Bush / GOP

There has been a lot of press coverage on something we at NDN have been discussing for quite a while - that the influence of the growing Hispanic Electorate can't be ignored, much less demonized. Looking ahead to 2008, these articles - a sampling of which is below - provide fair warning specifically to the GOP that their actions could have serious consequences:

Is GOP Erasing Gains It Made With Hispanics?, Newsweek, 09/24/07

Debate No-Shows Worry GOP Leaders, Washington Post, 09/19/07

Division Problem, Michael Gerson, Washington Post, 09/19/07

Hispanics and the GOP, Editorial, Wall Street Journal, 09/15/07

Hispanic Voters Flex Political Muscle, Wall Street Journal, 09/15/07

The G.O.P.’s Candidate-Free Debate, New York Times, 09/20/07

Read more recent press stories about the growing power of the Hispanic electorate here. 

In what is sure to be a major topic of debate, the Post reports on a leaked draft of an upcoming GAO report that suggests very little progress has been made in Iraq.  The story begins:

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.

Meanwhile the Times reports that the White House is upbeat about its chances to win the coming fall debate over our approach to the increasing turmoil in the Middle East.

A wonderful scandal recap from today's Times, very much worth reading, features this remarkable quote from GOP operative Scott Reed:

“The real question for Republicans in Washington is how low can you go, because we are approaching a level of ridiculousness,” said Mr. Reed, sounding exasperated in an interview on Tuesday morning. “You can’t make this stuff up. And the impact this is having on the grass-roots around the country is devastating. Republicans think the governing class in Washington are a bunch of buffoons who have total disregard for the principles of the party, the law of the land and the future of the country."

Craig at a presser this afternoon hits recall on his guilty plea, and in a Nixonian moment asserts: "I am not gay."

Man does this thing feel like it is going to get a whole lot worse for him, quickly.

Foley.  Vitter.  Gingrich.  Livingston.  Craig.  Abramoff.  DeLay.  Hastert.  Libby.  Gonzales. Safavian.  Stevens.  Ney.  Cunningham...

and what was the name of that prostitute with a White House press pass?

The 7 Deadly Sins, Republican style.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the Times has an interesting look this am at what the departures of Rove and Gonzales means for the White House.

VoteVets launched a new ad campaign that will target ten Members of Congress who are still "clinging to the failed Bush policy." The video below is the first in the series and targets Senator Susan Collins, asking her to put country above politics.

The VoteVets video is the counter to an ad campaign by Freedoms Watch, a White House Front Group whose founding members include the likes of Ari Fleischer, former White House Press Secretary. (More from The Politico) Their ad, "Veteran", is below:

When Karl Rove announced his resignation this week I'm pretty sure he did not expect the media to so swiftly declare his tenure a failure, and to start serious speculation that the great accomplishment of this "genius" was to give progressives an historic opening to advance their agenda.

Several examples today.  The Post frontpages a story that looks at the Rovian politicization of the Administration, which many, including NDN, believe went way beyond what was permissible or just (for years we've been calling the modern conservative machine an Information Age Tammany Hall).  Andrew Kohut looks at how much more progressive the nation has become, and Frank Rich wonderfully deconstructs Rove in his weekly column today. 

We weighed in on Rove with this piece earlier this week, and of course have been exploring this subject for the last several years.  A collection of our essays can be found in our Meeting the Conservative Challenge section.  A particularly worthy read is this essay, the Democratic Opportunity, which ran in the Politico in April and lays out what progressives and Democrats must to do to seize the opportunity Bush and Rove have given us.

Proximity to this deeply unpopular President and his policies has become in itself a major factor in world affairs.  Let's call it the Bush Effect.  Throughout the world - and here at home - leaders allied with Bush has seen their political fortunes ebb, and leaders seen as opponents to this Administration's policies are gaining ground.  What this means is the very presence of Bush in the White House is becoming a daunting national security challenge for the United States. 

We've seen it here at home with the GOP, as their national repudiation in 2006 has left them with much less power and with their lowest levels of approval in a generation.  We've seen it with Tony Blair, and the Spanish government who backed the Iraqi war.  We've seen it in the rise of Putin and Chavez. 

But even more dangerous is how leaders, countries and parties seen as "pro-Western" are losing ground to more extreme elements throughout the Muslim world.  The installation of a Shiite government in Iraq has strenghtened the hand of Iran in the Gulf.  Our allies in Palestine lost an election to a group we had declared to be terrorists, and now have had to flee half the country.  Pro-Western forces in Lebanon have lost control of the nation's politics.  We know what is happening in Iraq, though it is increasingly unclear who are allies are there these days.  The Iranian government has its most radical leader since its revolution, one who replaced a leader much more oriented to the West.  Karzhai's government in Afghanistan is teetering.  And now our long time ally, General Musharrah in Pakistan, seems to be on the verge of collapse. 

Two germane stories in the papers this am.  The Times makes news with a great piece about our government's efforts to help salvage Musharraf.  In the Post Robin Wright has a story that looks skeptically at the Administration's strategy towards Iran, which concludes with these thoughts about their latest move to brand the Revolutionary Guards terrorists:  

Michael McFaul of Stanford University also urged more carrots. "If you want democratic regime change and to destabilize the regime, the best thing you could do is to make an offer about massive negotiations about everything -- human rights and state sponsorship in terrorism, as well as lifting [U.S.] sanctions and opening an embassy," he said. "Politically, this step doesn't help the administration undermine the regime -- it helps to consolidate the regime."

The Muslim world is in a very combustable place right now, and I have fear that the only thing this Administration can do - because of its ineptitude and the Bush Effect - is make matters much much worse. 

This month a new book arrives from an old friend, Matt Bai, the talented New York Times Magazine writer. The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics - like everything Matt writes - is a good read, insightful, full of ideas big and small, and certainly worth picking up and making it one of your end of summer books.

The Argument takes an in-depth look at a process that NDN and its family have been at the center of these last few years: the re-invention and modernization of progressive politics. It is perhaps one of the most important and least understood stories in American politics today.

Whatever the short-term electoral outcomes of this decade in American politics, it will be remembered as one where the progressive movement, so dominant in the 20th century, shook off a generation-long period of drift and began to do what was necessary to take on a very powerful and modern conservative politics. The reasons for this are many: changes in campaign finance law, the Iraq War, the manifest failures of Bush and the conservatives to govern, even while they accrued more and more power. Today the progressive movement is much more 21st century than 20th, and is better able to play on the modern battlefield of today's politics. We've seen the creation of many new institutions: the Democracy Alliance, Media Matters, Center for American Progress, Center for Progressive Leadership, Democracy Journal, Catalist, America Votes; a whole new slew of internet-based players in the emergent "netroots" like MoveOn, DailyKos, Talking Points Memo, MyDD and the Huffington Post; and we've seen the emergence of a whole new set of leaders from Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Howard Dean, Markos Moulitsas, Rahm Emanuel, Andy Stern and Rob Stein.

Perhaps most importantly, all the new tools we have at our disposal today have made it easier for millions of Americans to partner with us in this critical effort to offer America a better path. Their arrival has brought more passion, more debate, more resources and is creating an entire new generation of leaders capable of serving the nation for years to come.

What Matt's book points out is that this process is still in its infancy, or in a start-up phase; and as such, it is in a very messy and emergent state. Overall Matt's assessment of all this, and of the people involved in this effort, is a little rougher than I would have liked, but that's the business we are in. But if Matt is correct in his assessment - and for this you should read the book - it means that there is much more for all of us to do in the coming days. Our work in building this modern progressive movement is far from finished. That is very exciting to me.

Looking ahead it is important to realize how much American politics has changed in the last few years. Just two years ago Bush and the conservatives were triumphiant. They had greater ideological control of the government than any time in the last 75 years. The progressives and Democrats appeared weak, in retreat, and unable to adapt to modern realities. But then the conservatives collapsed. Democrats won an historic victory in 2006. All measures of Party strength show the Democrats in the strongest shape they've been since before Reagan's election in 1980. The movement's infrastructure has become much more robust and modern. Progressives are way ahead in adopting a whole new set of 21st century tools to engage the Americans of today. Critical emergent constituencies - the new Millennial generation and Hispanics - are moving deeply into the progressive camp. And Democratic leaders are slowly re-orienting the debate and our government around the daunting array of 21st century challenges, many ignored by the conservatives in recent years, and many made much tougher to manage because of the conservatives' many mistakes.

So yes, Matt is right: there is work left undone. But left of center politics is so much more exciting, so much more passionate, so much more entreprenurial than its been since I joined it 20 years ago. We also have more wind at our back than at any time in the last political generation, and for all of this, I remain optimistic that this movement of ours, as imperfect as it is, is poised to take the reins and lead America with confidence and grace to meet the emerging challenges of our new century.

Rove has been called the "architect."  But of what? What did he build, and what will he leave behind? 

He guided Bush to two narrow and hard-fought victories, and briefly oversaw a conservatism that had more power in Washington that anything we had seen in 70 years.  But today those victories look like pyrrhic ones, as the conservative movement is in ideological and politics ruins, and the Democrats stronger today than anytime in a generation. 

So, as his epitaph I offer this:

Karl Rove was the "architect" of one of the worst governments in American history, and the one who engineered the end of modern conservatism, one of the most successful ideological movements of recent times.   

Brilliant yes. Bold, without a doubt.  A complete and utter failure who left his country and his movement weaker than he found it? Yep.

Eventually, perhaps, disgraced.