Dubya Steps Away From Toxic Bennett

12:09 pm EST September 30th, 2005 | Republicans | 38 Comments

Is this maybe the Kanye effect?

The White House on Friday criticized former Education Secretary William Bennett for remarks linking the crime rate and the abortion of black babies.

“The president believes the comments were not appropriate,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

 

Philly Inquirer Says Scooter Libby Responsible For Judith Miller Release

8:09 pm EST September 29th, 2005 | Politics | 36 Comments

Wouldn’t that mean Scooter Libby is the leaker?

E&P:

Judith Miller, The New York Times reporter who has been jailed since July 6 for refusing to identify a source, has been released, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on its Web site tonight. Knight Ridder’s news service then carried the account to other newspapers.

It said that an unnamed jail official had revealed that Miller left an Alexandria, Va. jail late this afternoon, at 3:55 pm., adding, “She was released after she had a telephone conversation with the Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, sources said. In that conversation, Libby reaffirmed that he had released Miller from a promise of confidentiality more than a year ago, sources said.

“It could not be immediately determined whether Miller has now agreed to testify.”

Scooter Libby is the vice-president’s chief of staff. What involvement did Vice President Cheney or President Bush have in this matter – are they, like Tom DeLay, also parties to a criminal conspiracy or at the very least treason (as defined by George H.W. Bush)?

 

PlameGate Marches On

8:09 pm EST September 29th, 2005 | Republicans | 52 Comments

One day someone is going to make an honest to goodness comparison of the Bush and Clinton administrations and realize that the Clinton “scandals” were no more than the RNC cranking out press releases, while the Republican leadership – as is the case with past Republican White Houses (Reagan, Nixon) – is dealing with actual criminal acts.

Prosecutor In CIA Leak Case Casting A Wide Net

The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to several officials familiar with the case.

 

What That Guy Said

7:09 pm EST September 29th, 2005 | Politics | 8 Comments

Markos Hunter lays in to the GOP bitching about actually getting something resembling a fight for a change. Dems have a long way to go to be at the same speed as the Cons, but when it does finally happen we know the response to expect: infantile crying.

 

Bill Bennett In Hot Water for Race Comments

3:09 pm EST September 29th, 2005 | Politics | 69 Comments

Yesterday Bennett said “[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down”

Harry Reid, Democratic leader: “I am appalled by Mr. Bennett s remarks and call on him to issue an immediate apology not only to African Americans but to the nation. At a time when so many Americans are struggling to recover from two devastating Hurricanes, now is the time to help one another, not feed the fires of racism. America can do better. The Republican Party has recently taken great pains to reach out to the African American community, and I hope that they will be swift in condemning Mr. Bennett s comments as nothing short of callous and ignorant. They are reminiscent of a time our nation is still struggling to overcome. Again, I call on him to issue an immediate apology to the nation for his insensitive remarks.”

It’s clear: Bill Bennet doesn’t care about black people.

UPDATE: Rep. Conyers says Salem Communications must take action, while Rep. Pelosi spoke on the floor:

 I urge President Bush to renounce this statement, and I call on Secretary Bennett to apologize. I encourage my Republican colleagues to join me on the floor to reject these words and to speak for a future of tolerance and equality. I invite Secretary Bennett and other Republicans to join Democrats in creating solutions to national problems and meeting national needs.

 These words are a direct hit at our children. Secretary Bennett is a writer. He knows that words have power. He knows how powerful these particular words are. An apology is definitely in order and a rejection of these remarks is also in order from the President of the United States.

>> Dean Calls on Republican Leadership to Repudiate Bill Bennett’s Racist Remarks

“Bill Bennett’s hateful, inflammatory remarks regarding African Americans are simply inexcusable. They are particularly unacceptable from a leader in the conservative movement and former Secretary of Education, once charged with the well being of every American school child. He should apologize immediately. This kind of statement is hardly compassionate conservatism; rather, Bennett’s comments demonstrate a reprehensible racial insensitivity and ignorance. Are these the values of the Republican Party and its conservative allies? If not, President Bush, Ken Mehlman and the Republican Leadership should denounce them immediately as hateful, divisive and worthy only of scorn.”

 

The Noise Machine, In Action

10:09 am EST September 29th, 2005 | Republicans | 5 Comments

In case you were wondering if all the Republicans spontaneously came to the exact same conclusions about hwo to respond to the indictment of Tom DeLay

Just minutes after the announcement came, DeLay s closest and strongest supporters began mounting a defense. By 2 p.m., a two-page memo condemning Ronnie Earle and the indictment was hitting Republican e-mail in boxes all over town.

Republicans would not disclose the author of the memo, which is not the first of its kind. Earlier this year, Barbara Comstock, a lawyer and former research director at the Republican National Committee, penned a memo in response to questions that DeLay was facing involving foreign travel and reports that his wife and daughter had received $500,000 since 2001 for work they did for his campaign and political action committee.

And you might be wondering who exactly Barbara Comstock is. Wonder no more.

 

Howard Dean Was Right. Again.

10:09 am EST September 29th, 2005 | Politics | 43 Comments

National Review propagandist in residence Rich Lowry, from May:

Host Tim Russert asked him about his recent comment that Tom DeLay should go to jail. Dean stood by it. DeLay s  crimes are so notorious that Dean had to bring a list of them on set to remind himself of what they supposedly are. He couldn t correctly pronounce the name of the lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, at the center of the corruption that so outrages him. Of course, DeLay hasn t been plausibly accused of any crimes, let alone indicted for one, and his offenses are alleged violations of House rules, which don t carry jail time.

 I don t think I m prejudging him, Dean told Russert, then in the same breath:  I think there s a reasonable chance that this may end up in jail. He defended the DNC having a mug shot of DeLay on its website, then in the same breath:  We re not going to stoop to the kind of divisiveness [of] the Republicans. Later on the program he intoned, hilariously,  We ought not to lecture each other about our ethical shortcomings.

Again, Howard Dean was right.

 

Democrats Want To Lose

1:09 am EST September 29th, 2005 | Politics | 87 Comments

Howard Dean

Wednesday was the first time in history such a high ranking member of congress has ever been indicted. And the opposition party has done nothing to capitalize on this.

Why? Why in God’s name is the Democratic party completely AWOL from the entire media discussion of this issue?

I think it’s because the Democrats simply do not understand the media, and have been completely clueless about how to play the press since President Clinton left office. Democrats simply believe that we still exist in an environment where someone can simply be left out in the press, to be savaged by the actual facts. Wrong.

That is simply not how the media works today, and I don’t know how many times I have to say it. The way the media works today is that the press simply sits there in the middle, dumb and oblivious and pliable. For Democrats to be effective, they must have a presence in the media beyond a press release.

One argument I’ve heard is that Dems don’t want the indictment to be labeled “partisan”. Are you seriously kidding me? Do you think not having Democrats on-air is going to stop that? We’ve allowed DeLay to already begin framing this issue as poor widdle Tom DeLay persecuted by the mean Democrat Ronny Earle. Simply being invisible is enabling DeLay’s framing. Mass America doesn’t have any context for Tom DeLay, they have no idea who he is, and if they don’t hear any voice from the opposition, why wouldn’t they accept how he’s framed the issue? Simply because the print journalists will provide context for the story will not affect how it plays out. We are in a broadcast world, and not having a Democrat on the air on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox is dealing America a bad hand.

Some hints

Stop worrying about being partisan. This is political corruption, not a hot button liberal/conservative issue like abortion, taxes, etc. Any damn Democrat can make the case that the Republican party embodies a Culture of Corruption that is making life harder for American citizens – from the mismanagement of FEMA to the indictment of Tom DeLay and the insider trading of Bill Frist, it’s clear now to America what happens when you vote for Republicans.

This is the case Democrats have to make. Nobody else will do it. They won’t have “enough rope to hang themselves”. The Kerry campaign used the same logic and lost to an awol teetotaler who led America into an unpopular war, simply because they refused to use the press. 2006 will be another 2002 or worse if the Dems keep this up.

UPDATE: If I don’t see the Tom DeLay mugshot on every screen in America I’m giving up.

>> And yes, if you were wondering if the Democrats really are this stupid… they are.

A Democratic aide said that Democrats were going to step back from the story to keep the heat on DeLay.

 We re just going to let the press run with this. Usually we have trouble getting the press to cover issues of corruption in Congress. In this case, that s not a problem, the aide said.

Losers. Losers. Losers.

UPDATE: Ezra points out that I’m missing the whole vacation strategery.

 

Governor O’Malley?

11:09 pm EST September 28th, 2005 | Democrats | 5 Comments

It’s time to take back Maryland

Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams” blared over the loudspeakers as supporters waved yellow signs proclaiming “Maryland can do better” and a lime-green banner announced the man the crowd had come to see:

Martin O’Malley, native son of Montgomery County, mayor of Baltimore and now Democratic candidate for governor of Maryland.

It’s time to end the Republican Culture of Corruption in the Ehrlich administration.

 

Why Aren’t Dems On TV?

7:09 pm EST September 28th, 2005 | Politics | 21 Comments

Tom DeLay is on Hardball now smearing and accusing Democrats and Nancy Pelosi, saying they’re part of the prosecution of him. I have barely seen any Dems on TV today, and this should be a slam dunk.

Why are they afraid of ever winning on anything?

 

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