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Blogs Eric Reads
Archive for December, 2007
Romney: Huckabee = Clinton?
In a desperate attempt to save his skin in Iowa, Mitt Romney has launched a new campaign comparing Mike Huckabee with fellow Arkansas governor Bill Clinton.
“Governor Huckabee’s record is more liberal than our nation needs right now,” the former Massachusetts governor said in Iowa last week, seeking to link his GOP presidential rival to the former Democratic president who is loathed by many Republican loyalists.
…
Romney’s aides argue Huckabee’s record as governor undercuts his claim that he’s the only authentic conservative in the race. Romney himself has stopped short of explicitly saying his rival is simply another Clinton, though he’s less shy about it in campaign literature mailed to thousands of Iowa Republicans.
So let me get this straight: Mike Huckabee–a Southern Baptist minister who is firmly anti-choice, opposes embryonic stem cell research, and really, really hates the gays–is just like Bill Clinton? I don’t get it.
“They’re very different people, and obviously the area of concern relates to spending and taxation. We think of Bill Clinton as being a tax raiser and a spender,” Romney said — then mused that he had read somewhere that Huckabee had raised more taxes than Clinton when they were governors.
Ah, of course, it’s all about taxes. Mike Huckabee is just like Bill Clinton because Huckabee rose taxes, according to… something that Mitt Romney read… somewhere.
C’mon, Mitt, you’re going to have to do a little better than that, especially when your record on some of those issues… well, who knows what your record is?
Mazal Tov! Senate Republicans Break Filibuster Record
It’s a wonderful day for the Senate’s Republican majority! Err, minority, I meant to say Republican minority. I guess I was confused since the Republicans seem to be unilaterally deciding what does and doesn’t get done in the Senate–and, of course, I could have picked dozens of other examples. That’s because Senate Republicans broke records today by filibustering their 62nd bill only half way through the session of Congress.
The record of Republican obstruction in the U.S. Senate is unbelievable.
The Republican Senate minority today filibustered an omnibus budget bill, setting a modern-day record for blocking the most legislation during a congressional session. A new report [PDF] released today by the Campaign for America’s Future details the 62 times conservatives have used the filibuster to block legislation (or force modification of bills) in the first session of the 110th Congress. In just the first year of this two-year Congress, their use of the filibuster in the Senate topped the previous record, reached during the entire 107th Congress.
…
In just one session, a minority in Congress has prevented a mind-blowing 62 pieces of legislation from going to the floor for an up or down vote,” said Campaign for America’s Future co-director Roger Hickey. “Our report shows how over and over again, the uncompromising minority has thwarted the will of majorities in Congress and of the American people, holding the Senate floor hostage to a radical right-wing agenda.”
That includes ethics reform, wage reform, immigration reform, energy reform, and Iraq reform. All were prevented from coming to the floor for an up or down vote by GOP obstruction. There’s even an entire blog dedicated to their obstruction, and, naturally, they’ve got something to say about this report.
Last night, the Roadblock Republicans accomplished a feat no ordinary group of obstructionists could have pulled off. No, it takes a special brand of legislator to actually break the Roadblock record in less than half the time of the previous record. Only a group with a near-pathological disregard for the actual health of our democracy, only a group with a single-minded focus on the cynical political strategies of their consultants, only a group with a imperious disdain for the people of the country could’ve pulled off such a feat.
Right on.
Vladimir Putin, Person of the Year
Last year, TIME copped out a little by making you its Person of the Year. This year, TIME’s Person of the Year is Vladimir Putin. Excerpts of TIME’s profile of Putin are below:
Russia’s revival is changing the course of the modern world. After decades of slumbering underachievement, the Bear is back. Its billionaires now play on the global stage, buying up property, sports franchises, places at élite schools. Moscow exerts international influence not just with arms but also with a new arsenal of weapons: oil, gas, timber. On global issues, it offers alternatives to America’s waning influence, helping broker deals in North Korea, the Middle East, Iran. Russia just made its first shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran—a sign that Russia is taking the lead on that vexsome issue, particularly after the latest U.S. intelligence report suggested that the Bush Administration has been wrong about Iran’s nuclear-weapons development. And Putin is far from done. The premiership is a perch that will allow him to become the longest-serving statesman among the great powers, long after such leaders as Bush and Tony Blair have faded from the scene.
But all this has a dark side. To achieve stability, Putin and his administration have dramatically curtailed freedoms. His government has shut down TV stations and newspapers, jailed businessmen whose wealth and influence challenged the Kremlin’s hold on power, defanged opposition political parties and arrested those who confront his rule. Yet this grand bargain—of freedom for security—appeals to his Russian subjects, who had grown cynical over earlier regimes’ promises of the magical fruits of Western-style democracy. Putin’s popularity ratings are routinely around 70%. “He is emerging as an elected emperor, whom many people compare to Peter the Great,” says Dimitri Simes, president of the Nixon Center and a well-connected expert on contemporary Russia.
…
Putin’s mission is not to win over the West. It is to restore to Russians a sense of their nation’s greatness, something they have not known for years. This is not idle dreaming. When historians talk about Putin’s place in Russian history, they draw parallels with Stalin or the Tsars. Putin, one can’t stress enough, is not a Stalin. There are no mass purges in Russia today, no broad climate of terror. But Putin is reconstituting a strong state, and anyone who stands in his way will pay for it. “Putin has returned to the mechanism of one-man rule,” says Talbott of the Brookings Institution. “Yet it’s a new kind of state, with elements that are contemporary and elements from the past.”And there’s plenty that could go wrong. The depth of corruption, the pockets of militant unrest, the ever present vulnerability of the economy to swings in commodity prices—all this threatens to unravel the gains that have been made. But Putin has played his own hand well. As Prime Minister, he is set to see out the rest of the drama of Russia’s re-emergence. And almost no one in Russia is in a position to stop him. If he succeeds, Russia will become a political competitor to the U.S. and to rising nations like China and India. It will be one of the great powers of the new world.
His thoughts on the United States are also interesting.
What gets Putin agitated—and he was frequently agitated during our talk—is his perception that Americans are out to interfere in Russia’s affairs. He says he wants Russia and America to be partners but feels the U.S. treats Russia like the uninvited guest at a party. “We want to be a friend of America,” he says. “Sometimes we get the impression that America does not need friends” but only “auxiliary subjects to command.” Asked if he’d like to correct any American misconceptions about Russia, Putin leans forward and says, “I don’t believe these are misconceptions. I think this is a purposeful attempt by some to create an image of Russia based on which one could influence our internal and foreign policies. This is the reason why everybody is made to believe…[Russians] are a little bit savage still or they just climbed down from the trees, you know, and probably need to have…the dirt washed out of their beards and hair.” The veins on his forehead seem ready to pop.
Runners-up for the award were Al Gore, J.K. Rowling, Hu Jintao, and David Petraeus. With a field like that, why Putin? TIME explains:
TIME’s Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest. At its best, it is a clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is and of the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world—for better or for worse. It is ultimately about leadership—bold, earth-changing leadership. Putin is not a boy scout. He is not a democrat in any way that the West would define it. He is not a paragon of free speech. He stands, above all, for stability—stability before freedom, stability before choice, stability in a country that has hardly seen it for a hundred years. Whether he becomes more like the man for whom his grandfather prepared blinis—who himself was twice TIME’s Person of the Year—or like Peter the Great, the historical figure he most admires; whether he proves to be a reformer or an autocrat who takes Russia back to an era of repression—this we will know only over the next decade. At significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize, he has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power. For that reason, Vladimir Putin is TIME’s 2007 Person of the Year.
The full article on Putin is certainly worth a read, and TIME’s interview with Putin can be found below.
Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd on FISA
Earlier today Harry Reid tabled the FISA bill until January. Sen. Ted Kennedy made one of the most poignant comments in the entire debate over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retro-active immunity. No immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he’s willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.
Damn straight, Senator. Of course, Chris Dodd’s passionate speech on the Senate is not to be missed, as Dodd vows to filibuster again in January of telecom immunity is still part of the FISA bill.
UPDATE: Videos of both speeches are available below. Kennedy first, then Dodd.
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Time to Ditch Harry Reid?
To clarify, that dismal poll (for Harry Reid, at least) was posted at 11:10 AM Eastern. The screenshot above was taken at 5:15 PM Central. Yikes. And while that certainly isn’t scientific, it is from DailyKos, a site dedicated to electing Democrats. Chris Bowers at OpenLeft has enough links to keep you busy for a while.
Ah, the Democratic controlled Congress. Republican Senate holds are respected, Democratic Senate holds are not. Republicans need 50 votes to pass legislation in the Senate, while Democrats need 60. Only one Democrat is needed to pass a renewable energy bill, and that Democrat is in serious danger of defeat in her next election? Forget applying pressure on her, just roll over and gut the bill. Bush threatens to veto Iraq war funding? Just roll over and give him a blank check. Challenge the Bush Dogs who vote with Republicans? Nah, they will just withhold funds from the DCCC if anyone dare to even suggest they face primary challenges, while other Democrats continue to just pour money into their campaign coffers. Use more aggressive tactics to challenge this situation? Nah, those would just hurt Democrats at the voting booth (and we are doing great in special elections as a result of this timidity). Can’t end the war or change its direction? Well, at least we can condemn opponents of the war, and make others apologize. And so, we end up in a situation where Democrats and Independents, the same people who voted for new leadership in Congress, approve of the Democratic-controlled Congress as much as Republicans do.
Unless Reid is going to step up and, I dunno, show some leadership, I think it’s time for him to step down.
Chris Dodd for Majority Leader, maybe?
Can the Military Decide that a Gay Person Isn’t?
A few days ago, 60 Minutes‘ Lesley Stahl interviewed Army Sgt. Darren Manzella, an openly gay soldier who should have been discharged under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, but wasn’t.
Manzella, a medic who served in Iraq for a year, currently serves as medical liaison for the 1st Cavalry Division stationed in Kuwait, where he says he is “out” to his entire chain of command, including a three-star general. After leaving Iraq, he started receiving anonymous emails warning him about his openness that suggested he was being watched, so he went to his commander to head off an investigation he felt was coming. “I didn’t know how else to do it,” he tells Stahl, acknowledging that he initiated an investigation of himself by violating the policy. “I felt more comfortable being the one to say, ‘This is what is real,’” Manzella says.
So Manzella went to his commanding officer with “evidence” of his homosexuality in the form of pictures and videos of himself with his boyfriend. To his surprise, he was sent back to work, and, apparently, Manzella is not alone.
Discharges of gay soldiers have dropped dramatically since the Afghan and Iraq wars began, from 1,200 a year in 2001 to barely 600 now. With the military struggling to recruit and retain soldiers, gay soldiers claim that commanders are reluctant to discharge critical personnel in the middle of a war.
Stahl spoke with several gay former military members who say they were also out openly in their units, known to be gay by as many as a hundred other service members. “They don’t care….these are our peers…the ‘Will and Grace’ generation,” says Brian Fricke, referring to the popular television program featuring a gay character. Fricke was a Marine Corps avionics technician who served in Iraq. “They grew up with it in the media….They see gay people as people…Americans,” says Fricke. “They don’t see gay people as people with a disability….”
On the surface, this sounds like good news. Our politicians might be stuck in the past, but military commanders in Iraq recognize that a soldier can do their job well regardless of whether he or she is gay or straight. If enough commanders refuse to enforce Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, we may see the end of the policy.
But there’s something much more sinister here.
“I was told to go back to work. There was no evidence of homosexuality,” says Manzella. “‘You’re not gay,’” he says his superiors told him. This response confused him and, he says, the closest a superior officer came to addressing his sexuality was to say “I don’t care if you’re gay or not.”
A gay man comes forward and admits his homosexuality, knowing full well that he will lose his job and any benefits, and is told that there is no “evidence of homosexuality.” And that’s it. You’re not gay, so grab your gun and get back to the front, soldier.
This is worse than Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. This is no different from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s denial of Iranian gays. The military can’t keep discharging homosexuals because they need the bodies, so instead they’re telling gay soldiers that they don’t exist. To be sure, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is an incredibly flawed policy, but at least it acknowledges homosexuality. Now, the military doesn’t want gay soldiers to keep their personal lives to themselves; they want gay soldiers’ personal lives not to exist. And you know that when our soldiers finally leave Iraq that these brave gay men and women will be receiving their dishonorable discharge papers.
Our military commanders are ignoring Don’t Ask Don’t Tell because they need soldiers, be they hetero or homo, but when Congress won’t do anything, the military just pretends homosexuality doesn’t exist. It’s time for Congress to act on repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell so that our military can’t stop acting like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Update: I have been informed that soldiers who are discharged under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell are generally discharged honorably. The important point, though, is that they are discharged solely on the basis of their homosexuality.
Kit Bond Keeps Digging on Waterboarding
The other day, Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) played down waterboarding, saying that it’s just like swimming. Today, Sen. Bond decided to clarify his remarks, although he kept up the pretense that we aren’t actually using waterboarding even though everyone knows that we are.
Bond explains that there are multiple types of waterboarding. There’s the freestyle, the backstroke, the sidestroke… oh, wait, that was yesterday. Nevermind.
One of the types of waterboarding is the kind that the Japanese used on American POWs during World War II, and for which they were convicted of war crimes. That, of course, is torture. There’s also the “practice” waterboarding that we use on our soldiers as part of an interrogation survival training course, which is not torture.
Now, Bond is so caught up parroting that we don’t use waterboarding that he doesn’t quite mention where what the United States is doing at Guantanamo and elsewhere fits on this spectrum, but it looks to me like there are two categories of waterboarding.
- Something one country does to punish and interrorgate its enemies (torture).
- Something one country does to teach its own, volunteer soldiers how to survive such tactics (not torture).
Which of those two categories does Kit Bond think the United States fits into?
Watch Kit Bond “clarify” here.
Bush Should Listen to the Generals on Torture
Over the entire course of the Iraq War, any time that the Democratic Congress has attempted to take any action relating to the running of the war, President Bush has responded that, unlike Congress, he “listens to the generals” when he decides what to do. He’s done it again, and again, and again.
So why isn’t Bush listening to the generals when it comes to torture?
Yesterday, the House passed a bill by a vote of 222-199 the would ban the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation methods,” which we in the real world call torture. Instead, the CIA would be limited to the interrogation tools approved by the military in 2006, meaning that the CIA would not be prohibited from:
forcing detainees to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner; placing hoods or sacks over detainees’ heads or duct tape over their eyes; beating, shocking, or burning detainees; threatening them with military dogs; exposing them to extreme heat or cold; conducting mock executions; depriving them of food, water, or medical care; and waterboarding.
Immediately after the bill was passed, the White House issued a veto threat, stating a number of objections with the bill including the provision prohibiting torture.
For all his clamoring about listening to the generals, it seems like President Bush is ignoring the generals on this one. After the vote, thirty retired generals and admirals sent a letter to John Rockefeller and Silvestre Reyes, chairmen of the Senate and House intelligence committees, respectively, begging them to pass the legislation over Bush’s veto. They wrote:
We believe it is vital to the safety of our men and women in uniform that the United States not sanction the use of interrogation methods it would find unacceptable if inflicted by the enemy against captured Americans. That principle, embedded in the Army Field Manual, has guided generations of American military personnel in combat.
The current situation, in which the military operates under one set of interrogation rules that are public and the CIA operates under a separate, secret set of rules, is unwise and impractical. In order to ensure adherence across the government to the requirements of the Geneva Conventions and to maintain the integrity of the humane treatment standards on which our own troops rely, we believe that all U.S. personnel - military and civilian - should be held to a single standard of humane treatment reflected in the Army Field Manual.
This is hardly an unreasonable request. Protect the safety of our men and women in uniform. Adhere to the Geneva Convention. Uphold our integrity. Why wouldn’t Bush want to do all of these things? Shouldn’t the safety of the troops be one of the president’s most important wartime obligations?
But Bush is ignoring these generals and admirals. Their service to the United States doesn’t give them any leverage with him. Of course, they are all retired, so Bush can just say he’s listening to his current generals on the ground in Iraq, right? You know, like Dave Petraeus?
General David Petraeus underscored this point in an open letter to the troops in May in which he cautioned against the use of interrogation techniques not authorized by the Field Manual:
What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight. . . . is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect…. Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary. Certainly, extreme physical action can make someone “talk;” however, what the individual says may be of questionable value. In fact, our experience in applying the interrogation standards laid out in the Army Field Manual (2-22.3) on Human Intelligence Collector Operations that was published last year shows that the techniques in the manual work effectively and humanely in eliciting information from detainees.
Even General Petraeus agrees that torture is wrong! Mr. Bush, if you’re going to continue to shield your actions with the claim that you are listening to the generals, then could you at least take a little step back and actually listen? Especially to the ones like General Petraeus, who already tell you what you want to hear on a regular basis. For their sake and for the sake of all of our soldiers, rescind your veto threat so that the next time you say “This government does not torture” we can actually believe you.
Obama: Waiting for Hillary’s Advice
As a general rule, I think all of this bickering among the Democratic presidential candidates is stupid. Yes, each of you really, really wants to get the nomination and be the next President of the United States. I get it. In the long run, though, the important thing is that one of you–as opposed to one of the other guys–wins, and everything that Hillary says about Barack, or that Barack says about Hillary, or that John or Joe or Chris says about any of the others is just free ammunition for the wingnuts and their extremely well-funded PACs.
This, though, was just too funny.
Across 90 minutes, the fierce competition between the two Iowa front-runners shone through only once _ when Obama was asked how he could offer a new type of foreign policy since several of his advisers once worked for President Clinton.
Hillary Clinton laughed out loud at that, and said with a smile, “I’m looking forward to hearing that.”
Obama, also smiling, waited for the laughter to die down before saying, “Hillary, I’m looking forward to you advising me as well.”
Watch the video:
Waterboarding: Just Like Taking a Swim
Missouri’s own Senator Kit Bond is the expert on what is and is not torture. And what’s at the top of the “Not Torture” list? Waterboarding, of course.
GWEN IFILL: Do you think that waterboarding, as I described it, constitutes torture?
SEN. KIT BOND: There are different ways of doing it. It’s like swimming, freestyle, backstroke. The waterboarding could be used almost to define some of the techniques that our trainees are put through, but that’s beside the point. It’s not being used.
It was a long time ago, but I still remember my first swimming lesson at summer camp. They taught us the breaststroke, the backstroke, and then they waterboarded us!
Yeah, right. Do the right-wingers really think we’re going to believe that waterboarding is like a day at the beach? Even though we have the video evidence showing what it really is?
And what’s that last bit about waterboarding “not being used.” Bullshit, Senator. The United States uses waterboarding, and the whole world knows it. Why isn’t lying under oath of office not considered “lying under oath?”
Watch Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) lie through his teeth to the American public below.
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