I see the liberal media is up to their old tricks, this time attacking Hillary for insufficiently denouncing the viewpoints of three million Americans.
In somewhat related news, Scott Horton urges the confirmation of Michael Mukasey:
I have known Michael Mukasey for over twenty years and I have a pretty good sense of his views on a great many issues. There are not many issues on which we agree, frankly. I am a civil libertarian and human rights advocate. Mukasey is driven by a concern for national security, and his many years on the bench tell him that our criminal justice system is inadequate to the task of trying terrorists. I recently parsed his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal looking for some important points I could agree with, and struggled to find them. Many of the civil liberties that Mukasey sees as vulnerabilities, I see as strengths.
Nevertheless, I consider Mukasey a highly qualified candidate and am prepared to support him with enthusiasm. Why? First, the president is entitled to nominate a candidate who represents his views on legal policy. I don’t think there’s room for a ray of light to pass between the Bush Administration and Mukasey, frankly.
Which is all well and good, and I would support him were I something more important that a loudmouth blogger, but I would caution Democrats not to just usher him through based on the principled arguments presented by Scott Horton. General Petraeus was confirmed under much the same reasoning (the President deserves his pick of General, blah blah blah), the Democrats allowed him through without any opposition, and promptly had it thrown in their face last week while attempting to fulfill their oversight duties:
“How dare you question him? You just confirmed him! Traitors! There should be nothing but complete deference to Herr General!”
And so on and so forth. Again, confirmation is probably the right thing to do, but I would do it with some opposition, because the despicable bastards on the right will just expect you to let him continue the popular Bush policy of ‘DOING WHATEVER THE FUCK WE WANT’ should he be greenlighted without opposition.
Jake
Am I reading this correctly? “I support him because the President is allowed to nominate him?”
Yeah, I know he makes other points but why put this in at all, never mind first?
Teak111
Also known as the DWTFWW policy. Very popular, indeed.
ATS
John is quite right. The Democrats have payed endlessly for “being bipartisan” and “giving Petraeus a chance.” That has been conflated into having given him a blank check, only to reneg and second guess.
It reminds me if the Wall in Israel. If there are renewed attacks, they say, “see. we need a wall.” If it is quiet they say, “see the Wall is working!”
You can’t win, so the wise counsel is to oppose what you oppose on principle and stick with it.
TenguPhule
Bush thinks the president is above the law. Do we really want another AG who thinks that way?
Tom Hilton
As far as I’m concerned, there’s one question that should be a dealbreaker: will he enforce the subpoenas on Rove, Miers, et al? Any nominee responding with anything short of an unequivocal yes should be torpedoed.
whippoorwill
This is the tactic by The Bushies that is the most infuriating. It’s a form of bait and switch they’ve used over and over with lots of success, especially early on in their criminal adventures.
The first time they used was the run-up to the 2002 elections when they hammered Dems for coddling terrorists because they wanted to protect the labor rights of janitors and secretaries. This after the Dems bent over backwards supporting Bush’s policies. And add on to that the despicable adds run of Max Cleland. After this I became a leftard radical and will remain so until the war stops and the White House is occupied by people who respect the Constitution . No Retreat! No Surrender!
Elvis Elvisberg
More of that liberal media– isn’t it interesting that someone just testified under oath in open court that he bribed a US senator? Shouldn’t that, maybe, warrant some sort of media coverage?
Pb
Let me see…
…nope.
Zifnab
Not that this is the topic du jour of the post, but I’ll comment on it anyway. Good move, Hillary. The best thing you can do when Rethugs go frothing at the mouth is ignore it. People respond to sanity, and a candidate that ignores a non-issue is that much harder to smear than a candidate that tries to equivocate or support or denounce it.
Is he a Republican? Then, no. Republican corruption is so last political season. We’re too busy talking about Democrats who don’t support the war enough.
Chris
The real issue here seems to be the games being played with the acting AG. This blog is all over it and how it relates to domestic wiretapping.
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/clement-headfak.html
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/why-keisler.html
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/09/the-united-stat.html#more
ThymeZone
It depends on what the game is. The entire Betrayus epipsode is about theater. Theater is the medium employed by all participants in government, and my the media which distribute the theaterical material.
If the strategy is to engage in theater and let the other fellow write your lines, in a zero sum arrangement, then yes, you can’t can’t win.
But if you write your own lines, you can change the script and the the outcome.
This particular piece of theater was staged in congress, where all outcomes ultimately rest on vote counts. If you don’t want to believe me, you can always try believing somebody who works on the Hill. His message is directed at Republicans, where the necessary votes are.
There is a reason why they wanted to stage September in congress: Because without the votes to effect change, Democrats can act out all they like, but they cannot win.
If Dems can’t win on the Hill, why should the GOP play fair on the stage?
In the beltway version of this nonsense, the GOP thinks they are winning. Outside the beltway, it is doubtful that they are.
The reason why DKos has thousands of views an hour is because at the end of the day, what they do over there is going to be about winning seats in congress. Nothing else really matters at this point but that.
Punchy
Bra and Panties Publishing could not push a worse picture of Fredrick Thompson in their ass-ugly sepia-colored ads if they tried. The guy looks like a cross between a giant raison and…well…Freddie T.
It looks like I’d be voting for my crazy loony grandfather by the looks of that ad. Somebody needs to be canned for that disaster.
Zifnab
Hey, at the end of the day, when the chips are down and the cards are on the table, its all about a head count when you want anything done.
But you’ll never get passed the “raise and bluff” portion of the poker game if the Dems don’t show some backbone. Republicans played the “Upperdown Vote” game in 2005, and they’re playing the “Automatic Filibuster” game in 2007. Back then they insisted they should only need 51 votes to pass legislation. Now they insist we should need 60 just to get a bill to the President’s desk, and 67 if we ever want to see it pass.
Somehow the rules always seem to keep changing, and we never see a vote in Congress to stop it. Republicans have become masters of obstructionist policy, and Democrats have become masters of rolling over and taking it. And all this without even a quorum call.
Incertus (Brian)
I’m at the point now where the simple fact that Bush wants him makes him unqualified, but I’m one of those liberal blogger types. That said, it would be nice if the Democrats basically say “you’ll get your AG when we get some real cooperation.”
Pug
Why doesn’t Richard Cohen just go away? Man, his act is tired. Democrats don’t need to be respond to calls to denounce what someone else said in a newspaper ad. Especially when the outrage is coming from the Swift Boat party.
The right-wing media frenzy over the MoveOn ad is almost comical. They are clutching at this thing like a life preserver that is going to save them somehow. Meanwhile, the polls show a healthy skepticism of Petraeus, absolute distrust of Bush and no more patience for the war in Iraq. It’s amazing to watch these folks follow George W. Bush over the cliff like a bunch of outraged, screaming lemmings.
Tom Hilton
Leahy seems to be saying pretty much that. Hope the rest sign on to it.
Z
Pug,
And the sad the sad thing for the repubs is that Rove is no longer there to take all the lemmings and make them into lemming-aid.
KCinDC
The problem is that if the Democrats don’t confirm the AG nominee, it’s no skin off Bush’s nose. In fact, he gets to use it to rile up the base. And he keeps a hack in as acting AG who will do whatever he wants anyway. I’m surprised he’d nominate anyone as seemingly sane as Mukasey under those circumstances.
Zifnab
He was actually Schumer’s pick, after Bush’s own picks were generally shot down or snubbed.
That said, Bush wants a man in the AG’s office inside two weeks, and he hasn’t even formally selected Mukasey for the job. The Senate needs to arrange and schedule time for hearings, and they aren’t under any particularly strong pressure to rush. Currently, Leahy and Schumer are basically saying that they’d like to convene hearings, but the request for White House memos regarding the US Attorney firings are still pending so… whatchagonna do, eh? If Bush could come up with the paperwork, the Judiciary committee might be able to schedule some time for a confirmation hearing.
Dennis-SGMM
A President this breathtakingly incompetent, duplicitous and out of touch with constitutional government has the right to decide when he goes to the bathroom and not much else. When any president makes this many harmful choices he can still nominate whomever he chooses but any consideration of his “right” to have his nominee confirmed can and should be denied.
The fact that Mukasey may represent Bush’s views on legal policy isn’t exactly an endorsement inasmuch as Bush’s legal views seem to fall somewhere between Caligula and Louis XIV.
Rick Taylor
Well, John, it’s only fair. After all, don’t you remember how the press roasted Bush for not coming out and condemning the Swift Boaters for sliming Kerry’s service? Um, oh wait. . .
The Other Steve
If Mukasey actually ran the justice dept without making it look like a Soviet ministry, that would be an improvement.
I guess the question is that enough?
fecapult
Obstructionism should be the Dems’ gameplan as well. I think people have a fair understanding of what a slim majority in Congress can accomplish and what it can’t. I also think people put these cats into office to not just stop the war, but to stop. Bush. period.
Congress has control of the purse. Dems don’t need a majority to not pass anything – they have more than enough votes to stop Bush dead in his tracks and the rest of the GOP with him. Cut funding. Deadlock the budget, which should be rolling around soon. Force Bush to put his ‘budget supplementals’ which have been funding the war for the past 5 years directly into the budget, and then go to the nation with the real cost of the war in terms of what it’s really costing – it’s what they should have forced him to do a long time ago. Deny him at every turn what he wants, no compromise, and I think the American people will respect and thank the Dems for their service at the end of the day.
They’d certainly like it a lot better than the Dems’ current ‘compromise’ track record.
Rick Taylor
Broadening this point, one of the big pieces of damage Republican irresponsibility has caused that isn’t so obvious is that we liberals can no longer trust conservatives. I mean that seriously.
Back in the Clinton administration, I supported his efforts towards fiscal responsibility. I even supported the increase in the payroll tax, a regressive tax, because I thought it was the fiscally responsible thing to do. Sure we liberals like to spend money; when we were in power, there are a lot of things I wish we could have passed like universal health care, but I thought compromise and getting are fiscal house in order was more important.
Conservatives played people like me for fools. The minute Bush took office, it became obvious that Republicans didn’t give a damn about reducing the deficit or fiscal responsibility. All that noise was just a ruse to reign in the Democrats while we were in power. I saw the trust fund we built through a tax cut on the poor used to give tax cuts to the rich and to finance disastrous war (with plenty of money for military contractors). Of course are budget deficit is spiraling out of control, and economists predict a painful day of reckoning that gets worse and worse as time goes on; no doubt it will be foisted on a Democratic administration again. The left wing of my party things of people like me as dupes, useful idiots, and they are right.
So I don’t know what to do. I’d like to support fiscally responsible policies, but it’s a rube’s game; we tighten our belts now, so when the next Republican administration comes along, all the gains we’ve made can be used to give tax cuts to the rich and pay for another insane war, followed by calls to ‘reform’ the social security program we’d supposedly saved. And by the way, nearly all Republicans are implicated, moderates as well as conservatives. Only two senators (McCain and Lincoln Chafee) opposed the tax cuts, and one of them is no longer a Republican while the other has flipped. Alan Greenspan, who lauded Clintons financial responsibility and supported the plan to increase payroll taxes turned around and gave Republicans cover they needed to pass Bush’s (obviously irresponsible) tax cuts, and in 2004 supported making them permanent, instead balancing the budget by cutting entitlement spending and social security. The hypocrisy of all this is especially astounding as the Republican’s like to paint themselves as the fiscally responsible ones, but it’s a lie.
So what the hell is a fiscally moderate liberal like me to do? Being responsible, raising taxes and moderating spending is a mug’s game. The Republicans just attack you, promise to give away the candy store, and in the end you realize you would have been better off opening up the gates, spending all you wanted, and letting the next administration worry about the consequences. Seriously, I don’t know what the right thing to do is now.
Krugman on Greenspan
ATS
Mukasey has a strong record on the core issues neocons care about. He has even stronger family ties to various Likudnik assets. Where he isn’t neocon, he is neoliberal so the press will go easy on him. That should explain why both Gulliani and Schumer love him.
What separates him from Fredo is that he is smart.
Zifnab
That’s a bit cynical. Saying “we need to hemorrage our budget for the good of the country, so when the Republicans seize control they won’t have enough money to hemorrage our budget for evil” is somewhat naive. After 9/11, any President would have had a blank check to do whatever he pleased, budgets be damned.
That said, what Democrats can start doing is reigning in deficit spending and the lower levels of corruption they were guilty over under Republican Minority control. Clinton walked into office in ’92 with dreams of blowing the budget on a whole host of New Deal and Great Society reforms that the Republican minority promptly quashed. By the time Clinton left office in ’00, he was a firm new convert to balanced budget politics. And he remained a Democrat, to boot.
I mean, think back to the 2000 election. When Clinton left office, we were arguing about what to do with our massive budget surplus! Oh, to have problems like that again.
Democrats can fund their pet projects, reform the education system, improve on social security and medicare, give functional aid to the poor, aid our allies abroad, and still not tax its citizens to death or take out another trillion dollar loan from China. I have faith in them.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
So “The Liberal Media” is Richard Cohen? I thought the liberal media just got tased for asking tinfoil-hat questions of John Kerry! Oh, that’s right, he’s The Liberal Media-in-Training.
Seriously, let’s not be naive — it’s primary season. Even a liberal writer will make a half-hearted swipe at another liberal (and this one was very half-hearted) to further the chances of his candidate of choice. I haven’t read anything negative about Obama by Cohen. I’m just saying.
Punchy
OT–
Ried just offered a Fine, Howdya Fuck You to the chickenshit GOP.
If you look closely, I think you will see a few vertebrae FINALLY beginning to calcify in his spine.
whippoorwill
Reid takes a lot of crap from some Dems for an alleged lack of leadership skills. Maybe it’s his low key demeanor or his words sometimes sounding overly ingratiating toward republicans. He is a creature of the Senate and plays within it’s customs, but if you watch what he actually does, he’s almost always tough as he needs to be.
Rick Taylor
And Digby documents attacks on General Abizaid from the right.
Well at least he didn’t call him names. I know I’m repeating myself, but ever since the Republican’s happily slimed Kerry’s service, even to the point of openly wearing little bandages making fun of his war wounds at the Republican convention, I just laugh when they pretend to be so concerned about respecting those who serve. It’s all politics.
There’s also some interesting stuff on the politicization of the military.
whippoorwill
Dear Miss Lambchop,
The above non-sense proves beyond a reasonable doubt that you are complete blithering idiot. And Richard Cohen is a boot-licking weasel and a bought and paid for member of the ASSHOLE PARTY.
Rick Taylor
And to add, since I keep referencing the purple heart bandages, I remember John lambasting people who wore them at the time, so it’s not all Republicans. I very much appreciated that at the time, and it makes me listen a little more carefully when he accuses liberals of going off the rails.
Jess
This is a view that gets pushed a lot, but as I recall, Clinton’s first budget was reined in primarily by Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen–not the GOP. Clinton had promised in his campaign to cut the deficit in half over four years, and, with Bentsen’s help, offered a budget that did so. The Republican minority were happy to push for spending cuts for social programs, but were also pushing for tax cuts (as usual), which would not have helped the deficit any, of course. Why give them the credit?
JWW
John,
Yes, any American has the right to question, that does not always mean you have the right to an answer. You should however show some level of respect when asking questions and replying. You have displayed your hidden failure at military service. That’s okay, not everyone is meant to wear the uniform, as goes for all professions. You could however forgo your disdain, your words,”(the President deserves his pick of General, blah blah blah)”. I see it as this, you were know as PVT thru SSG as, current rank + shithead. That’s okay, you still deserved respect.
Dave_Violence
No such thing as bad press.
Snarky Shark
I am going to do John’s light work so he can concentrate on more important things than responding to the likes of you.
Point by point
Bullshit, I pay 39% that pays these bureaucrats salaries. They work for we the people.The assumption is that the great unwashed masses can’t be trusted to make the decisions. That assumption is wrong and thats why you make wrong conclusions.
With all the Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman bullshit why don’t you tell me why that should be so. And some Authoritarian Daddy bullshit fetish don’t count. Respect is a two way street. When the military quites doling out bullshit and starts dealing in the unvarnished truth, then we can talk respect.
sez you REMF boy. If you even made it that far. My MOS? 11B1P….choke on that if you know what it means.
Apparently you are referring to the College Republicans. One wonders what this has to do with John However. He served.
OK we get to the part wear the Lithium starts to wear off. Really uncharted territory.
I got nothing. Its like staring into the great void. If I go any further into the incoherence I might not make it back.
Sum game conclusion-you are insane.
Get help
rachel
I don’t know if it’s lack of drugs, too many drugs, plain stupidity or just being absent from class on every single occasion that his writing teachers explained how to create context, but he never makes a lick of sense. I don’t even try to read his posts anymore.
Beej
Snarky Shark should be applauded for being able to decipher any of that. And Snarky, I agree wholeheartedly with your last suggestion.
Barry
F*cking Horton. Another alleged liberal who, after six years of unprecedented contempt for the law and flagrant law-breaking, will still wh*re himself for a colleague, so long as that colleague is a right-winger.
tBone
Running the last line of JWW’s post through a debonging filter yielded this:
“When John was in uniform, my guess is that he was commonly referred to by his rank with the epithet “Shithead” attached – i.e., Private Shithead. Nevertheless he was still deserving of respect.”
BIRDZILLA
How disapointed the liberal left-wing news media must feel but in a few months you would,nt know it
tBone
Birdzilla posts, on the other hand, are resistant to all known forms of cryptography.
grumpy realist
I’ve always thought of Birdzilla as the work of a unsung genius of Dadaism posting through the lens of right-wing-nuttitude….
Librarian
And that’s why it was so fucking stupid that Schumer couldn’t wait to run to the microphones and support the guy. He couldn’t wait a few hours? Are the Democrats so fucking stupid that they don’t know what thousands of teenagers know- it’s not good to show you’re too eager? By dong that, Schumer cut the legs off any Democrats who would want to, you know, actually look into whether the guy was qualified to be AG. You know, oversight. Thanks a bunch, Chuck, you stupid bastard.
JWW
Hey Snarky,
I will give you the same line by line response.
You: Bullshit, I pay 39% that pays these bureaucrats salaries. They work for we the people.The assumption is that the great unwashed masses can’t be trusted to make the decisions. That assumption is wrong and thats why you make wrong conclusions.
You don’t fit in any catagory of national defense other than unclassified. The majority of the Senate and Congress are at the same level. By you paying your portion of the salary does not give the right of confidence.
You: With all the Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman bullshit why don’t you tell me why that should be so. And some Authoritarian Daddy bullshit fetish don’t count. Respect is a two way street. When the military quites doling out bullshit and starts dealing in the unvarnished truth, then we can talk respect.
Read a little, just a fraction of the history of war. You don’t need to go any further back than WWI. I am not talking about general print. Read specifics, diaries, journals, recalled actions. Real history, not media articles. With respect too all that have fallen, your statement is no more than a feather in the wind. You really are sad.
You: sez you REMF boy. If you even made it that far. My MOS? 11B1P….choke on that if you know what it means.
Choke, that’s okay with me. Not to put your panties in a knot, 11B1 doesn’t the 1 mean 10 and isn’t 1 or 10 a PVT or PFC class. Well, you made a typo, that’s cool. I have the same, primary 11 series, designator {B,M,C}, secondary 00 series, designator (D,M} all at 10-60 skill level and more ASI’s than you have in your screen name.
You: Apparently you are referring to the College Republicans. One wonders what this has to do with John However. He served.
It has everything to do with it. I have never met a soldier, that served with heart and soul, any disrespect back at the service or those serving. He throws disrespect at them, not the governing body. John plows through the politicians with his tiffs, mistrust, dislikes, disagreements. We all do that, it is our right to do so. He was a soldier, he knows wrong and right, there is a creed.
You: OK we get to the part wear the Lithium starts to wear off. Really uncharted territory.
Not really, if you were an 11B1P, you would see the point without haste. I do say that his comment(General, Blah Blah Blah) means that any General is worthless and most likey leads me to believe, any officer is {Blah Blah Blah), in conclusion, all soldiers are the same. If he wants to put a name on them and give his reason of thought. I can debate a specific disagreemnet.
You: I got nothing. Its like staring into the great void. If I go any further into the incoherence I might not make it back.
Kinda also clear, if you were an 11B1P. Every military unit has certain “soldiers” that don’t belong, don’t have the heart and mind. They get by, they follow orders, but the heart is never in the game. It was about a paycheck, nothing wrong in taking care of(family, self, whatever) I don’t disagree with the motive. But don’t come back later and show disrespect.
Since, I am not of a sane mind, you should move beyond. If you don’t catch the reponse, it is because, John’s news has a very short lifespan.