Nick Kessler

2003-07-03T23:11:00.000-04:00

The "Liberal Media" strikes again!

Here's The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, proclaiming that even "liberals" don't like Howard Dean:

"And in the liberal Web magazine Slate, columnist William Saletan observed: 'Every time Dean talks about foreign affairs, he gives off a whiff of hostility or indifference to American military power.'" (Washington Post, July 1, 2003)

What is Kurtz implying when he says that Saletan writes for "the liberal web magazine Slate"? Readers will assume that Saletan must be one of those liberal Democrats who supposedly dominate the media, and that Dean is such a poor candidate that his own party's stalwarts have turned against him. But what has Saletan actually said about his own political leanings?

"A couple of years ago I realized that I'm less a New Democrat than a liberal Republican. I mentioned in Slate that I'd voted in 2000 for Morella and John McCain. Last month I divulged that I'd been itching to vote for Ehrlich." (Slate, November 8, 2002, emphasis added)

Kurtz never manages to tell his readers that Saletan's criticism comes from a Republican, does he? That fact would better explain the agenda behind Saletan's shot at Dean.

2003-06-16T12:45:00.000-04:00

An article today in the Virginian-Pilot discusses 17-year-old Christa Byker of Virginia Beach whose aunt, Barbara Grutter, is the plaintiff in one of the Supreme Court cases challenging affirmative action.

Christa's response to those who note Virginia's history of segregation?

"'It's 2003 -- get over it.'"

Christa's career goals?

"Christa aims to become a judge or a senator. That way, she could issue a ruling in a case similar to her aunt's -- or propose a real-life bill. 'I just want to be in the system to change the system,' she said." (Emphasis added)

Given the current administration's efforts to stack the federal courts with young conservative zealots who will serve for decades to come, they might as well nominate Christa to the federal bench right now. Why should they limit themselves to candidates in their 30s and 40s when teenagers are raring for the job? All Christa would have to do to get confirmed is learn to feign surprise and outrage when Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee accuse her of having plans to make rulings based on her own political leanings. Any purported evidence of her ideological bias would be more than adequately disproven by the earnest expression on her face when she testifies that she plans to simply follow the laws as they are written.

2003-06-01T17:50:00.000-04:00

Chickens coming home to roost

Mark Tate is running against state Senator H. Russell Potts Jr. of Winchester, Virginia, in the Republican primary. Tate is just one of several conservative zealots who are vigorously challenging incumbent Republicans in the Virginia legislature this year, largely on the issues of taxes and abortion. Here’s what Potts has to say about their goals:

"Theirs is a dark politics and a politics of destruction," he says. "I think they want to absolutely bleed all [state] funding. They want to say to every policeman, every schoolteacher, 'We're going to pay you less next year.' As far as I'm concerned, it's a trip down la-la land."

Potts also mentions that Tate and his cohorts make nonsensical arguments and baseless charges about taxes:

"It is the extremist wing of the party that is calling a tax referendum a tax increase," he said. "A tax referendum is when you trust the people. There is a world of difference."

Don’t feel bad for these Republicans. This is what they invited by signing onto Grover Norquist's agenda:

"We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals - and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship," said Grover Norquist, a leading Republican strategist, who heads a group called Americans for Tax Reform…."Bipartisanship is another name for date rape…."

Republicans like Potts were delighted when the right-wingers' crude and relentless attacks—lacking in factual basis but not in fervor—were directed at Democrats. Now they're finding out for themselves what it's like to be on the receiving end.

Voters, too, are making some discoveries. It turns out that the same people who promise them the lowest taxes are also extremists on abortion:

"Taxes here are high enough," Judy Morin tells Tate after he promises never to raise hers. But then she asks where he stands on abortion, and the 65-year-old doesn't like what she hears. "Under no circumstances? I have a problem with that...."

Overall, the stakes in this election are revealingly summarized by Mike Rothfield, another far-right challenger looking to unseat state Senate Finance Committee chairman John H. Chichester:

"This is a fundamental battle between those of us in the party who believe we must stand for smaller government, lower taxes and protection of the unborn, and those of us who want big government run only slightly better than the Democrats did...."

2003-05-26T14:38:00.000-04:00

Those "moderates" again

By a 227-201 vote on May 22, the House of Representatives defeated Rep. Loretta Sanchez's bill to repeal the overseas abortion ban, which "bars women from using even personal funds to obtain abortions at military hospitals abroad except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother's life." The list of those favoring the ban includes Republican Thomas M. Davis of Fairfax. In 2002 that "liberally-biased" Washington Post endorsed Davis for re-election, deeming him an "effective moderate Republican" who can "forge bipartisan support for concerns in the District of Columbia as well as the suburbs." (Emphasis mine.)

2003-04-28T17:45:00.000-04:00

The Majority's Still Emerging

Ruy Teixeira has an article in the Washington Monthly about the 2002 election results and why they don't disprove what he and Jon Judas wrote last year about long-term trends in The Emerging Democratic Majority:

"The GOP's midterm wins depended heavily on their advantages in five areas that are either unlikely to persist or were overrated to begin with: a reliance on white voters, the growth of exurban voters, heavy GOP turnout, the tax-cut issue, and war."

As Teixeira notes, the Republicans' success in 2002 came simply from mobilizing their traditional base, while minority voters remained just as strong a Democratic constituency as in 2000. Keep this in mind when you hear conservatives, such as the unabashed "GOP cheerleader" George Will, strenuously insisting that minority communities are turning to the Republicans.

2003-03-27T18:30:00.000-05:00

A Small Win For The Good Guys, And The Usual Big Stink From The Bad Guys

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, by a 5-4 vote (O'Connor joined the four moderates), upheld the use of Interest On Lawyers' Trust Accounts ("IOLTA") programs. PLA explained these programs very thoroughly (link via Atrios), but the short version is that lawyers often hold cash deposits from clients that are too small to earn interest in individual accounts. Under IOLTA, these small deposits are pooled into a big account, and the interest goes to legal representation for poor people. Conservatives went to court, claiming that the IOLTA programs were unfair because the interest belongs to the clients. But as PLA noted, this has nothing to do with money lost by lawyers' clients. It was driven by conservatives who want to "defund the left."

The case was brought by the conservative Washington Legal Foundation (WLF), which has a very explicit goal: to "deal a death blow to the single most important source of income for radical legal groups all across the country...groups dedicated to the homeless, to minorities, to gay and lesbian causes, and any other group that has drawn money from hard-working Americans like you and me to support its radical cause!"

Upholding IOLTA was the right thing to do, and good results from the Court are wonderful. But regardless of this decision, the right will keep fighting for the shameful agenda stated by WLF. And while it's great when O'Connor behaves like an actual judge, seeing one of the court's five disgraced conservatives cross over on a single decision isn't much reason to celebrate. Don't forget that she's going to retire soon. Recall her public display of rage when Florida was called for Gore on Election Night 2000, and how her husband helpfully explained to the press that she wants to have a Republican president in office so she can retire. Her vote for the Republicans in Bush v. Gore means that she'll be replaced by a right-wing Federalist Society zealot--someone who will reliably side with the ones who want to make IOLTA illegal.

Scalia's Rude, Pathetic Dissent

Even in this opinion, we see that the right isn't finished with IOLTA. Scalia's dissent is a clumsy exercise in dishonesty, pretending that IOLTA is "taking" something from individual clients even though IOLTA accounts create money that these clients could never earn themselves. Scalia's response to the majority's simple holding is typically obnoxious, and he refuses to genuinely address the facts of the case. Instead of reasonable argument, he gives us what we always get from conservatives--constant repetition of his massively flawed conclusion and a steady tone of triumphant arrogance.

Keeping in mind that this case is all about sticking it to the groups hated by the right, Scalia unsurprisingly drops in some obnoxious sarcasm and accuses the majority of basing its decision on a desire to fund liberal causes:

"Surely it cannot be that the Justices look more favorably upon a nationally emulated uncompensated taking of clients' funds to support (hurrah!) legal services to the indigent...."

He proceeds to ludicrously pretend that the majority simply wants to steal money from rich people:

"Perhaps we are witnessing today the emergence of a whole new concept in Compensation Clause jurisprudence: the Robin Hood Taking, in which the government's extraction of wealth from those who own it is so cleverly achieved, and the object of the government's larcenous beneficence is so highly favored by the courts (taking from the rich to give to indigent defendants) that the normal rules of the Constitution protecting private property are suspended." (Emphasis added.)

Scalia is insisting that IOLTA interest has been stolen from its rightful owners, and darkly warns that the decision has therefore freed liberals to steal whatever they want by passing laws that say "you can’t have this." As his conclusion becomes even more obviously unsupportable, it's plain that he's just out to scare wealthy conservatives.

Competing Footnotes: Reason v. Immature Posturing

The majority drops a footnote that patiently explains why Scalia's argument is silly and wrong:

"The first hypothetical posed by the Ninth Circuit dissenters illustrates the fundamental flaw in Justice Scalia's approach to this case. Under his view that just compensation should be measured by the gross amount of the interest taken by the State, the client should recover the $.55 of interest earned on a two-day deposit even when the transaction costs amount to $2.00. Thus, in this case, under Justice Scalia's approach, even if it is necessary to incur substantial legal and accounting fees to determine how many pennies of interest were earned while petitioners' funds remained in escrow and how much of that interest belonged to them rather than to the sellers, the Constitution would require that they be paid the gross amount of that interest, rather than an amount equal to their net loss (which, of course, is zero)." (Emphasis added.)

But Scalia uses his own footnote to posture like any conservative commentator. Once again, he responds to the majority by completely ignoring what they actually said, and blithely repeating his mantra:

"IOLTA funds can earn net interest for the client when placed in IOLTA accounts--because all interest earned by funds in IOLTA accounts is the client's property."

Scalia's not even arguing, but that doesn't matter when you're the big "thinker" on the right. He just keeps on saying "I'm right," knowing that in his conservative world his blind ideological comrades will always cheer his work no matter how poor it is.

Kennedy's Sore-Loser Dissent

Sure enough, Kennedy starts off his own dissent with embarrassing praise for Scalia: "The principal dissenting opinion, authored by Justice Scalia, sets forth a precise, complete, and convincing case for rejecting the holding and analysis of the Court." That's how conservatives on the Supreme Court say "megadittoes."

Kennedy also gets in his own little jab at the majority, bemoaning the unfairness of forcing clients to give up "their" money for the benefit of godless liberal groups (or as Kennedy puts it, "causes the justices of the Washington Supreme Court prefer"). He promises that these matters in IOLTA contain "the potential for a serious violation," and that they "may have to come before the Court in due course."

In other words, if you think conservatives will live with a victory for the homeless, minorities, gays and lesbians, just wait until next time.

2003-03-25T04:26:00.000-05:00

Cold, hard facts

Virginia Governor Mark Warner has vetoed the Republican-dominated state legislature's estate tax repeal. Republicans will now try to override the veto, not only because they're tax cut fanatics but also to deny Gov. Warner a legislative victory. However, it may be difficult for them to win this one. They only control the state Senate by a small margin, and one Democrat (Sen. Linda T. "Toddy" Puller of Fairfax County) who previously supported the GOP bill now says she will not vote to override. She's had the chance to find out what estate tax repeal is designed to do:

"I've learned more about it, that most of the money goes to a very few people," Puller said."

Well said.

2003-03-24T16:54:00.000-05:00

The administration got its latest upper-income tax cut thanks to votes from Congressional Republican "moderates." (Link via Daily Kos.)

These members invariably get adoring treatment from the media, who describe them as "free-thinking independents," while in truth they regularly sell out their constituents to side with the Republican leadership. (Hint: this is why Democratic voters shouldn't support them.) The House's Republican "moderates" explained away their partisan tax-cut votes by pretending that this bill's excesses might later be reduced:

"The wavering centrists ... made it clear they voted for the budget only because they expect a more acceptable version to emerge from negotiations between the House and Senate."

That's the sad truth about GOP "moderates." They just rubber-stamped their party's bill, but we're supposed to call them heroes because they say they don't really want its terms to become law. These are the people who allegedly force the Republicans into moderation, yet they're incapable of challenging their party leaders or even just refusing to vote for a bad bill. What are the chances of a "more acceptable version" emerging from the House-Senate conference? The Senate did pass a bill with language that stripped away $100 billion from the full $726 billion GOP upper-class tax cut (a whopping 13.8% difference--not much of an achievement for the Senate's own GOP "moderates"). But don't expect even this small reduction to stand: "GOP leaders said they will try to restore that amount when House and Senate conferees meet to reconcile differences in their fiscal 2004 budgets."

Despite the guarantee from the House GOP "moderates," the House-Senate conference will not produce a reasonable bill. Instead, Republican leaders will use the conference to ensure that the final tax cut is just as large as the House version. Nobody is actually going to step in to erase the extremely conservative votes cast by these "moderates," demonstrating once again that their solemn promises are worthless and that their "moderation" itself is a sham.

2003-03-22T03:16:00.000-05:00

TBogg and Atrios report that Senators Levin and Stabenow are opposing right-wing judicial nominees from Michigan. TBogg links to a National Review online article by Byron York, which discusses letters about these nominees written by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales is irate with the Michigan Senators for refusing to let Bush's nominees move forward until the administration reconsiders some Clinton nominees whom the Republican Senate had blocked. Gonzales insists that after Democrats blocked the first George Bush's nominees, no Republican ever asked that they be renominated:

"More than 50 nominations to the federal courts lapsed without Senate action at the end of the previous Bush administration in 1992.... No one ever attempted to claim that fairness or any other consideration obliged President Clinton to resubmit these names, and he did not."

Is it true that no Republican ever claimed "that fairness or any other consideration obliged President Clinton to resubmit" George H.W. Bush's failed nominees? Not if you believe conservative commentator Robert Novak, who wrote in 2001 that Jesse Helms had held up President Clinton's nominees to the Fourth Circuit due to Terrence Boyle's failure to reach that court. Boyle was nominated in 1991 by George H.W. Bush but blocked by Senate Democrats, and Novak explained that "Sen. Jesse Helms made clear to Clinton that no new judge would sit on the 4th Circuit until Boyle did." The only thing that's unclear is whether Helms was thinking of "fairness" or some "other consideration."

As reported by York, Gonzales also pretends that this administration has gone to heroic lengths to accommodate Democratic senators, boasting that they offered to reconsider two of Clinton's Michigan nominees: "Gonzales said the White House had offered to consider the two failed Clinton circuit court nominees, White and Lewis, for nomination to lower federal courts. 'In our view, this was a proposal that reflected exceptional generosity, good faith, and respectful bipartisanship,' Gonzales wrote." (Note that the Republicans offered only to place White and Lewis on "lower federal courts," not the more powerful circuit court where their nominations by Clinton had stalled.)

But despite Gonzales' display of self-congratulation, this sort of offer was hardly unprecedented, as demonstrated during Helms' standoff with the Clinton administration: "The Clinton White House tried to cut a deal with Helms during the president's second term to nominate Boyle plus two Democrats. The deal was rejected." So much for "exceptional generosity, good faith, and respectful bipartisanship."

York's article ominously portrays the Michigan Democrats' action as "all the more remarkable because much of the Sixth Circuit is in what the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts calls a 'judicial emergency.' The court normally has 16 members, but half of those seats are now empty." This is typical of conservatives who condemn Democrats for daring to block Bush's nominees during a "vacancy crisis." However, judicial vacancies didn't amount to much of a crisis for Republicans when Bill Clinton was the one picking judges. Jesse Helms, to pick one example, let several vacancies on the Fourth Circuit sit for years, and rather than let Clinton nominees fill these spots he "introduced legislation in the Senate that would eliminate two of those seats altogether."

Helms' efforts had plenty of support from fellow Republicans. In 2000 Harvie Wilkinson, Chief Justice of the Fourth Circuit and a Reagan appointee, was in no hurry to see the vacancies on his court filled. Instead, he insisted that "If you have a court of 12 people, you can reach a decision much more quickly and efficiently, than if you have a court of 20 to 23 people." Helms used Wilkinson's public denial of any "vacancy crisis" to pass off his Clinton obstruction as fiscal responsibility: "'The point is the chief judge of the 4th Circuit says I don't need an additional judge,' Helms said. 'And it costs $1 million a year to post a judge.'"

Of course, once Clinton left office, Republicans somehow forgot their heartfelt belief that judicial vacancies were best left unfilled: "Helms, a Republican, spent eight years blocking nominations by President Bill Clinton to the court, arguing that adding more judges was a waste of taxpayer money. But suddenly Helms is not so defiant. 'It's his call,' Helms told The Observer, referring to President Bush's anticipated nominations of at least one conservative North Carolinian to the court."

2003-03-03T19:35:00.000-05:00

Why has it become difficult for this administration to get its war plans through Turkey's legislature? Today's New York Times gives one reason:

"Several Turkish legislators complained of what they described as the United States' overbearing and sometimes petty approach to the negotiations.

Turkish officials said American diplomats sought to avoid paying taxes on everything they bought in Turkey, from fuel to food. One dispute, which Turkish lawmakers said lasted more than a week, involved the question of who would pick up a roughly $30,000 tab for identification labels intended for American troops in Turkey."

These "diplomats" demonstrate some of the worst qualities of stereotypical conservative Republicans: allowing their violent hatred of taxes to overwhelm all other considerations, and generally ignoring the potential benefits of showing maturity and responsibility.

The irony here is that the Republican diplomats' own arrogance obviously interfered with their job, which was to encourage Turkish legislators to support the administration's plan. While the administration wants to show that it will not be reckless if it stages a military campaign through Turkey's territory, its representatives didn't bother to be reasonable. Further, the administration is specifically trying to lure Turkey's cooperation with promises of massive economic aid, but the diplomats went out of their way to be insultingly stingy with their money. Diplomacy always requires negotiating skill, tact and attention to appearance. These diplomats faced a particularly delicate task--promoting a war that the vast majority of Turkish people oppose. It's typical of this administration to hand the task to people who don't care that it's inappropriate to be selfish and rude, and who are incapable of recognizing situations where this behavior can get in the way of their duties.

2003-02-25T17:43:00.000-05:00

Conservative Media:

MSNBC’s the station that just gave the conservative, race-baiting Michael Savage his own show, and he won’t be out of place there. Today “Buchanan and Press” featured the North Carolina restaurant owner who’s changed the name of his French Fries to “Freedom Fries” now that Republicans hate the French. Their interview was positively glowing, with the MSNBC correspondent grinning for the camera with a big basket of fries. (Transcript here.)

So-Called Liberal Media:

Meanwhile, Bill Press (supposedly representing the “liberal” side) asked only "Do they do mail orders? Could they send us up some freedom fries to D.C.?" This guy held up a shirt with a big “X” over the French flag while boasting that he’s the only one with “patriotic” fries, and it didn’t occur to Press (who raved "I love it. All right.") that this is crude bigotry. MSNBC even put a graphic on-screen helpfully noting that some people called sauerkraut “liberty cabbage” when we fought the Germans, and Press couldn’t be bothered to mention that plenty of Americans don’t see the French as our enemies. Isn’t this the same Bill Press who thought he’d done such a good job arguing with the conservatives on Crossfire, and complained when James Carville and Paul Begala replaced him?

2003-02-07T20:57:00.000-05:00

TAPPED has put up a very curious post
ridiculing the notion of Hillary Clinton running for President.

One of TAPPED’s complaints is that if Hillary runs, “You'd be starting off campaign season with no chance of winning at least 40 percent of the country, period.” That’s not much of a knock against her, since the same can be said for any Democrat these days. This 40 percent is the most conservative portion of the population, and they’re extremely loyal to the GOP. It’s unrealistic to suppose that these partisan Republicans might well switch to the Democratic side as long as the nominee isn’t Hillary Clinton. This farfetched notion just isn’t a convincing reason to oppose Hillary’s candidacy.

TAPPED also warns that Hillary would “send every conservative footsoldier to the barricades.” But considering the Republicans’ ferocious attacks against anyone who stands in their way these days, Democrats can’t avoid motivating conservatives in a presidential election simply by running someone besides Hillary. Further, Hillary would be better suited than other candidates to bring out Democrats to fight back against the inevitable Republican assault, considering her clear advantage in popularity over the rest of the Democratic field. After all, without even running she enjoys much more support than any current Democratic presidential candidate. Candidate Hillary would also have Bill’s formidable campaign skills working for her, with their combined fame and stature within the party exciting the Democratic base in ways that other candidates cannot. If you want to win elections it’s best to have a candidate who’s as popular as possible among your own voters.

There are certainly questions about whether Hillary could win, like there are with any candidate, but TAPPED doesn’t make much of a case before concluding that her candidacy would be “lunacy” and “Bad news for the Democrats.”

2003-01-29T01:46:00.000-05:00

"The real problem with Pickering isn't that he's a racist. (The strong support for him among black Mississippians offers pretty compelling evidence that he's not.)"

In this editorial supposedly stating their case against Charles Pickering’s confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, an assurance of “strong support for him among black Mississippians” is all it takes for the editors of The New Republic (TNR) to summarily dismiss claims that Pickering is hostile to the interests of African-Americans. But what have we actually heard from African-Americans in that state—the people whose “strong support” for Pickering is so “compelling” to TNR?

"Judge Pickering's elevation to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals would represent a major setback to the hard-fought struggle of African Americans and other racial and ethnic minority people in Mississippi — a state with a notorious record on civil rights." -- Eugene Bryant, President of the Mississippi NAACP

Clearly, the Mississippi NAACP does not support him. Other African-American groups in Mississippi, including the Magnolia Bar Association, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, also oppose Pickering.

But TNR simply declares that Pickering enjoys strong support within the Mississippi African-American community, without even mentioning the opposition of these prominent Mississippi African-American organizations. Their public statements have been widely reported in the press, and the professional journalists at TNR are certainly aware of them. Why, when characterizing the opinion of Mississippi’s African-Americans, has TNR chosen to pretend that these organizations do not exist?

The most likely explanation is that TNR’s editors enjoy bucking the conventional wisdom—they consider themselves a bunch of free thinkers who turn aside old assumptions. They like to prove themselves to be above partisanship, and are especially hostile to certain Democratic partisans (the better to avoid the “liberal bias” label from conservatives). So they don’t put much stock in such a group as the NAACP, which has received decades of badmouthing by Republicans. Even though the NAACP is a well-established group with broad African-American membership, it is also widely seen as a friend of Democrats, and TNR might therefore prefer not to cite the NAACP’s views when reporting what African-Americans think of Pickering. This happens to be the opinion aired publicly by one Mississippian about Pickering’s opponents in that state:

"The groups that are opposing him now are doing so for political reasons….”

That’s Jim Herring, chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party.

While Herring is not only white but quite obviously a Republican partisan, it’s his position on Mississippi’s African-Americans that TNR appears to have adopted. TNR clearly believes that the outcry of several major African-American groups is no reason to question Pickering’s support among African-Americans, and the only obvious explanation is that they have dismissed these groups as “political.” However, TNR has no excuse for simply ignoring these organizations—even Herring at least acknowledged their existence and their opposition to Pickering, which TNR chose not to do. Further, partisan or not, these groups plainly cannot all be considered unrepresentative of African-American Mississippians. The members of the Mississippi Legislative Black Caucus, for instance, are African-Americans who actually serve in the state legislature—they are certainly “representative” in every sense of the word. To TNR’s shame it simply pretends never to have heard of any of these groups or their opposition to Pickering, and deliberately misleads its readers about Mississippi’s African-American community. Indeed, TNR casts aside the facts to conclude that “black Mississippians” strongly support Pickering. But shoddy as this conclusion is, TNR sees fit to sell it as powerful evidence in support of Pickering. In fact, that’s the only evidence it offers before suddenly declaring Pickering untainted by any racism. It doesn’t look like TNR’s selective fact-finding and strange logic in this editorial stems from a mere policy of ignoring traditional African-American groups. Presumably, TNR had a larger goal all along—finding some excuse to buck the conventional wisdom on Pickering:

No, Pickering is not a racist.

TNR had to sweep a bunch of issues under the rug to make such a terse and unequivocal pronouncement. (I’ve limited my discussion to Pickering’s African-American support because it happens to be the only race-related matter mentioned in the editorial; examples from the rest of Pickering’s life and career, which Atrios and others have covered well, seem to be unworthy of TNR’s attention.) It looks like TNR was simply bent on announcing proudly that “the Left” is all wrong about Pickering and race, and it didn’t mind turning reality upside-down in the process.

The entire issue of race is a huge one to simply cede to Pickering, and the political philosophy of the man’s partisan boosters in the Mississippi Republican Party is a strange one for TNR to adopt. But even worse, in its entire piece about Pickering (again, one that claims to give the argument for opposing his confirmation), TNR never mentions what is possibly the single most damning piece of evidence against him—his apparent perjury during his initial confirmation hearings when nominated for the Mississippi District Court. In 1990, Pickering was asked if he had ever contacted the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a white supremacist organization devoted to fighting integration in the 1960s and into the 1970s. Pickering said no, and that answer was false. Sovereignty Commission records that have since been released to the public prove that he did indeed have contact with this organization. (See Joe Conason’s reporting in Salon.)

It looks like Pickering lied under oath, something that even Senate Republicans might have trouble explaining away if anyone were to challenge them on it. Yet TNR’s editors can’t even be bothered to bring up the issue. Why TNR decided to completely ignore this unethical and probably criminal behavior is incomprehensible.

While the TNR editors feign an interest in stopping Pickering’s confirmation, they back off from the charges that could actually derail it. TNR shrugs off opposition by African-Americans (distorting the facts in the process), and fails to even mention Pickering’s false statement under oath (paying no attention to the facts whatsoever). This typifies the baffling indifference shown by many journalists to the process and consequence of judicial confirmations. Even writers who claim not to want the federal judiciary dominated by right-wing ideologues often respond to conservative nominations with issueless reporting and weak commentary. TNR and others might truly think that they can effectively confront Republican nominees without tough accusations and concrete evidence. Or perhaps they simply dislike the political hardball that the judicial confirmation process has become, and fear that genuine engagement in the process would draw them in. Whatever the reason, even though TNR says it opposes Pickering it doesn’t look like the editors are really trying to keep him off the Fifth Circuit.

2003-01-20T21:38:00.000-05:00

Since my last post about Wyoming, the state's been mentioned by TAPPED and others discussing Michael Lind's Atlantic Monthly article on how vast, depopulated regions affect politics. TAPPED made some good points about the article here and here. Something else that comes to mind about Wyoming and its 493,782 residents is that they get two Senators and a Representative, while the 572,059 residents of Washington, DC get none of these.

Why aren't Democrats fighting harder for DC representation? This cause is good policy and good politics. It wouldn't only please the Democratic base, but would also appeal to independents as a matter of fairness and justice. Let the Republicans insist that DC residents (60% of whom are African-American) don't deserve votes in Congress but that the smaller population of Wyoming (92.1% white, 0.8% African-American) does; let them swear up and down that it has nothing to do with race. And see if anyone believes that the city wouldn't have representation in Congress by now it were mostly populated by white conservatives.

All figures come from the 2000 census.

2002-12-30T20:16:00.000-05:00

Do conservatives ever turn off the Republican spin and see that Democrats are the ones trying to help them? Sure they do—when they get their faces rubbed in reality:

“Ranchers have never truly thought much of tree-hugging environmentalists. … But with these methane boys on our land, we are starting to see these environmentalists as conservationists who want to help us preserve land for our kids.”

That’s a conservative Wyoming rancher quoted yesterday in a New York Times article on coalbed methane extraction. In the past he and other Wyoming ranchers apparently opposed environmental protection without thinking much about it, maybe because that's what Republicans wanted. But now they can’t help noticing that Republicans are letting methane gas drillers rip up the land, making noise and leaving production wastes behind. Even these staunch conservatives, who have followed the GOP without any questions in recent years, are taking a serious look at the benefits they could get from environmental regulation.

This was an issue in the 2002 Wyoming governor’s race, as Daily Kos noticed back in October. The Democratic candidate, Dave Freudenthal, talked about this issue and told ranchers that “More protections need to be extended to surface landowners.” The ranchers listened, having been reminded by the gas drillers that the environment is not some liberal invention. And people who pay attention to issues, who base their decisions on candidates’ actual policy proposals, soon become Democratic voters. The people of Wyoming (the place that gave us Dick Cheney and the yahoos who lynched Matthew Shepard for being gay, where George W. Bush got a massive 69% of the vote in 2000) looked past the Republican war drums for a moment and made Freudenthal their governor.

2002-12-18T04:08:00.000-05:00

This animation about the current administration is worth a look.

2002-10-22T23:55:00.000-04:00

The gap in postings here is partly due to leaving my old law firm and heading to South Carolina for some campaign work. I didn't see until tonight that The American Prospect's weblog Tapped has added this site to its list of links. I appreciate it and hope I can keep the content up to date!

2002-10-03T01:49:00.000-04:00

Republican William Safire declares that if Sen. Jean Carnahan (D-MO) loses her special Senate election to James Talent this fall, it would be an outrageous example of "tricks and delaying tactics" for Missouri's "Democratic governor to drag a foot on certification of the election — thereby delaying the takeover by a G.O.P. majority." In fact, he quotes Winston Churchill to imply that Democrats' willingness to "pull a fast one" would be remembered:

"Nothing is more fatal than a dodge," young Winston Churchill told Commons in 1906. "Wrongs will be forgiven, sufferings and losses will be forgiven or forgotten . . . but anything like a trick will always rankle."

But back before the 2000 election the same James Talent was getting some distinctly "dodgy" advice from another Republican, John Fund. Predicting (erroneously) that Talent would win the Missouri governor's race, Fund counseled him to appoint a Republican, and not Jean Carnahan, to replace her deceased husband Mel even if the voters elected him to the Senate. In fact, he urged the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate to play its part to keep the seat Republican, even if it meant delaying all Senate business until Talent took office:

"Missouri has a governor's race next week, and Rep. Jim Talent, a Republican, is slightly favored to win. Should he prevail, he would take office Jan. 8. The U.S. Senate normally meets to swear in new members on Jan. 3, but the GOP leadership could easily switch to a date after Mr. Talent's inauguration. He then would presumably appoint Mr. Ashcroft or another Republican to the Senate vacancy. It would be crass, bare-knuckled politics but certainly plausible given that the next election when voters would have a say in the matter would be a long two years away."

So bring on the tricks. After all, voters don't remember that kind of thing.

2002-09-17T23:58:00.000-04:00

Ben "Cooter" Jones, who is running for Congress in central Virginia, describes himself as "a staunch defender of the right to keep and bear arms." But the National Rifle Association gave him a "C" rating, while awarding his opponent Eric Cantor with an "A" and accusing Jones of "indifference, if not outright hostility, towards the NRA and the Second Amendment." Here are Jones' thoughts:

"I suspect my opponent would have trouble cocking a b.b. gun. And I am beginning to think that the NRA is giving the Second Amendment a bad name."

2002-09-08T14:18:00.000-04:00

Over on townhall.com, Gary Aldrich never lets the facts get in the way of a right-wing rant:

“How about the 18 year legally binding financial commitment of a father to support a child, regardless of the fact that legally, the woman could have ended the pregnancy at any time – including on the day the child was to be born – and the man would have absolutely no legal right to stop her.”

Aldrich likes to enrage his audience by pretending that abortions are available on demand at any point in pregnancy. So he decides not to mention that abortions are severely restricted in the third trimester (the final three months of pregnancy), which of course includes “the day the child was to be born.”

For more Aldrich than anyone could possibly want, his townhall.com biography page points to his website. Here are a couple of gems:

“In the case of Nixon, while it is true that he engaged in conduct that would be considered abusive and reprehensible when judged against the backdrop of the high office he held, from all indications, Nixon was a family man who was faithful and attentive to his family.” Link

But Aldrich wouldn’t judge a President against the backdrop of the high office he holds, right?

“I am not happy with what my father's generation did to groups such as the Blacks, Hispanics, women and Asians. … However, the Boomer generation, my generation, changed all that, and we should get the credit. As much as I loath the politics of the New-Left, it was their activism and their radical politics that finally tripped the wire and caused much needed change. The New-Left did it for the wrong reason - to increase political power.” Link

So according to Aldrich,

1) America’s civil rights laws are the result of pressure from progressive activists, and

2) he hates those progressive activists and was never one of them.

No surprises there. But it wouldn’t be an Aldrich column if he didn’t add some obvious lies. So after making it clear that he had nothing to do with progress in civil rights, he somehow concludes that:

3) he deserves the credit for the civil rights laws.

Of course, it’s pathetic that Aldrich would write such a laughable whopper. But apparently, it wasn’t phony and self-aggrandizing enough for him, so he follows up by claiming that:

4) the progressive activists are the ones after political power.

It's good to know that Aldrich’s Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty is out there safeguarding “ethics and honesty.”

2002-08-28T23:47:00.000-04:00

Check out Brad DeLong for politics, economics, and a wonderful list of links. Also, here's the permanent link for my (named) appearance on Media Whores Online.

2002-08-24T17:15:00.000-04:00

Lean Left graciously added a link to my page this week, and I've returned the favor.

2002-08-24T17:00:00.000-04:00

Help isn't on the way!

George W. Bush, who promised the military that “help is on the way,” has repaid veterans by deliberately withholding the treatment they’ve earned. The Bush administration has decided to ban all “marketing activities to enroll new veterans” into the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). This policy was explained in a July 2002 Department of Veterans Affairs memo, discovered by Josh Marshall and given wider press by Paul Krugman.

There are a lot of sick veterans out there who could really benefit from health coverage—the Bush people are sure of it, or they wouldn’t have needed this scheme. Because the administration is trying to save money, they must be targeting a very specific group: veterans who need a lot of costly treatment, but who don’t know about the benefits they’ve earned. In other words, veterans with major health problems, who need the VHA most. Bush has gone out of his way to make sure the government doesn't give these veterans any medical care.

Bush never mentioned this plan during the 2000 campaign, but it shows what “compassionate conservatism” means in practice: the Bush people pay for millionaires’ tax cuts by letting needy veterans suffer. Clearly, Bush assumes that veterans are so pleased to have a conservative president that they'll keep cheering him when he sabotages their benefits. But he also assumed that firefighters would stay by his side when he refused to fund them.

Veterans should ask Republicans running for office this year whether they approve of Bush’s policy on FHA benefits. They should also demand that Republican candidates clear up some inconsistent campaign statements regarding veterans and Bush. For example:

From John Thune’s website (challenging Senator Tim Johnson):

“John has been an active supporter of improving veterans’ benefits.” Link

“George W. Bush shares our South Dakota values.” Link

From Jim Talent’s website (challenging Senator Jean Carnahan):

“Jim will keep the commitment made to veterans for their service to America.” Link

“President Bush shares the common sense values of the heartland.” Link

Veterans shouldn't let these Republicans stand with Bush while claiming to fight for veterans’ benefits.

2002-08-20T00:10:00.000-04:00

I appreciate all the visitors today from Media Whores Online and Pandagon.

2002-08-18T20:34:00.000-04:00

Avedon and Atrios kindly mentioned me recently.

2002-08-18T13:17:00.000-04:00

“The anti-dumping rules, which allow the government to impose extra tariffs on goods being imported at below the real cost, have been used almost exclusively to restrict steel imports.

“Developing countries have been adamant that these rules be on the table at the coming global trade talks, but the rules enjoy powerful support in Congress. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives tried unsuccessfully to insert a prohibition against even discussing the issue in the fast-track bill, but they succeeded in passing a provision against negotiating any deal that "weakens" American trade laws.”

This passage, from an article by Edmund L. Andrews in Sunday’s New York Times, demonstrates just how weak and ill-informed journalism can be when reporters skip their research and rely instead on Republican issue summaries.

The House never tried to prohibit U.S. negotiators from “even discussing” the trade laws. Andrews is presumably referring to the Dayton-Craig amendment to the Trade Promotion Authority bill--passed not in the House but in the Senate!--which was removed in conference. Dayton-Craig would have allowed the Senate to vote separately on any changes to the trade laws, instead of forcing them to make an up-or-down decision on an entire trade bill. This language is available in the Senate TPA bill from May (large .pdf file) at pages 264-267.

As I discussed earlier, the White House was eager to get full TPA power in order to limit the discretion of Congress to debate trade packages. They hated Dayton-Craig because it would have let Congress reserve a small amount of this discretion. So they made various politically motivated claims about the supposed threat posed by Dayton-Craig. Indeed, Andrews might be quoting from the first page of a biased letter sent on May 14, 2002 to Senator Max Baucus from Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick. They claimed that if Congress could vote on trade bills separately, the rest of the world “will determine that the U.S. Congress has ruled out even discussion of a major topic,” and that the entire trade negotiation would unravel as a result. This sort of ridiculous distortion from the trade debate is the only "evidence" that our negotiators might have prohibited from discussing the trade laws. Yet instead of doing some research about the trade bill, and perhaps looking at its actual language, Andrews apparently took a partisan exaggeration pushed by the administration and casually passed it off as fact.

Side note: the antidumping law is not used “almost exclusively” for steel, but by many other industries as well. For example, in just the past year U.S. manufacturers have won antidumping orders against various kinds of imports, including lumber, raspberries, honey, windshields, uranium, magnesium, ammonium nitrate, and polyethylene film. You can track these cases on the website of the U.S. International Trade Commission. (Click on “731” on the left for antidumping investigations.)

2002-08-17T13:15:00.000-04:00

“What they ought to be upset about is the fact that Congress tried to tie my hands,” Bush said. “They said, ‘You've got to spend $5 billion or none of the $5 billion.’”

Bush, who denied funding to firefighters, now blames Congress because it limited his authority on a spending bill to two choices—all or nothing. Of course, this is the same administration that just claimed a big victory when it got Trade Promotion Authority, which limits Congress’s authority on trade bills to two choices—all or nothing. (In the signing ceremony on August 6, Bush proudly boasted that “the trade agreements I negotiate will have an up-or-down vote in Congress” due to TPA.) Bush thinks that tying Congress’s hands, and forcing it to either approve a huge package or shoot it all down, is a wonderful idea. But when Congress gives Bush the same choice, he wants us to be “upset” about it.

2002-08-17T01:03:00.000-04:00

It's great news for the country when the head of the firefighters' union criticizes Bush's decision to block a spending bill: "President Bush, you are either with us or against us. You can't have it both ways." If Bush wants to use firemen as campaign props, he might have to reconsider slashing their funding to pay for millionaires' tax cuts.

2002-08-16T23:53:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to Atrios, Maxspeak, A Skeptical Blog and Avedon for some early support and advice.

2002-08-16T09:49:00.000-04:00

Paul Craig Roberts of townhall.com once again spews out race-baiting lies that highlight the ugliest side of the Republican party:

Today in the United States white people have no political representation. Whites have to struggle in the courts against government opposition to claim any resemblance to equal rights. Explicit government policies have made whites second class citizens. Whites are a dispossessed majority in their own country.

Why did the white majority allow themselves to be stripped of the equal protection clause of the Constitution? Why do whites remain loyal to the political parties that took away their rights?

What is the future for whites in a political system where both political parties pander to third world immigrants and support racial privileges for minorities? Having lost equal protection of law, what will whites lose next?

It's amazing. The GOP claims to be working overtime to appeal to minorities, yet this is the best they can come up with.

2002-08-15T21:59:00.000-04:00

A few thoughts on Spinsanity slamming Media Whores Online for the crime of showing some spine.

Irony 1: Journalists who attack progressives in order to get attention and praise from conservatives are a prime example of the “media whores” exposed on a regular basis by MWO. So it's no surprise that Spinsanity’s own rant against MWO itself has resulted in a laudatory quote and link on Instapundit.

Irony 2: Spinsanity bills itself as “the nation's leading watchdog of manipulative political rhetoric.” Yet while Spinsanity was off chasing MWO, it missed the biggest spin-related story of the past week—Fox’s ridiculous, and predictably baseless, charge that Al Gore tried to scam free Bruce Springsteen tickets. Meanwhile, MWO was left to report on the hoax itself.

Irony 3: In June, Spinsanity insisted that MWO had lied about the arrest threats faced by Ohio State graduates during Bush’s visit. According to Spinsanity, an example of “one alleged arrest” could never substantiate MWO’s claim that here had been “arrests” of protestors. But now Spinsanity points to only “one” alleged error—its own flimsy charge regarding Ohio State—to support its claim that MWO has made several “outright factual errors.” That’s bad news for Spinsanity, which made it quite clear that inflating a single instance “into the plural” is unacceptable.

2002-08-14T23:26:00.000-04:00

More from townhall.com. John McCaslin is reduced to quoting a barely coherent fantasy in which the Clintons are suffering some sort of minor embarassment.

"In a departure from tradition, former President Clinton's face had been painted on the bow of the submarine, and as Sen. Hillary Rodham, New York Democrat, swung the bottle of champagne toward the hull, she slipped and her husband's image took a direct hit. A roar of approval rose from the protesters.

Take that, painted image of Bill Clinton!