binded by the past

Does the Democratic Party's experience during and after Vietnam have any baring on what it should do now? For three years, the DLC has said so. When I was a staffer there, we had an internal meeting with senior staff letting the junior staff ask questions about the then impending war. Will Marshall insisted it was all about the WMD's and how we couldn't take the risk that Saddam might give them to some terrorists. Us youngins said why would he be so stupid to do that, and anyway it doesn't seem like Saddam has any WMDs anyway, why not have inspections with the threat of military strikes?

And then one of them, maybe it was Ed Kilgore, made the point that Ed Kilgore of 2005 says, it looks bad. The DLC was founded after watching democrats fall flat on their face after being hijacked by the overly liberal wings of the party who appeared weak to middle America's eyes. They saw the Iraq war as a chance to show that democrats are tough and they can be trusted with National Security, something they haven't trusted with since about the Cuban Missle Crisis. It was this good faith, honest belief and effort that drove them to support this terrible war.

Maybe it is a generational thing and since I wasn't alive during the late 60s and early 70s I don't have their superior perspective. But unlike their liberal counterparts, I am not stuck in the mode of equating every war to Vietnam either. Having only older collegues, my parents, and scholarly work to rely on about that era, I don't know if the two are that similar or if history is repeating itself. It is easy for baby boomers to equate the two: they were against the one and for the other. It makes them feel like they are gaining back their idealism by opposing the war at this late stage.

Perhaps Kilgore is right in that the only difference between "benchmarked withdrawal from Iraq based on estimated dates, and a timetable withdrawal contingent on benchmarks" is tone and image. But can't we explain that one policy is better than the other and that neither is "cutting and running?" Are Americans so easily brainwashed by repetitive talking points that Democrats aways cut and run?

The fact is, we are getting out of Iraq soon, the GOP can't afford to keep going at this pace without sacrificing their majorities in Congress and eventually the White House for George W. Bush's attempt to reverse his father's faults. The fact that Bush's plan is Sen Joe Biden's and reality might look a lot like the fall of Siagon in 1972 seems to me that the outcome politically will be different.

Democrats fought against themselves for the most part on Vietnam, with Southern conservative democrats supporting the war for the most part, and liberals from the coasts opposing it. Nixon took over the war that he never started it with a "secret plan" to get us out with dignity and while the results weren't very dignified, his party didn't pay the price. Will George W. Bush's? Who supported it ever step of the way, spinning bad facts month after month? Democrats did split over the war but they all seem to agree that it is going badly and we need to get out.

Kilgore says

The lesson is this: So much as many of us might wish to focus on the policy details of proposals about what to do now in Iraq, you can't take the politics out of politics, and the "tonal" or "contextual" implications of various proposals, despite their substantive similarity, matter a great deal.

Or is the lesson that we need a post-Vietnam generation of leadership on both sides, one that won't see everything from this prism? Perhaps he is right, until the voting population is more post-Vietnam than Vietnamers, we will keep having to relive that war through every national security decsion we make.

TX reredistricting illegal

in our latest we should be shocked but somehow we aren't segment, internal DOJ staffers disgruntled with the blatantly partisan hacks above them leaked their memo to the Washington Post.

It was the unnanimous conclusion of the DOJ staff attorney's in the election law section that Tom "indicted" DeLay's power grab violated the law...yet higher ups overrulled them. It even forced these people to sign gag orders to prevent them from talking about it.

All this comes in the wake of the Supreme Court stalling on its announcement of what to do about the TX redistricting case before it. While juries aren't supposed to read newspapers to arrive at their decisions, I sure hope the court's law clerks and justices are. And I hope it turns at least one hard heart around. The last time a redistricting case like this was heard
Vieth v. Jubelirer [caution, PDF of lengthy opinion] on the Penn. redistricting that was almost as egregious, the court said partisan redistricting is ok by a 5-4 vote. Maybe CJ Roberts will have too much respect for the law and these staff attorneys to look the other way, but it is pretty unlikely alas.

However, one could argue that the two cases are different. Here is not just partisanship for the sake of gaining seats, but at the expense of minorities. Texas went from 30 to 32 seats, but there remained only 11 minorities in their delegation. Moreover, the representation lost 5 democrats in 2004, who supported minorities' interests, even if the representatives are themselves white.

This case needs to say that it was the wrong thing to do on minority rights grounds AND that reredistricting itself is illegal. Otherwise, every time a state legislature changes political hands, parties will be tempted to reredistrict mid-decade, using increasingly inaccurate census data. For example, millions more people live in Texas in 2003 (especially Hispanics) when the reredistricting occured than when the 2000 census was conducted. By relying on old data, you effectily disinfrancizing and weighting some votes more heavily than others. This violates the 1 person, 1 vote holding of Reynolds (which incidently ScAlito seems to want to overturn) set out by the Warren court.

ScAlito's farce ends

Remember when ScAlito's job application surfaced with his proclaimations that he would like to overturn the Warren court, especially the 1 man, 1 vote rule, and oh by the way Roe was wrongly decided? And then, get this, despite having authored a dissent of the last key abortion case (Casey v. Planned Parenthood), he claimed that he was just saying whatever he could to get a job with the solicitor general's office during the Reagan years? Oh what a laugh. Liberals didn't believe him, but of course, the press had to report it as if it was fact because...well don't ask why.

Then FOIA request by the liberal judicial group People for the American Way uncovered an internal ScAlito memo while in said Reagan solicitor general's office trying to convince his boss to file a Amicus brief in support of an abortion restriction. He thought they should use the brief to promote "the goals of bringing about the eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, and in the meantime, of mitigating its effects." And more importantly, to "make clear" to the Supreme Court that we "disagree with Roe v Wade," and "would welcome" the opportunity to brief the issue of overturning it.

So the fake lie has been exposed for all to see. Now remember polls said that if ScAlito was in favor of overturning Roe that the Senate should not vote for him/fillabuster him. If he was for restrictions, well that was a closer issue and moderates could agree to some reasonable limitations. It would seem then that this should be all that pro-choice senators need to vote against ScAlito and possibly even fillabuster him.

The showdown begins in little over a month.

the invisable 2008 primary

Warner made a big spash by prevent Virginia from executing 1,000th person...with help from Ex specical prosecutor Ken Starr and his old oposition for Governor Mark Earley. The merits of case were good for Warner to have it both ways, but appearing concerned about innocence but without really weakening on death penalty, saying clemency should be granted only when the courts have failed to do proper justice. To me this seems like a semi-slap in the face to George Ryan and his mass clemancy of the entire death row in IL.

It was the political play of the week and it is only Tuesday. Warner leaves a good legacy in VA and has a solid base to run from in 2008. His speech on Iraq seemed wanting to many liberals but really inside the Clark-Clinton continum exit policy. This was a great rebound.

the idea free presidency

This week, President Bush is dusting off his immigration policy in typical fashion: all vagueries and platitudes, no specifics. Why no details, it is not as Bush tells the press, because of his view of the constitutional roles that the executitve and legislative branches play, rather, it is a way to sneak in radicial changes and radical policy that would otherwise be unpopular with either his base or the American people. This way he can say one thing to the Pat Bucanan's of his party and another to his Chamber of Commerce friends.

But what is really striking about all this is that the President has done absolutely nothing innovative. Everything he has proposed is either an idea from his 2000 campaign, something he stole from moderate democrats (NCLB, Rx drugs, homeland security, exit plan for Iraq, etc.), or retreads from past presidents (like JFK and the Moon, Reagan and Star Wars).

The only aberation was 9/11, and most of that legislation was created out of the Ashcroft Justice Department and the Cheney West Wing, dedicated to torture, privacy evasion and tossing out the Geneva Convention.

I am all for people doing what they campaign on, but it wasn't like Bush's campaign promises were fulfilled either. Washington has become more corrupt, more partisan, and the White House has been dragged further in the mud by George W. Bush's presidency and tactics than Bill Clinton's. Foreign policy promises of 2000 were banished rapidly and 9/11 was no excuse for the massive military buildup and invasion of Iraq. If anything, the military needed to get more nimble and smarter, not more missles and tanks and planes and helocopters. Environmental promises were banishes, as were all efforts to work with Democrats and concilate.

Instead of having a bold new idea of how to get himself out of his unpopularity, Bush went to the bare cubard and found one dusty can of "immigration reform" which is sure to make the Tom Tancredo's of the world very upset and never really please Hispanics or big business really.

The much ballihooed State of the Union will be a laudry list of fake accomplishments, vagueries and platitudes. I expect nothing new out of this president since he never arrived with any real ideas in the first place.

Post headlines GOP-favored

The Washington Post captions it as McDonnell Wins Attorney General Race, but the real title should be "323 vote win for McDonnell in VA AG race, Deeds requests recount." That would be a better summary and more accurate depiction of what happened.

Here is another example, Medicaid Cutbacks Divide Democrats. Why focus on Democrats when it is also moderate republicans that balk at some of the provisions.

I think it is a good idea for Medicare to make it harder for rich people to hide their assets from the government to gain Medicare coverage, but I think it is a bad idea to

...save $2.4 billion over five years by allowing state governments to impose higher health insurance deductibles, co-payments and premiums on poor Medicaid recipients, including, for the first time, impoverished children and pregnant women. An additional $3.9 billion would be saved by relaxing mandated preventive health care and screening of children and pregnant women.

These savings asume that heath care costs won't be higher at the other end by the inevitable illnesses that children and pregnant women will have that won't be caught by mandated screening. And that $2.4 billion will be coming out of the pockets of those already too poor to afford normal insurance...do we really think that people won't drop out of the program as a result of hiking the premiums?

Why not let those who want to be in medicare via hiding assets buy their way into the system. And how about letting Medicare use its bulk purchasing power to lower the costs of pharmauticles? A good way to save hundreds of billons would be to scrap the prescription drug plan as passed and start over with a real one that will actually cover people and actually cut costs overall.

Here's a third: Rep. Cunningham Enters Guilty Plea, Resigns why not add the big part in there? How about "Cunningham Pleads Guilty to $2.4M in Bribes, Resigns" The first draft of this blog post by Chris Cillizza talked mosly about the tax evasion charges steming from a bribe of a house and boat via various defense industry lobbyists...seemingly an attempt to make the issue confusing and not as damning as bribery for defense contracts during a war. He also tried to equate Democratic Reps. Ballance and Jefferson to GOP Reps. Ney and DeLay. And there is a big difference between a 1st term rep doing something terrible and allegations of a more senior one and what Cunningham, Ney and DeLay, members of the house leadership have done. Cunningham and Ney look to have taken bribes. DeLay and Ney were involved a scheme to push GOPers into K street and Democrats out and meanwhile extort campaign contributions from Native American tribes, and large corporations in exchange for favorable legislation.

That is the the nature of corruption folks. There is no need to muddy the waters but parrotting party talking points. Why not say GOPers compare this to Jefferson and Balance, but here are the differences judge for yourself reader, instead of substituting your opinion or actual facts for dueling press releases? I mean really, how hard is it to report a story?

greeting the seasons

I go out of town for the week, leaving fall and 40s and 50s to 20s and 30s and winter. My welcome back consisted of snowy skies and sleepy streets.

As much fun as it was to see civil war sites, eat great food, and visit the in-laws, I think we are happy to be back. We love our home and this is such a great city.

I am still pretty sleepy though after getting about 5 hours of shut eye and traveling since 7 AM eastern. It is time to get out the winter coats, sweaters and put away those flimsy coats. And time to get out the Christmas decor. Tonight I am reading a passage from Isaiah [40:1-15] at lessons and carrols; advent has begun.

Thanksgiving roundup

hello there...sorry for not posting this week. I am at my in laws out of state and studying for the various finals I have in the coming weeks.

I was reading the Richmond Times-Dispatch this week and it was interesting to see how they talked about Gov.-elect Kaine, who is fulfilling at least one campaign promise by having town hall meetings about transportation around the state of VA. The writers seemed to suggest that the consensus of the Richmond meeting was that people didn't want higher taxes since no one mentioned it, yet that Kaine wanted higher taxes since he referenced the last time the state seriously addressed the issue and said it was solved with higher taxes.

Personally, I don't think Virginia can built its way out of the traffic mess with more freeways. They really just need to make their cities, especially near DC, more commuter friendly by expanding the Metro, Rapid Transit Buses, and VRE (the commuter rail lines that go all the way to Fredericksburg). It seems like everyone has a car and they all want to drive it on the roads right now.

My daily outrage is Justice Scalia's comments about Bush v. Gore. In typical GOPer fashion of late, he blames someone else for his mistake. "The election was dragged into the courts by the Gore people. We did not go looking for trouble." What was really at stake was not who won rather, "The issue was whether Florida's Supreme Court or the United States Supreme Court [would decide the election.] What did you expect us to do? Turn the case down because it wasn't important enough?" How about turn the case down because the Florida Supreme Court got it mostly right.

Gore's people should have challenged statewide and the FL court told them as much but I really don't know why a Federal court should decide state election law.

"I was for medicare before I was against it"

Late last night, those 20-odd GOP congress buckled under pressure and the budget passed, sans ANWAR. Like the 1993 budget, this was a completely partisan affair with no support from one party, which predicited dire results.

This time, the naysayers are right. Why does the GOP-controlled congress feel the need to screw poor people so openly, not to pay for Katrina, but to pay for $70 billion in tax cuts for the rich? There couldn't be a starker contrasts between the parties right now. I am ever so proud of Democrats, conservative and liberal sticking together on this one.

Especially Utahs most popular politican--Democrat US Rep. Jim Matheson! Well the poll isn't that great becuase the stats are suspect to a degree. The margin of error in each congressional district was 8 percent and the number polled was really low--130-145. So perhaps Governor Huntsman is more popular. But Matheson is much more popular than Chris Cannon or Rob Bishop, who hover around 50 percent. Of course, part of that is a high number of people who don't know who they are. Yet those morrons still get reelected because they are Republicans. Amazingly, Bush has a a disapproval rating of 36 in Utah, which is about his popularity rating in the rest of the county. Below is a more detailed run down.

Someday, I hope Jim runs for Senate, I would love to have him suceed Watergate waterbody Bob Bennett and horrific hypocrite Orin Hatch.

the corruption of fame

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notes from a patriot

one of the would be 3Ls at my law school was called up to serve in Iraq. I believe he was Army ROTC in college and he kept telling people that he knew this was part of the deal when he signed up.

For veteran's day, the students have been trying to send out a care package to him. Here are portions of his reply, edits were made to keep him safe:

Fortunately, we don’t need much of anything here. So many people have sent care packages that we have toiletries to last us a decade. The amenities are great too. I’m fortunate enough to be based out of [redacted], a state of the art military camp that even has two swimming pools, a movie theater and [...a] basketball court [...]. Food is plentiful; we have stores; we have everything we need.

Don’t get me wrong. Frankly, Iraq sucks. I much rather take a civil procedure exam from [redacted] than convoy through some of the streets here. (1Ls, you will shortly find out what I mean). But this is a war, and for all its savagery, things aren’t so bad.

Instead of asking for something for himself, our student asked us to do something else:

First, Vote!!! Vote on any election you have the right or privilege to cast a ballot. Whether municipally or nationally, vote. For better or worse, we are here now and we are going to make the best out of it. But having seen the conditions under which most Soldiers are serving here, and having been through two years of Socratic grilling at the U, I can’t help but question whether we came for the right reasons at the right time. At bottom, we reason that the American citizenry voted in support of attacking. However superficial, this logic is the best we got. So vote!

Second, and more pragmatically, instead of sending us stuff, send small toys for us to distribute to the local kids. It’s amazing how far a toy goes. I’ve had the opportunity to travel along on many civil affairs missions and I can tell you that even if only for a minute a toy seems to take these kids away from this ravaged place. These missions have obvious tactical advantages too. But more importantly, they give us the opportunity to put a different face to the coalition. Animal beanie babies are the safest bet, given cultural sensitivities. Hard candy, pens and crayons are also helpful. UofU stickers will also help us broaden our fan base.

Well, I am sure that it is more likely that Sunni and Shia Muslims of Iraq can unite as Ute fans than Cougar fans.

Personally, I have a lot more respect for this student now than I ever did when he was at the law school whining about pens and bubble sheets every 5 emails.

flop of the times

It is the talk of the leftblogosphere: increasing numbers of 2008 Democrats and past staunchly pro-war candidates have said that if they knew then what they know now about pre-war intelligence, that they wouldn't have voted for the Iraq war resolution. The liberal blogs have made such a conversion a litmus test to any Democrat seeking the nomination in 2008, and so far John Edwards, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Dick Gephardt, and a few others have jumped at the command.

Or so it seems. These folks are not reacting to the online activists, rather, they are just politicans looking at the polls. They were in favor of the war when people approved of it 60-40 and now that people are against it 60-40, they are against it to. This latest stance is just a DC consultant correographed pivot.

This is not to say that many of them might actually believe in their stance both times, but their underlying motivation is to do what the masses want or what polls say they want.

Real test shouldn't be how you voted or would have voted in 2002, it should be what your plan is for solving the mess we are in right now. Many faulted Wesley Clark for being vague in his plan, but it was a heck of a lot clearer than George W. Bush's. If someone like Tom Daschle actually wins the nomination, we can count on at least 4 more losing years. But if we get someone like Clark or Warner out there, we at least have a good shot.

Strategery

As happy as I am that Virgina and New Jersey will continue to have competant leadership and hateful campaigning was trounced, I am puzzled about why Bush decided at the last minute to campaign for VA GOP candidate Jerry Kilgore.

I mean, a few months after 9/11, Bush decided not to campaign for Early, was running against Mark Warner. Warner eeks out a victory and Bush saves his political capital for more tax cuts and more war down the road. 4 Years and 2 months after 9/11, and Bush races home from a terrible reception at the summit of the americas to campaign for VA AG Jerry Kilgore in a hanger in Virginina. And yet Bush at this time is WAY more unpopular than he was in 9/11. And Kilgore loses by more than Early.

The math just doesn't add up from a political strategy standpoint. +90% approval, and you pass up getting more Republican governors, especially in states with 9/11 victims as residents commute to NYC and DC. 35-40% approval, and you do a one stop whistle stop campaign.

I guess the Bush team was hoping that Jerry would pull it off, and they could claim credit. And Jerry was glad that it was so close to election day that the majority of Virginians that don't approval of Bush wouldn't notice and those who did would come out and vote. I guess they both were wrong, since Tim Kane is governor elect.

No matter how much Kilgore tried to make it about the death penalty, gays, illegal immigrants, and other wedge issues, people voted for Kaine because they wanted 4 more years of Warner-eque competent government. If only the Virgians of 2005 were the voters of 2000 in swing states across the country, we would be talking about President Al Gore more.

Speaking of presidents, Mark Warner can now begin his presidential campaign. I would say he is my second choice behind Wesley Clark. And if the ticket were Clark/Warner or Warner/Clark, I would be happy.

newer isn't better

Today I walked to my local polling place and voted for Ms. House because "Eric!" failed to respond to an email I sent to his office last year about a problem I had with the trash/recycling. I had enough trouble figuring out the punch card balloting, and eriliy enough in 2000, when voting absentee, I thought to rip off my chad that might have made my vote not count.

But across the country, voters are having difficulties with the Diebolt voting machines. And it isn't just left-wing conspirators, in California, Gov. Schwarzenegger had to cast a provisional ballot for his own intiatives, voters in Virginia couldn't get the machine to let them vote for Democratic candidate for Governor LG Tim Kaine, and Ohio is always problematic. This time, they couldn't find the memory cards.

I think this is going to be a good year across the nation for Democrats: most of the California intiatives will fail (the redistricting scheme was flawed), Most of the reform Ohio Now ballot initiatives will suceeed (I pray that the redistricting one will pass), and we will have Gov. Corzine and Gov. Kaine soon. At least, those are my predictions.

Hot lesbian cheerleaders?

In a rare intersection between football, cheerleaders, and gay rights (and it is not a porn movie), two Carolina Panthers cheerleaders were kicked off for having sex with each other in a Tampa Bay bathroom.

A woman was getting upset that they were hogging the stalls and taking so long, and one of the cheerleader punched that woman in the face.

"The cheerleaders were kicked off the team Monday for violating a signed code of conduct, Panthers spokesman Charlie Dayton said. The two violated a rule that bans conduct that's embarrassing to the team or organization."

What was embarrassing? Engaging in gay sex? punching a woman? Doing it in a bathroom stall? If so, many players should be suspended...like the whole Minnesota Vikings team.

How much do you want to bet either a porn like this has already been made, and if not, will soon? It just goes to show how all those fantasies of players and cheerleaders are just that.

like Bush, like Huntsman

In Utah, this is a compliment still. Yet looking over the longer time range, it is a mistake to hire mostly corporate folks and pay them way more than most government empoyees. The Salt Lake Tribune discovered that

The average salary of a Huntsman staffer is about $10,000 more than what was offered by former Gov. Olene Walker and $13,000 more than the average pay in former Gov. Mike Leavitt's office. These average salaries only count employees paid by the Governor's Office or those who work for the lieutenant governor.

I would just like to think of all the great things these corporate types accomplished for Bush: record spending, record deficits, gross incompetence on matters of life and death, image over substance, etc. Not a good omen to be sure.

And as true fiscal conservatives point out, "The only way that this could be justified is if these new people generate some serious and quantifiable improvements in how the state operates," said Mike Jerman, vice president of the business-backed Utah Taxpayers Association. "Justifying salaries based on the size of government is a built-in incentive to grow government."

Ironic isn't it, that business is attacking its own. Huntsman is the CEO governor like Bush was the CEO governor and then CEO president. Look how well it worked out for Texas and the U.S. Both men's main claim to business fame is that they shared their rich and famous dad's name. Hopefully, Huntsman won't drive this state into the ground like Bush is did in Texas and now is working hard to do on a national scale.

Republican embarressment roundup

ex-FEMA head/current FEMA Consultant, was caught whining about being stuck in the mess Katrina (and he) created saying get me out of here. Not only was he incompetent, but he thought he was more important than the hundreds of thousands of others of people.

Andy Card's people in the white house are talking to the Post, saying Rove needs to go. If Card et al win and Rove is gone, there is no Lazerus left in George W. Bush, these people are too stupid to govern or to spin properly.

Oh and Libby was arraigned. And Karl isn't off the hook.

A belated Happy Halloween! I said bad stuff about Halloween in my prior post, but at least we learned our doorbell was broken. And the little kid I saw in an Elmo costume was pretty cute. But we bought too much candy. 

McConnell heart Scalito

I learned today that my professor worked with Alito at the Solicitor General's office back in the Reagan days. McConnell had many good things to say about Judge Sam, but you could tell he was a bit sad that it wasn't him.

How sad to see your chance come and be passed up three times. I think he would have been a good nominee in terms of getting the judge the right wanted, while getting an easy confirmation. It must be hard, one must wonder what opinion or article I wrote pissed the white house off. I wonder if he met with anyone at the White House.

I hope everyone will enjoy Holloween, becuase I think it is a dumb holiday for everyone over trick or treating age. It let's women dress like whores, men wear dresses, people get drunk and hook up, teens to scare children and destory property.

Is Scalito Radioactive?

Judge Sam Alito's lone dissent on Casey is about as obvious a signal about abortion as possible. This is really is the time to see just how moderate some Republicans really are. Will Specter vote against him based on "super precedent?" What about Chafee, Snowe, or a handfull of other moderate GOPers?

Some think we will be seeing the nuclear option evoked, some see this nominee losing on the floor of the Senate. For all of those Naderities who said there was no difference between Bush and Gore, I would like to make Scalito my exhibit A.