Politics: June 2003 Archives

When presidents pick someone to fill a job in the government, it's typically a very public affair. The White House circulates press releases and background materials. Congress holds a hearing, where some members will pepper the nominee with questions and others will shower him or her with praise. If the person in question is controversial or up for an important position, they'll rate a profile or two in the papers. But there's one confirmation hearing you won't hear much about. It's convened every Tuesday morning by Rick Santorum, the junior senator from Pennsylvania, in the privacy of a Capitol Hill conference room, for a handpicked group of two dozen or so Republican lobbyists. Occasionally, one or two other senators or a representative from the White House will attend. Democrats are not invited, and neither is the press.

Lobbyists getting in the way? Annex them.

[via Metafilter]

"Cities need a people climate more than they need a business climate," Florida says. They need technology, but they also need talent and tolerance. In his book, he describes three kinds of high-tech communities: the "nerdistans" of the Silicon Valley; "latte towns" like Boulder, "with plentiful outdoor amenities"; and older urban areas whose rebirth is "fueled by a combination of creativity and lifestyle amenities." Leading creative centers have all three types. Leading creative centers like Boston, San Francisco, Austin and, yes, Denver: "The Denver region combines the university and lifestyle assets of Boulder with abundant skiing and the urban character of its LoDo district."

An interesting article about the philosophies shared by The Hick (hizoner John Hickenlooper) and Richard Florida, author of "The Rise of the Creative Class" The future is bright for Denver.

[via Coyote Gulch]

Nader says that if the Greens reject him, he might choose to run as an independent, or possibly even as a Republican, which would pit him against George W. Bush in the primary.

"Wouldn't that be interesting? A Republican run?" he muses.

When asked why a campaigner so closely identified with progressive causes would contemplate running for the White House as a candidate from a party on the other end of the political spectrum, Nader answers without missing a beat.

"To give the American people a choice as to the political institutions they desire and the clean elections they deserve," he said. "Isn't that what politics should be all about?"

Uhm... I'm not even sure what to say about this. I think I like it. I wonder how the mechanics of this would work. Are there enough open primaries in Red states that this could cause problems for Bush requiring him to waste some time and money on dealing with Nader?

[via Political Wire]

In a series of interviews, Beers, 60, critiqued Bush's war on terrorism. He is a man in transition, alternately reluctant about and empowered by his criticism of the government. After 35 years of issuing measured statements from inside intelligence circles, he speaks more like a public servant than a public figure. Much of what he knows is classified and cannot be discussed. Nevertheless, Beers will say that the administration is "underestimating the enemy." It has failed to address the root causes of terror, he said. "The difficult, long-term issues both at home and abroad have been avoided, neglected or shortchanged and generally underfunded."

The focus on Iraq has robbed domestic security of manpower, brainpower and money, he said. The Iraq war created fissures in the United States' counterterrorism alliances, he said, and could breed a new generation of al Qaeda recruits. Many of his government colleagues, he said, thought Iraq was an "ill-conceived and poorly executed strategy."

Rand Beers, National Security Council member for the last 4 Presidents and model bi-partisan team player has resigned and signed on to John Kerry's campaign staff as a national security advisor.

He had briefly considered a think tank or an academic job but realized that he "never felt so strongly about something in my life" than he did about changing current U.S. policies.

He has some eye-opening things to say (or not-so-eye-opening, since skeptics outside the White House intelligence apparatus were saying similar things) on the the REAL war on terror from his position as one of its primary combatants. Give it a read.

[via The Note]

"The way he raises money shows what kind of trouble democracy is in in this country," said Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and a Democratic presidential candidate. "My guess is that he'll raise as much as all the Democrats put together, and he'll be able to do that because he's the president and he is able to sell access."

If history is any guide, it is doubtful that these kinds of criticism will have much influence on voters. "It's an issue that's very intense for a very small number of voters," Dr. Dean said.

And the Democrats, as several Republicans noted, are doing precisely what Mr. Bush is doing, albeit not as effectively, making it that much harder for them to complain.

"The Democrats have no choice but to try to make money Bush's liability," said one Republican fund-raiser. "They have to try to tie the money to special interests, tie the special interests to unpopular issues and then tie it all around Bush's neck. The problem is that Democrats are taking special interest money, too."

The New York Times on Bush's fund-raising plans and the potential bear trap awaiting Democrats.

[via The Note]

When the weapons of mass destruction turned up missing, you knew it had to happen: Someone would ask the Watergate Question. Not surprisingly, it was feisty Howard Dean, who attacked President George W. Bush in Iowa the other day by demanding, “What did he know and when did he know it?” The implication: that Bush lied so he could drag us into a distracting, counterproductive war in Iraq.

I’M SURE DEAN felt good taking the jab, and his audience loved it. But if the Democrats want to beat Bush next year, they aren’t going to do it by turning him into Nixon of Arabia. If the president is vulnerable on terrorism — and he may be — the real question will be, “Are we safer than we were on 9/11?” If Bush can’t answer “yes,” then he’ll be in jeopardy and Iraq will look like a misadventure — no matter what the president knew when.

Howard Fineman makes an interesting point on why "Where's the WMD's" is the wrong question.

Daily Kos has worked with the Democratic Party to help narrow the GOP's massive cash advantage. Our nominee will emerge from the primaries bloodied and broke, only to run smack head into $200 million in GOP attack ads. The DNC recognizes the increasing power of the blogosphere, and was receptive when I approached them with a request -- give us the tools to help the party and our nominee defeat Bush. The end result? ePatriots. So donate now and help us retake our nation from Bush and his cabal. Your donations will be crucial to this effort.

The DNC is planning on making it easy for the blogosphere to put its money where its collective mouth is. Kos is testing it out and raised $4000+ in a few hours yesterday. The small individual donor is the big difference between the Democratic and Republican parties - the Republicans have them, the Democrats want them. This could be big.

To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."

It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly is a serious abuse of presidential power.

Nixon claimed that his misuses of the federal agencies for his political purposes were in the interest of national security. The same kind of thinking might lead a President to manipulate and misuse national security agencies or their intelligence to create a phony reason to lead the nation into a politically desirable war. Let us hope that is not the case.

Former Nixon attorney John Dean on the possibilities facing President Bush.

[via DrudgeReport]

In the season of their discontent -- out of power and on the defensive -- Democrats are looking for inspiration and leadership. A bunch of them found it yesterday in the unassuming figure of Wes Boyd, the man who gave America the flying toaster.

An interesting profile in the Washington Post about Wes Boyd, founder of Berkeley Systems (the folks behind the Flying Toasters - which any old-school Mac owner should recognize) and MoveOn.org, one of the fastest growing online progressive political organizations around.

Separation of the spheres also depends on an unspoken deal, a nonaggression pact, between democracy's political majority and capitalism's affluent minority. The majority acknowledge that capitalism benefits all of us, even if some benefit a lot more than others. The majority also take comfort in the belief that everyone has at least a shot at scoring big. The affluent minority, meanwhile, acknowledge that their good fortune is at least in part the luck of the draw. They recognize that domestic tranquility, protection from foreign enemies, and other government functions are worth more to people with more at stake. And they retain a tiny yet prudent fear of what beast might be awakened if the fortunate folks get too greedy about protecting and enlarging their good fortune.

Michael Kinsley in Slate on the Bush-coordinated breakdown between the opposing (but equally necessary) spheres of Capitalism and Democracy.

In a similar vein, Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics comments on this TAPPED post regarding the motivation behind Republican tax policies and how similar idiocy brought down Margaret Thatcher and made the Tories effectively un-electable to the present-day in much of the UK:

Apparently Rep. DeMint has argued that it is necessary to make the tax system more regressive. DeMint said that "unless something is done, most people will have no reason not to keep voting for more government, because they won't be paying for it." Exempting too much of the low-income groups would give them little reason to vote for a smaller government - others would be paying for it. Tapped also published a letter from Bruce Bartlett, a conservative columnist, who argued that the evidence seemed to show that narrowing the tax base tended to help the Republicans, since it increased the voting levels among the rich, rather than widening it as the Republicans have recently done.

The Tories tried to increase the regressivity of the tax code about 15 years ago in order to ensure that every one would want to vote for a smaller government. And that was at the heart of why Margaret Thatcher lost her job and why the Tories remain unelectable across much of London, Scotland, Wales, and within much of the educated middle class.

Brew pub owner John Hickenlooper cruised to victory tonight in the race to be Denver's first new mayor in more than a decade.

With about 103,000 ballots counted, Hickenlooper has nearly twice as many votes as city Auditor Don Mares.

Hickenlooper had 65 percent to Mares' 35 percent. All but one precinct has been counted.

Hickenlooper, who rebounded after losing his job as a geologist in the 1980s oil bust to launch a Lower Downtown brewpub and open a string of restaurants, was the favorite heading into today's election to succeed Wellington Webb, whose 12 years in the mayor's office end on July 21.

Beer for everybody!

You can watch the results 'live' starting when the polls close at 7pm.

But increasingly, critics are asking some pointed questions: Is broadcast television worth saving, especially when the industry arguably has abandoned the pact struck decades ago — that is, in exchange for serving the "public interest," TV stations get to use the airwaves for free? Why give broadcasters the ability to become more profitable when many of them no longer air the kind of community-oriented programming that once was their mandate?

Might it make more sense for Uncle Sam to fatten its coffers by taking back the airwaves and selling them to the highest bidder?

Some interesting thoughts on the FCC's role in the modern media landscape. Why should NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox get to make money off a medium they don't pay for, especially when their 'public service' is a joke. Take the spectrum back, auction it off to cell phone providers, wireless internet companies, etc and use the money to subsidize pay-tv for those that don't already have it. If we're not getting our end of the bargain, lets just dump the bargain. Interesting thoughts.

[via Slate]

Don't forget to vote tomorrow! I saw Don Mares running around 16th St Mall with a pack of sign-wavers this afternoon (after a fine lunch at Mt Everest) looking for people to vote for him. Make sure he doesn't find enough ;)