"... don't fundamentally oppose the earmarking process -- to back off the omnibus, according to a Republican leadership aide. Part of it was that, though bipartisan, the bill itself included funding for key Democratic priorities that in the current political environment no Republican supports, or wants to be accused of supporting. The omnibus included $1 billion in spending to implement the health care law -- a provision no Republican wanted to de facto support."
Yes, it's also the 10-year anniversary of the big Florida recount. I wish I'd been blogging then! It would have been so much fun to write about that every step of the way. I'd have liked to show you in real time that I really wanted my guy, Al Gore, to win, and I also accepted nearly everything the Supreme Court did in the complicated litigation over the recount. But there are so many missed blogging opportunities in the past. I'd have loved to have blogged the Clinton scandals too. And the Clarence Thomas hearings. The Bork hearings.
As if things couldn't get any weirder, did you notice the name of the lawyer who made the Republicans' unsuccessful arguments before that federal judge today? That would be Ted Olson, a man Washingtonians often refer to as a 'Washington super-lawyer.' Who is Ted Olson? Well, that would be the same one knee-deep in the Arkansas Project, which in league with the American Spectator spent a ton of money digging dirt on Bill Clinton in Arkansas....
Well, now, isn't that weird? I just blogged this morning about that Think Progress blogger who confronted Justice Alito and he was going on about the Arkansas Project:
Last night, the American Spectator — a right-wing magazine known for its role in the “Arkansas Project,” a well-funded effort to invent stories with the goal of eventually impeaching President Clinton — held its annual gala fundraising event....
That first TPM post wove Justice Scalia into its conspiracy-ish riff:
Of course, Olson... is also the Olson from Morrison v. Olson, the supreme court case which upheld the constitutinality of the Independent Counsel statute. Olson was against it. Come to think of it, we Dems now think he and Scalia were right. So maybe chalk one up in his favor.
So that's how TPM first talked about law. Yikes. Spelled "constitutionality" wrong too.
I'm going to start reading the lefty blogs more and writing about them, I think. I'm interested in the way they string ideas together, and I think they need some more push back.
A (Republican) Senate candidate has been called a witch. A (Republican) gubernatorial candidate has been called a whore. And now... a — guess which party? — House candidate is tarred with Nazi.
"Why is This GOP House Candidate Dressed as a Nazi?" You may click to see Rich Iott — posing and smiling in 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking uniform with 3 of his closest Nazi friends... I mean... with 3 of his fellow WW2 reenacters. "It's purely historical interest in World War II." Hmm. Yeah. The high-profile article — by Joshua Green in The Atlantic — goes on, stoking your suspicion that a guy who dresses up and plays the part of Nazi has got to feel some affinity for Nazis. Sample:
Iott participated in the group under his own name, and also under the alias "Reinhard Pferdmann," which has also been removed, and which Iott described as being his German alter ego. "Part of the reenactor's [experience]," Iott said, "is the living-history part, of really trying to get into the persona of the time period. In many, not just in our unit, but in many units what individuals do is create this person largely based on a Germanized version of their name, and a history kind of based around your own real experiences. 'Reinhard' of course is 'Richard' in German. And 'Pferdmann,' 'pferd' is a horse. So it's literally 'horse man.'"
I was very far into the position of thinking man, this guy should not have been the candidate, what a screw-up for the Republicans when I got to this information — buried at the end of the 13th paragraph of the 15-paragraph article:
[Iott] added that he has participated in re-enactments as a Civil War Union infantryman, a World War I dough boy and World War II American infantryman and paratrooper.
What?! Green should be ashamed of himself for minimizing this. The 13th paragraph is about follow-up email with Iott. Did Green have the whole damning article written when he encountered this crucial piece of information? And then he decided — what? — to stick it where it's least likely to be read? A decent journalist would have ascertained how many war reenactments Iott has done and which roles Iott played in them. What is the proportion of Nazi roles he assumed compared to the number of times he played WW2 American infantrymen or paratroopers? Who decides, when war reenactments are done, which side somebody plays? Give me a realistic picture of what participation in war reenactments is really like so I can assess what Iott did.
Instead, Green's article is filled out with the well-known information that the Nazis were bad and that Jews and others are offended by signs that a person is sympathetic to Nazis. It's pretty obvious that Green is hot to smear Iott and help the Democrat in the race. And, unsurprisingly, the Democratic blogosphere welcomes Green's hearty slab of biased reporting.
TPM's Josh Marshall types up "Marcy Kaptur's Good Night's Sleep" ("whatever worry she may have had about reelection, I think that's over now that her opponent Rich Iott has been revealed as an avid Nazi reenactor"). Also at TPM ,Evan McMorris-Santoro has a long piece that looks like a rewrite of Green's piece, except that it leaves out the crucial information about other reenactments altogether. How incredibly slimy!
Look! Over there! Nazis! They're eeeevil! Sorry, but I'm looking over here, at journalists who should be ashamed of their shoddy political hackery.
2. And speaking of "you," the Delaware Senate Candidate Christine O'Donnell, known for her spooky assertion "I am you," is in trouble for claiming that her father was Bozo. TPM has untangled the web of possible lies. Why would you claim to be the offspring of Bozo if you weren't?
3. Clowns stage a protest against the anti-clown bigotry. "It's very unfair to portray us as evil. I have always been a clown, I have grown up around clowns, my father and my grandfather were clowns and we are not evil."
That's what Talking Points Memo says. I'm trying to understand the theory by which it's racially insensitive. The only thing close, in my view, and I know it's not TPM's, is that the remark contains the unwitting assumption that gay people are white. TMP notes Coulter's explanation:
It was part of a larger argument on which she later elaborated, telling the crowd that the 14th Amendment only applies to African-Americans and that it does not, in fact, apply to women, LGBT people or other minorities.
Can I get a quote? I don't trust this paraphrasing. She said the 14th Amendment only applies to black people? Or did she say that the 14th Amendment should be understood with some reference to its historical context of insuring rights for the freed slaves? It's not the same thing, TPM.
... according to a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll. Yes, we have to stop first and wonder how good are the Daily Kos/Research 2000 pollsters. I picked up this story at Talking Points Memo, where there's no information about why I should trust this poll. How did they locate their 2,000 "self-identified" Republicans, who, TPM tells us represent "the psyche of the minority party's base"?
And I know that plenty of conservatives won't call themselves "Republicans." I'd like to see a poll that delves into the reasons people who call themselves "Republicans" choose to call themselves "Republicans" and why others reject the label, despite being conservative.
Also, I wonder if some people who aren't conservative at all lie to pollsters — especially a poll with a lefty name like "Daily Kos" — so they can skew the results and give those folks the results they imagine the poll is designed to produce: that non-liberals are evil/stupid.
Nevertheless, let's read the results of this poll:
• 39% of Republicans want President Obama to be impeached.
• 63% think Obama is a socialist.
• Only 42% believe Obama was born in the United States.
• 21% think ACORN stole the 2008 election -- that is, that Obama didn't actually win it, and isn't legitimately the president, with 55% saying they are "not sure."...
• 53% think Sarah Palin is more qualified than Obama to be president.
• 23% want to secede from the United States.
• 73% think gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools....
• 31% want contraception to be outlawed.
Wonderful anti-Republican PR results. They justify the fears people who are not Republicans have about the Republican Party. I don't like thinking people are this extreme, and I wish I could see how the questions were worded. The full survey (and the questions) were not out at the time TPM put up this post, and releasing the results in this form reinforces my suspicion that the motivation of the poll is to generate anti-Republican PR.
How would you word questions to ask "self-identified" Democrats if it were your goal to generate anti-Democrat PR? How would you smoke out all the flaky and stupid suggestions they'd go along with if a pollster offered it in a rational-sounding form and didn't interject amazement at the answers? Then how would you reword the questions to publish the results to make the best propaganda for your side?
(I once submitted to a poll where I was asked various questions about abortion rights, and the pollster started coming back with "Really?" and "Are you sure?" in a shaming way that made it obvious they were trying to get people to say they supported laws restricting abortion so they could attack some politician — probably Russ Feingold. It was really unprofessional!)
ADDED: Here's the Kos post announcing the results of the poll. It begins with this mind-boggling sentence: "As I've mentioned before, I'm putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world." It turns out this poll was designed to help him with that theory.
Hmm. Are they saying that because it's true or because it's strategic to say that?
Since the Supreme Court struck down limits last week on corporate-funded independent expenditure campaigns, Democrats and good-government advocates have been quick to warn of a flood of new corporate money entering American politics. But with campaigns already awash in corporate cash, some Democratic political pros doubt we'll notice much difference.
This is coming from TPM, which is a pro-Democrats blog.
"I don't think this is going to fundamentally change the way campaigns are done," said Mike Lux, a prominent Democratic consultant and operative who founded the Progressive Donor Network.
Steve Murphy, a Democratic consultant and former top aide to Dick Gephardt, agreed. "I don't believe this is a dramatic shift," he said.
Both men noted that corporations already move billions into entities that allow them to run hard-hitting "issue" ads. It's true that those ads couldn't directly advocate for the election or a defeat of a candidate. But they said that in their experience, issue ads are more effective anyway. In other words, corporations have long had a potent enough weapon at their disposal to influence elections when they've wanted to....
But the case itself — quite aside from its real effect — is an issue that Democrats might chose to exploit "to paint the Republicans as allies of corporations, and to tout Democrats' populist credentials."
But some in the consultant community see the issue as less than a political winner, arguing that voters don't care about process issues, and will judge Democrats by their substantive achievements.
"I wish Democrats would talk about this a little less," said Murphy. "We've got to produce."
