Filed under: Conservatives, Government, Health Care, IOKIYAR, Progressives, Senate | Tags: Chuck Grassley, Congress, Greed, Health Care, Health Care Reform, Hypocrisy, Iowa, Republicans
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (IA) had a bit of difficulty when asked about health care reform at a recent townhall meeting.
See for yourself:
After sharing his family’s personal struggle with the burden of high health care costs, an audience member asked, “My question is… why is your insurance so much cheaper than my insurance and so better than my insurance?”
The question made Grassley cranky.
He responded, first, by suggesting the questioner “go work for John Deere,” since they “don’t pay anything” for their insurance plan.
When the questioner refused to let the senator wriggle out of answering the question, Grassley revealed how little he knew about his own insurance plan.
Another audience member had to help the senator out by describing the details of the plan. After she finished, the original questioner again asked, “Okay, so how come I can’t have the same thing you have?”
Grassley’s response: “You can. Just go work for the Federal government.”
[Emphasis added]
Well, that’s one way to cover the 45 million uninsured Americans–create 45 million new federal jobs with health benefits and then hire all of them to work for the government.
Of course, it would be quite expensive to pay 45 additional salaries plus health benefits. If only someone had a plan that would provide those 45 million uninsured Americans with health coverage without having to hire them to work for the federal government…
In all seriousness, though, keep in mind that Sen. Grassley and every other Republican in Congress all get publicly-funded health care. So they have no problem accepting public health care for themselves and their families, yet they’ll fight tooth and nail to prevent those same benefits from being extended to all Americans.
The GOP has theirs, so why should they worry about the millions of Americans with no health insurance or not enough health insurance? While the Democrats try to reform health care, the GOP is content to sit back and yell ‘let them eat cake!’
No wonder these guys are the minority…
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, Health Care, IOKIYAR, Progressives, Right-Wing Noise Machine | Tags: Barack Obama, Budget, Congress, Democrats, George W. Bush, Health Care, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance, Hypocrisy, Iraq, Republicans, Taxes
There is a lot of misinformation and garbage talking points on health care reform being spread around by conservatives. But, despite all the sound and the noise, there doesn’t seem to be a single worthwhile argument against health care reform buried anywhere in there.
Republicans claim–falsely–that a public option would result in the “rationing” of health care. But what is rationing?
ra⋅tion
1. a fixed allowance.
2. an allotted amount.
By that definition, isn’t health care already rationed? Health care isn’t unlimited–first, whether or not you even have health insurance depends on where you work and how much money you have. And both of those influence the quality of coverage you can get.
Second, even if you have the means to get health insurance, the insurance companies can still deny you coverage for a variety of reasons–a pre-existing condition, for instance.
Third, even if you have health insurance, insurance companies can deny your claim for a particular medical treatment for a variety of reasons. So, even if you are covered you might not be able to get the treatment you need.
Health insurance companies make a profit by denying as much coverage as possible to as many people as possible; their entire business model is centered around rationing.
Conservatives also argue–falsely–that a public option would put “government bureaucrats” between citizens and their doctors in terms of making health care decisions.
Yet, bureaucrats are already between people and their doctors–instead of being government bureaucrats whose jobs are to serve the American people, it’s private health industry bureaucrats whose jobs are to try to deny you as much health care as they can. That is how they make money, after all.
Conservatives are also asking where the money for health care reform is going to come from, claiming a plan including a public option would cost somewhere between $1.5 and $2 trillion.
Of course, that crowd includes a fair number of newly-minted deficit hawks who didn’t seem to care very much when George Bush and the Republican Congress were spending huge amounts of money on utterly frivolous things.
Where were these guys when Bush was pushing his $1.6 trillion tax cut package through Congress? Why weren’t any of these conservatives complaining about the cost of the Iraq War, which will cost us nearly $3 trillion?
Of course health care reform will be expensive–it’s going to help insure tens of millions of Americans who are currently going without health care. The question isn’t simply how much it will cost, but whether or not the benefit is worth it. For instance, to an average middle-class family buying a house is incredibly expensive, but the benefit they receive from that purchase justifies the cost.
Plus, we already pay a significant portion of what health care reform would cost in other ways–our salaries are lower because our employers have to pay greater health care costs. We pay more in taxes to help support overburdened hospitals that have to treat a large number of uninsured Americans. We pay higher health insurance costs and premiums to a veritable monopoly with no competition and massively-high prices, which would be challenged and kept honest by a public health insurance option.
I wonder just how much of that $1.5-$2 trillion would come from costs that the American people already pay in some form or another?
On one hand, conservatives–falsely–claim that a public health care plan would be massively inefficient, resulting in long waits for treatment, reduced choice in doctors, limited treatment options, etc.
But on the other hand, they claim that the public option will drive the private insurance industry out of business. That’s right–they claim that public option will be terrible, but so many people will opt into it that the entire private health insurance industry will go bankrupt.
They also claim that private insurance will go out of business because it’s impossible for a private entity to compete with a government program. Except:
I immediately thought of the U.S. Postal Service. Here’s a government-run service that can deliver a paper document to any remote location you choose for 42 cents. They can also deliver packages quickly and at a very competitive rate. Impressive.
But even with this efficiency the “public option” for package delivery has a number of healthy competitors. There’s FedEx (started in 1971 as Federal Express), DHL (founded in 1969), UPS (founded in 1907) among others.
Somehow, despite the government-run program, these private delivery services have managed to survive by offering customers something they found worthy of their business.
Conservatives don’t want to admit it, but America is facing a health care crisis. Costs are rising because there’s nobody to compete with the insurance industry. Tens of millions of Americans go without health insurance for themselves and their families, relying on overburdened, understaffed hospitals to be their first–and last–resort in the event of injury or illness. The time for change has come, yet conservatives are content to simply drag their feet and say “No.”
UPDATE: And keep in mind that there is already a public option for health care–it’s just restricted to members of Congress. That’s right–every member of Congress currently receives taxpayer-funded, government-provided health insurance.
So any Senator or Representative who opposes a public health insurance option is a complete and utter hypocrite, unless they put their money where their mouth is and reject their free government health care in favor of buying private insurance out-of-pocket.
But I guess those are conservatives for you–they have no problem accepting free government handouts hand-over-fist when it benefits them and their families, but will fight tooth and nail to prevent those same benefits from being extended to regular, everyday Americans.
Filed under: Breaking, Conservatives, Government, IOKIYAR, International, Progressives, Right-Wing Noise Machine, Rights | Tags: Arrogance, Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, George W. Bush, Iran, Neoconservatives, Republicans, Revolution, Violence
Conservatives are hitting President Obama over Iran, arguing that he should be doing more to support the opposition there. I bristle at the politicization of the situation in Iran because, ultimately, what the Iranian people are going through isn’t about us, it isn’t about American politics and we shouldn’t be making it about us.
First off, I find it pretty disingenuous for conservatives–who spent years calling for the United States to bomb Iran–to suddenly show so much concern for the Iranian people. As Glenn Greenwald pointed out a few days ago:
During the presidential campaign, John McCain infamously sang about Bomb, Bomb, Bomb-ing Iran. The Wall St. Journal published a war screed from Commentary’s Norman Podhoretz entitled “The Case for Bombing Iran,” and following that, Podhoretz said in an interview that he “hopes and prays” that the U.S. “bombs the Iranians.” John Bolton and Joe Lieberman advocated the same bombing campaign, while Bill Kristol — with typical prescience — hopefully suggested that Bush might bomb Iran if Obama were elected. Rudy Giuliani actually said he would be open to a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran in order to stop their nuclear program.
[…]
Advocating a so-called “attack on Iran” or “bombing Iran” in fact means slaughtering huge numbers of the very same people who are on the streets of Tehran inspiring so many — obliterating their homes and workplaces, destroying their communities, shattering the infrastructure of their society and their lives.
Second, like I said, this isn’t about us. It’s about Iran and the Iranian people. The uprising in Iran is really two simultaneous conflicts–the fist is pro-democracy demonstrators facing off against an oppressive government. To that extent, Obama has done what should be expected of a President of the United States—he spoke out in favor of democracy, in favor of free speech and free assembly, and denounced the Iranian government for their violent, brutal crackdown against their own people.
But there’s another conflict here that conservatives are not seeing or not acknowledging–the political conflict over the disputed election. The major players in Iran’s unrest are the ruling party and the opposition party. That’s partially why Obama hasn’t done what conservatives want and side with the demonstrators—that would, in effect, be telling the Iranian people who their next president should be.
One of the basic tenets of democracy is that sovereign states should be able to hold elections without interference. The Iranian people have a right to decide—as much as they are allowed to—who should govern them; it’s not the job of the United States (or anyone else) to declare winner.
Iran’s election occurred, was stolen, and resulted in violence. But, in the end, this is still an Iranian political dispute, though a decidedly violent one. Iran–and only Iran–should determine the course their country takes. They have that right, and Obama has said from the start he isn’t going to take that right away from them.
Honestly, if Iran’s conflict didn’t involve a disputed election, I too would be criticizing Obama for not doing more. But the fact that the core of this fight is about who will run Iran makes it infinitely more complex.
Third, if Iran’s opposition wanted America to get involved they would ask us to. Mousavi and his movement are the center of the world’s attention at the moment; they have a large microphone at their disposal. Yet, we’re not hearing the opposition call for the United States to get involved. As the National Iranian American Council says,
People in Iran have told NIAC’s Iranian-American membership that they don’t want the US to get itself involved in the conflict, but they do want to see the government’s use of violence condemned
[...]
If America’s posture returns to that of the Bush administration, these indigenous forces for change may be quelled by the forces of fear and ultranationalism
I trust the opposition to understand more than anyone how American involvement would affect their movement. The the fact that they haven’t called on Obama to do what conservatives say he should do is telling.
Fourth, it’s funny how conservatives–who like to dismiss Barack Obama as nothing but lofty rhetoric–are now suddenly believers in the power of a speech. But even if Obama did what conservatives wanted and spoke out in favor of the opposition, nothing would change. The opposition would still demonstrate; the government would still crack down; the situation would be as bloody and violent as it currently is if not moreso. As it is, the Iranian government is trying to portray the protesters as puppets for America and the West; if Obama came out fully on the side of the opposition, it would vindicate those paranoid, conspiratorial fantasies and justify even more violence and murder. Obama taking the opposition’s side would do little to help but a lot to hurt; the opposition knows this and that’s why they aren’t asking for Obama’s support.
As an additional note, conservatives are outraged that the administration is going ahead with a planned diplomatic meeting with Iranian representatives on July 4th. But that shouldn’t be surprising or controversial—Obama has always said that America shouldn’t talk only to its friends and that diplomacy shouldn’t be a reward for good behavior. And Obama’s foreign policy was the one chosen by the American people last November.
And how idiotic is it that conservatives are calling for Obama to make a speech, which would accomplish very little, yet they attack him for wanting to engage iwth Iranian diplomats, even though that would actually give us a chance to affect Iran’s polity. And for anyone who would claim that a despotic, terrorism-supporting nation cannot be changed through diplomacy, all I have to say is: Libya.
The arrogant conservatives who would have America further meddle in Iranian affairs don’t know what they’re talking about; they’re the same arrogant conservatives who engineered the Bush administration’s failed, disastrous foreign policy. Iran isn’t about us. It isn’t about Barack Obama or the Democrats or the Republicans; it’s about Iran and the Iranian people. If you truly believe in democracy, then you must believe that the Iranians should decide their own fate instead of having America decide it for them.
UPDATE: Super special note to Sen. John McCain: you lost the election. Get over it.
Filed under: 2012 Election, Breaking, Conservatives, IOKIYAR, Rights, Scandal, Senate | Tags: Affair, Hypocrisy, John Ensign, Nevada, NRSC, Republicans, Same-Sex Marriage, Senate
See those Republican family values in action:
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) has acknowledged an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer in a statement released by his office. “I deeply regret and am very sorry for my actions,” said Ensign.
[...]
The affair, which was with a woman who worked for both Ensign’s re-election campaign and his Battle Born leadership political action committee, began in December 2007 and ended in August 2008.
Of course, Ensign opposes same-sex marriage–in 2006, he voted for a constitutional amendment that would have banned it. In 2004, Ensign took to the Senate floor and said:
Marriage recognizes the ideal of a father and mother living together to raise their children. Marriage is the cornerstone on which our society was founded.
[...]
I would simply point out that marriage, and the sanctity of that institution, predates the American Constitution and the founding of our nation. Marriage, as a social institution, predates every other institution on which ordered society in America has relied.
So John Ensign believes in the “sanctity of marriage” enough to want to deny same-sex couples the right to marry, but not so much that he won’t have an extramarital affair with a campaign staffer. Hypocrite, much?
And keep in mind that John Ensign isn’t just another Republican Senator–he’s the former Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and serves as the 4th highest-ranking Republican in the United States Senate.
I wonder what Ensign’s Republican colleagues think of his interpretation of the “sanctity of marriage”?
UPDATED: And the sanctimony and hypocrisy continue:
During the height of the scandal surrounding Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, the Nevada Republican denounced the president’s conduct as “an embarrassing moment for the country.”
‘I think we have to feel very sad for the American people and Hillary and Chelsea,’ he said.
Weeks later, Ensign would call on Clinton to resign. “I came to that conclusion recently, and frankly it’s because of what he put his whole Cabinet through and what he has put the country through,” he was quoted saying at the time. “He has no credibility left,” he added.
[...]
In fact, not only did Ensign envision the Lewinksy affair as a political boon for Republicans, he actively made it an issue in his campaign against Reid. At one point during the campaign, Ensign accused his opponent of having a double standard when it came to politicians and sexual dalliances. Reid, he argued, had been much tougher on former Sen. Robert Packwood — who resigned from the Senate under allegations of sexual harassment — than he was with Clinton.
[Emphasis mine]
So, according to John Ensign himself:
- This is an embarrassing moment for the country.
- John Ensign has no credibility left.
- John Ensign has to resign.
You heard it from the horse’s mouth, folks.
Filed under: Conservatives, IOKIYAR, Right-Wing Noise Machine | Tags: Craziness, Hypocrisy, Michael Steele, RNC, RNC Chair, Stupidity, Tea Partays
I almost missed this little gem from RNC Chair Michael Steele’s speech yesterday:
While promising a more aggressive approach, Steele also insisted that Republicans will show “class” in countering Obama.
“We are going to take this president on with dignity. This will be a very sharp and marked contrast to the shabby and classless way that the Democrats and the far left spoke of President Bush.”
Ladies and gentlemen, courtesy of last month’s tax day tea parties, here’s the GOP’s “class” and “dignity”:
I eagerly await either Michael Steele’s explanation of how this constitutes class and dignity, or his full-throated denunciation of the tea party protests in the name of class and dignity.
Of course, in the interest of living, I won’t hold my breath.
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, IOKIYAR, Progressives, Right-Wing Noise Machine, Terrorism | Tags: Craziness, Department of Homeland Security, Don't Call It A Comback, Extremism, George W. Bush, Hypocrisy
[Don't call it a comeback.]
A funny thing happened just a few weeks into the Obama administration–conservatives seem to have gone a bit off their rockers, so to speak.
For instance, the Department of Homeland Security finished a report analyzing the growth of–and threat from–”rightwing extremism” within the United States. You think that examining various political movements to determining whether or not they’ve become radicalized and pose a threat to the United States would be a good use of DHS’ time; I seem to remember a radical political movement killing quite a large number of Americans just a few years ago.
Unsurprisingly, though, conservatives went apoplectic over the report–apparently they decided that “rightwing extremist” referred to them and concluded that this was part of a grand conspiracy by the Obama administration to silence them.
As usual, our conservative friends aren’t exactly in touch with reality. Reports like this aren’t unprecedented–they’re not even uncommon. In fact, DHS they released a similar report on “leftwing extremism” back in January, and that report was commissioned by President Bush back when he was in office. Oh, and Bush’s FBI investigated left-wing groups that were “active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief” back in 2005. And Bush’s Department of Energy released a report in 2001 called “Left-Wing Extremism: The Current Threat.”
Yes, sometimes the government investigates domestic political movements for signs of violence, radicalism and extremism. In fact, that’s part of the reason DHS was created in the first place–to protect America from threats within her borders. And, honestly, if you read a government report about political radicalism and extremism and see yourself in it, the problem isn’t the government–it’s you.
Just remember, DHS was created by a Republican administration with the consent of a Republican-controlled Congress; the power they wield stems directly from Republican governance. As Glenn Greenwald said,”When you cheer on a Surveillance State, you have no grounds to complain when it turns its eyes on you.”
UPDATE: Oh goody:
House Republicans are calling on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to step down or be fired in the wake of a controversial department memo that has sparked indignant battle cries from conservatives and some veterans.
“Singling out political opponents for working against the ruling party is precisely the tactic of every tyrannical government from Red China to Venezuela,” said Texas Rep. John Carter, a member of the party’s elected leadership who has organized an hour of floor speeches Wednesday night to call for Napolitano’s ouster. “The first step in the process is creating unfounded public suspicion of political opponents, followed by arresting and jailing any who continue speaking against the regime.”
This is becoming comical–it seems like every day conservatives find some new reason to crank the outrage up to 11 and break off the knob.
Yes, we get it–you’re unhappy you lost the election and that there’s a Democrat in the White House. But hell, this is already a dog-bites-man story: “CONSERVATIVES DISLIKE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT; HIS POLICIES.” How long until everyone just starts tuning your constant poutrage out?
UPDATE II: Look at me, I’m a prophet–I wrote this in August of 2007:
In college, my favorite professor was a conservative, a fourteen-year veteran of the Air Force and a big George W. Bush supporter; he taught my favorite course in college, which was on military force and foreign policy.
Despite the fact that he was a pro-Bush conservative, he was extremely wary of all the new powers being given to–and taken by–the President. This puzzled some of the more conservative students in the class, who asked him why he felt that way.
His response? You could trust George W. Bush with extraordinary amounts of power–he certainly did–but that didn’t matter. What mattered was, will you be able to trust the next President, and the President after that, with the same powers? Because once you give more power to the executive branch, it’s notoriously hard to take away–you’ve set a precedent.
And he was absolutely right. I don’t think many conservatives understand exactly what they’re doing—they’re not giving power to George W. Bush, they’re giving power to the Presidency itself. So if we wake up on January 20th, 2009 to see the inauguration of President Hillary Clinton, she will have access to all the power, all the privilege, all the authority that George W. Bush has right now.
So, Republicans, next time you try to prop up your failing Presidency by throwing in a little more Executive power, ask yourself this question—would I trust Hillary with this? Or Barack? Or John Edwards?
Don’t say I didn’t warn you, conservatives.
Filed under: Conservatives, Economics, Government, IOKIYAR, Progressives, Right-Wing Noise Machine | Tags: Andrew Jackson, Barack Obama, Budget, Debts, Deficits, Ronald Reagan, Spending
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the well-funded tea partay movement being set up on the right. Republicans seem to believe that, by focusing on the deficit and the national debt, they’re going to be able to win back support and retake the majority. Of course, that’s if you assume that we’re all going to forget that it was Republican policies and a Republican President who necessitated that we spend so much money to bail out economy out in the first place.
But, honestly, are debts and the deficit that big of an issue? I don’t think so. First, the last the America wasn’t in debt was during Andrew Jackson’s administration. People are used to the nation being in some astronomical amount of debt measured in larger amounts of money than most people could even imagine. And even though partisans love to talk about how every man, woman and child in America owes [insert huge amount of money here] to pay off the national debt (and that’s people on both sides–I’m sure I’ve made that argument at some point myself), it’s a very weak argument. See, nobody ever shows up and demands you fork over that huge amount of money. Even when we are paying off the debt, that money comes from the taxes we’re all paying anyway.
Plus, the debt doesn’t have an impact on our daily lives. And usually the reason America gets into more debt is economic troubles–i.e., things such as unemployment, inflation, etc. that do affect people’s lives. For most people, then, racking up a bigger deficit to fix the economy is creating a very, very distant problem in order to fix a very, very immediate problem, and most people probably don’t mind a larger debt if it means they can feel secure that they won’t lose their job/house/health care.
Heck, if you want an example of America’s political apathy toward the national debt, look no further than Ronald Reagan himself. Remember, Reagan tripled the national deficit during his years in office, yet he has become (particularly by supposedly deficit-hating Republicans) one of America’s top-rated former Presidents ever.
Just for kicks, here’s a graph:
Now who’s remembered for having a better economy, Carter or Reagan? Reagan, of course. But in terms of the national debt, Carter was better. Does that change his legacy? No, nor should it. It just illustrates that the national debt is not really a means by which the people judge economic success or failure.
Of course, debts matter–that money has to be paid off sometime by someone. But the question isn’t always just how much money we’re spending, but what we get in return for that spending. If we put our country in more debt now in order to grow the economy out of further debts later, is that investment worth it? Reagan tripled the national debt and yet, a little more than 10 years after he took office, our economy was ruined once again. In light of that, it’s hard to imagine that all the right-wing carping about our current debts is going to cause any harm at all to the Obama administration.
Filed under: Conservatives, Economics, Government, IOKIYAR, Progressives, Right-Wing Noise Machine | Tags: Barack Obama, Budget, Deficits, Democrats, George W. Bush, Hypocrisy, National Debt, Republicans
Conservatives have been circulating this graph recently in order to allege that President Obama is singularly responsible for racking up huge deficits, larger even than the record-breaking deficits America incurred under George W. Bush:
Of course, there’s one sentence on that graph conservatives like to either ignore or cover up, and that’s the “Note: Fiscal year ends Sept. 30.”
See, debts aren’t measured by calendar years (which goes from January 1 to December 31); they’re measured by fiscal years, which go from October 1 to September 30. So the 2009 fiscal year started on October 1, 2008–just two weeks after the economic collapse and long before the Bush-sponsored TARP program made it through Congress.
George W. Bush was in office for only 20 days of calendar year 2009, but he was in office for four months of fiscal year 2009; he bears a larger responsibility for that huge debt up there than most conservatives would have you believe.
And, of course, it’s ridiculous for conservatives to complain about deficits at all considering that George Bush spent years setting record-breaking deficits–after inheriting a rec0rd-breaking surplus–and managed to double the national debt during his 8 years in office.
But you know what they say, it’s okay if you’re a Republican.
Filed under: 2008 Election, Conservatives, Economics, Government, House, IOKIYAR, Progressives, Right-Wing Noise Machine | Tags: Bailout, Congress, Democrats, Hypocrisy, Republicans, Shame, TARP
When the 2008 election was looming in the distance–and there was a Republican in the White House–Congressional Republicans voted to hand $700 billion over to the White House for a Wall Street bailout.
But now that the election is over–and now that there will be a Democrat in the White House–suddenly Congressional Republicans don’t like the bailout and want to block disbursement of the remaining funds.
Has the GOP fallen so far they’re only willing to be responsible when an impending election forces them to be? Or are they only willing to shovel huge amounts of money over to a Republican president? And isn’t it hypocritical for Republicans to demand oversight and accountability for the incoming Democratic administration when it was the outgoing Republican administration who squandered the money?
And–more to the point–is the Republican Party ever going to grow up and be responsible, or are they content to play political calvinball as their minority shrinks election after election?
Filed under: Conservatives, IOKIYAR, International, Media, Right-Wing Noise Machine | Tags: Hypocrisy, Israel, Joe the Plumber, Media, Republicans, Sam Wurzelbacher, Stupidity
Sam “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher, commenting on war reporting from Israel:
“I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think journalists should be anywhere allowed war. I mean, you guys report where our troops are at. You report what’s happening day to day. You make a big deal out of it. I-I think it’s asinine. You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for’em. Now everyone’s got an opinion and wants to downer–and down soldiers. You know, American soldiers or Israeli soldiers. I think media should be abolished from, uh, you know, reporting. You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, ‘Well look at this atrocity,’ well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.”
[Emphasis added]
Obviously Wurzelbacher doesn’t think nobody should be allowed to report on wars, otherwise he wouldn’t be in Israel milking his fifteen minutes. He just thinks war reporting should be restricted to people with certain opinions–apparently he doesn’t understand the difference between journalism and propaganda. Hey, maybe that’s why they have journalism schools.
Of course, the most brilliant part of this is that he’s attacking media outlets for reporting from war zones…after being sent by a media outlet to report from a war zone.
Sadly, that’s modern conservative punditry for you, where “nobody else should be allowed to do what I’m allowed to do; only people with certain opinions should speak; reporters shouldn’t be allowed to report” is considered smart and insightful.
It’s going to be a long few years…
Filed under: 2010 Election, Conservatives, Government, IOKIYAR, Progressives, Right-Wing Noise Machine, Scandal, Senate | Tags: 2004, 2010, Alberto Gonzales, Arlen Specter, Attorney General, Bill Clinton, Congress, Department of Justice, Deputy Attorney General, DOJ, Eric Holder, George W. Bush, Hypocrisy, Janet Reno
Pennsylvania’s senior Senator has Attorney General-designate Eric Holder in his sights:
The senator, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who is the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said Mr. Holder’s support of the White House’s stance on three contentious issues when he was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration suggested that he was too willing to do the president’s bidding.
[...]
Mr. Specter raised questions about Mr. Holder’s role as deputy attorney general on a range of issues that included an investigation into the 1993 federal siege in Waco, Tex., that left David Koresh and about 80 of his Branch Davidian followers dead, and an espionage investigation involving a nuclear scientist, Wen Ho Lee.
But he saved his sharpest criticism for Mr. Holder’s role as deputy attorney general in three controversies in Mr. Clinton’s second term: Mr. Clinton’s pardon of Mr. Rich in 2001, the president’s decision in 1999 to grant clemency to 16 members of a Puerto Rican militant nationalist group, and the Justice Department’s rejection in 1997 of an independent counsel to examine accusations of campaign finance abuse by Vice President Al Gore and the White House. In each case, Mr. Specter said, Mr. Holder appeared to go against the advice of career professionals at the Justice Department.
So the GOP is going to dust off a slew of decades-old trumped-up right-wing scandals in order to attack someone who was only marginally involved in each.
First, trying to use the above scandals to determine whether or not Holder can be “independent” from the President is pretty ridiculous, since Holder wasn’t Bill Clinton’s Attorney General; he was the Deputy Attorney General. Whether or not some of those incidents happened because the DoJ wasn’t independent enough from Clinton is a reflection on Attorney General Reno, not Eric Holder; all the GOP can really prove here is that Holder did his job, hardly a filibuster-worthy revelation
Second, Specter is trying to insist that the Attorney General have a certain level of independence from the President. But, in 2005, Specter voted to confirm Alberto Gonzales as George W. Bush’s second Attorney General, even though Gonzales was a Bush loyalist who had served as Bush’s legal counsel ever since he was Governor of Texas. In fact, Specter was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during Gonzales confirmation; at the confirmation hearings, he raised exactly zero concerns about Gonzales’ independence. The double standard here doesn’t speak particularly well toward Specter’s integrity.
Third, we all know why Specter is doing this–he’s desperate to burnish his conservative creds. Specter will be up for re-election in 2010 and is facing a primary challenge from Club for Growth President Pat Toomey, who nearly defeated Specter in 2004. Specter is trying to redeem himself among conservatives by leading the charge against Holder. Plus, since Holder will be confirmed no matter what, Specter can gain some points without having to actually accomplish anything.
Yeah, I know our politics is often functions as the incumbent protection racket, but I just wish guys like Specter wouldn’t put good public servants like Eric Holder and Barack Obama through the ringer just to save their own skins.
Filed under: 2008 Election, Breaking, Conservatives, Corruption, Government, Governors, IOKIYAR, Polls, Progressives, Scandal, Senate | Tags: Al Franken, Congress, Courts, Democrats, Hypocrisy, Judiciary, Minnesota, Minnesota Recount, Norm Coleman, Republicans
Surprising exactly nobody, Norm Coleman is challenging the results of the Minnesota recount in court:
Republican Norm Coleman, who received 225 fewer votes than DFLer Al Franken in the U.S. Senate recount, will challenge the result in court. He told reporters at a state Capitol news conference that a lawsuit, known as an election contest, would proceed.
[...]
Coleman, whose Senate term ended on Saturday, began the recount on Nov. 19 with a 215-vote lead. His attorneys have said they believe he would have prevailed if the board had reviewed 650 absentee ballots they say may have been wrongly rejected, along with up to 150 ballots they say were counted twice and 133 Minneapolis votes that were counted using election day machine results after the ballots couldn’t be found during the hand recount.
It’s funny that Coleman is going to fight this for as long as he can, considering:
I guess quitting in the name of healing and unity is only a good idea if you’re a Democrat, huh?
But Coleman won’t concede and we all know why: he has nothing to lose. Even if he accomplishes nothing but ingratiating himself to the Republican establishment, it will have been worth it. As Nate Silver said,
Norm Coleman doesn’t have much of a future in electoral politics. Defeated Presidential candidates sometimes have nine lives, but defeated Senatorial candidates rarely do, and in his career running for statewide office, Coleman has lost to a professional wrestler, beaten a dead guy, and then tied a comedian. He doesn’t have much to lose by fighting this to its bitter conclusion.
The longer Coleman fights, the longer the Senate Democratic caucus goes without their 59th member. And the fiercer he fights, the more he delegitimizes Franken and undermines him as a United States Senator.
In the end, both of those are good for the Republican Party. So if Norm fights hard enough, he might get rewarded with a nice bit of right-wing welfare to help him round out his days in Washington. Because if we’ve learned nothing else from all this, it’s that Norm Coleman is Norm Coleman’s favorite special interest group.
Filed under: Conservatives, Government, IOKIYAR, International, Progressives, Right-Wing Noise Machine | Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Church Committee, CIA, Congress, DCI, Democrats, Diane Feinstein, George H. W. Bush, Hypocrisy, Intelligence, Iraq, Jay Rockefeller, Josh Marshall, Leon Panetta, Republicans, RNC, RNC Chairman, U.N. Ambassador, United Nations
As is their style, conservatives are criticizing President-elect Obama’s choice of Leon Panetta as head of the CIA, citing his lack of intelligence and accusing him of being a “political hack.”
It’s true that Panetta doesn’t have intelligence experience. He served as a Congressman from California for 16 years, served as the White House Chief of Staff and went on to become Chancellor of the California State University system.
But there’s a precedent; there’s another instance when a political hack with no intelligence experience took the reigns of the CIA and did an outstanding job.
George H. W. Bush was appointed to head the CIA on January 30, 1976. He also had no intelligence experience to speak of, and—like Panetta—had only previously been a political hack: a Congressman for 4 years, a failed Senate candidate, UN Ambassador, RNC Chairman, etc.
In addition, Bush was appointed at a very difficult time in CIA history, right after the Church Committee’s revelations about illegal activities by the agency. But, in the end, Bush is widely credited with cleaning up the agency and boosting its morale.
In other words, you don’t necessarily need intelligence experience to be a good DCI. And, while people may argue that the world is more dangerous today than it was back then, I’d disagree: in 1976 we were in the midst of the Cold War, where the two most powerful nations in the world had massive nuclear arsenals aimed at one another at all times, where an intelligence failure–like what got us into the Iraq war–could have very well led to a global nuclear holocaust.
So, while conservatives might want to fight Panetta, they really don’t have a leg to stand on—unless they’re willing to completely rewrite history and throw George H. W. Bush under the bus.
UPDATE: Josh Marshall has more, including some skepticism of Sen. Feinstein’s and Sen. Rockefeller’s reluctance towards Panetta.
UPDATE II: Bayh’s on board with the Panetta pick.
UPDATE III: Feingold’s on board, too.
