Bush / GOP

Tuesday's Times details how the GOP is ending strong this year, giving them the momentum they need to hold on to power:

Procrastination, power struggles and partisanship have left Congress with substantial work to finish before breaking for the elections. The fast-approaching recess and the Republican focus on national security legislation make it inevitable that much of the remainder will fall by the wayside.

At best, it appears that just 2 of the 11 required spending bills will pass, and not one has been approved so far, forcing a stopgap measure to keep the federal government open. No budget was enacted. A popular package of business and education tax credits is teetering. A lobbying overhaul, once a top priority in view of corruption scandals, is dead. The drive for broad immigration changes has derailed.

An offshore oil drilling bill painted as an answer to high gas prices is stalled. Plans to cut the estate tax and raise the minimum wage have floundered, and an important nuclear pact with India sought by the White House is not on track to clear Congress. New problems surfaced over the weekend for the annual military authorization bill. And numerous other initiatives await a planned lame-duck session in mid-November or a future Congress.

“It is disappointing where we are, and I think Republicans need to be upfront about this,” said Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia and a member of the House leadership. “We have not accomplished what we need to accomplish.”

The Post headline says it all: " Intelligence Analysts Say War Spread Terrorism "

So, despite hundreds of billions spent over five long years, tens of thousands of casualties, the degradation of our military and the ruining of America's image around the world, Bush's own government has concluded that our failure in Iraq has made the world much more dangerous. 

Congressional Democrats have said that they are nationalizing the elections.  Will this quote, and this story, appear in every Democratic ad right now, this week? The Republicans have made their closing strategy clear - Democrats will make us less safe in the war on terror, cut and run in Iraq and raise taxes.   Their ads are mirroring their national arguments. 

If Democratic leaders are to nationalize the elections around their arguments, then the ads run must mirror the national argument.  Is this happening? According to the Washington Post a few weeks back, most Democratic candidates are rejecting the leadership's position on Iraq.  So what does this mean about the Democratic Party's capacity to nationalize and have our arguments and our ads mirror one another? An election is only national when a Party is speaking with one voice, everywhere.   

Putting this headline and the NIE into every race, right now, would be a good way to test whether Democrats really believe there is a national narrative, and can execute on it.
 

As you've seen often in this space I believe the meta-political story of our time is the profound and deep failure of Republican government to deliver on its basic obligations.  We think of Iraq, the broken levees, declining wages, unprecedented institutional corruption, a failed Doha trade round, out of control spending, sanctioned torture, and no action on emerging challenges like global climate change, energy independence, health care and immigration.  

As former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough put it in a piece in the Post's Outlook section this weekend: "How exactly does one convince the teeming masses that Republicans deserve to stay in power despite botching a war, doubling the national debt, keeping company with Jack Abramoff, fumbling the response to Hurricane Katrina, expanding the government at record rates, raising cronyism to an art form, playing poker with Duke Cunningham, isolating America and repeatedly electing Tom DeLay as their House majority leader?"

In the reading the paper the past few days, I came across a series of stories whose headlines suggest, remarkably, that there may be even more to this already sad story: "Islamists’ Rise Imperils Mideast’s Order," "Major Problem at Polls Feared," "NATO Faces Growing Hurdle As Call for Troops Falls Short," "Chirac Signals Widening Divide," and "Trade Deficit 2nd Highest Ever."

But of all the stories I read these past few days about how our government is failing the American people, one stood out.  It was a front page piece in the Post on Sunday, a piece that I hope all of you will read in its entirety.  It is an excerpt from a new book detailing the early days of our occupation of Iraq.  And it is one of most damning things I've ever read about anyone or anything in politics.  Here are the first few graphs:

"After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort."

And it gets worse from here.  Read it and weep, my friends, for our country who has been led by incompetent fools these past few years. 

Miami Herald columnist weighed in today on the relevation this week that the Administration has been paying and paying off 10 journalists and commentators in South Florida. 

This was supposed to be the week they turned it around.  A new White House offensive on terrorism, the nutty ABC movie, a primetime speech by Bush, a come from behind win in Rhode Island. Stories early in the week all pointed to a resurgent GOP, ready to turn around their bad poll numbers and use their political mastery to whack the Dems, again.

Didn't really play out that way, did it?

Pentagon lawyers publically rejected the Adminstration's proposal for new military tribunals.  House Republicans rejected the Bush/McCain-led Senate-passed immigration bill, relabeling it the "Reid-Kennedy Democratic Amnesty" Bill.  Senate Republicans and Secretary Powell choose the Geneva Conventions over Bush's detention and interrogation plan.  Iraq had some of the most violent days in its recent history.  The sordid scandals of the Bush era returned with a vengence, as a 2nd Republican Congressman, Bob Ney, pled guilty to corruption charges.  He is now set to return to court October 13, just a few weeks before the election. 

The week began with the story line R's resurgent.  It ended with Rs in deep and difficult disarray. 

One other sign of how desperate the Administration is to change the story line of this election is their effort to lie about current economic circumstances.  As James Crabtree reported earlier this week on our blog, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors gave a speech this week repeating the Administration's case that contrary to all public analyses wages and income are rising in the United States.  He based his argument on what is called nominal wages, or the actual rise of wages prior to adjusting for inflation.  Of course these figures have risen, but once inflation is accounted for peoples incomes and wages have declined in recent years.  All public analyses use these figures, or real wages and income as their measure.  It is extraordinary for an economist to be making this case, as he is surely aware of the ridicule that will be heaped upon him by his peers.  And to us, here at NDN, this effort to recast the economic debate needs to be understood simply as an incredible and purposeful lie by the Administration, something I guess we've all become used to in recent years. 

Any lingering questions about Republican campaign strategy in the final fifty days are being answered.  Those of you hoping for a substantive debate on the challenges facing our nation shouldn't hold your breath.  Facing the loss of control of one or even both houses of Congress, Republicans are planning on utilizing what Bill Clinton called the "personal politics of destruction" against their opponents.  The Washington Post reports that:

Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest over the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said.

There is no time to lament the death of civility in political debate, because the strategy is already underway.  Yesterday, House Majority Leader John Boehner said that Democrats are "more interested in protecting terrorists than in protecting the American people."  And this strategy of making outlandish attacks is being parroted by Republicans across the country, from Rick Santorum to the President in his "non-political speech" Monday night.

How effectively Democrats deflect these attacks and keep the focus on Republican failures of governance will determine who wins in November, and could also send a message that the era of Rovian character assassination politics is over.   

For the past several years I've been discribing the modern conservative movement and their Republican leaders as an "Information Age Tammany Hall."  It is a modern, and different, kind of political machine, but it is a classic political machine nonetheless. 

A few days ago, another piece of the machine unraveled.  In Miami, the political base of Jeb Bush, ten independent journalists and commentators were discovered to also be on the US government payroll, a seldom listened to TV and radio operation directed at sending American media to Cuba called TV Marti.  Given Jeb's relationship to this community, it is impossible to believe that he was not personally involved in the decisions on whom to pay off. 

As anyone who has worked in Miami knows, the Cuban media there is wildly Republican.  It seldom criticizes the Bush family, Republican Cuban leaders or the Republican Party.  In many ways it has been Rush Limbaugh and Fox News rolled into one.  Now we know one of the reasons why - payola. 

Our Miami-based Hispanic Strategy Center director Joe Garcia described the TV Marti payola scandal to the St Pete Times this way: "They have turned it into a banana republic radio station that is used for political patronage". 

My hope is the media there keeps digging on this one.  At some point it will all head right back to the two Bush brothers.

From the NYTimes today:

"The Bush administration’s proposal to bring leading terrorism suspects before military tribunals met stiff resistance Thursday from key Republicans and top military lawyers who said some provisions would not withstand legal scrutiny or do enough to repair the nation’s tarnished reputation internationally."

It happened so fast.  On Wednesday the President launches an aggressive effort to recast the national security/foreign policy conversation.  On Thursday, leaders of his own Party and the Pentagon repudiate his new approach.  From a governing standpoint, we should be pleased with has happened.  From a political standpoint, it shows how extraordinarily out of touch and removed the White House has become from the rest of Washington, and of course, the country.  Their political endgame this fall will be ferocious, hard-fought, well-funded and coordinated.  But it is hard to spin away, and advertize away, the hard reality of a failed foreign policy and an economic policy that has benefited only a tiny few.  The speedy crash of this new initiative should worry Republicans that there is no easy way out of the current mess they've made out of our government. 

One interesting thing to watch next week is that the House Republicans, the most terrified group in Washington today, are standing firm with the President's already dead on arrival package.  Will we have immigration reform redux, where the House R's take a narrow and base-driven position at odds with good governing and the Senate R's, leaving no room from compromise? Or will the President in this case have to bring all parties together, including the Democrats, and work out a deal to get something passed before the fall?

I've been following the news about the upcoming ABC movie "Path to 9/11" closely.  I am an ABC alumni, having worked at ABC News in the 1980s.  I still know people who work there, and look back at that time as a lucky and wonderful period of my life. 

From everything I've read it is clear ABC blew it on this one.  I'm not sure how it happened, but the movie is sloppy and inaccurate; the way the network promoted it showed they understood the right would be happy and the Democrats unhappy; reports late last night indicate ABC's partner, Scholastic, the publisher of Harry Potter and other school materials, has pulled their "educational" materials about the film from their web site; and their refusal to allow government officials portrayed to even screen the movie in advance is bizarre and irresponsible, contributing to the sense that there is rightwing conspiracy behind the film.   

Given what has happened, and how important the subject matter is, the film should be pulled.  Instead turn the time over to ABC News to host live roundtable discussions with representatives of all involved to talk about 9/11, Iraq, and the future of American foreign policy.  Given all the controversy, the viewership of these programs would be huge, the public service extraordinary. 

The problem for ABC is that they using public airwaves to promote a private, or partisan, agenda.  If this was HBO, or even a commercial movie, this would not be as much of an issue.  But these are our airwaves not theirs; and they have to be held to a higher standard. 

Kudos to Media Matters, Think Progress, Working Assests, MyDD, NPI fellow Jennifer Nix and the many others who have led this very new style campaign against this unfortunate film. 

Last night I did two things. First, i began reading The Plan, Rahm Emmanuel and Bruce Reed's new book. Second, i had an argument with some friends online about the merits of Paul Krugman. The first task I approached with a degree of resignation. Pre-election books written by senior politicians (Emmanuel) or clued-in wonks (Reed) can often have a ghost-written "will-this-do?" feel to them. So imagine my surprise that the first couple of chapters make for very, very entertaining reading. The book is one of the sharpest overviews of the current political set-up i've come accross of late. The second task, on the other hand, was prompted by this post over at Brad De Long's website, where De Long says he finds "a certain horrifying fascination in watching the right wing's minions and useful idiots in the press attempt to attack Paul Krugman on matters of economic substance.... [which resembles an] air assault by a circular firing squad of flying attack monkeys."

Anyway, in the course of my night's activities i came accross two splendid quotes i thought worth sharing in full. The first, from the book, was from President Clinton giving his overview of Compassionate Conservatism:

"This 'compassionate conservatism' has a great ring to it, you know? It sounds so good. And I've really worked hard to try to figure out what it means. I mean, I made an honest effort, and near as I can tell, here's what it means. It means: 'I like you. I do. And I would like to be for the patients' bill of rights. And I'd like to be for closing the gun-show loophole. And I'd like not to squander the surplus and, you know, save Social Security and Medicare for the next generation. I'd like to raise the minimum wage. I'd like to do these things. But I just can't. And I feel terrible about it.'"

The second, from Krugman himself, is his reposte to people who acuse him of excessive partisanship.

Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that the Bush administration was, in a fundamental way, being dishonest about its economic plans. Suppose that the numbers used to justify the tax cut were clearly bogus, and that the plan was in fact obviously a budget-buster. Suppose that the Social Security reform plan simply ignored the system’s existing obligations, and thus purported to offer something for nothing. Suppose that the Cheney energy report deliberately misstated the nature of the country’s actual energy problems, and used that misstatement to justify subsidies to the energy industry......In this hypothetical situation, what sort of columns should I have been writing? Does the ideal of “nonpartisanship” mean that I should have mixed my critiques of Bush policies with praise, or with attacks on the hapless, ineffectual Democrats, just for the sake of perceived balance? Given what I knew to be the truth, would that even have been ethical?

Keepers, the both of them.