Daily Archives: May 6, 2006

Regarding Hillary

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Eleanor Clift suggests that, maybe, Hillary Clinton can be for the Dems in 2008 what Ronald Reagan was for the Republicans in 1980.

When was the last time we had such a dominant front runner this early who raises such anxiety about electability? The answer is Ronald Reagan. It took a leap of imagination to believe an aging grade-B movie actor with orange hair could win the presidency.

I hadn’t remembered he had orange hair. But Clift misunderstands the essential problem with Hillary Clinton. Clift writes that “Democrats want to win so badly that they are leery of experimenting” with a woman candidate. And she spoke with Paul Begala, who dismissed the polarization factor.

“It says to me we don’t believe in ourselves anymore. Anybody who runs from either party will have negatives of 40 to 45 percent before it’s over. She may have them the week she files,” he conceded, “but what more can the Republicans do to her? They’ve exhausted their supply of scandalous revelations. “

And maybe, Begala says, if the Republicans are really mean, Hillary will benefit from a sympathy backlash.

Oh, please …

First off, like him or not, Reagan didn’t gain a following from a sympathy backlash. He gained a following by taking firm positions on a number of issues conservatives cared about. But see also this bit from Wikipedia (emphasis added):

Reagan’s first attempt to gain the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 was unsuccessful. He tried again in 1976 against incumbent Gerald Ford, but again met defeat at the Republican National Convention by a few votes.

The 1976 campaign was a critical moment for Ronald Reagan’s political development. Gerald Ford was largely a symbol of the “old guard” of the Republican Party. Reagan’s success was remarkable considering Ford’s status as an incumbent President. At the convention in 1976, Reagan gave a stirring speech in which he discussed the dangers of nuclear war and the moral threat of the Soviet Union. After that speech, many at the convention said they felt like “they had voted for the wrong man.”

I submit that Hillary is our Gerald Ford, not our Ronald Reagan. She represents the old guard. She is at the core of the inside-the-beltway Democratic culture that has left the party without direction or passion and sometimes, it seems, without purpose.

And I believe — I hope, anyway — that in 2008 the electorate will be done with the old guard of both parties.

Kos Moulitsas has an op ed in tomorrow’s Washington Post:

Moving into 2008, Republicans will be fighting to shake off the legacy of the Bush years: the jobless recovery, the foreign misadventures, the nightmarish fiscal mismanagement, the Katrina mess, unimaginable corruption and an imperial presidency with little regard for the Constitution or the rule of law. Every Democratic contender will be offering change, but activists will be demanding the sort of change that can come only from outside the Beltway.

Hillary Clinton leads her Democratic rivals in the polls and in fundraising. Unfortunately, however, the New York senator is part of a failed Democratic Party establishment — led by her husband — that enabled the George W. Bush presidency and the Republican majorities, and all the havoc they have wreaked at home and abroad. …

… She epitomizes the “insider” label of the early crowd of 2008 Democratic contenders. She’s part of the Clinton machine that decimated the national Democratic Party. And she remains surrounded by many of the old consultants who counsel meekness and caution. James Carville, the famed longtime adviser to the Clintons, told Newsweek last week, “The American people are going to be ready for an era of realism. They’ve seen the consequences of having too many ‘big ideas.’ “

In other words, her message is, “elect me, and I promise not to do much”?

Bill Clinton found a political strategy that worked for him in the 1980s and 1990s, when right-wing extremism was on the ascendancy. He combined his preternatural charm with cautious positioning on issues — the famous “triangulation.” Clinton moved to the right to appeal to the broadest possible swatch of the electorate, but in doing so sold out core progressive values. As a result the upper levels of the Democratic party became disconnected from the liberal-progressive base. And to many Americans Brand Democrat became Brand X — the bland, generic alternative to Republicans.

It may be that by 2008 voters will be so disgusted with the name brand that they’ll choose Brand X, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Fact is, it’s the Republicans who are having to walk away from their big ideas, which either didn’t sell (e.g., Social Security reform) or didn’t work as advertised (e.g., Medicare drug coverage; the Iraq War). They’re retreating into “junk” issues like criminalizing abortion and preventing gay marriage. Or, as E.J. Dionne suggests, they’re trying to sound more progressive, suddenly developing concern for the environment and/or the poor.

The current reaction is not simply to President Bush’s low poll numbers. It’s also a response to the failure of conservative policies and to the declining appeal of conservative rhetoric. Conservatives are trying to save themselves by offering progressive-sounding criticisms of the status quo, much as liberals offered ersatz conservative critiques two decades ago.

If Rick Santorum wants you to look at his record in a way that makes him a paladin for the poor and if Dennis Hastert wants you to know that he’s suspicious of the oil companies, the political weather is changing. When one side starts making the other side’s argument, you don’t need to be a pollster to know which belief system is in the ascendancy.

This is not the time for hyper-cautious Hillary Clinton, tip-toeing around issues so as to not be caught taking a stand on one. This is the time for Democrats to stand up and offer a real alternative to what the Republicans have to offer. Let the wingnuts wring their hands over the poor innocent stem cells and the war on Christmas. We have real problems — stagnant wages, eroding financial security, growing numbers of Americans without health insurance, snail’s-pace progress rebuilding the Gulf Coast. And can we say, gas prices? And the foreign policy from hell?

It’s going to take some big ideas to solve these problems. It’s going to take leadership and vision and the ability to persuade voters that government can work for them again.

The last thing voters will want to hear is, don’t worry; we won’t rock the boat.

Was It About Karl?

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Something’s not adding up, Laura Rozen says.

So, the verdict is in. According to the WP, the NYT, the LAT, Time, etc. Goss was forced out yesterday after months of tension between him and John Negroponte over the CIA’s reduced turf, and that President Bush lost confidence in Goss “almost from the beginning” (WP).

So then he was forced out on very short notice? No notification to the House Intelligence committee? Not a single newspaper report in the past few months about the tension between Goss and Negroponte? (Indeed check out the recent coverage about Congressional raised eyebrows over the empire Negroponte is building, and his alleged visits to a fancy DC club for swim and cigar breaks). On the contrary, can anyone remember a single article about Goss fighting for his folks at the Agency? …

… Negroponte has President Bush’s ear every single day when he delivers the President’s daily intel brief. If he had been lobbying to get rid of Goss, and the President was inclined to support that decision, there were a hundred ways to do it in a way that would project stability, confidence, normalcy. There was hardly a show of that yesterday. They could have named a successor. There could have been a leak to the press about Goss being tired (remember all the foreshadowing in the press about how tired Andy Card was after all those 20 hour days that preceded his departure?) and wanting to spend more time with his family, or that Bush was unhappy with him. There was none of that. It was a surprise move. What happened this week that Negroponte and Bush acted so swiftly?

Does the way it happened resemble the slo-mo, warm and fuzzy way Andy Card and Scott McClellan were retired? Or does it rather have more in common with the swiftly announced departures of Claude Allen and David Safavian from their posts, a few days before we hear of federal investigations?

Before we all get too excited over Hookergate … according to Larry Johnson, the rumor mill inside the CIA says Goss is probably not directly involved.

A former CIA buddy tells me that Porter’s main problem, however, is a key staffer who is linked to both Brent Wilkes and the CIA’s Executive Director, Dusty Foggo. My friend also said that it is highly likely that the Goss staffer did participate in the hooker extravaganza. Goss, politician that he is, probably recognized that even though he did not participate in the sexual escapades and poker games, his staffer’s participation created a huge problem for him that would be difficult to escape.

All we know for sure is that we don’t know for sure why Goss resigned. If the only reason for the resignation is Goss’s poor job performance — which is not usually a firing offense among the Bushies — why so abrupt?

The two reasons Bushies lose their jobs is (1) they’ve become — or are about to become — a political liability, or (2) they spoke out against the White House Official Version of Reality. We have to assume Goss was about to become a political liability and had to be bounced asap.

One other possibility is that Negroponte wants something from the CIA he wasn’t getting, And it’s something he wants right now. Time is of the essence. Here’s a wild card thought — could this something have to do with building a legal defense for Karl Rove’s role in Plamegate? Conventional wisdom says that if Rove’s going to be indicted, it’s going to happen within the next week or two. That’s just seat-of-the-pants speculation, of course. But Dick Cheney’s running battle with the CIA is at the heart of the Plame mess, and part of Goss’s mission was to bring the agency to heel.

NSA director General Michael Hayden is expected to be named as Goss’s replacement. Steve Soto writes that “Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld gain direct control of the CIA with Hayden’s ascension.” On the other hand, Hayden’s confirmation hearings will give Democrats lots of opportunity to grill Hayden over his creative application of the Fourth Amendment at the NSA.

Steve also touches on one of my favorite themes — Bush’s management “style.”

But in reading the Post’s accounts (one with Pincus, and one by Dana Priest) of the damage that Goss did to the Agency in a short period of time, one can see how awful of a manager Bush is. First, he selects and installs a man into the job who had no business there in the first place. Then, he finds that he isn’t happy with the guy he just selected. He then sits by while Goss and his former staff aides set about to destroy the Agency by running out or forcing into retirement many high-level and experienced staff. Instead of dealing with that problem, he installs another dark and immoral man as a buffer between him and Goss (Negroponte), instead of dealing with the problem itself. And then, after becoming unhappy with how Goss has made the Agency dysfunctional and handled several major problems, he uses Josh Bolten’s ascension as the cover to finally make a move, but again, by picking someone who will cause just as many problems because of his own inadequacies and ties to those who got Bush into this problem in the first place (Cheney and Rummy).

Bush is inept, and an incompetent manager, someone who would never have lasted in many major corporations or even in state government, let alone as leader of the free world.

Pinching Myself

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John Tierney wrote a good column. This is rare. This is almost as rare as the President being honest. Well, not quite that rare, but close.

Like Limbaugh, Richard Paey suffers from back pain, which in his case is so severe that he’s confined to a wheelchair. Also like Limbaugh, he was accused of illegally obtaining large quantities of painkillers. Although there was no evidence that either man sold drugs illegally, the authorities in Florida zealously pursued each of them for years.

Unlike Limbaugh, Paey went to prison. Now 47 years old, he’s serving the third year of a 25-year term. His wife told me that when he heard how Limbaugh settled his case last week — by agreeing to pay $30,000 and submit to drug tests — Paey offered a simple explanation: “The wealthy and influential go to rehab, while the poor and powerless go to prison.”

He has a point, although I don’t think that’s the crucial distinction between the cases. Paey stood up for his belief that patients in pain should be able to get the medicine they need. Limbaugh so far hasn’t stood up for any consistent principle except his right to stay out of jail.

He has portrayed himself as the victim of a politically opportunistic prosecutor determined to bag a high-profile trophy, which is probably true. But that’s standard operating procedure in the drug war supported by Limbaugh and his fellow conservatives.

See what I mean? Maybe the real Tierney was abducted by aliens, and this column was written by an impostor.

… The drug war costs $35 billion per year and has yet to demonstrate any clear long-term benefits. … Yet conservatives go on giving more money and more power to the drug cops. …

… Limbaugh objected when prosecutors, unable to come up with enough evidence against him, demanded to be allowed to go through his medical records in the hope of finding something.

He managed to stop them in court, but other defendants can’t afford long legal battles to protect their privacy.

Drug agents and prosecutors go on fishing expeditions to seize doctors’ records and force pharmacists to divulge what they’re selling to whom. With the help of new federal funds, states are compiling databases of the prescriptions being filled at pharmacies. Once their trolling finds something they deem suspicious, the authorities can threaten doctors, pharmacists and patients with financially crippling investigations and long jail sentences unless they cooperate by testifying against others or copping a plea. …

Tierney reminds us that Bush has defended the more objectionable parts of the Patriot Act by saying the same powers were being used against drug dealers.

I wasn’t aware the feds were doing this. How is that different from prosecutors combing through medical records looking for women who might have terminated a pregnancy?

… Even if Limbaugh believes that drugs like OxyContin are a menace to himself, he ought to recognize that most patients are in Richard Paey’s category. Their problem isn’t abusing painkillers, but finding doctors to prescribe enough of them. And that gets harder every year because of the drug war promoted by conservatives like Limbaugh.

***

Speaking of drugs, there’s something about the Patrick Kennedy case that’s not making sense to me. He says he was zoned out on a combination of Ambien (sleeping pill) and Phenergan (anti-nausea pill). This USA Today article says that combination really could account for Kennedy’s driving behaviors. But several articles have also said Kennedy has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Was he not also taking meds for that? And if not, why not?

And, for the record, I don’t think Patrick Kennedy should get special treatment, à la Rush Limbaugh. The cops should have given Kennedy a field-sobriety test, for example. There’s no question there are pieces missing from the official account of what happened last Thursday morning. It might be best for the Democratic party if Kennedy resigned now so that another Dem has time to get a campaign for his House seat up and running.

One other thing — so far I haven’t seen any leftie bloggers making excuses for Kennedy. See, for example, Billmon, Atrios, and this Kos diarist. One can’t say the same about righties and Limbaugh.

See, for example, this April 29 post on RedState.org.

Personally, I wish the best for Rush and his family. Any Hollywood personality who confessed to drug addiction and checked themselves into a rehabiliation clinic would be lauded as a saint for getting their lives together, and left completely alone by the police. Rush Limbaugh, for his political views, has faced a dogged prosecution determined to use any means necessary to pin a charge on him. Already, liberals without a shred of moral decency are shrieking in gleeful hysteria over this. It’s easy to call “hypocrite” when one has no moral standards of one’s own to possibly violate. But all of this is beside the point.

RedState’s take (from a different blogger) on the Kennedy episode was less sympathetic. Funny how that works.

Check out Expose the Left —

On Limbaugh: “Rush ‘Arrested’, Media Obsessed With Non-Story”

But the media wasn’t hard enough on Kennedy —

“Aww Factor: CNN’s Bash Apologist For Kennedy’s Family Drinking Problem (VIDEO)”

This guy is outraged that a CNN reporter would make excuses for Kennedy, like saying he got addicted to pills he was taking for health problems.

Unlike Rush, who … oh, wait …

Update: Mustang Bobby says the difference between Rush and the Hindenburg is that one’s a flaming Nazi gasbag and the other’s a dirigible.