malsperanza

A bit of irrational exuberance. I have corrected the error, but will happily uncorrect it pretty soon, I think.

The sad thing is that the partisan congressional approval process for justices is supposed to drive presidents to propose moderates, however reluctantly. Instead, it has lately driven them (well, the Repuglican ones anyway) to run a lot of impossible extremists with no track record (and therefore no scholarship or experience in constitutional tests) up the flagpole, to try to wear the judiciary committee down.

I assume the Miers nomination was approved by Rove and was expected to fail. It was meant to make women think they could do worse. It was meant to make the left waste its energy blocking her, and it was meant to make the judiciary committee feel uncomfortably rejecting the next one. That's how Rove works. The technique didn't succeed in part because she had absolutely no judicial experience, which made her a risible candidate. But mainly, I think, because the war in Iraq is a shambles, the 2,000 dead mark has been reached, and a fair number of normal conservatives are thoroughly queasy at the way the war was forced through in the first place.

That's why the Haynsworth-Carswell example is inspiring: because judiciary was prepared to reject two nominees in a row. (It helped that Carswell was caught soliciting gay sex in a public bathroom during the nominating process, but he'd have been rejected anyway for his appalling racist statements and sheer lack of ability as a judge.)

Bush and his team probably don't give a hoot in hell about abortion or gay marriage or the right to die or any of the other social issues that so stimulate their Christian base. They have their eyes on the prize: they want the Court to shift the balance of power radically to the Executive. All the rest of it--including states' rights--is secondary. They want to be kings.

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Did you read John Dean's book about the current White House? Interesting comparison case from the horse's mouth :)

I drink a virtual toast with you. My brother asked, is this shadenfreude? I said yes, but is it when it's the likes of this lot? Does "ding dong the witch is dead" count as shadenfreude?

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I haven't read Dean's book. Is it fun?

My mantra these days is: Nixon was *still* worse and we brought him down Nixon was *still* worse and we brought him down Nixon was *still* worse and we brought him down.

It isn't Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is being pleased that the press made a huge deal out of the 2,000th American death, when they scarcely noticed the 1,000th (or of course the 30,000th Iraqi death).

This is righteous glee. Can you imagine what the Repugs would have said if a Democrat had revealed the name of a CIA operative to the press? To, say, Krugman rather than Novak? Burning at the stake would have been revived.

I still can't quite figure out if any of the senators who voted for this war and are now shocked, shocked actually *ever* thought there were WMDs in Iraq. Surely everyone voted for it because they thought the American people wanted a whipping boy for 9/11 and Saddam looked like an easy win?

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I dunno- Al Franken supported the invasion of Iraq, and even made fun of the Dixie Chicks at a Clearchannel rally, so I think it is *possible* for people of brains and good will to have been fooled, though I still don't get how.

Nixon- well, the war was worse. But in some ways the times were better. Certainly the administration's record on policy was much better, though he had little choice. I think when you look at Blackmun or Moynihan or the legislative record, you have to chalk that up to Nixon being prez in an era of Democratic majority. Not so anymore. Allll uphill. And it is soooo hard to get people to believe anything negative about this administration.

I have an economist friend who has periodically worried that Krugman would be assassinated *anyway*.

The Dean book was fun for a quick plow-through- short, easy, and spitting with contempt.

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I didn't know that about Franken. I can think of 2 possible explanations, neither of which makes him out to be very intelligent: He was an angry New Yorker in search of someone to punish, and Evil!Saddam, the Hitler of the Mideast, deserved it, so why not? And/or, he comes from one of those Jewish families for whom the survival of Israel is paramount, a priori, not open to discussion. Any Evil!Dictator who goes after Israel must be obliterated, whether Iran, Iraq, Syria, or for that matter Egypt or Chechnya. The louder the Evil!Dictator uses Israel as a trigger to incite citizen outrage, the more we must obliterate him/ Dan Schorr of NPR falls into this category. When Israel is threatened all his intelligence and analytical judgment goes out the window, and he sounds identical to Bill Kristol or Safire or any of those guys.

I don't pay much attention to Franken--his books or his show. All those SNL folks kind of irritate me. So I don't know if he's ever willing to be skeptical about Israel or not. But what you tell me about his position on Iraq lowers his stock further. Has he recanted?

OTOH, I expect I will vote for Hillary Clinton despite feeling utter contempt for her shallow and self-interested voting record on Iraq and everything else. Because, jesus, a little Democratic party solidarity would go a long way. (And for that matter, what is up with Schumer lately?)

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Sorry for the rant. It's my form of private celebration. Just ignore it.

It's odd how the past seems less awful because things are pretty damn awful now, and god knows we've had a lot of backsliding in the last 20 years. But cast your mind back: Not just the war, the horrible, endless war, which lasted 5 long years more than it would have if Bobby Kennedy had been elected--and that's no small thing (the firebombing of Hanoi, the secret bombing of Cambodia, the millions dead). But also: unreconstructed segregationists all over Congress and partaying in the White House. Compulsive paranoid lying to Congress. Every major city in America burned in the summer of 1970.

Remember Fred Hampton? FBI agents bursting in on US citizens without warrants and murdering them in their beds ... and not getting prosecuted. Tanks in the streets of American cities, suppressing protests with artillery. Artillery and machine guns mounted on jeeps. US citizens killed by the US military on US soil. We speak with horror and fear of the potential consequences if Bush succeeds in repealing the posse comitatus act. Potential consequences? Nixon *did* it. J Edgar Hoover wiretapping everyone, ruining careers and families, as if McCarthyism had never been discredited. Blacklists. Protesters bound and gagged at their own trials. Nixon did things like kill funding for research projects at universities where the antiwar movement was active and withhold federal funds to municipalities out of retaliation and vindictiveness. Cheney could give Nixon a run for his money in the megalomania dept., but he's not that powerful yet--not that imperial.

The policies of those years: well to be sure Nixon had no choice but to enact the widely popular environmental, health, and public-interest laws pushed through mainly by Democrats, but most of the good stuff was either the legacy of Johnson or was shoved through despite his efforts to stall and vitiate it. He sure did what he could to prevent the legalization of abortion. And then there's that pesky Watergate thing. Admittedly, W has also stolen an election, but Nixon made persistent attempts to subvert the Constitution.

I'll give him China: he opened up China. It may have lowered the risk of nuclear war. And Wall Street is forever grateful to him, though I'm not sure the US textile and steel industries are as thrilled. Mysteriously, to this day China is dictatorship with a human rights record that stops just short of cutting children's arms off (a justice technique popular with the secret police of Nixon's buddy the Shah). I dunno: does Bandar of Saudi Arabia, W's dear friend, also do that sort of thing? Perhaps.

We've backslid in the laws, but socially and culturally I remind myself that the record is not as grim as it sometimes seems. Oddly, I think we have continued to creep forward--witness the inexorable forward motion of gay rights, despite the heartfelt passion and political mobilization of the opposition. When Harold Washington ran for mayor of Chicago in 1983 people wore campaign buttons with a watermelon with a red slash over it--no words, and plain white campaign buttons with nothing on them at all. Hard to imagine that happening today except maybe in Bumfuck, TX. That was Nixon's legacy: If Reagan made greed and blind self-interest acceptable, Nixon made venomous hatred and rabid bigotry acceptable.

If the Iraq war lasts another 9 years and expands to Iran and Syria; if the inner cities collapse in a welter of desperate poverty, if we let the Homeland Security gang go as far out of control as the FBI once was, and if the CIA interferes in enough elections in other people's countries (which they're probably doing); if we support the return of apartheid in South Africa and assassinate, say, Chavez in Venezuala, if install Saddam's heirs in Iraq; then we will be at the level of 1970. Certainly arresting people without trial and declaring them enemy combatants and putting them in torture cells offshore is a crime worthy of Nixon. And we are doing worse things: destroying the global economy, the global environment, running mercenary armies in Africa... today we have Halliburton. In 1970 it was Bechtel and the Trilateral Commission. Some things never change.

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One thing that's especially gratifying is that even the right-wing commentators seem to have had the wind kicked out of them by the indictment. Doing some opposition research at NRO, a few of the usual suspects are whining about the unfairness of it all, but most seem to be conceding that Libby got nailed fair and square.

I wonder if that's one more happy result of the Miers debacle -- the Administration's traditional defenders feel an increased risk of looking ridiculous, of looking like pathetic and reflexive butt-kissers, if they move too quickly into their usual defensive formation. Who wants to be Hewitt, who wants to be Dobson, left dangling out there as a too-obvious sycophant? If their morale and solidarity is cracking that way, that's excellent news too.

Also, congratulations on the boss thing! "Loathsome and useless" -- I think there's a Master's in that at B-school.

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Thing is, they were all lying liars to begin with. It's not like they didn't *know*. They are makers up of shit. They just have to lie low for a while; the people who bully/hide behind bullies obviously only act as aggressors when they are sure they're going to win.

Opposition Research! That's what we called it when I worked for Dukakis! :)

And yes, E, congrats on the boss!

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Oh, sure they knew. All along. But when the force is with you, you don't care -- they were grooving on their own BS, and it was working to advance their agenda, which was all that mattered since all the propaganda is just instrumental, anyway.

The change, which is something I'm perhaps wishfully seeing here, is that their confidence in the forward progress of the movement might be faltering. They're watching their backs, they no longer have confidence that Bush isn't setting them up for humiliation and failure, or that he isn't ready to abandon them if he has to. And so the monolith starts to crumble. That's my story, anyway. :)

Opposition research -- oh, I read the wingers whenever I can stand to. Sometimes it makes me turn purple, and I stop. But I like to know what they're thinking. It seems only prudent!

Dukakis -- ah, the days of innocence! Wish you guys had found more dirt on papa Bush. :P

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Wish you guys had found more dirt on papa Bush. :P

It wasn't my fault! Honest! The candidate didn't want to attack- all we could do was turn purple :)

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17 years later, just between you and me, can we admit that he was kind of a wuss? :)

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We could use a good wuss right now.

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I wouldn't mind wusses so much, except that they keep getting beaten. :(

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Yup, in the great battle of Democrats vs. Democrats, the Democrats keep losing. It's like being a Red Sox fan.

All the Karl Roves in the world can't do as much sheer dumb damage as one little Cindy Sheehan attacking Hillary Clinton. Hey Cindy, what about the Repuglicans, who ALL voted for the war? http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00237

Yeesh.

I didn't think Kerry or Gore were wusses so much as stiffs. They just ran dumbfuck bad campaigns, is all. *throws darts at Bill Daley*

The day the Democrats learn how to speak in words of one syllable and just keep repeating "My aged mother can't afford her medicine" and "Those rich millionaire Repuglicans want you to pay more at the gas pump" and "Repuglicans don't care about people like you and me" and "How come it seems like the hurricanes are worse when Repuglicans are in the White House?" and "Remember 9/11" (whatever that means), that's the day we will win an election.

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FWIW I actually liked Gore, even found his occasional nerdiness kind of endearing. I still cannot figure out how he didn't blow Bush away. *checks pockets for wallet* Kerry, I don't know. Don't get me started.

I hadn't seen where Cindy Sheehan attacked Hillary. You know, I really wanted to like Sheehan, and I certainly sympathize personally, but she is turning out to be such a self-righteous gasbag. People don't like moral blackmail, especialy when they're on the fence and want to be solicited and flattered just a little bit. 50+1, people, 50+1! Gotta mix it up and get your hands dirty.

Democrats v. Democrats

And a day later, same old story on the Libby indictment, I think. The Post Saturday regretted Libby's perjury but suggested that the outcome proved there was no conspiracy or retribution behind the leak. Grrr. So many fairminded people bending over backwards, perhaps to improve the angle of penetration, as though this was a friendly tennis game where each side calls its own outs. Now my, um, NRO bellwether data shows the Bushies, after reeling the first day, and are singing in unison, going on and on about the unfairness and pettiness of the charges. Way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!

I really hope that Friday's indictment was just about Fitzgerald "showing the implements," and that he hopes to extract more info now that he has leverage. I have to believe that, anyway.

It's funny how four paragraphs of political talk can make me feel all grouchy. We need more lit talk! I've fallen in love with NYRB press: wonderful and relatively obscure editorial selections for their fiction, and beautifully produced paperbacks. Are you a fan? I've more or less delegated my winter reading to them -- not mindlessly, but a significant subset of what they've put out looks compelling, and I've been on a book buying spree lately. I have to post about it, and about some of their minor classics, when I can collect my thoughts.

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