Like the proverbial broken clock, even Charles Krauthammer gets it right occasionally, if not twice a day. On Thursday, Krauthammer dismissed Governor Sarah Palin 24 hours before her surprise resignation as "not a serious candidate for the presidency." That conclusion followed his recent broadside against South Carolina's Mark Sanford for "dereliction of duty" in going AWOL over his Argentinean mistress. As her jaw-dropping rationalizing about her lame duck status revealed, that same charge applies to Palin as well.
In her rambling 18 minute statement which Paul Begala rightly described as "vapid and puerile," Palin turned her back on her four year pledge to Alaskan voters by mocking the very notion that any elected official anywhere should complete their final term:
"And so as I thought about this announcement that I wouldn't run for re-election and what it means for Alaska, I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks... travel around the state, to the Lower 48 (maybe), overseas on international trade - as so many politicians do. And then I thought - that's what's wrong - many just accept that lame duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck, and "milk it". I'm not putting Alaska through that - I promised efficiencies and effectiveness! ? That's not how I am wired. I am not wired to operate under the same old "politics as usual." I promised that four years ago - and I meant it."
If Palin's line about "overseas on international trade" was meant as a dig against the lovelorn Sanford, it surely backfired. After all, Palin during her catastrophic interview with CBS' Katie Couric tried to puff up her foreign policy credentials by proclaiming, "We have trade missions back and forth, we do. It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia." (That came just before the part about "as Putin rears his head...")
More importantly, Palin's own spokesperson Meg Stapleton contradicted her boss' inverted sports analogies and convoluted claim that by staying in office she would be taking "a quitter's way out." As Politico detailed:
But even Stapleton acknowledged that the job Palin said she loved during the press conference had become a drag.
"It's a liberating feeling...She can't get out of there soon enough," said Stapleton.
Over at the excreable American Spectator, Quin Hillyer was disgusted with Friday's charade, announcing, "Sarah Palin's resignation is an appalling dereliction of duty and a highly cynical move to set herself up for a presidential run for which she is manifestly unqualified."
Yes, once in a rare while even the most ardent conservatives are right.
The Obama administration again this week moved to protect former Vice President Dick Cheney's 2004 interview with the FBI over the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. But in so doing, the Justice Department's court filing only served to confirm Cheney's central role in guiding the Bush White House response to - and retaliation against - Plame's husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
As the Washington Post reported, a list of what Cheney discussed with prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is documented in a declaration to the court by Acting Assistant Attorney General David J. Barron. Unlike the DOJ's earlier "Daily Show" defense, Barron declared much of those conversations "are covered by 'the deliberative process privilege,' protecting advice, recommendations and other 'deliberative communications' between government officials."
Among those supposedly protected conversations cited by Barron were critical elements of the Bush administration's smearing of Joe Wilson and the ending of his wife's career:
He mentioned in particular Cheney's discussion of his conversation with then-CIA Director George J. Tenet about "the decision to send Ambassador Joseph Wilson on a fact-finding mission to Niger in 2002." Wilson is the former CIA operative's husband, and a report he filed after the trip cast doubt on claims that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons program. President George W. Bush cited those claims as part of the justification for the Iraq war.
Barron also listed as exempt from disclosure Cheney's account of his requests for information from the CIA about the purported purchase; Cheney's discussions with top officials about the controversy over Bush's mention of the uranium allegations in his 2003 State of the Union speech; and Cheney's discussions with deputy I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, press spokesman Ari Fleischer, and Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. "regarding the appropriate response to media inquiries about the source of the disclosure" of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity.
The declaration also said Cheney had helped resolve disputes about "whether to declassify certain information," including portions of a National Intelligence Estimate related to Iraqi weapons programs that Libby leaked to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
As it turns out, Barron's catalog confirms earlier reporting regarding Dick Cheney's heavy hand in the scandal. Cheney famously scribbled notes on a copy of Wilson's July 6, 2003 piece, asking "did his wife send him on a junket?" As the National Journal revealed in April 2006, it was Cheney who authorized his chief-of-staff Scooter Libby to selectively leak cherry-picked portions of the classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq:
Vice President Dick Cheney directed his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on July 12, 2003 to leak to the media portions of a then-highly classified CIA report that Cheney hoped would undermine the credibility of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, a critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, according to Libby's grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case and sources who have read the classified report.
As the Journal's Murray Waas reported two months later on July 3, 2006, it was President Bush himself who confirmed to Fitzgerald that he asked Cheney to lead the counterattack on the Wilsons:
President Bush told the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that he directed Vice President Dick Cheney to personally lead an effort to counter allegations made by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV that his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to people familiar with the president's interview.
Bush also told federal prosecutors during his June 24, 2004, interview in the Oval Office that he had directed Cheney, as part of that broader effort, to disclose highly classified intelligence information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson, the sources said.
But Bush told investigators that he was unaware that Cheney had directed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, to covertly leak the classified information to the media instead of releasing it to the public after undergoing the formal governmental declassification processes.
In his closing arguments in the conviction of Libby (whose pardon Cheney advocated even into the final hours of the Bush presidency), special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pointedly noted, "There is a cloud over the vice president...and that cloud remains because this defendant obstructed justice." Should the Obama administration succeed in blocking access to Cheney's FBI interview, that cloud will continue to hover over the former vice president.
But as the DOJ's filing itself shows, some rays of sunlight are shining through.
God may work in mysterious ways, but He has nothing on today's Republican Party. As the dueling scandals of John Ensign and Mark Sanford wash away the last vestiges of the GOP's long-discredited claim to uphold "moral values," gambling addict William Bennett and the thrice-married Rudy Giuliani weighed in on the imbroglio.
Bennett, the former Education Secretary turned conservative columnist and radio host, used his perch at CNN to announce that Governor Sanford is "embarrassing himself":
"I know Mark Sanford. I know him quite well. He needs to get his life back in order, his marriage back in order. He is embarrassing himself.
There is the old notion of indecent exposure, usually that refers to somebody showing some skin, and there's another form of indecent exposure. He is telling us way too much. We're not interested. He needs to stop and take care of his life."
Of course, when it comes to embarrassing himself, Bill Bennett has rich experience to draw upon. In 2003, it was revealed that Bennett squandered as much as $8 million at casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. Nevertheless, Bennett continued to mass produce books like The Book of Virtues and The Death of Outrage, each touting standards of moral behavior he himself failed to meet. It's no wonder Joshua Green in his article "The Bookie of Virtue" concluded:
"William J. Bennett has made millions lecturing people on morality--and blown it on gambling."
Then there's former New York Mayor and failed GOP presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani. The likely Republican gubernatorial candidate has appeared on Fox News and MSNBC to offer his expertise on the Sanford affair to Neil Cavuto and Joe Scarborough.
And Giuliani's expertise, as the Washington Monthly's Steve Benen detailed three years ago ("High Infidelity"), is serial adultery and rapid-fire marriage:
Giuliani informed his second wife, Donna Hanover, of his intention to seek a separation in a 2000 press conference. The announcement was precipitated by a tabloid frenzy after Giuliani marched with his then-mistress, Judith Nathan, in New York's St. Patrick's Day parade, an acknowledgement of infidelity so audacious that Daily News columnist Jim Dwyer compared it with "groping in the window at Macy's." In the acrid divorce proceedings that followed, Hanover accused Giuliani of serial adultery, alleging that Nathan was just the latest in a string of mistresses, following an affair the mayor had had with his former communications director.
As it turns out, Giuliani in the weeks before his role as Sanford marriage analyst anointed himself the champion of the anti-marriage equality crusade in New York State. (Despite having lived with gay roommates during his separation from Hanover, Giuliani skipped their wedding in May.) As one letter to the New York Post put it:
"Giuliani, who is currently married to his third wife, apparently believes that marriage is the sacred union of one man and a different woman every few years."
Social conservatives, the once-powerful force that focused the Republican agenda on moral virtue and family values, have suffered a diminished brand on the national political landscape as a steady stream of their icons have fallen prey to the vices they once preached against.
Extramarital affairs, gambling, alcohol abuse, prostitution and sexual pursuit of minors have taken a toll on the GOP.
Perhaps, but those sins are no barrier to regular appearances on your TV screen by the fallen of the Republican Party. Mysterious ways, indeed.
President Obama on Tuesday marked the historic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq's cities by noting, "The Iraqi people are rightly treating this day as a cause for celebration." Alas, for former Vice President Dick Cheney, not so much. Cheney, who four years ago declared the insurgency in its "last throes," on Monday warned of new attacks. Of course, back in December, he praised President Bush for signing the very status of forces agreement that mandated the American pullback this week.
In an interview with the Washington Times, Cheney offered the latest line of attack in his never-ending campaign to claim that President Obama had made the nation less safe. Regarding this week's milestone required by the SOFA signed by George W. Bush and Prime Minister Maliki, Cheney declared himself "concerned" by General Odierno's statements regarding the redeployment:
"What he says concerns me: That there is still a continuing problem. One might speculate that insurgents are waiting as soon as they get an opportunity to launch more attacks. I hope the Iraqis can deal with it. At some point they have to stand on their own, but I would not want to see the U.S. waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point."
If Cheney was gripped by such fears, he certainly wasn't voicing them when President Bush inked the agreement last year. On December 14, 2008, Bush in his press conference with Maliki announcing the pact specifically addressed this week's benchmark:
"First of all, we're here at the Iraqi -- at the request of the Iraqi government. It's an elected government. There are certain benchmarks that will be met -- such as troops out of the cities by June of '09. And then there's a benchmark at the end of the agreement.
As to the pace of meeting those agreements, that will depend of course upon the Iraqi government, the recommendations of the Iraqi military, and the close coordination between General Odierno and our military."
Just one week later, Vice President Cheney lauded that same agreement as just one of many accomplishments of the Bush administration in its Iraq war:
"I think the fact that we were able to go in as effectively as we did and take down the Saddam regime, that we were able to kill his sons, capture him, bring him to trial, that we had three national elections, that the Iraqis wrote a constitution that's bearing fruit today, that they've got a government that we just signed a historic agreement with, a status of forces agreement -- all of those things happened, including the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- all of those things happened up through the end of '06."
Of course, what also happened in 2006 was the dramatic escalation of the Iraqi insurgency and the descent of the country into civil war. Sadly, in May 2005, Vice President Cheney looked into his crystal ball and, as usual, got it all wrong:
"I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time. The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."
For their part, 73% of Americans favor the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Baghdad and others Iraqi cities. That support is bipartisan, with 74% of Republicans backing the pullout. Unsurprisingly, Dick Cheney is not among them.
Apparently, his insurgency against Barack Obama is far from being in its last throes.
Three weeks ago, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee declared California's passage of Proposition 8 "a miracle from God's hand." Now, new revelations from Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford, two of Huckabee's would-be (or would have been) rivals for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, show they, too, believe they are part of God's plan.
As the mushrooming scandal over his "soul mate" Argentine mistress and potentially other women increases pressure on him to resign as South Carolina's Governor, Sanford insisted God wants him to stay in office. Just three days after comparing himself to King David, Sanford in a message to supporters Monday announced he had the Almighty, if not his wife, by his side:
"Immediately after all this unfolded last week I had thought I would resign - as I believe in the military model of leadership and when trust of any form is broken one lays down the sword. A long list of close friends have [sic] suggested otherwise - that for God to really work in my life I shouldn't be getting off so lightly. While it would be personally easier to exit stage left, their point has been that my larger sin was the sin of pride...
Their belief was that if I walked in with a real spirit of humility then this last legislative term could well be our most productive one - and that outside this term, I would ultimately be a better person and of more service in whatever doors God opened next in life if I stuck around to learn lessons rather than running and hiding down at the farm."
As it turns out, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin doesn't just have the Lord in her corner, she's also His spokesman.
A jaw-dropping expose in Vanity Fair revealed the shocking extent of Palin's narcissism:
When [her son] Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig's condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God's, and signed it "Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father."
Of course, Sarah Palin apparently has long believed she was touched by the voice - and hand - of God. In May 2005 process complete with a laying on of hands, Kenyan pastor Thomas Muthee prayed over Palin, imploring Jesus to protect her from "the spirit of witchcraft." As Election Day approached last fall, the GOP vice presidential claimed to be unconcerned by her ticket's dismal poll numbers. Victory, she insisted, was in God's hands:
"To me, it motivates us, makes us work that much harder. And it also strengthens my faith, because I'm going to know, at the end of the day, putting this in God's hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4. So I'm not discouraged at all."
Apparently, it was God's plan to put Barack Obama in the White House.
As for Mark Sanford, his dereliction of duty, rampant adultery, taxpayer-funded trysts and ever-shifting stories suggest Judgment Day at the hands of South Carolinians is not far off.
UPDATE 1:Governor Palin previously referred to the United States' war in Iraq as "a task that is from God" and declared her $30 billion Alaksa pipeline project "God's will."
UPDATE 2: Apparently, Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher also has a direct line to the Almighty as well. Asked about running for office, the 2008 Republican campaign prop replied, "You know, I talked to God about that and he was like, 'No.'"
For the second time in five days, the tide of current events washed ashore Chief Justice John Roberts' Reagan-era past. On Monday, Roberts authored the Court's majority opinion in the Austin case which almost realized his 1980's goal of gutting the Voting Rights Act. And as the New York Times recalled Friday, back in 1984 then associate White House counsel Roberts didn't have very kind words for the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.
As Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage recounted, the young John Roberts was none too keen to associate his boss with Jackson. After Jacko had visited the White House and later appeared at an event with President Reagan to combat drunk driving, Jackson's team asked for a letter from the Gipper to be included in a Billboard magazine special. The over-the-top text ("Your visit to the White House was a real 'thriller' for all of us here in the Nation's Capital") was more than Roberts could stomach. In rejecting the letter, he wrote:
"I recognize that I am something of a vox clamans in terris in this area, but enough is enough. The Office of Presidential Correspondence is not yet an adjunct of Michael Jackson's PR firm."
Three months later, Team Jackson again requested a letter from Reagan, this time to promote his upcoming concert at Washington's RFK Stadium. Again, Roberts was having none of it:
"I hate to sound like one of Mr. Jackson's records, constantly repeating the same refrain, but I recommend that we not approve this letter...
Frankly, I find the obsequious attitude of some members of the White House staff toward Mr. Jackson's attendants, and the fawning posture they would have the President of the United States adopt, more than a little embarrassing."
Ironically, it was one of Michael Jackson's other attendants - Elizabeth Taylor - who to John Roberts' dismay would win over Ronald Reagan. This time, the issue was AIDS.
In the mid-1980's, Reagan himself only magnified the growing AIDS disaster. In 1985, Reagan faced growing panic as American parents sought to remove afflicted students such as Ryan White from their childrens' schools. In preparation for a September press conference, Reagan was given talking points advising sympathy for parents and children alike and stressing that there was no danger of AIDS transmission from casual or routine contact. But Reagan had also received a memo from then White House aide and current Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts that flew in the face of scientific consensus:
"I would not like to see the President reassuring the public on this point, only to find out he was wrong later. There is much to commend the view that we should assume AIDS can be transmitted through casual or routine contact, as is true with many viruses, until it is demonstrated that it cannot be, and no scientist has said AIDS definitively cannot be so transmitted."
Instead of reassuring an anxious public and halting growing discrimination, a clearly uncomfortable Reagan told the audience:
"I'm glad I'm not faced with that problem today and I can well understand the plight of the parents and how they feel about it...And yet medicine has not come forth unequivocally and said 'This we know for a fact, that it is safe.' And until they do I think we have to do the best we can with this problem. I can understand both sides of it."
The next day, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and the chief scientists at the National Institutes of Health called a news conference to correct President Reagan's tragic error and confirm that AIDS was a blood-borne sexually transmitted disease not spread by casual contact.
Not wanting to anger his allies on the Christian right when it came to the "gay plague," Reagan remained silent on AIDS throughout most of his presidency. In what would be the first high-impact celebrity intervention among Republicans, it took a plea from Elizabeth Taylor to get Ronald Reagan to deliver a speech at the 1987 meeting of amfAR, the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
With the death of Michael Jackson, the brief intersection of the King of Pop and the future Chief Justice is a passing historical curiosity. As for the prospects for the Voting Rights Act, over which young Reagan lawyer John Roberts claimed "we were burned" and violations of which "should not be made too easy to prove," the Supreme Court this week brought conservatives closer to the day they will "beat it."
Politics, they say, makes strange bedfellows. And perhaps none is stranger than Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn. As the Washington Post reported today, the tenant of the mysterious "C Street" brownstone was a key player in both the Ensign and Sanford affairs. As it turns out, the arch-conservative Coburn also happens to be a friend and confidante of President Barack Obama.
During his nationally-televised implosion on Wednesday, disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford made passing reference to "the Fellowship," a secretive Christian group whose $1.8 million DC building is home to several members of Congress of both parties. Asked if his wife and family knew of his affair prior to his latest Argentinian adventure, Sanford responded:
"We've been working through this thing for about the last five months. I've been to a lot of different--as part of what we called "C Street" when I was in Washington. It was, believe it or not, a Christian Bible study--some folks that asked members of Congress hard questions that I think were very, very important. And I've been working with them."
As fate would have it, the C Street house has also been home to Nevada's John Ensign and his Republican colleague turned spiritual and marriage counselor, Tom Coburn. As the Washington Post detailed:
The house pulsed with backstage intrigue, in the days and months before the Sanford and Ensign scandals -- dubbed "two lightning strikes" by a high-ranking congressional source. First, at least one resident learned of both the Sanford and Ensign affairs and tried to talk each politician into ending his philandering, a source close to the congressman said. Then the house drama escalated. It was then that Doug Hampton, the husband of Ensign's mistress, endured an emotional meeting with Sen. Tom Coburn, who lives there, according to the source. The topic was forgiveness.
"He was trying to be a peacemaker," the source said of Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma.
That the Oklahoman, a stalwart of the religious right, would emerge from central casting to remind his fallen Republican brethren of the word of God is no surprise. That Coburn, who among other extreme views called for the death penalty for abortion providers, is a friend of President Obama is another matter altogether.
As The Hill reported in May, "Here's something you don't see every day: Republican Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.) stopping by the White House to catch up with his longtime friend, President Obama." Even though Coburn ultimately backed his rival John McCain, "Obama asked him for advice before entering the race, and the two talked periodically during the campaign, with Coburn offering encouraging words during those conversations."
Apparently, the Illinois Senator had Coburn at hello:
"He's just got a great smile," said Coburn, recalling his first interactions with Obama. "He charmed me."
They have worked together in the past, teaming up on lobbying reform and later on a database to keep track of federal spending.
And aside from a devotion to improving government efficiency and transparency, they share a strong faith in God, Coburn said.
"Sometimes there are people you genuinely like and hit it off with personality-wise and you have certain things in common and you accentuate those and you don't pay much attention to what you don't [have in common], and that's the basis of our relationship," said Coburn.
To be sure, what Barack Obama and Tom Coburn have in common isn't much. And with the battle lines drawn over upcoming health care, energy and Sotomayor votes in the Senate, that camaraderie may be tested. Besides, Tom Coburn already has his hands full; he's got two marriages to save.
You know things are bad for God's Own Party when the arch-conservative and faithfully Republican Washington Times runs an article proclaiming "social conservatives fall from moral high ground."
Declaring "Republicans retreat from values claims," the Times catalogued the damage done to the party of supposed "values voters" by an endless string of scandals extended by John Ensign and Mark Sanford in the past week. For Democratic schadenfreude alone, the Times introduction was worth the price of admission:
Social conservatives, the once-powerful force that focused the Republican agenda on moral virtue and family values, have suffered a diminished brand on the national political landscape as a steady stream of their icons have fallen prey to the vices they once preached against.
Extramarital affairs, gambling, alcohol abuse, prostitution and sexual pursuit of minors have taken a toll on the GOP.
For its part, the Republican Party and its conservative allies do not yet seem able to part with strategy that produced "Justice Sunday", the "Values Voters Summit" and which supposedly made "moral values" top of voters' minds in the 2004 election. While South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis urged his Republican brethren to "lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness," Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council told the Times "distancing itself from its family-values platform in order to insulate itself from charges of hypocrisy is a bigger threat to the Republican Party." Meanwhile, in the run-up to the imbroglios that scratched two more names off the list of potential 2012 GOP White House hopefuls, it was serial adulterers Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani who with their six combined marriages took center stage as defenders of "the sanctity of marriage."
Even as he imploded before our eyes yesterday, disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford perpetuated the conceit of Republican moral superiority. In a rambling soliloquy, Sanford painfully detailed his infidelity and apologized to almost everyone for his violations of "God's laws":
"And in this regard, let me throw one more apology out there, and that is to people of faith across South Carolina, or for that matter, across the nation, because I think that one of the big disappointments when -- believe it or not, I've been a person of faith all my life."
(As for unbelievers in the Palmetto State and across the nation, they apparently can - and will - go to hell.)
As for Ensign and Sanford, their failings are far more profound than mere hypocrisy and adultery (as taboo and even illegal in South Carolina as they may be). Senator Ensign may well have violated Senate rules and campaign finance laws by finding jobs for and boosting compensation to his mistress and her family. Governor Sanford is not just guilty of what even Charles Krauthammer deemed "dereliction of duty," he may have used taxpayer dollars to fund his trysts in Argentina.
As for a Republican Party humiliated by the sin and debauchery of Mark Sanford, John Ensign, Larry Craig, David Vitter, Mark Foley, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Henry Hyde and so many other of its "people of faith, Fox News has a solution.
Call them Democrats.
UPDATE: The Washington Independent reports "conservatives write off Sanford as a national leader." In that piece, Grover Norquist joked, "It does indicate that men who oppose federal spending at the local level are irresistible to women."
Jeff Gannon may no longer be a fixture in the White House briefing room, but his spirit seemingly lives on with CBS reporter Chip Reid. Not, that is, as a male escort, but as an ever more reliable mouthpiece for Republican talking points.
During Tuesday's press conference, Reid was quick to echo Fox News' Major Garrett's snide ("What took you so long to say those words?") - and demonstrably false - claim that an "appalled and outraged" President Obama had waited to denounce the Iranian government's crackdown on protesters in Tehran:
THE PRESIDENT: Chip.
Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Following up on Major's question, some Republicans on Capitol Hill -- John McCain and Lindsey Graham, for example -- have said that up to this point, your response on Iran has been timid and weak. Today, it sounded a lot stronger. It sounded like the kind of speech John McCain has been urging you to give, saying that those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history, referring to an iron fist in Iran -- "deplore," "appalled," "outraged." Were you influenced at all by John McCain and Lindsey Graham accusing you of being timid and weak?
THE PRESIDENT: What do you think? (Laughter.)
Reid's recent water carrying for the right has been most pronounced when it comes to the unprecedented barrage of attacks on Obama from former Vice President Dick Cheney. After Cheney first began his campaign to essentially label Obama a traitor ("he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack"), press secretary Robert Gibbs joked, "Well, I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy, so they trotted out their next-most popular member of the Republican cabal." On March 16th, that was more than CBS White House correspondent Reid could countenance:
REID: Can I ask you, when you referred to the former Vice President, that was a really hard-hitting, kind of sarcastic response you had. This is a former Vice President of the United States. Is that the attitude -- is that the sanctioned tone toward the former Vice President of the United States from this White House now?
GIBBS: Sometimes I ask forgiveness rather than for permission, Chip. But no, I hope my sarcasm didn't mask the seriousness of the answer with which I addressed Ed -- that for seven-plus years, the very perpetrators that the Vice President says he's concerned about weren't brought to justice.
Of course, Reid's ventriloquist act for the Republican Party began almost the moment Obama took the oath of office. In an almost perfect replay of the 1993 Clinton economic package that received zero GOP votes in the House and the Senate, Capitol Hill Republicans on Capitol Hill launched a similar obstructionist effort to block the Obama stimulus bill. As he made clear on February 9, Chip Reid suggested it was pretty much all the President's fault:
"Thank you, Mr. President. You have often said that bipartisanship is extraordinarily important, overall and in this stimulus package, but now, when we ask your advisers about the lack of bipartisanship so far -- zero votes in the House, three in the Senate -- they say, "Well, it's not the number of votes that matters; it's the number of jobs that will be created."
Is that a sign that you are moving away -- your White House is moving away from this emphasis on bipartisanship?"
On health care, too, Reid pointed to "ugly" Democrats as the problem. Noting Senator Kent Conrad's concerns over the price tag for health care reform, Reid created a stir even among the normally pliable White House press corps:
"Democrats also raising their ugly heads, but ahh, on the hill. Kent Conrad, actually he's a very handsome man."
As President Obama offered perhaps his strongest rhetorical support to date for opposition protesters in Iran, CQ offered a look back at the former 1980's prime minister turned accidental reformer, Mir-Hossain Mousavi. In 1983, Mousavi, CQ reported, ''had to be aware" of Iranian-sponsored attacks on the United States in Lebanon, including the devastating barracks bombing that killed 241 Marines in Beirut. As it turns out, Mousavi was also intimately involved in another of Ronald Reagan's disastrous encounters with Iran just three years later. When Reagan sent a cake, a Bible and U.S. weapons to Tehran as part of the Iran-Contra scheme, then-Prime Minister Mousavi was there to receive them.
The Iran-Contra scandal, as you'll recall, almost laid waste to the Reagan presidency. Desperate to free U.S. hostages held by Iranian proxies in Lebanon, President Reagan provided weapons and spare parts Tehran badly needed in its long war with Saddam Hussein (who, of course, was backed by the United States). In a clumsy and illegal attempt to skirt U.S. law, the proceeds of those sales were then funneled to the contras fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. And as the New York Times recalled, Reagan's fiasco started with an emissary bearing gifts from the Gipper himself:
A retired Central Intelligence Agency official has confirmed to the Senate Intelligence Committee that on the secret mission to Teheran last May, Robert C. McFarlane and his party carried a Bible with a handwritten verse from President Reagan for Iranian leaders.
According to a person who has read the committee's draft report, the retired C.I.A. official, George W. Cave, an Iran expert who was part of the mission, said the group had 10 falsified passports, believed to be Irish, and a key-shaped cake to symbolize the anticipated ''opening'' to Iran.
As the November 1987 report of the Congressional committees investigating the Iran-Contra affair detailed, the McFarlane delegation was to meet with a now familiar cast of characters in Iran, including Mir-Hossein Mousavi. As the report revealed, the arms-for-hostages swap got off to a rocky start:
The Presidentially approved McFarlane mission to Tehran in the spring of 1986 was intended to crown a 9-month effort to free the hostages and establish a dialogue with Iran. McFarlane likened the mission to Henry Kissinger's historic secret meeting with Premier Chou En Lai that paved the way to reconciliation with China. Eight years after an Iranian Prime Minister, Mehdi Bazargan, was dismissed for meeting with President Carter's National Security Adviser, McFarlane was to meet with Speaker Rafsanjani, Prime Minister Musavi and President Khamenei, the three most powerful leaders in Iran under Ayatollah Khomeini. What is more, McFarlane believed that the hostages were to be released upon his arrival and that the HAWK parts were not to be delivered until the hostages were safe. Hopeful of success, [Oliver] North arranged logistical support for the return of the hostages and prepared a press kit for the White House. North added his own flourish: He ordered a chocolate cake from an Israeli baker as a gift for the Iranians.
The Iranians had very different ideas - centering on arms and Da'wa prisoners. As a result, the Tehran meeting ended in an acrimonious confrontation with the hostages still captivity.
The rest, as they say, is history. After the revelations regarding his trip to Tehran and the Iran-Contra scheme, a disgraced McFarlane attempted suicide. After his initial denials, President Reagan was forced to address the nation on March 4, 1987 and acknowledge he indeed swapped arms for hostages (video here):
"A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages."
As conservative blogger Ed Morrissey notes over at Hot Air, recalling Mousavi's role in the 1980's "serves as a reminder that the man whom the mullahs have suppressed was and perhaps still is of their regime." (Morrissey also pointed out that a spokesman told the Guardian this week that Mousavi previously "knew only Che Guevara," but now "he knows Gandhi.")
UPDATE: The Washington Times is reporting that at least a month before the Iranian elections, the Obama administration sent a letter to the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei seeking improved relations. As Steve Benen notes, conservatives are predictably apoplectic.
In a highly anticipated ruling today, the United States Supreme Court preserved - for now - the Voting Rights Act of 1965. While its 8-1 decision enabled municipal governments to opt out of Section 5 federal "pre-clearance" requirements for 16 mostly Southern states, the majority opinion avoided the larger constitutional issue. Which means that the long conservative campaign to suppress the overwhelmingly Democratic minority vote is far from over.
As the Washington Post reported this morning, the case (Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District v. Holder) was brought by conservative activists looking to end the Justice Department's role in pre-clearing voting changes in states with a legacy of curbing the franchise for African-American voters. Ironically, it was Chief Justice John Roberts who wrote the majority opinion which sidestepped the "difficult constitutional question we do not answer today."
Ironic, that is, not merely because Roberts expressed deep skepticism about the law's continued relevance and constitutionality during oral arguments in April, but because of his own past opposition to the Voting Rights Act during his tenure in the Reagan administration.
But the most pointed back-and-forth was between Judge Roberts and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, who pressed the nominee on his commitment to the Voting Rights Act, which has been widely credited with enabling many black Americans to vote, especially in the South, and consequently increasing minority representation in government.
The senator recalled that, when the nominee was a Reagan administration lawyer in 1982, he wrote a memorandum embracing the administration's stance that sections of the Voting Rights Act should be enforced according to whether discrimination was intended, as opposed to whether discrimination was the effect...
Judge Roberts replied cautiously. In 1982, "I was still working for the administration, Senator," he told Mr. Kennedy.
If a voting-rights issue came before him today, "I would, of course, confront that issue as a judge and not as a staff attorney for an administration with a particular position on that issue," he said.
When the Austin case was heard this spring, however, the Chief Justice gave every indication his views from the days as a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution were unchanged. "I mean, at some point," he said, "it begins to look like the idea is that this is going to go on forever." Robert also asked:
"Are Southerners more likely to discriminate than Northerners?"
And yet the Roberts Court defied expectations, ruling narrowly and averting a likely 5-4 split and averting the controversy certain to follow the striking down of the landmark civil rights bill. Still, Roberts' language at times echoed the lone dissenter, Clarence Thomas ("The violence, intimidation and subterfuge that led Congress to pass Section 5 and this court to uphold it no longer remains"), suggesting that the fate of the Voting Rights Act is far from secure:
Roberts himself noted that blacks and white now register and turn out to vote in similar numbers and that "blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare."
He attributed a significant share of the progress to the law itself. "Past success alone, however, is not adequate justification to retain the preclearance requirement," Roberts said.
And to be sure, the all-out war on minority (read "Democratic") voters by the Bush administration and Republican is far from over. As I detailed previously ("Divide, Suppress and Conquer"), driving down the participation of overwhelmingly Democratic black and Hispanic voters through onerous registration barriers, draconian voter identification laws, unprecedented redistricting, ballot-box challenges and election day dirty tricks remains as an essential GOP electoral strategy. For its part, the Bush Justice Department overruled its career voting rights attorneys to bless the harsh Georgia ID law, instead bringing a rare Voting Rights prosecution on behalf of white voters in Noxubee County, Mississippi.
For its part, the Court in the wake of its 6-3 ruling last year in support of an Indiana voter identification law seemed almost certain to strike down the Voting Rights Act. (Appeals Court judge Terence Evans noted the obvious in his earlier dissent, "Let's not beat around the bush: The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic."). Perhaps the Court's restraint today was evidence - finally - of what Sonia Sotomayor critic Jeffrey Rosen had once praised as John Roberts' vaunted judicial temperament and commitment to seek unanimity.
More likely, Roberts and his conservative allies are biding their time, waiting for a better case to bring down the Voting Rights Act once and for all. And to be sure, the Republican faithful nationwide are certain to offer them that opportunity.
As the debate over health care reform heats up, Republicans in Congress are predictably regurgitating the talking points penned by GOP spinmeister Frank Luntz to once again block progress. Perhaps none of the GOP fearmongers has been more prolific than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Time and again, McConnell has warned that President Obama's proposal "denies, delays, or rations health care." Of course, health care that is denied, delayed and rationed is exactly the crisis Americans face today.
McConnell was the natural choice to deliver the Saturday Republican radio address on the subject, given his frequent and faithful reproduction of Luntz's advice to appear "passionately on the side of reform" while actively working to undermine it with such canards as. "it could lead to the government rationing care, making people stand in line and denying treatment like they do in other countries with national healthcare." For example:
"Americans don't want their health care denied or delayed. But once government health care is the only option, bureaucratic hassles, endless hours stuck on hold waiting for a government service rep, restrictions on care, and rationing are sure to follow." (June 3, 2009)
"All of us want reform, but not reform that denies, delays, or rations health care." (June 10, 2009)
"Americans want to see changes in the health care system. But they don't want changes that deny, delay, or ration care." (June 11, 2009)
To be sure, de facto rationing what prevails in the U.S. health care system today. In 2007, a new Census Bureau formula calculated that an estimated 45.7 million Americans were without health insurance. In February, the Center for American Progress found that the recession added four million more to the rolls of the uninsured, a group which a study by Families USA in March found included 86.7 million Americans over a two-year span. And in June 2007, a devastating assessment from the Commonwealth Fund showed fully 25 million more Americans were "underinsured," a staggering 60 percent jump since 2003. All in all, 42% of the people in the United States under age 65 have insufficient insurance - or simply none at all.
Certain to make matters worse is the rapid deterioration of the employer-provided health insurance coverage. A 2007 report from the Economic Policy Institute showed a dramatic decline in employer-provided health care. That drop-off from 64.2% of Americans covered through workplace insurance in 2000 to just 59.7% in 2007 alone added 2.3 million more people to those without coverage.
Of course, McConnell's dystopian future of health care delayed is already Americans' nightmare present. A Thompson Reuters survey released in April found that 1 in 5 Americans "have delayed or postponed medical care, mostly doctor visits, and many said cost was the main reason," a staggering jump from 15.9% in 2006. As study leader Gary Pickens summed up the grim findings:
"The results of this survey have serious implications for public health officials, hospital administrators, and healthcare consumers. We are seeing a positive correlation between Americans losing their access to employer-sponsored health insurance and deferral of healthcare."
As it turns out, these disturbing trends are having a cascading effect on waiting times and treatment at American emergency rooms. While high-profile cases of the deaths of untreated ER patients in Los Angeles and New York put a face on the crisis, a 2006 report by the Institute of Medicine revealed that U.S. emergency rooms can barely cope with the volume of patients in the best of circumstances:
The study cited three contributing problems to the rise in emergency room visits: the aging of the baby boomers, the growing number of uninsured and underinsured patients, and the lack of access to primary care physicians.
The report found that 114 million people, including 30 million children, visited emergency rooms in 2003, compared with 90 million visits a decade ago. In that same period, the number of U.S. hospitals decreased by 703, the number of emergency rooms decreased by 425, and the total number of hospital beds dropped by 198,000, mainly because of the trend toward cheaper outpatient care, according to the report.
"I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room."
The rapidly increasing numbers of uninsured and their growing use of the emergency room as first and last resort add yet another burden to the mushrooming cost of health care for American families. That annual tab now tops $12,000. Of that, a recent analysis by the Center for American Progress found that "8 percent of families' 2009 health care premiums--approximately $1,100 a year--is due to our broken system that fails to cover the uninsured."
And with successful Republican obstruction of Democratic health care initiatives, those jaw-dropping costs would only continue their steep climb. A new report from the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers forecast employers will face a 9% increase in health insurance costs in 2010. 42% of those business surveyed will pass at least some the new burden on to their workers. As PWC's Michael Thompson concluded:
"If the underlying costs go up by 9%, employees' costs actually go up by double digits," he said, noting that will have a "major, major impact" when many employers also are freezing or cutting pay.
More than 75 percent of these bankrupt families had health insurance but still were overwhelmed by their medical debts, the team at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University reported in the American Journal of Medicine.
"Using a conservative definition, 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92 percent of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5,000, or 10 percent of pretax family income," the researchers wrote. "Most medical debtors were well-educated, owned homes and had middle-class occupations."
In his demagoguery regarding President Obama's health insurance proposals featuring a "public option," Senator McConnell trotted out horror stories from Canada and the UK to illustrate "health care denied" by "government-run" systems. But as the New York Times suggested, McConnell's examples of Canadian Shona Holmes and Briton Bruce Hardy in essence made his opponents' case for them:
What Mr. McConnell did not disclose was that Ms. Holmes paid for her treatment, at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, on her own - an option that is available to patients with financial resources all over the world regardless of their nation's health insurance system...
As for the case of Mr. Hardy, the particulars seem to make it hard to tell how his situation differed from the countless Americans who battle their private insurers every day for access to the newest, most advanced and most expensive treatments.
In case there was any doubt on that point, hearings this week of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations should have ended it. Its investigation found that just three insurers (WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc.) cancelled coverage for 20,000 people in what is deemed "rescission", praising employees in performance reviews for "for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses." As the Los Angeles Times detailed, when lawmakers asked executives from the three firms if they would stop dropping customers except where they can show "intentional fraud," all said no:
Late in the hearing, [Bart] Stupak [D-MI], the committee chairman, put the executives on the spot. Stupak asked each of them whether he would at least commit his company to immediately stop rescissions except where they could show "intentional fraud."
The answer from all three executives:
"No."
Despite Mitch McConnell's grandstanding, Americans' health care is frequently denied - even when they are already paying for it.
And so it goes. Back in 1993, GOP propagandist William Kristol famously mobilized his Republican colleagues, warning that Bill Clinton' success with health reform could lead to a Democratic majority for a generation. His talking point then was "no crisis." 16 years later, Mitch McConnell is frightening Americans with dark visions of a future system where health care is denied, delayed and rationed.
The future is now.
UPDATE: A new CBS News/New York Times poll shows that "85 percent of respondents said the health care system needed to be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt," while 72% of Americans support a so-called public option.
