Friday, June 11, 2004

Ron Reagan craps on George W. again?

I agree with Kevin Drum that the following comment by Ron Reagan, Jr. at his father's funeral was unmistakably a shot across the bow of the present occupant of the White House.

[My father] was a man of unabashed faith, but he didn't make the mistake that some politicians do of wearing his religion on his sleeve. True, after he was shot, he came to believe he had been spared by God in order to do good, but he took this as a responsibility — not a mandate.

I commented to my wife the other day that the biggest difference I see between Reagan and Bush (the biggest among many) is that Reagan actually seemed to care about people while Bush, at best, only thinks he does, but in his heart he really couldn't give a crap about anyone but himself. That Reagan, after his brush with death, might see it as a message to take his responsibility seriously, while Bush, after 9/11, saw the war on terror as a mission from God to rid the world of evil-doers, are both believable propositions.

I still fundamentally disagree with a lot of Reagan's policy positions and I think some of his actions caused a lot of pain and misery. But I think he honestly believed what he was doing would help people out. Bush, on the other hand, just thinks that what he does is automatically right and therefore must actually be the best thing for everyone.

When the Iran-Contra scandal first broke, Reagan went on the air and insisted that they did not trade arms for hostages. A couple of months later, when the facts in evidence clearly proved that that could no longer be the case, Reagan again went on the air to say that, while he still believed in his heart that they weren't trading arms for hostages, the facts prove otherwise. In other words, Reagan was telling the truth as he believed it in that first statement, but he was not so egotistical as to ignore the evidence that showed that his belief did not match reality.

Bush consistently refuses to let the real world refute his faith in his own righteousness. If it does, then the real world must be wrong.

It's not that Bush isn't in the same league as Reagan. He's not even playing the same game.

Or, as Ron Reagan put it in a Salon interview last year:

"My father crapped bigger ones than George Bush ..."

More on the Democratic Reagan

Kevin Drum talks about why Reagan is revered by Republicans and publius talks about how the Democrats need their own "Reagan" (in the mold described by Kevin).

Kevin makes the point that Reagan "changed the terms of the debate". I think the point I wanted to make in my previous post was that a new ideological paradigm (the "bigger themes") is not the necessary requirement to "changing the debate". Of course it helps to have a "big idea" to work with, but we mustn't fall into the trap of thinking that politics is about ideas.

Politics is about selling ideas.

Reagan was not an intellectual heavyweight. But he had the force of personality needed to sell the Republican program to the muddled middle. For the Democrats to succeed, the "Democratic Reagan" would need to have a similar force of personality.

I think Dean has that personality and his message is Democracy itself.

Whether it will come together I don't know. But the material is there for greatness.

Is Howard Dean the Democratic Reagan?

Digby deals with this question here.

The short version: not yet.

The longer version: Dean has yet to articulate the "bigger vision" that Reagan had and therefore hasn't yet offered a program that will permanently alter the course of the Democratic party.

I pretty much agree with both of these assessments. Though I think Digby risk falling into an old trap: that Reagan's success had to do with his ideology. That had something to do with it. But I really don't think his electoral success was dependent upon his ideas. It was how he presented those ideas that mattered.

I've argued before that there is a substantial portion of the electorate that does not and never will really understand the issues. The 10-20% of the muddled middle simply don't have any fixed ideology. They are generally undecided leading up to the election for the simple reason that they don't know what they want. A politician can win over this group not by offering an ideological program that matches theirs (since they don't have one) but by simply persuading them that the ideological program you are offering is the one that they want.

So a Democratic Reagan will require more then just a "bigger vision". That person will need to be able to sell it in a way that demonstrates that they really stand by what they say (even if, in reality, they may compromise, as Reagan often did). Reagan was a believer. A Democratic Reagan will also need to be a believer.

Dean is a believer and isn't afraid to admit it.

Also, I don't think Dean's failure to get more than 20% of the Democratic vote failed from a lack of a "bigger vision". The simple truth is that Dean was an unknown and a lot of Democrats were so afraid of another four years of Bush that they didn't want to go up against him with an unknown.

Dean also didn't have a machine behind him that could represent him to the public and take positions within the government if he were to win. At least with Kerry, we have a candidate with a lot of people who can act as spokespeople (I've always felt Dean lacked for having any designated "go-to" people for the media to talk to) and Kerry has an apparatus that can take over the reigns of power once he is sworn into office. Dean came so far out of the mainstream (not ideologically, just lack of connections) that it really wasn't clear what a Dean administration would look like.

Considering where he came from, I've always considered Dean's showing in the primary season to have been really good. He didn't get the nomination, but he didn't lose because he managed to alter the course of the race in the direction he wanted it to go. He trail blazed the course, but fell short of the finish line in the end.

I like the comparison of Dean to Reagan '72 or even Reagan '76. Dean has the opportunity now to build the machine he didn't have before and to build a reputation for solid thinking and to, yes, put forth that "bigger vision" that Digby talks about.

Shorter version: Dean isn't the Democratic Reagan. But he could be some day.

By the company he keeps

A funny from Amy Sullivan:

One of the complaints I often hear from conservatives is that religious liberals are moral relativists, that they don't believe in evil. To which I respond that my liberal and religious mother believes very much that evil exists and that it is personified by Dick Cheney.

That usually gets a big laugh out of everyone else and a shamefaced chuckle out of the conservative, who is forced to admit that sometimes evil really is in the eye of the beholder.

Good joke. And, as Amy points out, it even gets chuckles from conservatives.

Many of us in the Bush-Haters-Of-America group find it hard to resist the urge to bash Bush whenever the talk turns to politics in mixed company (mixed meaning Democrats and Republicans). The problem with that is that, despite Bush's obvious failings, there is still a large reserve of good will towards the guy, even from people who disagree with his policies. If you start talking about Bush being evil or just simply the worst president ever, you will quickly lose the argument with these people.

But, if you bash Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld or John Ashcroft ... well then that's not quite so bad. You might even get the aforesaid chuckle of agreement.

Thus I would suggest an alternate strategy for bashing Bush: don't bash him personally. Just direct his share of the anger and frustration you feel onto those around him (excepting Powell. He also has a reservoir of good will that can be dangerous to attack directly.) Many people may be frustrated with Bush, but don't feel comfortable bashing him directly. But they might be agreeable to using a Bush substitute like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft or Rice (most people probably don't know who Wolfowitz, Pearle, etc. are, so don't bother with them).

Then, when they are really into the whole "bash the Bush crowd" celebration, point out to them that re-electing Bush means four more years of those guys as well.

Mission Accomplished.

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

Bush/ZombieReagan 2004

Seems the next logical step dontchathink?

From the FAQ:

What are some other advantages of adding Zombie Reagan to the ticket? He will demonstrate America's resolve to continue the battle against terrorism. Instead of retreating to an undisclosed location, for instance, Zombie Reagan will be on the front lines, eating illegal combatants.

Major shift in the establishment press

The Washington Post editorial board comes as close as they have ever come to acknowledging the dictatorial tendencies of the Bush administration:

There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense departments. Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of "national security." For decades the U.S. government has waged diplomatic campaigns against such outlaw governments -- from the military juntas in Argentina and Chile to the current autocracies in Islamic countries such as Algeria and Uzbekistan -- that claim torture is justified when used to combat terrorism. The news that serving U.S. officials have officially endorsed principles once advanced by Augusto Pinochet brings shame on American democracy -- even if it is true, as the administration maintains, that its theories have not been put into practice. Even on paper, the administration's reasoning will provide a ready excuse for dictators, especially those allied with the Bush administration, to go on torturing and killing detainees.

This is the same board that spent much of 2002 and 2003 playing accompaniment to the Bush administration's drumbeat for war. This editorial is a major shot across Bush's bow, challenging him to prove that the critics are wrong (with the implied threat that they will join those critics if he doesn't).

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

Waaaaah! I wanted to break the bad news first!

What a bunch of children:

WHEN ABC News broke the sad news of Ronald Reagan's death Saturday afternoon, it sent its competitors into a frenzy. The press corps traveling with President Bush in Normandy first heard the news when ABC's White House reporter Terry Moran began doing a live report in their midst. The reaction, according to one eyewitness, was "total chaos — people running everywhere, knocking into things." CNN's John King yelled into his cell phone that CNN had been beaten and was so upset he threatened to quit. King ended his tantrum by throwing his cell phone to the ground. Bad move: his meltdown was captured on tape. So just how did ABC get such a big jump? The network refused comment, but insiders credit ABC News chief David Westin. Apparently, working the phones produces better results than throwing them.

No wonder these guys like Bush. They have the same "me first" mentality.

(courtesy Mathew Gross)

Let them have Reagan, just so long as we can bring down Bush

The narrative of the moment is, of course, that Reagan was an immensely popular president who cut taxes, boosted the economy and stared down the Ruskies until they said uncle.

Of course, much of that is myth. But our modern media is much better suited to dispense myth then it is to educate the public about what really happened (witness the number of people who still think that Saddam Hussein had a part in 9/11). And trying to dispel those myths is an exhausting task. So maybe we should think about our response a little more carefully.

Now, we shouldn't hold back from dispelling the myths when the opportunity presents itself. But there are times in a fight when you have to acknowledge an advantage to an opponent and work around it instead of fighting it head on. Why should we do so now? Because the more time we spend trying to debunk the myth of Reagan the less time we have to spend debunking the myth of Bush. Last time I checked, the former is no longer qualified to hold office while the latter remains an imminent danger to our Republic.

Michael over on Southpaw makes the point that in many martial arts disciplines you should use the force of your opponent against them. In other words, we should use the myth of Reagan to deflate the myth of Bush. He points to the latest column from Paul Krugman as an example of how to do this. Krugman points out that Reagan had the insight to consider compromise in the face of harsh reality while Bush only offers stubbornness. The "steely resolve" of Reagan did not get in the way of him adjusting his course when necessary. Bush suffers by comparison.

Now, I can understand if some might find it distasteful to actually talk about Reagan in a positive way. But, if by doing so, you can keep Bush from being re-elected, wouldn't it be worth the pain and suffering? Perhaps we should just let the Republicans have their myth (for now). We've got more pressing battles before us.

Kerry once criticized Reagan, therefore anything positive he says now must be a lie

No, the Republicans wouldn't think of politicizing Reagan's death.

In the wake of former President Ronald Reagan's death, some of the most aggressive attempts to publicize criticism of Reagan are coming from ... Republicans. On June 7, The New York Times reported: "[I]n one sign of what may lie ahead, Republicans circulated old quotes from Mr. [Senator John] Kerry in which he criticized Mr. Reagan." Kerry's prior criticisms of Reagan found their way into conservative news outlets, including The Weekly Standard, NewsMax.com, The Washington Times, and FOX News Channel.

I agree with John Kerry's decision to suspend campaigning this week. Even aside from the respectfulness of such a move, trying to campaign in the midst of the Reagasm would be like whispering into a hurricane. No one would pay attention to you other then to point out that you look rather silly with all that wind blowing in your face.

But, of course, the Republicans feel no such compunction to put partisanship aside for even one week. If they can't get Kerry to actually say anything negative about Reagan after the latter's death then they just had to go searching through the records to find examples of him criticizing Reagan in the past. The idea, of course, is to leave the impression that Kerry's current statements of condolence are nothing but window dressing mean to hide his black-liberal soul that is secretly doing handsprings in light of the death of the Great Satan.

Of course, all it really proves is that the Bushies, like rabid animals, can never be trusted to act like human beings.

Reagan memorial: Democrats need not attend?

I hear, via Ezra Klein, that Clinton and Carter will not be speaking at the Reagan memorial service. If there wasn't a clearer sign that this event is being used as a big fat commercial for the Republicans and their boy Bush then what more is needed?

Clinton and Carter both spoke at Nixon's funeral and each gave classy speeches. Do the Republicans assume that they will trash Reagan at the memorial?

I thought Reagan was supposed to be the American President. But, by these arrangements, they are saying that he is only a Republican President (unless you think only Republicans are real Americans in which case you wouldn't see the problem.)

Privatization marches on!

Adam Mordecai (Change for America) makes a good catch today: apparently the backlog of Freedom of Information Acts has gotten so bad that the government is job of sorting through classified information to contractors (Washington Post). And who did they chose to take care of this sensitive operation? CACI International, the same folks that provided contract interrogators to Abu Ghraib.

Check it out.

The next logical step

Given the degree to which the Republicans are exploiting Reagan's death in order to prop-up their boy king, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that George W. Bush is planning to change his name to Ronald in honor of their fallen hero.

Back To Iraq

Christopher Allbritton is a freelance journalist who journeyed to Iraq during the initial war in 2003 and documented what he saw online in his blog Back To Iraq 2.0 (it was his second visit to Iraq). He provided one of the few unfiltered accounts of what was going on in country (he was not embedded and thus not controlled like the rest of the establishment journalists).

He has now returned to Iraq (The Heart Of Darkness) and is blogging there again (Back To Iraq 3.0). His account of his first three weeks is compelling reading, especially his comments about how the atmosphere has changed in a year. The essence of it is that no one trusts anyone over there and the lack of trust is destroying everyone, Iraqis. Which makes you wonder how anyone can salvage anything from this mess.

This feeling of trusting no one has gotten to me; it’s palpable and the constant vigilance is exhausting. My mood is black and I can feel a depression that is never far away. Not writing for the blog is a source of guilt, too, but TIME has kept me so busy with stories that don’t bring me in touch with average Iraqis much. I’ve been moving between the CPA and the former members of the Governing Council.

I also can’t seem to get excited over stories of abused Iraqis. There are so many and they have a numbing quality. Also, the hostility I encounter from Iraqis makes me — shamefully — less empathetic to their complaints. But nor do I feel much sympathy for Americans who point guns at me. The tragic part of this is that there is no way to blame anyone in this situation. The Iraqis will naturally hate an occupying army. And soldiers will naturally grow to hate a people they think they came to liberate but who continue trying to kill them.

I wish I could see more of the goodness in Iraqis that I know is there. And likewise, I wish they could see the goodness in Americans. But people here — the Iraqis, the CPA, the military and even some journalists — have become blinded to each other’s concerns and qualities. Those of us here, all of us, we’re not all bad people, I don’t believe. And I say “we” because no matter our nationality, this place hammers us into a collective body. The Iraqi selling me delicious juice concoctions, the American soldiers at the checkpoints missing his wife, the CPA employee who truly believed the Bush rhetoric, we are all in this together now.

But this environment is killing our ability to give a damn about anything other than staying alive. It’s burying our better angels. The lack of empathy is a bad quality for a journalist, and it’s a worse one for a human being. How can I do my job like this? It is for these reasons I’m in awe of the Baghdad artists who still manage to create beauty here. After a year of all this, they still see something worth seeing. They are magnificent.

I can only begin to imagine living under conditions like that. Christopher has only been there three weeks and he is already starting to feel the normal human empathies drained out of him. Imagine what must go through the minds of soldiers, CPA officials and journalists who have been there for over a year?

I was struck most by his comment about not being able to get excited about stories of abused Iraqis. It makes me wonder just how the Abu Ghraib story played out in Iraq. It was a shock to many Americans, but I suspect it just didn't have the same impact over their. Many of them, both soldiers and Iraqis, already knew about it. That doesn't mean they have come to accept it. It is just an evil that has become ingrained. Like moving into a town with a paper mill, after living there a few days you no longer notice the smell, but it still plays on your sensibilities on a subconscious level and the irritation can manifest itself in new levels of atrocities.

My greatest fear is that this acclimation come here as well and could result in a "fuck 'em" attitude by Americans, either towards the Iraqis, the soldiers, or both. If that happens then the tragedy will become complete.

Monday, June 07, 2004

Partisan Jab

Music For America is out with the first of a promised series of bi-weekly "Partisan Jab" videos. Check it out.

Extreme situations

Josh Marshall provides an enlightening take on the whole question of whether a President should ever consider it proper to break the law. He goes back to Thomas Jefferson to argue the point that extreme situations may dictate that the President temporarily take on an extra-legal role (e.g., if the question comes down to one of preserving the nation or breaking the law then it is reasonable to argue that the President should consider the law a disposable barrier to fulfilling his duty to protect the nation). But, if he does so, he must, after the fact, submit his decision to the people (through the congress, the courts or the ballot box) to pass the final judgment on the rightness of his actions.

This is entirely different than what was suggested in the DOD memorandum. The memorandum in question said:

To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."

This legal opinion doesn't suggest that the President can forgo the law if they prove inconvenient to protecting the nation. They suggest that the law, in and of itself, derives its authority from the President.

Now, the Bushies might argue otherwise on this matter, but the proof of their stance will be shown only if and when Bush is willing to submit his "extra-legal actions" to the judgment of the true sovereigns in this nation. Yet this memorandum also provides arguments for how to avoid prosecution as well as how to break the law in the first place. Furthermore, the Bush administration has gone out of its way to treat the American people as equivalent to terrorists when it comes to revealing information about what they are doing. How can we judge them if we don't have the information on which to base a judgment?

They want the power and they don't think they should have to answer for their use of it.

What does it matter to Bush anyway? After all, in the end, "we'll all be dead anyway."

Another update

Slate:

The Wall Street Journal says up high that just before the invasion of Iraq, Bush administration lawyers issued a lengthy brief arguing that—damn the Geneva Conventions—the president is allowed to order torture. "In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign ... (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander in chief authority," stated the report, complete with parenthetical. The brief, which was written by a joint task force including the White House's counsel, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon, also outlines potential defenses for any underlings who might end up torturing suspects. The document was apparently written amid frustration that al-Qaida suspects in Gitmo weren't talking. Some military lawyers working on the brief said they were uncomfortable with its conclusions. One said "political appointees" heading the task force insisted on pushing "presidential power [to] its absolute apex."

As I said before, I haven't read the actual memorandum. But, according to Slate, the memorandum specifically mentions "torture".

Not "coercion".

"Torture"!

Abu Ghraib was not a surprise. The only thing that has surprised them is that people are upset about it.

Whatever happened to "no one is above the law"?

INTEL DUMP and Atrios points us to this WSJ article (subscription required) that provides us with some insight into the legal thinking of the Bush administration. The article describe a legal memorandum prepared by the Pentagon's Office of General Counsel as part of an effort to find legal justifications for coercive interrogation (i.e., torture). It contains the following gem:

To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."

So the legal minds of the Bush administration consider it an operating assumption that the President has the "inherent" authority to set aside all laws.

Update:

These guys really do like turning things on their head don't they? Consider this:

The president, despite domestic and international laws constraining the use of torture, has the authority as commander in chief to approve almost any physical or psychological actions during interrogation, up to and including torture, the report argued. Civilian or military personnel accused of torture or other war crimes have several potential defenses, including the "necessity" of using such methods to extract information to head off an attack, or "superior orders," sometimes known as the Nuremberg defense: namely that the accused was acting pursuant to an order and, as the Nuremberg tribunal put it, no "moral choice was in fact possible."

Short history lesson: the conclusion of the Nuremberg tribunal was that "just following orders" was not a legitimate defense when it came to accusations of war crimes. But, once again, the great legal minds of the Bush administration studied history and concluded that the Nuremberg trials could be used in defense of accusations of torture!

Admittedly, I do not have access to the memorandum in question, so I can't argue that this conclusively proves that these guys are a bunch of inhuman monsters (INTEL DUMP has more on the legal niceties). But the point remains that the Bush administration was actively in search of ways to get around the law and, if that couldn't be found, ways to simply say that the law didn't apply to Bush.

Again, I ask, whatever happened to "no one is above the law"?

Update 2:

Shorter version: Bush administration says there is "no controlling legal authority" with regard to the President.

Update 3:

I can't leave this alone yet. The more I think about it the more outraged I become. The essence of this argument is as follows:

  1. Anyone caught committing war crimes could argue that they were "just following orders"
  2. The President, the ultimate "giver of orders", cannot be held legally accountable because he has the "inherent" authority to set aside the law.

That anyone can read this and not be scared of the implications is astounding.

Regarding Reagan

I was busy this weekend, so I didn't have time to post extemporaneous thoughts on the death of Reagan. The blogosphere moves so fast that there isn't much left to be said that hasn't already been said.

On a personal level, I never had the distaste for Reagan that others had. I had to wait for Dubya to come along to have a politician in office that makes me cringe every time I hear him speak. Watching all the retrospectives over the weekend I had to marvel again at just how perfect Reagan was for the role. He epitomized the rough-n-tumble-gee-shucks image that so many Americans love to imagine about themselves. He was the perfect politician for the television age.

The fact that he sucked at the actual job of the Presidency just didn't matter.

The best thing that can be said about Reagan was said by Digby: "You were better than George W. Bush".

The most comprehensive take I've read so far is provide by William Rivers Pitt. Go read it. I've got to get back to work.

Inspiration

There's a good article in today's WSJ on the evolving Dean movement.

Dean himself makes the point that the primary campaign happened so fast and was so furious that he had little time to actually sit down and contemplate just what was going on. Now that he has had time to do so he better understands how he can use his opportunity and his skills to build a longer-term Democratic coalition.

The article compares him to Newt Gingrich in this respect and I don't think Dean would mind the comparison, at least on the level of political activation:

Mr. Dean's famous e-mail list took a substantial hit after his withdrawal from the presidential race in February, but it's beginning to grow again. Every two weeks, in sets of 12, he is making "Dean Dozen" endorsements to boost lower ticket, often state and local candidates, much as the Christian Coalition did in building its network in the late '80s and early '90s. Like Mr. Gingrich's conservative "Contract for America" in 1994, there have been early discussions of a Progressive Manifesto -- laying out goals such as health-care reform -- that would give new voters a clearer idea of the Democratic mission.

I'm not sure we are at the correct point in the cycle to be talking about manifestos. But the organizational efforts of DfA do remind me a lot of what happened in the 80s and 90s on the right. I fully expect a significant number of Democrats running for office in the next 20 years to cite the Dean campaign as their political birthplace.

There are many things about Dean hat has always inspired me, among those is the message he brings that you have to work towards long-term change and not just struggle for short-term gain. This is a message that is especially inspirational for younger voters who have been trained by our culture to think only in terms of instant gratification.

"Governing in the real world means you can make things better, dropping out means hope is dead," Mr. Dean wrote.

Dean has the gift for distilling the message down to the heart and putting it in terms that most everyone can understand (even if they don't necessarily agree with the specifics).