He no longer has his Republican human shields in Congress. With dicey re-elections looming, it's every GOPer for him/herself. And with Bush's new tack to the center (which appears for all the world to be a mad dash for some shred of a legacy beyond Iraq,) combined with his dismal polling, Bush has become the guy nobody invited to the party, but who showed up anyway. (Hell, the POTUS can't even get a porch wave...) Quite a fall from the hero worship and almost cultish support he enjoyed from the FReeperati for years after 9/11 (remember the days when you would get banned for criticizing "The President?" or when the Free Republic had a gauzy, nauseating daily thread called "pray for the president"? Gonzo.)
So now, Dubya is in trubya with his former winger friends, over turning North Korea into a one-country "Axis of not-so-evil." Observe:
Several prominent House Republicans blasted the White House Thursday for removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, as some of President Bush’s staunchest supporters in the war on terror publicly lambasted him for engaging the country once famously branded as part of the "axis of evil."
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed her “profound disappointment” over the decision, while Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, also expressed his outrage.
“Lifting sanctions and removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism flies in the face of history and rewards its brutal dictator for shallow gestures,” said Hoekstra, who has not shied away from criticizing the White House in recent years.
“Just as the Clinton administration was fooled by the Kim Jong-Il regime, time will soon tell if the Bush administration will fall for the same bait,” he added.
...“The administration’s call for North Korea to be removed from the state sponsors of terrorism list is cause for profound concern,” said Ros-Lehtinen. “Serious verification questions linger, and I would have hoped that the administration would have shown more caution, and less haste, on a matter of this gravity.”
Let's face it. Ileana's got a tough re-election fight for the first time in her career, and distancing herself from Bush at a time when many Cuban-American voters are jumping the GOP ship (no pun intended) is good politics. And with winger voters, it never hurts to make ominous noises in the general direction of foreign countries...
Chuck Hagel and Collin Powell at the Vietnam Veterans' memorial in D.C., photo from Reuters Pictures
The two that really worry the McCain team are Chuck Hagel and Collin Powell, who could provide Barack Obama with an October surprise of his own, by endorsing him, according to the Prince of Darkness, Robert Novak. He also adds a few nice broadsides at the prez:
Powell, Hagel and lesser-known Obamacons harbor no animosity toward McCain. Nor do they show much affection for the rigidly liberal Obama. The Obamacon syndrome is based on hostility to Bush and his administration and on revulsion over today's Republican Party. The danger for McCain is that desire for a therapeutic electoral bloodbath could get out of control.
That danger was highlighted in a June New Republic article on "The rise of the Obamacons" by supply-side economist Bruce Bartlett, who was a middle-level official in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. He expressed "disgust with a Republican Party that still does not see how badly George W. Bush has misgoverned this country" -- echoing his scathing 2006 book, "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy." While Bartlett says "I'm not ready to join the other side," his anti-Bush furor characterizes the Obamacons.
The prototypal Obamacon may be Larry Hunter, recognized inside the Beltway as an ardent supply-sider. When it became known recently that Hunter supports Obama, fellow conservatives were stunned. Hunter was fired as U.S. Chamber of Commerce chief economist in 1993 when he would not swallow Clinton administration policy, and he later joined Jack Kemp at Empower America (ghostwriting Kemp's column). Explaining his support for the uncompromisingly liberal Obama, Hunter blogged on June 6: "The Republican Party is a dead rotting carcass with a few decrepit old leaders stumbling around like zombies in a horror version of 'Weekend With Bernie,' handcuffed to a corpse."
The San Francisco Chronicle reports, former Bush spokesguy Scott McClellan is considering jumping off the GOP ship:
Scott McClellan - the longtime supporter of President Bush who served as his White House press secretary for nearly three years - said Tuesday he hasn't ruled out registering as a Democrat or voting Democratic for president this year.
"I haven't made any long-term decisions," McClellan said after an address to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, where he received a warm reception from an audience numbering in the hundreds at the Fairmont Hotel.
Hey, you go where it's friendly. Meanwhile, Scotty reveals a serious lack of love for Dick Cheney:
McClellan pointedly warned both campaigns to be particularly attuned to a crucial decision, one that had a huge impact in his former boss' administration: picking a vice presidential candidate. Vice President Dick Cheney, he said, "had a terribly negative influence over this president ... and was shown too much deference" on major decisions, including Iraq. ...
... McClellan who is clear that he has no great admiration for Cheney, joked to the audience that his national book tour has given him some ideas for book titles Cheney might consider: "The Lies I Told," or "I Upped Halliburton's Income - So Up Yours." He also said that during his two terms, Cheney has increased the power of the vice presidency, which was "one of the vice president's pet projects."
McClellan painted a painful portrait of Bush, whom it's clear he still has affection for, as a man surrounded by sharks (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Condi Rice,) who would have gone into Iraq even knowing what we all know now. The president, he thinks, would not, if he could have foreseen the casualties and calamities (somehow, given his animal- and pledge-torturing history, I doubt that, but Scott's entitled to his affections...)
The great crhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifude runoff
Some states vow to stop Big Oil from plundering their shorelines, with the governors of California, North Carolina and New Jersey standing fast, while others pledge to throw open their shores to drilling: flip-flopper Charlie Crist of Florida, and the governors of South Carolina and Virginia. The ban is not likely to be lifted by the current Congress ... emphasis on likely ... but if it were to happen, could the tourism wars be next? (I can just see the ads now: "Come to North Carolina, avoid the Florida oil slick...")
Meanwhile, could offshore rigs be a tempting terrorist target? Let's ask Nigeria, where an oil platform was recently attacked by rebels.
Here in the Sunshine State, Charlie Crist's switcharoo on offshore drilling (just what parts of your soul wouldn't you sell to become the vice presidential nominee, Miss Charlie?) isn't exactly drawing rave reviews from the state's CFO, Democrat Alex Sink. Said Sink:
"He's one person, he's one public official, and I'm another statewide elected official who heard a lot about this when I was out campaigning," Sink said. "This is not the right thing to do in Florida. I don't want those people in Washington to think all of a sudden the people in Florida support oil drilling off our coast."
Sink said she was "stunned" when she heard the news. "The more I thought about it, the angrier I got," said Sink, the only Democrat to sit on Florida's three-person Cabinet.
But that doesn't mean that if they could, lawmakers in Florida and other states won't go for the drills. As one Florida tourism official put it, with gas prices rising, the anti-drilling armor is cracking...
The rather grand Peggy Noonan is out with another column. Here's an excerpt:
The Democrats aren't the ones falling apart, the Republicans are. The Democrats can see daylight ahead. For all their fractious fighting, they're finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech. Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing. You see it when you talk to them: They're busy being born.
The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They're frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party.
The headline Wednesday on Drudge, from Politico, said, "Republicans Stunned by Loss in Mississippi." It was about the eight-point drubbing the Democrat gave the Republican in the special House election. My first thought was: You have to be stupid to be stunned by that. Second thought: Most party leaders in Washington are stupid – detached, played out, stuck in the wisdom they learned when they were coming up, in '78 or '82 or '94. Whatever they learned then, they think pertains now. In politics especially, the first lesson sticks. For Richard Nixon, everything came back to Alger Hiss.
They are also – Hill leaders, lobbyists, party speakers – successful, well-connected, busy and rich. They never guessed, back in '86, how government would pay off! They didn't know they'd stay! They came to make a difference and wound up with their butts in the butter. But affluence detaches, and in time skews thinking. It gives you the illusion you're safe, and that everyone else is. A party can lose its gut this way. ...
You really should read the whole thing. I don't agree with her ideologically, but the woman is brilliant.
One more telling clip from her column:
But this week a House Republican said publicly what many say privately, that there is another truth. "Members and pundits . . . fail to understand the deep seated antipathy toward the president, the war, gas prices, the economy, foreclosures," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia in a 20-page memo to House GOP leaders.
The party, Mr. Davis told me, is "an airplane flying right into a mountain." Analyses of its predicament reflect an "investment in the Bush presidency," but "the public has just moved so far past that." "Our leaders go up to the second floor of the White House and they get a case of White House-itis." Mr. Bush has left the party at a disadvantage in terms of communications: "He can't articulate. The only asset we have now is the big microphone, and he swallowed it."
Gulp. And yet they trod along behind him, exhibiting, in Noonan's words, "not leadership, but followership." That's the essential GOP problem. They have become so authoritarian in their mindset that, so long as he keeps fattening them up and enriching the corporate friends who feed them the lard, they will follow their leader, even off the cliff.
So who originally said the now infamous quote, "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided," used by George W. Bush to, in unprecedented fashion, to attack a political opponent and fellow American on foreign soil?
It was Senator William E. Borah, Conservative/isolationist Republican out of Ohio, and an opponent of U.S. entry into World War II, and he said it in 1939.
ThinkProgress has the update on the shameful attempts by Senate Republicans to block passage of the G.I. Bill, this time, by spiking a bill intended to aid America's first responders:
At noon, the Senate quickly “devolved into a procedural mess” when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) attempted to attach Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) watered-down GI Bill — which is strongly backed by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — as an amendment. McConnell also immediately seconded his measure, but then filed cloture, “prohibiting Democrats from filing their own version of the proposal.”
This amendment is a poison pill. It not only kills the Public Safety bill, but also blocks Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) more generous GI Bill from being considered. In one swift maneuver, conservatives trampled over first responders and veterans. In a fiery speech, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) responded on the floor:
We have seen this parliamentary gimmick that has taken place offered by the Republican leadership that is a slap in the face to every firefighter and police officer and first responder in the country. […]
We’re saying to the firefighters of this nation and to the police officers of this nation and the first responders of the nation: Your interest, the safety and security of our communities across the nation, should be put aside in favor of some political gimmick by the Republican leader here in the United States Senate.
Huffington Post reports that Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) “quietly created presidential campaign ripples on Tuesday” when he “announced that he would offer an amendment to the forthcoming Iraq war supplemental that would strip the legislation of Sen. Jim Webb’s [D-VA] GI Bill.” v
Way to support the troops, boys. Of course, John McCain's little buddy, Miss Lindsey, has offered her own, watered down G.I. bill, and McCain's emissaries have begun scampering around Jim Webb's ankles looking for an embarrassment-avoiding compromise. Here's hoping Webb and the Dems (and their Republican supporters on the bi-partisan bill) stand strong. Don's we at least owe the men and women George sent to their doom in Iraq a decent G.I. bill?
Newt Gingrich, not the most moral guy in the world, but certainly one of the smarter tacticians on the right, issued his weekly "Winning the Future" newsletter to conservatives on Tuesday. What he had to say to his side is instructive for the fall. (Cliffs Notes version: OH GOD, WE'RE GOING DOWN'! MAN THE LIFEBOATS! HEEEEEEELP!!!!)
Ahem. First, on Congressional seats:
The Republican loss in the special election for Louisiana's Sixth Congressional District last Saturday should be a sharp wake up call for Republicans: Either Congressional Republicans are going to chart a bold course of real change or they are going to suffer decisive losses this November.
The facts are clear and compelling.
Saturday's loss was in a district that President Bush carried by 19 percentage points in 2004 and that the Republicans have held since 1975.
This defeat follows on the loss of Speaker Hastert's seat in Illinois. That seat had been held by a Republican for 76 years with the single exception of the 1974 Watergate election when the Democrats held it for one term. That same seat had been carried by President Bush 55-44% in 2004.
These two special elections validate a national polling pattern that is bad news for Republicans. According to a New York Times/CBS Poll, Americans disapprove of the President's job performance by 63 to 28 (and he has been below 40% job approval since December 2006, the longest such period for any president in the history of polling).
A separate New York Times/CBS Poll shows that a full 81 percent of Americans believe the economy is on the wrong track.
The current generic ballot for Congress according to the NY Times/CBS poll is 50 to 32 in favor of the Democrats. That is an 18-point margin, reminiscent of the depths of the Watergate disaster.
Next, on why John McCain's current durability in the polls should be no comfort to Republicans for the fall:
Senator McCain is currently running ahead of the Republican congressional ballot by about 16 percentage points. But there are two reasons that this extraordinary personal achievement should not comfort congressional Republicans.
First, McCain's lead is a sign of the gap between the McCain brand of independence and the GOP brand. No regular Republican would be tying or slightly beating the Democratic candidates in this atmosphere. It is a sign of how much McCain is a non-traditional Republican that he is sustaining his personal popularity despite his party's collapse.
Second, there is a grave danger for the McCain campaign that if the generic ballot stays at only 32 % for the GOP it will ultimately outweigh McCain's personal appeal and drag his candidacy into defeat.
And third, on whether the GOP can win with an all-Wright, all the time strategy in November:
The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti- Reverend Wright, or (if Senator Clinton wins), anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail.
This model has already been tested with disastrous results.
In 2006, there were six incumbent Republican Senators who had plenty of money, the advantage of incumbency, and traditionally successful consultants.
But the voters in all six states had adopted a simple position: "Not you." No matter what the GOP Senators attacked their opponents with, the voters shrugged off the attacks and returned to, "Not you." ...
Gingrich's conclusion:
A February Washington Post poll shows that Republicans have lost the advantage to the Democrats on which party can handle an issue better -- on every single topic.
Americans now believe that Democrats can handle the deficit better (52 to 31), taxes better (48 to 40) and even terrorism better (44 to 37).
This is a catastrophic collapse of trust in Republicans built up over three generations on the deficit, two generations on taxes, and two generations on national security.
Newt wants House Republicans to call an emergency "members-only conference" at which they should propose an immediate schedule of votes on "real change" issues -- sort of a 2008 version of his 1994 "Contract with America." Newt's 9-point plan will sound familiar to McCain watchers. It includes:
A summertime repeal of the federal gas tax, paid for by radical cuts in discretionary (read non-Social Security, non-Medicare) spending. In other words, kill all the local projects that inject cash and jobs into the Districts of these House members, and then ask those same members to go home, sans "the bacon" and ask for votes based on a gas tax cut that nets their constituents $30 bucks for the entire summer ... did I say Newt was one of the smarter ones...?
Putting the oil headed for the Stratetic Petroleum Reserve onto the open market, which Netw claims would lower gas prices 5 to 6 cents a gallon. Unfortuately, it would also deplete America's emergency reserves of ... petroleum ... and did I mention gas has gone up about three times Newt's proposed savings in the last month?
Announcing a one-year moratorium on earmarks (See bacon notes on #1...)
This one is weird, unless you understand "conservatives": Neutering the Census Bureau and turning their function over to "Internet savvy" private companies. So-called conservatives have never believed in demography, because it allows Democrats to figure out who's being discriminated against on the basis of race. The Census also turns up inconvenient numbers, like estimates of the growing number of Hispanics, which could hurt efforts to sell a borderless North American free trade blob to white, rural Americans.
Implement a "space-based, GPS-style air traffic control system." Call it Reagan's Star Wars fantasy meets private enterprise. Here, Newt appears to want to take advantage of the Reagan-era plan to weaponize space by twisting that program to what probably was its ultimate goal anyway: making some big, Republican-leaning corporation even richer than they are today. Meanwhile, the safety of air travel will be subordinated to the profit motive, and oversight? Who needs it!
Declare that English is the "official language of government." Throwing a biscuit to the Lou Dobbs crowd, which has soured on the GOP. Maybe if they do this, they'll forget about that border fence... Meanwhile, the already blanched GOP loses whatever brown voters they might have had out West. So much for putting California in play.
"Protect the workers right to a secret ballot." This one's about pure union-busting, another GOP technique to wrestle away Democratic voters without actually offering attractive policies.
and finally, "remind Americans that judges matter." Sounds vague, but Newt wants the House to begin trying to ram through Bush's right wing judges, and mount a national scare campaign to convince unhappy right wingers that the "activists on the bench" are coming to their trailers to give their daughters abortions and take their guns, which is clearly a much more pressing matter than that job they can't find, those outrageous gas prices or the foreclosure notice in the mailbox.
That's Newt's plan. So now you know what to expect John McCain to be squawking about for the next few weeks, my friends ... and I'm sure he and Lieberman will endorse whatever the House guys come up with.
What's interesting about Newt's prescriptions is how absolutely devoid they are of the Bush formula that worked, if barely, in 2000 (compassionate conservatism, phony appeals to religious voters on gay rights, abortion and the like...) or the 2004 Bush model of scaring the bejeezus out of everyone with constant threats from "terr'rists." Instead, Newt's plan is to push corporate gimmies and the much-belittled gas tax holiday, along with schemes to twist the demographic calculus and gin up fears of "Spanish spoken here" signs popping up at City Hall. It's an interesting strategy. Let's see if the House puppies bite.
Death at the trailer park. So-called "D.C. madam" found dead of apparent suicide.
Jeane Palfrey, a 50-something woman who became better known to the world as the "D.C. Madam," who pimped women to the powerful, including Louisiana Republican Senator David Vitter, and Randal Tobias of the Bush State Department (plus guys from NASA, the U.S. Military, and the International Monetary Fund), was found dead in a utility shed behind her mother's Tarpon Springs, Florida trailer home. Leaving aside questions about what she was doing with her prostitution money (apparently not buying her mother a new house,) suspicions now hang over the apparent cause of death: suicide. (Ironically enough, one of her former employees killed herself in January...)
TIME reports that a man who Palfrey approached to help her write a book says she told him she would commit suicide before going back to prison.
Palfrey's trial had threatened to bring down a number of prominent Republicans on the Hill. Now that she won't be sentenced, she won't be talking, releasing that hot ticket client list of hers, or writing that book, either. Just sayin'...
Let the conspiracy theories begin. Wikipedia offers links to a tantalizing start:
She wrote in August 1991 following an attempt to bring her to trial,"If taken into custody, my physical safety and most probably my very life would be jeopardized, rape, beating, maiming, disfigurement and more than likely murder disguised in the form of just another jailhouse accident or suicide would await me," said Palfrey in a handwritten letter to the judge accusing the San Diego police vice squad of having a vendetta against her.
"No I'm not planning to commit suicide," Palfrey told The Alex Jones Show on her last appearance, "I'm planning on going into court and defending myself vigorously and exposing the government," she said.
Here we go. At least on the left end of the spectrum, Jeane Palfrey just became the right's Vince Foster.
"Tell us how fabulous you are! And isn't Iraq pretty?"
That's pretty much my summary of the Republican and Lieberman testimony on the Senate Armed Services Committee as General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker appeared before it today (the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, featuring Senators Biden and Obama, is taking their crack at Petraeus at 2:30.)
On a more serious not, I wonder if these geezers ever get tired of being wet-pantied lackeys of the Bush administration? Jason and I were just talking last night, about the fact that in America's history, Senators and Congressmen were often larger than life figures -- the speaker of the House was often as well known to the public as the president. In recent times, think of giants like Tip O'Neil, and the more distant past, Senators like Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay. Now, Senators are little more than high-nosed partisan hacks, especially on the GOP side (think Henry Hyde or Newt Gingrich), or miniature men who are little more than the president's butlers, eager to fritter away their Constitutional prerogatives and suborn themselves to the "unitary executive" (think Denny Hastert -- whose name we literally couldn't recall last night...) It's almost laughable to say that the Congress, in its present construction, is a co-equal branch of government. Poor Robert Byrd with that little Constitution in his pocket is probably rolling around in his grave -- and he's still alive! [Photo at left: anti-slavery crusading Senator Charles Sumner]
Pathetic. Truly pathetic.
Related (and more uplifting): the Senate's "famous nine" (don't look for John Cornyn or Lindsey Graham to ever make this one...)
ABCNews’ Mary Bruce Reports: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is actively courting the Vice Presidential nomination, according to Republican Strategist Dan Senor. “Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this,” Senor said this morning on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
According to Senor, Rice has been cozying up to the Republican elite. “There's this ritual in Washington, the Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Grover Norquist, he holds a weekly meeting of conservative leaders, about 100, 150 people, sort of inside, chattering, class types,” Senor explained. “They all typically get briefings from political conservative leaders. Ten days ago, they had an interesting visit. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The first time a Secretary of State has visited the Wednesday Meeting.” ...
So could Condi actually get the job? Well, let's just say she has her ups and her downs...
On the upside:
She's a hell of a lot younger than John McCain. But then again, who isn't?
She is widely respected among Republicans, and would likely be seen by your average GOPer as presidential.
She is widely perceived to be a conservative hawk, mostly because she hasn't bothered to hold, or at least to articulate, much in the way of a point of view, nor has she asserted herself much, either as National Security Adviser, or as Secretary of State. So she would probably pass muster with the BOMB 'EM ALL, SEPARATE THE DEAD LATER! crowd (which, coincidentally, includes John McCain...)
She has long Washington and foreign policy experience, which though redundant for McCain, would reinforce his run as THE WAR, WAR, WAR!!!!! PRESIDENT.
She is a part of the Bush administration, and thus would strengthen McCain's standing among the remaining, even if dwindling, Bush Faithful.
She is an integral part of Bush's Middle East strategy, including the Iraq War. And John McCain loves himself some (substitute the country ... okay, let's just say Iraq) war.
She is both Black and a Woman, which would theoretically allow McCain to see the Dems one Obama (or Hillary,) and raise them one double-minority, giving Independent voters who are wary of the "TooBlack Obama" of Tim Russert's obsessive nightmares, a trap door into which to dive, while still making history (and thus feeling good about themselves.) And her nomination could help McCain hold onto Black Republicans who might otherwise stray to Barack, and with white Democratic women still carrying a grudge over the whole, Hillary didn't win the nomination thing...
Chris Matthews, says, "yes she can!" And other members of the media would be high on the concept, too, giving McCain even more media Monicas than a guy who's the ranking member of the Congressional committee that regulates the media ... oh, McCain IS the ranking member of the congressional committee that regulates the mediia! Outstanding!!!
On the other hand, Condi also has her drawbacks...
She is widely perceived to have been at best, a passive, ineffectual National Security Adviser, and if he picks her, he's stuck with her "I think it was called... Bin Laden ... determined to attack ... inside the United States" video, and her failure to heed repeated warnings about a potential attack prior to 9/11 ... and stuck good.
She is integrally a part of the Bush administration's pre-Iraq war blunder machine, and would thus strap McCain to that bomb, too, turning his "100 years of war" into the even more ominous "100 years of improperly planned for war."
McCain would also inherit her other negatives, including her penchant for shopping for 'spensive shoes while people are drowning in what's left of New Orleans. And who needs that 527 ad stinking up the campaign.
She brings with her heavy baggage filled with incompetence, including her serial misjudgments on the supposed focal point of her pre-administration expertise: Russia. McCain would inherit that baggage, too. (Is it just me who finds it scary to think that Condi taught George W. Bush everything he knows about the world?)
She has been a huge disappointment as secretary of state, apparently unable to convince her man Dubya to commit to real engagement in the Israel-Palestinian peace process, for instance, and spectacularly ineffective in pushing forward Bush's supposed "freedom agenda" in the Mideast, which doesn't exactly boost McCain's foreign policy street cred.
She brings nothing to McCain to counter his weakest link: the economy (stupid. Sorry, but that never gets old for me...) despite her recent drop-ins with Grover Norquist.
The only things she has run or managed have been the National Security Council (see bullet point one) and the Department of State (see "John Bolton," and/or "Iraq occupation.")
She is Black and a woman, which could turn off the redneck contingent of the Republican Party down south, not to mention the anti-affirmative action intellectuals who will smell the whiff of Ferrorism in her selection. Worse, Condi has actually begun to make some statements on race (and affirmative action) that have disturbed the wingerati. In all, it probably wouldn't be enough to doom Sir John in the deep red South, where he could win if he were a rotten banana peel overridden by slimy larvae, but it will present him with a narrative he doesn't need (and racist 527 leaflets flying around Dixie that he doesn't want.) On the flip side, Condi would likely bring him little if any of the black vote -- she isn't popular outside of black Republicans, though as I said before, she could keep some of them from wandering over to Obama. And she likely wouldn't net him more than the Republican women he's already going to get, although she could be helpful in bagging some disgruntled Clintonettes.
Perhaps most importantly, Dr. Rice is so tied to George W. Bush personally, and to his father, that McCain would be hard-pressed to argue that he's not running for a third Bush term (or is that a fourth, if you count the dad...?) And since whoever the Democratic nominee is planning to beat McCain over the head with George W. Bush's bloody carcass every day until November 4th, it would behoove him not to make it easy for them by actually adding to his ticket, George W. Bush's third term.
And what's with the "Three Amigos" routine with Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham? Do these guys go to the bathroom together, too? And is America ready for a Secretary of Defense with "Joementum?" I think not (and neither are the Iraqis, I suspect, who would see a truly endless war in a McCain-Lieberman presidential partnership...)
By the way, McCain still leads (slightly) in the Gallup daily tracking poll, where Barack and Hillary have traded leads again, although his two-point leads over both Dems falls within the margin of error and is thus a statistical tie... still, a tie for McCain, who professes ignorance on the economy (and then demonstrates it by choosing L'Airbus over Boeing for a U.S. defense contract ... how many states does Boeing have plants in again?) is almost like Christmas (or Easter, given the day...)
Oh, and speaking of those Boeing locations, the company's website lists the following (I've helpfully highlighted the swing states...):
Alabama Arizona California Florida Illinois (where the company’s corporate headquarters is located) Kansas Missouri Pennsylvania Texas Washington State Washington D.C.
And don't think Kansas can't make it to the bolded list this year. The governor, Kathleen Sebelius, is with Barack (and as a Democrat, the fact that she's even the governor is telling...) and Barack's mother was born there.
And back to Airbus: it's now the subject of the campaign season's first anti-McCain commercial to preview what should be the Democratic argument in the fall: John McCain could give a crap about the economy and he has no clue how to rescue American jobs. His cause is war, war, and more treasury-draining, gas price-hiking, U.S. economy-crushing, crony contract-generating, "creating jobs over there so we don't have to create them over here," war.
The GOP is feeling a bit down these days, particularly regarding their congressional election prospects in November. I don't think they're in as bad shape as they seem to -- Americans are notorious for saying they want change and then voting for more of the same -- but they are probably looking at losing seats in both the House and Senate. (As for the White House, I think the Democrats are doing a good job of keeping John McCain competitive ...) Anyway, the best line in this WaPo story about the GOP doldrums comes from Virginia Congressman Thomas Davis, with a nice assist by analyst Stu Rothenberg:
"It's no mystery," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.). "You have a very unhappy electorate, which is no surprise, with oil at $108 a barrel, stocks down a few thousand points, a war in Iraq with no end in sight and a president who is still very, very unpopular. He's just killed the Republican brand."
Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan analyst of congressional politics, said: "The math is against them. The environment is against them. The money is against them. This is one of those cycles that if you're a Republican strategist, you just want to go into the bomb shelter."
A dead brand and the bomb shelter? All in one story? Damn.
The former treasurer for the National Republican Congressional Committee diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and possibly as much as $1 million -- of the organization's funds into his personal accounts, GOP officials said yesterday, describing an alleged scheme that could become one of the largest political frauds in recent history.
For at least four years, Christopher J. Ward, who is under investigation by the FBI, allegedly used wire transfers to funnel money out of NRCC coffers and into other political committee accounts he controlled as treasurer, NRCC leaders and lawyers said in their first public statement since they turned the matter over to the FBI six weeks ago.
"The evidence we have today indicated we have been deceived and betrayed for a number of years by a highly respected and trusted individual," said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the NRCC chairman.
The committee also announced that it has submitted to banks five years' worth of audits and financial documents allegedly faked by Ward, some of which were used to secure multimillion-dollar loans. It is a violation of federal laws to obtain loans through false statements; the crime is punishable by up to $1 million in fines and 30 years in prison.
Before yesterday, the committee, which raised $49 million in 2007, had not acknowledged that any money was missing. It announced on Feb. 1 that it had discovered "irregularities" that might involve fraud, dismissed Ward and called in federal investigators. ...
...The Washington Post reported Thursday that Ward had served as treasurer for 83 GOP committees this decade. In the past five years, the committees took in more than $400 million in contributions.
The forensic audit could take 6-8 weeks. According to the Times, the GOP is bracing for the loss figure to climb.
Oh, and did I mention Ward worked for the Swift Boat hacks? RawStory has more on that, and a compilation of other posts on the thievery.
Forget eyeballing that female lobbyist or getting hated on by Rush Limbaugh. John McCain's real problem was encapsulated in a statement he made not too long ago about not knowing much about economics.
McCain would much rather fight the upcoming election on the basis of national security -- and win in a replay of 2004's "scare the vote" campaign by his new friend George W. Bush. But John McCain doesn't get to decide whether this election will be fought on the basis of national security, or Iraq (his other signature issue, which cuts both ways for him) or on the economy. Circumstances will largely dictate that. And right now, the circumstances are these:
American economic insecurity IS the story of the current campaign, if not the future one, although as the onetime Man from Hope said (or as his campaign strategist James Carville did, back in 1992, it's the economy, stupid.)
That's why NAFTA is such a thorny issue (and if Team Obama is smart, they'll really begin sticking it to Hillary on that one...) And that's why a little story about Boeing will be the next shoe to drop on John McCain. From the AP this morning:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Angry Boeing supporters are vowing revenge against Republican presidential candidate John McCain over Chicago-based Boeing's loss of a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract to the parent company of European plane maker Airbus.
There are other targets for their ire — the Air Force, the defense secretary and even the entire Bush administration.
But Boeing supporters in Congress are directing their wrath at McCain, the Arizona senator and nominee in waiting, for scuttling an earlier deal that would have let Boeing build the next generation of Air Force refueling tankers. Boeing now will miss out on a deal that it says would have supported 44,000 new and existing jobs at the company and suppliers in 40 states.
"I hope the voters of this state remember what John McCain has done to them and their jobs," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., whose state would have been home to the tanker program and gained about 9,000 jobs.
"Having made sure that Iraq gets new schools, roads, bridges and dams that we deny America, now we are making sure that France gets the jobs that Americans used to have," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. "We are sending the jobs overseas, all because John McCain demanded it."
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. and its U.S. partner, Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman, won a competition with Boeing Feb. 29 to build the refueling planes in one of the biggest Pentagon contracts in decades. The unexpected decision has sparked outrage from union halls to the halls of Congress over the impact on U.S. jobs, prestige and national security. EADS and Northrop say about 60 percent of their tanker will be built in the U.S.
The trouble for McCain is that he has in the very recent past boasted about killing the Boeing deal, based on his never-ending crusade to battle Washington "pork." To be fair, people went to jail over a scandal involving a too-close-for-comfort relationship between Boeing officials and Air Force insiders in a position to place the construction deal. But McCain's holier-than-thou stance on his fellow Washingtonians' way of doing business could very soon come back to bite him in the electoral ass:
Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican whose district includes a Boeing plant that could have gained hundreds of new jobs from the tanker program, said McCain's role in killing the earlier deal is likely to become an election issue. Both of the leading Democratic candidates for president, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have criticized the Air Force decision.
"I think we absolutely will hear more about it," Tiahrt said. "We'll hear it mostly from the Democrats and they have every right to be concerned."
McCain called such criticism off base.
"In all due respect to the Washington delegation, they vigorously defended the process before — which turned out to be corrupt — which would have cost the taxpayers more than $6 billion and ended up with people in federal prison," he said. "I'm the one that fought against that ... for years and brought down a corrupt contract."
Keith Ashdown, with the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Boeing executives who broke the law were to blame for the demise of the tanker contract — not McCain.
"This was theirs from day one," he said. "This idea that any lawmaker is to blame is a joke."
Still, Todd Donovan, a political science professor at Western Washington University, said McCain's opposition to Boeing could hurt him with voters in Washington and other states affected by the tanker program. Boeing would have performed much of the work in Everett, Wash., and Wichita, Kan., and used Pratt & Whitney engines built in Connecticut. Significant work also was slated for Texas.
"If he can be painted as somehow being associated with job losses ... it could hurt him on the margins," Donovan said.
Ya think?
The Boeing dust-up has been burning up talk radio, including the Ed Schultz show this week, and it won't stop there. Mixed up in this issue are a toxic brew of job losses, outsourcing (to France, no less) and the outsourcing of America's defenses abroad. McCain is going to have to choose between pushing his cost-cutting rep, or finally learning something about the economy.
On the same day he went off on a New York Times reporter, we are reminded that John McCain isn't just scary to errant members of the Fourth Estate, or to his fellow Senators, who wince at the thought of his angry, erratic finger on the button ... No, my friends, John McCain even scaresgenerals:
...while the consensus is that the 3 a.m. ad helped Clinton, it has also drawn criticism as a tactic that ultimately benefits John McCain, particularly if he is to face Obama in the general election. In essence, Clinton has now turned the debate about commander-in-chief readiness into a contest of résumés. And the conventional wisdom is that John McCain -- ex-fighter pilot, former POW and war hero -- wins.
But that's not necessarily the case, say senior military officials and political analysts. In interviews with Salon this week, several experienced military officers said McCain draws mixed reviews among military leaders, and they expressed serious doubts about whether McCain has the right temperament to be the next president and commander in chief. Some expressed more confidence in Obama, citing his temperament as an asset.
It is not difficult in Washington to find high-level military officials who have had close encounters with John McCain's temper, and who find it worrisome. Politicians sometimes scream for effect, but the concern is that McCain has, at times, come across as out of control. It is difficult to find current or former officers willing to describe those encounters in detail on the record. That's because, by and large, those officers admire McCain. But that doesn't mean they want his finger on the proverbial button, and they are supporting Clinton or Obama instead.
"I like McCain. I respect McCain. But I am a little worried by his knee-jerk response factor," said retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004 and is now campaigning for Clinton. "I think it is a little scary. I think this guy's first reactions are not necessarily the best reactions. I believe that he acts on impulse."
"I studied leadership for a long time during 32 years in the military," said retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, a one-time Republican who is supporting Obama. "It is all about character. Who can motivate willing followers? Who has the vision? Who can inspire people?" Gration asked. "I have tremendous respect for John McCain, but I would not follow him."
"One of the things the senior military would like to see when they go visit the president is a kind of consistency, a kind of reliability," explained retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, a former Republican, former chief of staff of the Air Force and former fighter pilot who flew 285 combat missions. McPeak said his perception is that Obama is "not that up when he is up and not that down when he is down. He is kind of a steady Eddie. This is a very important feature," McPeak said. On the other hand, he said, "McCain has got a reputation for being a little volatile." McPeak is campaigning for Obama.
Stephen Wayne, a political science professor at Georgetown who is studying the personalities of the presidential candidates, agrees McCain's temperament is of real concern. "The anger is there," Wayne said. If McCain is the one to answer the phone at 3 a.m., he said, "you worry about an initial emotive, less rational response."
Most recently, Wayne has been studying Clinton's personality. "I just gave a presentation on Hillary's temperament for the presidency. I came to the conclusion that it is not really a good presidential temperament, with one caveat -- if you compare it with McCain's."
That Johnny Mack has an anger management problem is nothing new, not even to his adoring press groupies in the mainstream media. But with McCain growing more and more likely to enter the Oval Office with every Hillary broadside at her fellow Democrat (and every insinuation by her that she'd rather see McCain answering that red phone than Obama, if it can't be her...) it's time for that press corps to begin seriously examining the issue of McCain's temperament. Because clearly, McCain is trying to choke down his temper, and present a more even keeled face to the American people. If he's holding back the real him -- and the real him is a nut-job, well then that would be something a bit more than inconvenient in a president, no?
Still not worried? Try this: the neocons LIKE the fact that he's scary. They think it will spookIsrael's our enemies...
Maybe it's because he doesn't want to remind Limbaugh... but John McCain sure did get salty with NYT reporter Elizabeth Bumiller over an apparent contradiction in memory over his 2004 flirtation with being Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's running-mate... Video here. Best line from Bumiller: "Can I ask ... why are you so angry?"
My friends ... official Republican presumptive nominee John McCain is giving another of his snoozer victory speeches. It's not a good look for your campaign when your best argument for your election is not that you can unite the country, or bring about change, or lead the nation to a better place, but that "given the alternative, my election as president is in the best interests of the country." In other words, hey, the other guy's even worse!
My friends ... Johnny Mack's biggest applause line so far is when he told the crowd of indeterminate size (clever boy, not putting any of the bored and the aged behind him where the cameras can see them...) that he will "defend the decision to remove Saddam Hussein." Great, so John McCain is the candidate of the 25 percenters who still think invading Iraq was a swell idea.
My friends, if I were working on the McCain campaign, I would be slitting my wrists in abject boredom advising that he do much less public speaking. John McCain is one of those candidates who is best seen (in gauzy biographies that are mostly in black and white) and not heard. He always sounds like a guy fighting to stay awake on the late shift. That and the creepy smile are a little too horror movie/night watchman for me, man.
On to tomorrow, where hopefully, an endorsy George W. Bush will manage to keep his fast little hands off the candidate...
I'm gonna miss you, Huck. Sure, he doesn't believe in evolution, but he is the only Republican in public life that I know of (unless Rick Warren is a Republican...) who actually lives out Jesus' call to care for the poor, who talks about real compassion, not fake electoral compassion and corporate welfare (a la GWB) and who can deliver a deadpan straight line with perfect comedic timing. The now former Republican candidate for president is giving a most gracious concession speech now. Godspeed Huckabee. See you tomorrow on "Morning Joe."
Update: MSNBC has the story on Huck's ride into the sunset.
