Archive for the “Politics” Category

It comes as no surprise that Rod Blagojevich is still acting as though  a) he’s done absolutely nothing wrong and b) anyone who would imply such a thing is obviously out of their mind. While the state of Illinois continues to research ways they can send Blago and his plastic Ken hair packing, he is carrying on as if business were usual (although, sadly, a corrupt governor is “business as usual” in that state). The question, then, regarding his appointment of Roland Burris to Obama’s vacant Senate seat is not “Why did he do that knowing that his time in office is short and his favor in the Senate even shorter?” That part is easy to figure out. Blago’s ego could be used as an alternative fuel source. The real question is why Roland Burris would accept. 

Roland Burris, 71, is a former state Attorney General and comptroller but hasn’t held a public office in over a decade. He had expressed interest in the vacated Senate seat immediately following Obama’s election but Burris wasn’t seen as a contender. Burris was still second on the list after Blago’s scandal erupted and people scattered so as not to look guilty by association. Blago’s first choice- Rep. Danny Davis- turned down the position because he felt that Blago had “lost his moral authority”. 

Why would Burris accept? Does he think that Blago’s “moral authority” cup runneth over? Or is he grasping at what may be his last shot at a higher level political office? The latter seems more likely. Burris has run for governor (three times), mayor of Chicago and the Senate- all without a victory. But why grasp at an opportunity if it comes tainted? 

While no one is accusing Burris of any wrongdoing, his association with Blago is paving his road to office with debris. Efforts will be made to prevent Burris from taking that seat. Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White refused to certify any documents pertaining to Blago’s appointed Senator (though the move is more ceremonial than effective). But the Senate Democrats have considerably more bite behind their bark. The fifty sitting Senators had signed a letter calling for Blago’s resignation and making it clear that they wouldn’t allow a Senator chosen by him play in any of their reindeer games. 

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Paul Krugman reported having a spot of trouble the other day:

Unusually, I’m having a vocabulary problem. There has to be some word for the kind of person who considers his mild discomfort the equivalent of torture, crippling injury, or death for other people. But I can’t think of it.

What brings this to mind is this from Alberto Gonzales:

“I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.”

I can certainly understand how such a statement would leave one dumbfounded. However, I’m more than happy to suggest a few words that may fit the situation. Narcissist. Sociopath. Asshat.

Anything else I can do for you, Paul, or is my work here done?

In yet another sign that for some folks too much is never enough, Jeb Bush is eyeing a Senate run in 2010. Via Politico:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — the son of one president and the brother of another — has been working the phones since Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) announced earlier this month that he won’t seek reelection in 2010. Sources say Bush hasn’t made up his mind about running for Martinez’ seat, but that he’s getting green lights from would-be contributors and blessings from Republican Party leaders.

One would think that the name “Bush” would be political poison for the next ten generations. Apparently, one would be wrong:

Although Bush’s older brother will leave the White House next month with approval ratings around 30 percent, sources say that the former Florida governor is hearing from GOP leaders that the Bush family name won’t be a barrier if he decides to enter the race.

“Quite the opposite, actually,” said one source close to Jeb Bush. “What he’s found is that everyone is encouraging him to run. It’s actually been a little overwhelming.”

This is largely based on Jeb’s not-entirely-incompetent record as governor of Florida, but the bar has been set low when the lack of flailing, disastrous incompetence is seen as sufficient qualification in and of itself.

While it’s true that Jeb has always been considered the smart one, we would do well to remember that, like other smart ones, this is at best a relative measure, as a small gallery will attest:

Okay, day after Christmas, back at it. Paul Krugman graced us with this in yesterday’s New York Times:

…President-elect Barack Obama, riding a wave of revulsion over what conservatism has wrought, has said that he wants to “make government cool again.”

Before Mr. Obama can make government cool, however, he has to make it good.

True enough, as the last eight years have stripped a lot of the “good” out of government. For inspiration, Krugman looks to the New Deal and the wave of reforms swept in along with it:

How did F.D.R. manage to make big government so clean?

A large part of the answer is that oversight was built into New Deal programs from the beginning. The Works Progress Administration, in particular, had a powerful, independent “division of progress investigation” devoted to investigating complaints of fraud. This division was so diligent that in 1940, when a Congressional subcommittee investigated the W.P.A., it couldn’t find a single serious irregularity that the division had missed.

But herein lies the problem: Krugman assumes that the absence of any evidence of corruption means anything in today’s political climate. Sadly enough, it doesn’t.

Let us recall, if we may, the last time the nation went through a transition between presidential administrations. We were told in all seriousness that the outgoing Clinton administration had physically trashed and looted the West Wing:

Leading the cry against the trashing of the White House was the Fox News Channel. Virtually every major Fox personality reported it as fact, often expressing their own personal outrage. Guests on the channel chimed in, condemning the Clintons and their staffers.

Trouble is, it never happened. Not at all. According to who? The government itself, in the form of the General Services Administration:

Responding to a request from Rep. Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican, who asked for an investigation, the GSA found that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

“The condition of the real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy,” according to a GSA statement.

But it didn’t matter, you see, because the story was already out there and had already been widely reported; it became part of the conventional wisdom that the Clintonistas had trashed the place and the Bushies rose above it like gentlemen. This fit with the press narrative of the time, which was the facile contention that the “grown-ups” were back in charge. Given a choice between a story that fits the dominant narrative and a story that fits the facts, the Washington press corps has shown time and time again that they’ll always go for the former.

This is the more serious problem the Obama administration faces, for even if they manage to run a completely squeaky-clean administration they’ll still be running up against the dominant narrative, which is that government is filled with waste, corruption and fraud and that public assistance programs are only good for giving out large bundles of cash to the lazy and undeserving.

Until we have a press corps that behaves a little less like extras in a scene from Heathers, this will be an issue, and unless Obama plays to their collective ego as skillfully as Bush did, it’ll be a tough slog.

One of the biggest challenges we face as a nation is making facts matter again. I’m optimistic about a lot of things, but I’m afraid hoping for this might be pushing it a tad.

This oughta blow your mind:

And while he will miss many things about Washington, he won’t miss “the petty name-calling,” Mr. Bush said.

“I came with the idea of changing the tone in Washington, and frankly didn’t do a very good job of it,” he said.

I…just…wow. Wow. This is understatement on a scale so epic it’s impossible to express. I can only find adequate descriptive power in pictures:

From the Chicago Tribune:

Outside the governor’s home on Chicago’s Northwest Side, Blagojevich promised a very public re-emergence soon.

“I can’t wait to begin to tell my side of the story and to address you guys and most importantly the people of Illinois, that’s who I’m dying to talk to,” Blagojevich said before heading out for a morning jog. “There’s a time and place for everything. That day will soon be here.”

I can’t wait either; my guess is that it’ll involve some O.J.-like hunt for the “real bribers” or something.

I know, I know, I said I wouldn’t keep beating this poor dead horse, but wow, when you get a line like this you just can’t stay away:

A Tribune photographer later spotted Blagojevich jogging, and the governor said he runs for exercise, to clear his head and because “it keeps love in your heart.”

And thus does the farcical slow-motion train wreck continue.

Roughly two weeks after Mel Martinez (R-FL) announced he would not be seeking reelection in 2010, another Republican Senator has announced his intentions to retire from his seat. Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas is expected ot make the announcement tomorrow. It is speculated that he has his eyes on the position of governor.

Current Gov. Kathleen Sebelius may, in turn, make a run for the Senate seat. Sebelius was in the Veepstakes earlier this year and was rumored to be on the shortlist for a Cabinet position but she withdrew her name from consideration to focus on her state’s economic situation. Republicans that might run include Reps. Todd Tiahrt and Jerry Moran. 

More on what the 2010 Senate race map might look like: 

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is exploring her own 2010 gubernatorial bid; if she decides to run, it would create a third open Republican seat in 2010. Democrats, who gained at least eight Senate seats in the 2008 elections, only have to defend 15 seats in 2010, while Republicans have to protect 19.

Democrats currently hold a 58 to 41 seat edge over Republicans in the chamber with the Minnesota contest between GOP Sen. Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken still unresolved.

 

Anyone remember the Elian Gonzales to-do several years back? Well, if you’re a bit fuzzy on the details, never fear, because the same Senate Republicans who just told the American middle class to drop dead have decided that an even better use of their time is revisiting the whole over-the-top Gonzales fiasco. Via McClatchey:

Elian Gonzalez could play a role in the upcoming confirmation hearings for Barack Obama’s nominee for attorney general, with Senate Republicans requesting details from the Clinton presidential library and the Department of Justice of Eric Holder’s role in the 2000 seizure of the Cuban boy in Miami.

Eight Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee fired off letters last week to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Ark., and to Attorney General Michael Mukasey seeking any documents prepared for or sent to Holder or his staff on a variety of Clinton-era controversies, including “the April 22, 2000, raid in Miami, Fla., by Border Patrol agents to take Elian Gonzalez into custody.”

Any time there’s a new administration riding into Washington, it seems like at least one appointee has to be the sacrificial lamb, having their nomination scuttled by something or other, usually something lacking any grand significance. Looks like this time it’s going to be Holder who gets either vigorously defended or thrown to the wolves, whichever the current script calls for.

And for all I know there may be valid reasons to oppose Holder. For starters, his role in the Mark Rich pardon, one of the seamier presidential pardons ever issued, sticks in my craw a bit.

But Elian Gonzales? Seriously? Can’t they do any better than that? Is this really their “A” material, dredging up memories of the constantly-fainting Marisleysis and the creepy fisherman who wasn’t really a fisherman? I mean, it certainly made for great spectacle (as I’m sure Moue’s Florida natives could attest), but as a reason to hold up the nomination of a U.S. Attorney General it’s beyond thin.

Maybe it’s a Hail Mary pass to try to find something to go along with the Rich pardon, or maybe it’s a sop to the hard-right portion of the Cuban-American community, regardless of the fact that both the numbers and influence of said community are dwindling. Whatever it is, it’s ridiculous. The only place the saga of Elian Gonzales has in American life is as a three-minute segment on one of those VH-1, D-list celebrity-infested “I Love the [insert past decade here]” shows, the ones constantly interrupted by commercials for the Shamwow.

From The Editors, the best explanation of Bush’s shoe-dodging I’ve yet seen:

Judged as a display of alertness and ninja prowess, the President’s dodge is, indeed, impressive.  But George W. Bush has spent most of his life fucking things up horribly, and then escaping any consequences for his incompetence and indifference.  This is who he is.  What you have seen is not a moment of quick thinking, it was  the man’s essence.  He always escapes unharmed.

From the “not really news to those who’ve been paying attention” files comes this little ditty from UPI:

An investigation of the U.S. Interior Department found serious flaws related to 15 decisions on policies for species at risk of becoming extinct, said the report delivered to Congress by Inspector General Earl E. Devaney.

One of those decisions involved reducing the number of waterways considered critical habitat for the endangered bull trout, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported Tuesday.

The report describes “something akin to a secret society residing within the Interior Department that was colluding to undermine the protection of endangered wildlife and covering for one another’s misdeeds,” said Rep. Nick J. Rahall II, D-W.V., who leads the House Natural Resources Committee.

Hm. Collusion within the Bush administration to undermine the integrity of a department’s stated mission. Shocking.

Boy, good thing that never happened anywhere else like, say, the Justice Department. Then we’d really have a mess.

Sarcasm aside, this is emblematic of what’s been happening all over the executive branch for the past eight years: replacement of people who know what they’re doing with vacuous ideologues whose only purpose is to push the ideology. It’s going to take years upon years to clean up this mess.

Have we figured out yet why it’s a bad idea to give governmental power to people who don’t like government?