fight for those beliefs.

Anglachel

The Occasion, Not the Kos

All I know of Kos I learned on the internets. That's about what I "know" of any media figure. What matters is how a person comes across online, so I don't really care what he's like "in person." Same goes for those who are currently attacking him. My opinion of them is formed by my observation of their online behavior.

Kos is a drama queen who needs to get a thicker skin. What Jerome Armstrong did or did not do in stock deals is irrelevant to my opinion of Kos, just as Kos' penchant for public temper tantrums is irrelevant to my opinion of Armstrong. What Kos does in the privacy of his own or someone else's home is absolutely off limits. I do think there is a band of prominent bloggers and their sycophantic commenters (often the same people from blog to blog - Jesus, people, don't you have jobs, or do you spend every waking hour on these sites?) who are in communication with each other, cross-post to each others' sites, and support each other. Like, duh. That's what people do - protect members of the tribe.

I've always made it clear that I don't care for the tone and tactics of the Kossack Krew, and I think they claim credit for political and electoral outcomes more than they should. I have no interst in being part of the tribe. Even so, they have a vital role to play in the political ecosystem because they inspire more and better arguments, thinking and actions.

The TNR crew and their suck-up buddies in the MSM are also a tribe. More to the point, their attack of Kos and the liberal blogosphere is a threat to freedom of speech and opinion in the country. What they are doing right now is equivalent to the Swiftboat tactics against Kerry. Whatever Kos' faults, whatever Kos wishes he could be, there is no excuse for the fabrications and tag-team assault on oppositional politics. What began as a stupid exchange of bitchiness has become a view on the power elite's determination to destroy the validity of the left blogosphere as such.

Do you think Kos is the real target here? No. They know he's a flash in the pan and can be taunted into self-immolation. The objective here is to discredit the substantive sites and operations - Media Matters, TAP, TPM, Washington Monthly - in short, the independent organizations offering direct challenge to the major newspapers and dominant political magazines. TNR could not give a rat's ass less what peons like me think. I don't got money or access, I'm not a candidate for anything, and my regular reading audience is about 6 people, half of whom aren't even residents of North America. They care what the policy elites and big donors think, what the politicians and local party bosses are saying, and what people who are read by the entire body of Congress can persuasively argue. To the degree that Kos is targeted, it is to ruin interest in dKos, where increasing numbers of traditional political actors are appearing, giving it legitimacy.

Again, it's not Kos himself. He's just the wedge they are using to splinter an emerging Democratic coalition that is shaking off the last of the Cold War alignments and understanding how to combine passion and policy.

Kos is guilty, at worst, of poor political judgment. TNR & Co. is guilty of an assault on democracy itself.

Anglachel

Al Gore Meets Futurama

On YouTube. Just the thing to get you grinning.

Oh, and go see the movie.

Al Gore - 2008

Anglachel

It's All in the Spin - Gratuitous Democrat Bashing by the LA Times

To combine the big themes of Sunday Blogging with Anglachel™, here's a little bit from an article buried on page A24 in the LA Times, U.S. Commander Presents Drawdown Plan:

Although Bush has said troop levels would be dictated by the security situation in Iraq and the maturity of Iraqi forces, a move to reduce forces will probably have significant domestic political reverberations as well.

The first of the drawdowns would not only come just weeks before November's midterm congressional elections, in which Republicans are facing the prospect of significant losses, due in part to the war's growing unpopularity. But the plan also comes as some Democrats have been pushing the Bush administration to come up with a timetable for withdrawal.

Last week, Congress debated two Democratic proposals that called for Bush to begin a troop drawdown, resolutions that divided the party. Public acknowledgment of the Casey plan by administration officials could leave the Democratic Party's leaders in an even more awkward position, having backed a withdrawal plan already embraced by the White House — in effect leaving the party with no Iraq policy distinct from the administration's as the parties head into the midterm elections.

Um, yeah, that's one way of putting it. The first two graphs are not too bad, even though they come 11 paragraphs in, but then the third one blows journalistic objectivity out of the water. Why is this an embarrassment for the Democrats? Why isn't it being described as the White House having no Iraq policy distinct from the Democrats? Wasn't this the Democrat's idea in the first place?

Greg Sargent saw the same piece and has come to the same conclusion:

Just try to wrap your brain around that logic for a second. Dems, led by Jack Murtha, have been beating the drums and demanding that the head-in-the-sand White House make some sort of move towards troop withdrawals. In response, the GOP has adamantly refused, smearing anyone even whispering such things as a weak, vaccillating Jane Fonda defeatist. Buoyed by the Zarqawi killing, the media relentlessly tried to portray this smidgen of good news in Iraq -- and the GOP strategy of demonizing Dems as cowards -- as political winners for Republicans. But Americans refused to think the way the commentators told them to. Polls continued to show no real uptick in approval for Bush or for his handling of Iraq, and that sizeable blocs of the public want to see some sort of phased withdrawal.

So now word is being leaked that the top commander in Iraq is "projecting" just what Dems pushed for and just what the GOP derided relentlessly as embracing "retreat" and "surrender." So how does the media react? By refusing to even acknowledge the political context of this at all.

And now the LA Times casts the fact that the Republicans are being forced by pressure from the Dems to start down the road toward troop reductions as something that will be bad for...Democrats! What is it going to take to get the media to stop spinning everything -- even a situation where Republicans are being forced to follow where the Dems led -- as good for the GOP?

It really is mind-boggling. The last week of blogging and commenting was all about how the Democrats are demanding a realistic plan to bring Bush's War to a conclusion, while the White Hosue and Congressional Republicans kicked and screamed and squalled about how they weren't going to do it. Now, there is a plan on the table for troop drawdowns and the the Democratic leadership on this issue is ignored.

And the kicker in all of it? There's no commitment to the plan:

Army Gen. George W. Casey presented his plan to Pentagon leaders and President Bush in confidential briefings during a visit to Washington last week, an administration official said. Other officials emphasized that no final decision had been taken on troop levels, but said that the outline would probably serve as the basis for future planning.

Serving as a basis for future planning. Gee, sounds real definite to me. In short, this "plan" has all the hallmarks of an election season strategy, to be abandonded the day after the elections in Novemeber. Oh, and it also manages to squeeze in this:

Casey's two-year drawdown plan includes the continued hand-over of military bases in Iraq, which would reduce the 69 facilities held by U.S. forces to 11 by the end of 2007. U.S. commanders have gradually been consolidating American forces in large "super bases" in Iraq's most restive areas, including Al Anbar province in the west, near Mosul in the north, and in Baghdad.

Permanent bases. We're not leaving, folks. More of the same. More of the same White House opportunism. More of the same kiss-ass reporting and Democrat bashing. More of the same bait-and-switch lies from the White House.

Anglachel