Friday, October 21, 2005

And Now?

I have limited personal experience or expertise in political strategy, having considerable distaste in fact for the whole to me depraved idea that the masses I belong to must be managed, cajoled, conned, or otherwise "strategized." For example, to show my backwardness, I'd prefer strict limits on expenditures for campaigning for all offices. Advertising and use of media in general to be minimized. No corporate campaign contributions, no matter how carefully laundered. Lots of town-meeting style events with little or no rehearsal and no constraints on attendees.

Of course we also need voting equipment subject to proper audit. The Diebold and ES&S crap is overdue for the compactor. Paper records and other means of verifying the vote are essential. It's amazing that we are even still talking about this in a country prone to bragging about its democratic heritage. No wonder we are at times a bit of a laughingstock in the real world.

But getting back to strategy. Like I said, I'm short on insight and therefore prone to seeking the counsel of more experienced folks. Here are a couple of the posts I am pondering tonight:

Bullmoose

Republicans are in a deep funk awaiting disaster. Democrats can hardly control themselves in anticipation of a GOP collapse.

The Moose suggests that the donkey and elephant should just settle down. If the indictments come, it will be a very difficult for the GOP in the short term. With the stench of corruption already surrounding the congressional wing of the Party and incompetence the leitmotif of the White House, this is not a good moment to be a Republican.

In fact, the Moose suggests that the Republicans should encourage a total collapse of the Bushie-DeLayican regime. Only then will the GOP have a chance and an imperative to reform itself - the worse, the better.

For the Democrats, a GOP collapse could benefit the party in the short term and harm it for the long run. The Republican travails could provide false comfort and convince the donkey that there is no need to fundamentally reform its message and policies - particularly on values and national security. Consequently, it could enjoy major gains in '06 that are wiped out in '08.

Don't misunderstand the Moose. He can enjoy the schadenfreude as well as the next mammal. However, it appears that the American people have had it with both parties - neither is all that popular at the moment. A recent Democracy Corps memo indicates that "both national parties are at a half-century low point in public esteem."


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And then there is the inimitable Molly:

Let's Fix This Mess

I have been collecting material for a series of columns on the peppy topic, "How Do We Fix This Mess?" The news is dandy in that there are a lot of a sound ideas being passed around. Really serious messes, like the one this country is in, do not, in my experience, have simple, definitive solutions. And if they do, such solutions are politically impossible. We are looking for progress, not perfection, so anyone who tells you the entire tax code should fit on a postcard is a bona fide, certified, chicken-fried moron.

But listening to the Democratic debate on what to do now, it seems to me some of the brethren and sistren are asking the wrong questions. The question is not, "How Do We Win?" That's a technical question that comes after, "What the Hell Can We Do About This Disaster?"

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Which brings us to the Democratic Leadership Council and the Al From-Bruce Reed take on what we should do now. The DLC is regularly condemned as being Republican Lite, but it seems to me its problem is being Light Lite. The From-Reed proposal is security, values, opportunity and reform - a perfect symphony of the obvious. I do like their Opportunity ideas:

Create high-wage jobs by making the United States the top exporter of energy-efficient products.

Cut $300 billion in subsidies, and invest it in innovation, education and growth.

Pass tax reform to replace 60 tax breaks with four: college, homes, kids, universal pensions.

The problem comes when you look at their reform initiatives - lobbying reform to close the revolving door and a ban partisan gerrymandering. Uh, how about we address the problem that our entire political system is corrupt, that it has been corrupted by corporate money, and that we have government of corporate interests, by corporate interests and for corporate interests - and that we really need to change that, instead of trying to raise more corporate money than Republicans?

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Bob Borosage, director of the Campaign for America's Future, offers a "Real Contract With America" in the current issue of the The Nation. He has some excellent ideas, and I'll discuss them more later. Like the others, Borosage emphasizes Making America Safe and Real Security for America. What you find across the Democratic spectrum is agreement that the Bushies are hopelessly inept at homeland security. Essentially nothing has been done to protect the ports, and almost no progress has been made on helping first responders and improving public health capacity, despite all that money spent on small towns in Wyoming. The chemical plants are obvious targets - but heaven forfend that the Bushies should force their dear friends in the chemical industry to spend money on public safety.

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The contemptible, petty, little would-be Joe McCarthys need to understand what love of country really means - love of the highest and best in America. Never to be confused with "pre-emptive war" over nonexistent weapons and certainly not with using "democracy" to sell a rotten, failed war.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

I Can Hear Music, Sweet, Sweet Music!

It is possible to get so wrapped up in news-chasing as to neglect posting, there is no doubt. And with the hour late, thanks to that chase, I will have to limit personal content here to merest fringe around links to a useful list-post and one that reminds us just how vital the stakes are in the Plame case. I would never have guessed when that case inspired me what seems an awfully dark lifetime ago to set up my first news-alert ever that it might morph into the critical arcane spell that might re-open the door on the possibility of democracy in the States.

For those who like lists (I'm with you), this one has bonus feature of mug-shots and short bios (tending more and more to delightfully resemble rap-sheets - check it out):

Administration "characters" with known connections to the outing of an undercover CIA agent:

Karl Rove
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby
Condoleezza Rice
Stephen Hadley
Andrew Card
Alberto Gonzales
Mary Matalin
Ari Fleischer
Susan Ralston
Israel Hernandez
John Hannah
Scott McClellan
Dan Bartlett
Claire Buchan
Catherine Martin
Jennifer Millerwise
Jim Wilkinson
Colin Powell
Karen Hughes
Adam Levine
Bob Joseph
Vice President Dick Cheney
President George W. Bush

And this article by James Moore may help provide a bit of scale as to the overall significance of what not long ago seemed just one of countless instances of criminal, odious behavior by the crooks who came to dinner and changed the locks:

The Most Important Criminal Case in American History


If special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald delivers indictments of a few functionaries of the vice president’s office or the White House, we are likely to have on our hands a constitutional crisis. The evidence of widespread wrongdoing and conspiracy is before every American with a cheap laptop and a cable television subscription. And we do not have the same powers of subpoena granted to Fitzgerald.

We know, however, based upon what we have read and seen and heard that someone created fake documents related to Niger and Iraq and used them as a false pretense to launch America into an invasion of Iraq. And when a former diplomat made an honest effort to find out the facts, a plan was hatched to both discredit and punish him by revealing the identity of his undercover CIA agent wife.

Patrick Fitzgerald has before him the most important criminal case in American history. Watergate, by comparison, was a random burglary in an age of innocence. The investigator’s prosecutorial authority in this present case is not constrained by any regulation. If he finds a thread connecting the leak to something greater, Fitzgerald has the legal power to follow it to the web in search of the spider. It seems unlikely, then, that he would simply go after the leakers and the people who sought to cover up the leak when it was merely a secondary consequence of the much greater crime of forging evidence to foment war. Fitzgerald did not earn his reputation as an Irish alligator by going after the little guy. Presumably, he is trying to find evidence that Karl Rove launched a covert operation to create the forged documents and then conspired to out Valerie Plame when he learned the fraud was being uncovered by Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. As much as this sounds like the plot of a John le Carre novel, it also comports with the profile of the Karl Rove I have known, watched, traveled with and written about for the past 25 years.

We may stand witness to a definitive American moment of democracy. The son of a New York doorman probably has in his hands, in many ways, the fate of the republic.

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There you have it, Mr. Prosecutor. To quote an unreconstructed former Republican presidential candidate, “You know it. I know it. And the American people know it.”

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Prove to us we still live in a democracy and a nation of laws.