Saturday, November 13, 2004

Alberto Gonzalez is an honorable man

I had been concerned over the last couple of days that the Democrats were once again going to roll over in the face of the Alberto Gonzalez nomination for Attorney General. Despite the fact that the Gonzalez has so many marks against him there were reports that several prominent Democrats were talking about him as an acceptable alternative to the "lighting rod" that was John Ashcroft.

Perhaps my concerns were unfounded. Blog for America has a couple of quotes from Senators Kennedy and Leahy that suggest that they will be making an issue out of Abu Ghraib and Mr. Gonzalez's memo calling the Geneva Convention "quaint". But their comments are couched in the usual polite language of the Senate.

I don't know exactly what is going on, but it may be that the Democrats are taking an Antony's-eulogy-to-Caeser approach to the Gonzalez nomination. They praise him at first, in order to lull the Republicans into thinking that the Democrats are going to roll over once again. But they will hammer him anyway once then get him under oath.

At least I hope that is what they are doing.

Friday, November 12, 2004

Enough looking for silver-linings!

I'd to add my voice to the chorus supporting this comment by Kos:

I've seen a bunch of diaries "debunking" GOP gains amongst various constituencies -- urban voters, Latino voters, etc

Those gains may or may not be real. But I would actually prefer those gains become accepted conventional wisdom.

We have a lot of work to do as a party. And if we think we need to do a better job selling the Democratic Party to voters in cities, to Latino voters, to African Americans, to religious voters, to suburban moms, to hunting fathers, to young voters, and to everyone else, then GOOD.

Arguing things are all right, or not as bad as we think, doesn't do any of us any good.

People may have needed this kind of "on the bright side" talk in order to pep them up after last weeks defeat. But Kos is right that that kind of talk can lead to a sense of complacency. If we start to think, "well, things aren't all that bad" then we will start to relax and we simply can't afford that.

Because things are that bad. Getting 55 million votes doesn't matter when someone who is obviously unqualified for the position gets 59 million votes. We shouldn't be satisfied until we crush the opposition. No margin of victory is large enough.

All things Dean

From the NY Post:

November 12, 2004 -- BILL and Hillary Clinton are battling behind the scenes to install longtime political operative Harold Ickes as the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, replacing Terry McAuliffe. "This is the first test of whether the Clintons can keep their grip on the party," said one Democrat. Ickes was an advisor to David Dinkins during his mayoral administration and was close to the Clintons, helping arrange stays in the Lincoln Bedroom for big contributors. "He was the innkeeper when the White House became the Holiday Inn," said our source. But others are vying for the job. John Kerry's circle is talking up Jean Shaheen, the former New Hampshire governor who chaired Kerry's campaign. And both Howard Dean and Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore's campaign in 2000, want the job, as well as Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who wants to make sure his state's widely watched caucus continues to be held before any of the presidential primaries.

First, all of these reports should be taken with a grain of salt because, like the NY Sun, the Post is a rag with a right-wing bias and a vested interested in fomenting hurt feelings within the Democratic ranks ("Let's you and him fight!"). I have no doubt that there is a struggle going on, but whether it is just the usual type of political wrangling during moments of transition or whether it is something that could lead to a bloody fight remains to be seen.

Second, we should all note the early attempt to create a negative narrative for Ickes by the Post's description of him as being a central figure in the Lincoln Bedroom scandal's of the Clinton years. I wonder if that source with the "innkeeper" comment has the initials K.R.?

Third, I would hope that if Vilsack is serious about contending for the position that he has bigger priorities than just simply safe-guarding his home state's position as the first in the nation caucus. If that really is his primary concern then he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the position. The DNC doesn't need a leader who is more concerned about defending his turf then advancing the party as a whole.

 

ABC News also has a good run down of what is brewing, including a report from associates of Ickes that says he doesn't want the job.

 

And here's some words of wisdom from Dean himself.

“There is an enormous amount we can learn [from Kerry’s campaign], but it’s going to be learned privately,” he said.

Democrats have a habit of airing their internal criticisms. Our openness is one of our strengths because it is in our openness that we reveal our ability to adjust to a changing situation. But it is also a weakness because it harms the attempt to portray a united image to the voter. I think Dean is smart to try to and keep specific criticism of Kerry private. He isn't going to let himself get drawn into that kind of battle. Other prominent Democrats would be wise to do the same.

“We need more discipline in the Democratic Party,” he said. “We have to be a little more serious about what we do...We are going to have to work together, stop fighting over who is going to be this and who is going to be that and realize that if we don’t work together, the greater purpose of Democrats won’t be served.”

This is an interesting comment in the context of the discussion of running for the DNC chair. I think Dean is interested in the position, but I don't think he wants if (1) he won't have real power and (2) taking the job will produce an internecine battle within the party. If either condition holds true then I think he would rather work to reform the party from the outside. On that I would agree with him.

This is also an interesting comment coming from a guy who rose to prominence by openly criticizing the Democratic party. But Dean is not your typical rabble-rouser. He throws the bombs only when he thinks it is absolutely necessary and only where he thinks it will actually do the most good. His criticisms of the party in 2003 were to-the-point and much needed. But by this comment he is signaling to both the insiders and his supporters that he is not going to just be a critic. He wants positive results, not just the cheers of a the red-meat crowd.

“Republicans have the ability to put 60 people on talk shows on one day and have all of them say the same thing,” Dean said. “Bush was terrific on the stump. He repeated the same four things three times a day and that’s what dominated television.”

Dean applied this same principle in his own campaign. Deanizens used to joke about how we could quote his stump speech chapter and verse because it didn't vary much from the early days of his campaign to the end. But it was that very consistent message that was one of Dean's selling points. Dean didn't change his talking points at the first sign of a shift in the wind. It usually took a gale before he would change (e.g., towards the end he started making some noise about compromising on his repeal-all-the-tax-cuts idea). But even in that he demonstrated that his consistency was not of the same nature as the stubbornness of George W. Bush.

Where Dean's campaign was sorely lacking was in having those "60 people on talks shows" all saying the same thing. Dean had no surrogates to push his message. Kerry's campaign wasn't much better. He didn't field a consistent team of spokespeople until the last two months of the campaign (God bless Joe Lockhart). Democrats would be well advised to develop a program to train surrogates.

Expressing our values

I talked a while back about how Democrats are making a mistake when we say that Republican voters are voting against their best interests. I argued then that the mistake in this argument is in assuming that economic self-interest is the thing that people should be most concerned about. For many voters, there are concerns of a much higher nature than universal health care and social security entitlements.

I quoted the passage from Luke 9:25 ("What does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul?") to illustrate my point. We simply can't assume that what we consider to be in our best interest is what others consider to be in their best interest. I would argue that a source of the lot of distrust directed towards Democrats derives from the fact that many of us simply don't appreciate the different priorities that others have.

Chris Bowers posts in full a TNR article by Brad Carson, the recently defeated Democratic candidate for Senate in Oklahoma. Carson explains the nature of this divide:

For the vast majority of Oklahomans--and, I would suspect, voters in other red states--these transcendent cultural concerns are more important than universal health care or raising the minimum wage or preserving farm subsidies. Pace Thomas Frank, the voters aren't deluded or uneducated. They simply reject the notion that material concerns are more real than spiritual or cultural ones. The political left has always had a hard time understanding this, preferring to believe that the masses are enthralled by a "false consciousness" or Fox News or whatever today's excuse might be. But the truth is quite simple: Most voters in a state like Oklahoma--and I venture to say most other Southern and Midwestern states--reject the general direction of American culture and celebrate the political party that promises to reform or revise it.

We could well argue that these voters are being lead down the garden path by the party that only appears to promise the reform of American culture. But in doing so we risk feeding the stereotype that Democrats are just a bunch of arrogant busy-bodies who presume to know what is best for everyone else.

Let me be clear on this: We don't need to change our values to win. But we must understand that the narrative structure of Republican values does have a logical structure to it that works for the people who follow it. We can't win people over by simply tearing down that narrative structure. When we do so we simply inspire its adoptees to defend all the more vigorously. We must, instead, provide a competitive narrative that celebrates our values.

We can't talk them into changing their perceptions of us. We must show them that our values are good and worth defending. The best way to do that is to stick with them regardless of their political viability. It is when we abandon them in the face of tough times that we most live up to the stereotype of having no real values at all.

We will show our real character when we are willing to lose rather than sacrifice our values. Because it is only then that we can begin to win.

Thursday, November 11, 2004

Changing our approach

Chris Bowers provides some fascinating insights into the demographics of left and right in this country. The basic conclusion he reaches (and I agree with it) is that the political makeup of this country favors the Republicans over the Democrats and that no amount of "move to the left" or "move to the right" strategizing will help:

Moving one-way or the other isn't going to cut it, as our position would remain precarious in both directions. The problem, as I see it, is not that we are too liberal or too moderate, but that the country itself is too conservative. With 34% of the electorate self-identifying as conservative, and 85% of self-identifying conservatives voting Republican in national elections, Republicans only need a little over 40% of the moderate vote to win. In that situation, they could run a horrendous campaign and still win, while we could run a nearly perfect campaign and still lose.

We are in a lot of trouble, and the only way I see out is pretty long term: we need to close the gap between liberals and conservatives. Well beyond any other demographic, that is the heart of our problem. Conservatives outnumber liberals in states worth 459 electoral votes, while liberals outnumber conservatives in states worth only 79 electoral votes. In every southern state except for Florida, conservatives outnumber liberals by at least twenty-one points. That is not a swing region. That is barely a swing nation.

The only way we do this is if all Democrats, including moderate Democrats, start defending liberalism and telling the truth about conservatism. We have to grow liberalism. This does not necessarily mean that we have to adopt more liberal policies, but at the very least we have to start defending liberals. No one does that anymore, which nearly guarantees that liberalism will not grow. When you face a dead end in either direction, there is little point in moving. We have to move the country, or else we are dead meat. Either we defend the ideology of half of our voters--and defend it by name--or we face a generation of irrelevancy.

[emphasis mine]

What Chris is arguing for is that we make a foreground/background switch in our political approach. Much of Democratic strategy over the last few years has been based on the idea of shifting a movable foreground object (the Democratic party) in one direction or another over an immovable background scene (the American political landscape). Unfortunately, it hasn't worked and, as Chris so ably illustrates, it probably never will.

But, if we switch our conception of foreground and background and instead treat American political opinion as the movable object through the landscape of Democratic ideals then maybe, just maybe, we might have a chance.

This is what the Republicans have done so well. They fleshed out the details of their landscape and have taken the American electorate on a storybook ride through that landscape. They have asked the voters to come along for the ride on their Jungle Cruise and have left the Democrats standing at the docks pathetically waving our public opinion polls and demographic studies.

No wonder the Democrats have developed the reputation for being weak-willed and indecisive. It's a reputation that is based on truth.

Democrats must come to understand that they have a landscape of their own. We don't need to change ourselves. We need to change the country. We need to develop a narrative that will allow the electorate to go on a journey through our landscape and see that it has something better to offer them.

Opposition, Not Obstruction

I agree with Matt, the Democrats have to keep their powder dry as far as pulling out all the stops in blocking Bush. They need to register their opposition as much as possible, but they shouldn't rely on parliamentary procedures such as filibusters except in the rare cases where they need to block Bush from doing the greatest long term damage. Supreme Court nominations are obvious candidates for this. Also blocking any serious gutting of Social Security.

Beyond that, the Democrats are just going to have to "allow" the Republicans to have their way for the next two years. It sucks, but it is the political reality we live in. Doing anything else will just make it that much harder for Democrats to win back power in the long run.

Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Letter to the Red States

A Woman from NYC writes a Letter to the Red States.

I wonder if she will get any positive response?

Or will she just get death threats?

Update:

I went looking around and found another copy of this letter posted on a blog written by a liberal radio host named Mark Levine. What is interesting is the comments that followed the post (there are a lot of them, but I urge everyone to check them out). It's about an even mixture of both liberal and conservative responses and an even mixture of harsh invective and thoughtful discussion. What's especially interesting is that the cross-over between those two axis of attitude is about 50-50. There are an equal number of idiotic posts by both conservatives and liberals as well as an equal number of thoughtful posts by conservatives and liberals (the most thoughtful are exchanges between Mark Levine and two conservative posters named Mid-Mo and Vicky).

I find many of the thoughts expressed by both sides in this thread to be disturbing, but fascinating at the same time. What is clear is that both sides have wild views of the other sides point of view and many are absolutely convinced in the correctness of their conception of what the other side really is all about.

In other words, there's a lot of misunderstanding on both sides of the fence. There's also a lot of positions upon which neither side will ever be able to compromise. But that has always been the case throughout human history. It is my judgment that societies begin to crumble when the only options available to people are two rigidly opposed points of view. The vast number of people in the muddled middle need an alternative to two unacceptable choices. If they do not have that alternative then society will tear itself apart trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.

The real danger of the program represented by Bush and his people is not the specifics of their particular political philosophy. It's the attitude they bring to the table that only their particular political philosophy is acceptable.

Civilization belongs to those who can't really decide what is good, only what is good enough.

It's the ideologues who always spoil the party for everyone else.

That's The Fact Jack!

I understand that several prominent bloggers are being added to some people's shit list because they either aren't taking the allegations of voter fraud seriously enough or are openly asking those pushing those allegations to back off on the more extreme allegations until stronger evidence is found.

Well, I may not be a prominent blogger, but I guess I'm going to join them on those lists.

Now, there most definitely were many questionable things about what happened in this election. All of those things must be investigated. But just because some things smell funny does not mean the entire system is nothing but a load of crap.

I understand the emotions are high on this issue and I agree completely that ensuring accurate vote counting should be one of are major priorities. The people must have faith that their electoral system works. But there is a bigger issue that is getting obscured in all the minutiae of voting machine confabulation.

To borrow a from the sporting world: Bad calls are part of the game.

The trick to avoid getting into a situation where bad calls can be decisive.

In all the talk about 500 votes here or 7,000 votes there we are losing sight of the fact that over 59 million people voted for Bush! Even if we assume some of the worst about possible voter fraud, its unlikely that that could account for more than 5 million of Bush's vote total (and I think I'm being generous here). That would still mean that Bush was close enough to Kerry that fraud (bad calls) could be decisive.

This is bad folks!

A guy who is obviously unqualified to hold the position of dog catcher, a guy who has lied consistently to the American people on a whole range of issues, a guy who has systematically turned the engine of government over to a small band of cronies, a guy who has destroyed nearly every vestige of international credibility this country has spent 200 years building up, still somehow managed to convince over 55 million Americans that he was the better choice for the most powerful position in the history of the Earth!

No amount of cleaning up our electoral system is going to compensate for The Fact that we are getting our asses kicked by an idiot!

Some people may not like to hear this, but its The Fact. We claim to be the party that governs based on the facts, but we seem unwilling to confront The Fact. We must confront The Fact and deal with The Fact if we are to turn this thing around.

Flame away if you must, but no amount of yelling will make The Fact go away.

Final word on the tanks (for now)

When this story first came to my attention it disturbed me greatly. Were we really getting to the point where military vehicles were being used to intimidate those who opposed Bush's policies? I didn't know if such was or was not the case, but I considered the possibility disturbing enough and just within the realm of possibility that it should not go un-investigated.

David V. did a superb job of hunting down information on what happened. ollieb posted word from Rep. Waxman's office on what happened in this response to a duplicate of the original thread over on The DailyKOS:

They said that the tanks had driven up from Camp Pendleton in San Diego (up the freakin 405 Freeway by the way!) for a Veteran's Day event today at the Veterans Affairs Center on Sepulveda, just up the street from where the protest was.  Word was that they were lost (indeed, there was no need to pass the protest on their way to the VA Center) and were asking for directions. We both sort of chuckled at that when she told it to me, but that's what she was told. Also, it was suggested to her that the protesters actually prevented the tanks from moving on. Anyway, it still seems a bit fishy and she'll get back to me on Friday with any info she gets (they have Veteran's Day off.)

Wild Democracy Ride has even more.

And Politics in Zeros has what appears to be comments from one of the actual tank drivers who claims they were lost and had pulled over to ask for directions. You would think they would be smart enough to know that asking for directions from anti-war protesters while driving around in tanks was not the smartest thing in the world. But then who among us hasn't pulled a bone-head maneuver every now and then?

I have seen no evidence to suggest that they were there to deliberately intimidate the crowd of protesters. So, barring further information on this episode, I'm going to conclude that it was simply a case of bad timing.

On a side note, I was a little bothered that some of the protesters in the video were yelling "Shame! Shame!" at the soldiers in the tanks. That's just a little to close the 60s era rumors of people spitting on soldiers returning from Vietnam and calling them baby killers. But then I have to consider that the protesters thought the tanks were there to intimidate them, so their reaction was not unsurprising.

In hindsight, it's a good thing nothing worse happened. The protesters could have stormed the tanks and attacked the crewmen. Then this story really would have been all over the evening news. It looks like everyone involved remained civilized enough to keep it from getting out of control. Kudos to the protesters, the soldiers and the cops for keeping their heads.

It's all just a sign of how bad things have gotten that we have to wonder if what we saw in that video wasn't an example of our worst fears coming true.

And to think I used to wish I had been able to experience the 60s (I was born in '65).

I guess I've learned better.

The election is over! You can stop worrying now.

Homeland Security lowers threat level in financial sectors

Terrorist threat levels were lowered in the financial sectors of Washington, New York City and Northern New Jersey Nov. 10.

Threat levels were raised from elevated to high in these areas in August because of specific intelligence relating to five buildings in the three regions.

Since then, law enforcement has strengthened security around the buildings and locations, according to a Nov. 10 Homeland Security Department statement.

The department remains concerned about potential terrorist attacks despite lowering the threat levels, said Deputy Secretary James Loy.

“We are as concerned today as we were a month ago,” Loy said. “The whole notion of taking a deep breath and saying, ‘Wow, we got past this and now we’re OK for a while,’ is a very dangerous train of thought.”

Loy said, “That threat stream of general concern remains, but there is nothing out of the ordinary that we have read in the last weeks and months.”

Intelligence officials had unspecific information that the terrorists wanted to disrupt the country’s democratic process up until the Nov. 2 presidential election.

What? Me cynical?

Lots of new information on those "tanks"

An enterprising individual named David V. has been doing a lot of leg work to find out what was going on with those "tanks" that stopped at an LA peace protest last night. Here's what he's sent me so far:

1st e-mail:

Couple of things.

- I called the West LA station house. They say the tanks were indeed
there. So we can put an end to the 'Photoshop' claims.

- The watch commander corrected that those are not tanks because they
have no 'tracks'.

- The watch commander has no idea who the armored fighting vehicles
belong to.

- The watch commander has no idea who called them in.

- The watch commander suggested to me that perhaps the 'vehicles were
lost in getting back to the armory'

- I called the National Guard Armory on Federal. Lt. Jeff Kramer laughed
uncontrollably at this suggestion that these vehicles were there because
they were 'lost'. He also has no record of them having been there. I'm
still waiting on an email back from him.

I can't reply to diaries yet- just thought you'd want to know.

David V.

2nd e-mail:

No reply from the Lt. yet.

You might also add that when I asked the watch commander for an incident
log he said that there wasn't one.

3rd e-mail:

Just got this from the Lt.:

David,

These vehicles are called "LAVs" which is short for Light Armored Vehicles.
The California National Guard does have two of them but they are not (and
were not) anywhere near the Los Angeles area last night. One is in Northern
California and the other was not near LA. Most importantly, ours are painted
black and have a very specific mission that would not be employed in an
urban environment.

The Marine Corps has LAVs as does DEA and the Dept of Justice.  I cannot
imagine that the Marine Corps would send LAVs by themselves all the way from
Camp Pendleton or Twenty-Nine Palms (in the desert near Barstow) to Los
Angeles unless they had been officially called out to deal with an
emergency. This protest clearly was not that.

I cannot identify the people riding on the LAVs. They only appear to be
wearing generic vehicle crewman helmets that allow in-vehicle communication
and other non-specific (to military service) clothing.

I wish I could be of more help but that's all I can discern from the photo.

LTC Jeff Kramer

4th e-mail:

The DEA says "..no way. With reasonable certainty I can say they aren't
ours."

So that leaves the FBI and Marines. Calls are out.

5th e-mail:

The Marines at Pendleton say:

"Well that's the first I heard of that. We are not running any exercises
in State at this time. They could not have been ours."

Hmmmmmm. The FBI is all that's left.

So, exactly what was going on here still remains a mystery. Thanks a lot to David for tracking this stuff down. I'll relay more if I hear anything.

By the way, I know that technically these vehicles aren't considered "tanks" because they have wheels instead of tracks. But I am using the layman's definition of a tank which is a big, military style, iron plated vehicle, weighing several tons, with a big f*cking gun on the front and more than capable of crushing you if it drove over you.

The people on the receiving end of such a weapon would hardly to quibble over its technical name.

Update:

A commenter over at MyDD had this to say on this story:

I live next to the Fed Bldg.  Called the Times, got someone who basically didn't care. She thought it wasn't a big enough story for downtown to care to print it this morning.

So I called the Army Guard.  According to a sergeant I called at HQ 40th Inf. Div M Arty (which I assume means artillery) I was told they were NOT tanks, but Amphibious Personnel Carriers that were going to be part of a static display at the VA facility on Wilshire.  Why these APCs were in front of the Federal Bldg. is another matter, since the VA is on the other side of I405 from the Federal Bldg. and the APCs were headed east, away from the VA facility, not west, toward it. And there you have the "official" line from the Guard.

My opinion is that this was most likely an accidental meeting of two groups that should never get within half a mile of each other. I have seen no evidence that there was anything intentional about the appearance of these "tanks" (what is it with this political correctness when it comes to identifying military vehicles?)

A definitive explanation would still be nice. Let's not start throwing up the barricades quite yet.

More Tanks

Here's a few updates on the Tanks in LA story.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this occurred outside the Westwood Federal Building.

Here's the members of congress that represent that area:

Member Name DC Phone Email
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D- CA) 202-224-3841 feinstein.senate.gov/email.html
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D- CA) 202-224-3553 boxer.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm
Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D - 30) 202-225-3976 www.house.gov/waxman/email.htm

I'm sure Waxman would be a good person to bring in on this.

Also, I think this is the web site of the group that organized the protest.

Here's an account from someone who was there that suggests that it might have just been a case of unfortunate timing. The two tanks may have just been leaving the nearby Army Reserve Center and got caught in the traffic. I'm not sure. Again, this needs to be investigated.

Gonzalez: Bush's double-dare

I agree with this commenter over on the DailyKOS.

Bush did the same thing when he nominated Ashcroft. The entire purpose of this nomination is to test the resolve of the Democrats. If they fail this test then it will be open season for Bush to do pretty much anything he wants in the next two years.

Democrats MUST understand what is at stake here. Letting Gonzalez through without a serious bloodletting will only cement them into their weak position.

Beware Republicans reporting Democratic news

Via Political Wire comes this report from the New York Sun about a brewing internecine fight within the Democrat party over who will lead it. According to the Sun, the fight is primarily about Howard Dean:

With a grassroots effort to make Howard Dean the next head of the Democratic Party, the fight "risks becoming acrimonious, with Democrats already engaged in angry exchanges over who is primarily to blame for last week's defeat in the presidential election and heavy losses in Senate and House races," the New York Sun reports.

"Moderates maintain that the party is increasingly out of touch with the values of mainstream America, and liberals are arguing that the party made a mistake in failing to nominate the former Vermont governor for president."

Hold it right there!

The Republicans would love nothing better than for us to get into a fight with each other over our future direction. They would love it so much it would be in their interest to foment such a fight. The New York Sun is a rag launched in 2002 by Conrad Black, a conservative magnate in the Rupert Murdoch strain. It was probably created because Black and others thought the NY Post and the Wall Street Journal editorial page were insufficiently conservative.

So we should take any report from them about an "acrimonious" debate within the Democratic party within an enormous grain of salt.

My suggestion to everyone is to essentially ignore the comments on this from any Republican leaning source. This is a debate that Democrats should hold on their own terms.

Everyone else should just butt out!

Tanks in the streets of LA!

Is it really coming to this?

LOS ANGELES, November 9, 2004 - At 7:50 PM two armored tanks showed up at an anti-war protest in front of the federal building in Westwood. The tanks circled the block twice, the second time parking themselves in the street and directly in front of the area where most of the protesters were gathered. Enraged, some of the people attempted to block the tanks, but police quickly cleared the street. The people continued to protest the presence of the tanks, but about ten minutes the tanks drove off. It is unclear as to why the tanks were deployed to this location. Uploaded here is video from the event.

Excellent!

Did Bush just make a serious mistake? Bush has apparently tapped White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez to succeed Ashcroft as Attorney General. Gonzalez was the author of several memos that tried to justify some of the more extreme measures used at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. By nominating Gonzalez, Bush has offered the Democrats the opportunity to re-introduce the subject of Abu Ghraib into the political dialog. If every discussion of Gonzalez over the coming weeks results in the display of this image then the Democrats could inflict some serious damage on Bush right out of the gate.

That fighting spirit

Now this is the kind of spirit I like to see:

(CBS/AP) Congressional Democrats have returned to Washington vowing to battle President Bush on Iraq, Social Security, the federal budget deficit and other important issues.

The Republican election sweep again gave them the White House and strengthened the GOP hold on Congress, but members of the minority party do not appear to have lost their taste for combat with the GOP.

The party's defeated presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry, appeared to be saying that the glass was just a little less than half full.

"Fifty-four-plus-million Americans voted for health care, they voted for energy independence, they voted for unity in America, they voted for stem cell research, they voted for protecting Social Security," Kerry said.

Gore made several mistakes in 2000. But I think one of his biggest mistakes was in deciding to fade into the woodwork after the election out of a misguided notion that the country needed to unite after the divisive recount battle. It was a betrayal of the majority of the voters who through their support behind him. He could have adopted the role of leader of the opposition, but chose instead to go on vacation.

Kerry has at least one advantage over Gore: an actual public position (his Senate seat) to use as a bully pulpit. It looks, at least from his initial comments, as if he is going to use it.

But Democrats need to be realistic. We are going to lost a lot of battles in the coming months and years. But I think the Democratic leadership is finally waking up to the notion that losing individual battles is not necessarily a bad thing. Those battles can lay the groundwork for eventual victory because it is in those battles that Democrats will define for the public just who they actually are.

The Donkey ain't dead yet.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Howard Dean for DNC Chair!

Ezra Klein makes the best argument yet for Howard Dean as DNC chair. It has persuaded me to throw my support behind it.

I still have my concerns about Dean being "promoted to obscurity". But if that concern can be address then I think this would be the best move for Dean, for the party and for America.

Update:

Hmmm... Just after I posted this I read Liberal Oasis' counter-argument that Dean would be better as an outside Strategist and Ass-Kicker At-Large (SAKAL) than as an insider who might have to mute his arguments in order to appease all sides. This gets to my previously stated concern that becoming DNC chair might effectively neuter Dean. But I don't think that such a result would necessarily follow from taking the job. Dean is certainly the type who could be an Ass-Kicker within the party as well as without. And if he could do it inside he'd have even more power behind those kicks.

The Second Term Jinx

I'm afraid I must invoke Andersen's Modifier(*) on the emerging story about how second term presidents "are often plagued by scandals". While it is true that Nixon, Reagan and Clinton all had serious scandals during their 2nd terms, can anyone recall the serious scandal that plagued Eisenhower's second term?

Like the Redskin rule, these kind of coincidences are interesting fodder for water-cooler talk, but they are not the kind of thing we should take political comfort in. We must assume that Bush will have a relatively easy-go of it in the next four years and plan our course of action with that idea in mind. We must assume that we will have to defeat a Republican party riding high on the successes of four more years of Bush.

If we assume Bush will succeed we'll be all the better prepared to handle him when he inevitably fails.

 

(* - Though, admittedly, it doesn't apply perfectly since the question of what happens in a second term is political in nature. The Modifier is just a special case of the general rule that correlation does not equal causation.)

The Shrill Side Of The Force

I'm all for open dialog, trying to understand the other side and rapprochement. But I must admit that, in my darker moments, my feelings are pretty close to this (profanity alert).

(courtesy Shrill Blog, your one-stop-shop for all things shrill in the blogosphere.)

Arafat is still alive

And Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead!

(in response to this post by Atrios)

The Danger of Body Counts

The Danger of Body Counts

Kos leads off a post today with a report of 14 American soldiers dead in Iraq over the last two days. This news needs to be reported, of course, but I think we should be careful not to rely on body counts to make our case against Bush.

First of all, there is a tendency for the reports of American deaths to become lost in the overall awfulness of the news out of Iraq. Time was reports of one or two American dead were headline worthy. Now even the deaths of 5-6 soldiers in a single day gets relegated to the back pages. Yet another demonstration of the remarkable ability of humans to adapt to the most awful of conditions.

Secondly, when we trumpet the deaths of Americans in Iraq we risk looking like we are celebrating those deaths. If we push these kinds of stories as part of our indictment against Bush, many people who might be otherwise sympathetic to our cause will retreat in distaste. Worst of all, some of us might actually come to look forward to these reports as validation of our own beliefs.

That's just plain wrong.

If we want to use the awfulness in Iraq as evidence for our cause then we need to personalize it. Body counts reduce the brave men and women fighting for us in Iraq to nothing but numbers in a ledger. A far more appropriate gesture of our concern for their well-being would be to highlight the individual stories behind the soldiers who are dying or coming home permanently scarred by this conflict.

If I had the resources, I'd like to set up a web site that would present, one-per-day, a soldier's story. Each day would be marked with an up-close-and-personal story of one soldier who either died or was permanently wounded in Iraq. Each soldier's story would be presented with the utmost respect for their sacrifice. No partisan content would be included in the stories (other than, perhaps, any information that could be gleaned about their opinions of Bush, both pro and con).

The idea would be to put a human face on the conflict and not let the sacrifices of these brave men and women fade into the obscurity of the ever growing body count.

Unfortunately, I don't have the resources to do something like this. But I'd be happy to see others tackle the project.

How prophetic

H.L. Mencken writing in the Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920:

” … when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental–men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost.

” … all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre–the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

“The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

Towards a better frame

Digby makes an interesting comment in the context of talking about the efficacy of negative campaigning:

And, nobody recognized that negative, ugly, hateful campaigning was what worked. It seems that we all feel that if we had just reached out and touched people we could have made a difference. We don't "connect," which may be true, but let's face facts --- Bush doesn't "connect" with people's better natures, he "connects" directly to their id. And, I'm afraid that the id trumps finer feelings in many, many people. Yet a large number of these suggestions have to do with sincere appeals to try harder to empathise and relate to those who didn't vote for us. Hey, maybe it'll work. We are the "nurturant parent," after all.

Digby's comment is, of course, a reference to the whole Lakoff framing discussion. Regular readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of Lakoff's work. I think he has done a marvelous job of identifying the importance of frames in political discussions and of identifying the frame that is behind the modern conservative movement (the "Strict Father"). Digby's sarcasm is directed towards Lakoff's "frame" for progressivism: the "Nurturant Parent".

Sadly, I must agree with that sarcasm. The "Nurturant Parent" label evokes the image of wimpy, hands-off, do-as-thou-wilt, let-bygones-be-bygones liberalism. The very wishy-washy image that we need to overcome if we are to be taken seriously on issues of national defense.

But I am reminded of a button I saw this past weekend:

Sarcasm: yeah, that'll work!

Sarcasm is an inadequate response to the weak frame of the "Nurturant Parent". We need to develop a better frame to replace it. I have a suggestion. It involves bringing back the "L" word into progressive politics.

Love.

The frame is the "Loving Parent". It contrasts with the "Strict Father" in many ways.

The "Strict Father" frame is based on the idea that Man is bad and that it is only through the imposition of strict discipline that he can suppress those tendencies enough to do what is right.

The "Loving Parent" frame is based on the idea that Man is capable of doing the right thing and that Love is the best way to encourage it.

The "Strict Father" presumes that we are children who cannot be trusted and must be watched at all times to prevent us from falling back into our wicked ways.

The "Loving Parent" presumes that we are adults and potential adults who can be trusted to ultimately do what is right if given the chance to do so.

The "Strict Father" starts from the position that we are evil until we prove that we are good. It presumes that we can never truly be good without intervention, so we will always be evil unless we surrender our will to the "Strict Father".

The "Loving Parent" starts from the position that we are good but can be turned to evil. It presumes that it is through encouragement combined with discipline that the latter can be avoided and the better angels of our nature will shine forth.

The "Strict Father" is based on a model of God whose creation defied him and who must then punish that creation until it surrenders its will to God. This is a model that presumes that God unintentionally created something imperfect. It is necessarily demeaning to the idea of God.

The "Loving Parent" is based on a model of God whose creation was given, from the beginning, the choice between good and evil, is trusted to do the right thing in the end. Otherwise, why even bother creating us this way in the first place? Would God deliberately create us in a way that we are guaranteed to fuck up? What kind of malign thug would do such a thing?

God is Love.

God is Trust.

God is not simply a bully who can't keep his children in line.

God is a parent who loves his children enough to let them make their own mistakes while having faith that those children will eventually do what is right.

The God of the "Loving Parent" believes in us and believes enough in his own competence to know that his creation will come back to him.

The God of the "Strict Father" believes only in himself, yet does not trust his own creation to do what he wants it to do.

The "Strict Father" does not consult with his children about how they should be raised. Does God consult with his creation on how the world should be run? But this equates the "Strict Father" with God. This is blasphemous.

The "Loving Parent" understands that only God is perfect. The "Loving Parent" can never presume that they have all the answers and that they don't, occasionally, need to talk with their children about what is the best way to raise them. This is humility.

The "Strict Father" is all about discipline. You defy the "Strict Father" at the risk of serious punishment. Obedience is the number one priority.

The "Loving Parent" tempers discipline with Love. They don't just punish, they also try to understand how the situation got bad enough that it required punishment. They care about their charges enough to listen to their concerns.

I could go on forever.

The "Loving Parent" is a better frame because there is nothing wimpy about Love.

Monday, November 08, 2004

Dean as DNC chair, Part 2

Here's the first major news story on Dean's possible try for DNC chair. The news that Dean was considering this shouldn't be news to anyone who paid attention to his conference call to the DfA meetups last Wednesday. He talked openly about the idea then and asked Deanizens to send in their thoughts on whether he should try for it or not.

Again I'm conflicted on this, as I said previously. But there is an interesting twist to this story:

[Steve] Grossman [a former DNC chair and backer of Dean during the primaries] said it is not too soon for Democrats to focus on their future leadership.

"I strongly urged (Dean) to seek the position," he said. "Howard is a voice of political empowerment and that to me is important, for the Democrats to get their sea legs back as quickly as possible, to get beyond the disappointment of the last week and to believe there is a bright future ahead for the Democratic Party."

Dean has been outspoken since the beginning of his presidential bid in saying that the Democratic Party must establish a separate and unique identity from Republicans.

Grossman said that if Dean were to run for DNC chair, he would need to pledge that he would serve the full four-year term, thus ruling out a presidential bid in 2008.

Is that really a requirement of the job? Or is it a hint by Grossman that, if Dean were to make such a pledge, the position was his for the taking? Could the DNC be making an offer to Dean of power now if he were to promise not to run in 2008? I'm sure that there are many in the Democratic leadership that would chafe at Dean's chairmanship. But, they might be even more freaked out at the possibility of Dean making a strong bid for the nomination in four years (I think Dean would be the 2nd leading contender, after Hillary). Could this be their attempt to get him out of the picture?

Again, I'm conflicted. I could see lots of positives in this for both Dean and the party (Dean's brand of activism would be immediately ensconced at the highest levels of power), but it could also be an attempt by "certain parties" to promote Dean to irrelevancy. It wouldn't be the first time the nominal head of an organization actually had no real power to get anything done.

I repeat what I said earlier: if Dean takes this position then I think he should do so only if he has a real chance of influencing the direction of the party. The position cannot be that of a figurehead. Dean must not allow himself to be used as a PR tool. But, if Dean can be given guarantees of real power and influence, then I think he should seriously consider taking the job. It might mean giving up the dream of running in 2008. But Dean is, if anything, a pragmatist. He isn't in this just for increasing his own personal power. He's in it to change the system, and where better to do so than as the nominal head of the party?

It would certainly guarantee him a spot at the front of the TV talk show bookers rolodex.

Howard Dean for DNC Chair?

I'm of two minds on this. While I think the Democrats need someone like Dean in a leadership position, I worry that the entrenched interests that have crippled the party in the last decade or so(*) would sabotage and/or co-op any attempt Dean would make at reform. At this point it may be that Dean will continue to have a more positive effect on the party from the outside.

I don't think Dean should take the job unless he can get assurances from the leadership that he will have the authority to make real and lasting changes. He shouldn't allow himself to be used as a figurehead.

(* these are the people who would rather be at the top of the 2nd biggest hill in town than risk losing power if the Democrats were to actually win)