Here's What's Left

Taking a break

As should probably be pretty obvious from the lack of posts over the past months, I've had less time for this blog that I would have liked.  This is still the case, so I thought I'd make it official -- I'm gonna take a break from blogging for a few weeks. Look for more witty, irreverent and generally brilliant commentary here around the middle of November.

-- Michael

Keep digging

Is something in the water at the White House?  They're just digging the hole deeper with the Miers nomination.  When you get a mainstream news outlet calling them on something like this, you know they're in trouble.  CNN: White House defends talk of Miers' religion.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush suggested Wednesday that Harriet Miers' evangelical Christian beliefs were part of the reason he nominated her to the Supreme Court. But later a White House spokesman said her religion played no role in her selection.

"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers," Bush told reporters at the White House. "They want to know Harriet Miers' background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions."

"Part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion," Bush said during Oval Office comments with visiting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. "Part of it has to do with the fact that she was a pioneer woman and a trailblazer in the law in Texas."[...]

Later Wednesday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan denied Miers' religious beliefs had anything to do with her nomination.

"Harriet Miers is a person of faith," McClellan told reporters. "She recognizes, however, that a person's religion or personal views have no role when it comes to making decisions as a judge."

Surely the White House has thinking of ways to placate a base and conservative punditry in rebellion, but if this how they're going to do it (i.e., by claiming to have picked her for illegal reasons), it doesn't seem to be helping them. 

Almost makes me wonder whether they're trying to shift the story away from Miers' (un)qualifications and general mediocrity to a religion thing -- and whether press stories exposing contradictory White House talking points are part of that.  See, we told you that the liberal, elitist, secularist, baby-killing media hates evangelicals.  That kind of thing. 

But that strategy strikes me as unlikely, since I can't help but think that Bush actually wants to see her confirmed.  And in coming dangerously close to talk of a "religious test," Bush isn't winning any fans with a (D) next to their name.

-- Michael

Strict Constructionist?

E.J. Dionne's column, excellent as usual, calls the right-wing on their hypocrisy in regard to Harriet Miers' religious beliefs:

"We have no religious tests for public office in this country," thundered Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), insisting that any inquiry about a potential judge's [John Roberts, in this case]religious views was "offensive." Fidelis, a conservative Catholic group, declared that "Roberts' religious faith and how he lives that faith as an individual has no bearing and no place in the confirmation process."

But now that Harriet Miers, Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee, is in trouble with conservatives, her religious faith and how she lives that faith are becoming central to the case being made for her by the administration and its supporters. Miers has almost no public record. Don't worry, the administration's allies are telling their friends on the right, she's an evangelical Christian .[...]

"Maybe it's the judicial implications of her evangelical faith, unseen on the court in recent decades," Olasky wrote on his blog. "Friends who know Miers well testify to her internal compass that includes a needle pointed toward Christ."[...]

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Let's be clear: It is pro-administration conservatives, not those terrible liberals, who are making an issue of Miers's evangelical faith. Liberals are not opposing Miers because she is an evangelical. Conservatives are telling their friends to support Miers because she is an evangelical.

Which, of course, is unarguably hypocritical.  But it's funny that Dionne doesn't make the more obvious point here.  It's not only that republicans have said the stuff about the religious test and are now using religion to gain support.  It's that republicans have always been very clear about what they think judges are supposed to do: they think judges should strictly interpret the law and the Constitution, and that's it.

Even when Bush announced Miers, he said that she "will strictly interpret our Constitution and laws. She will not legislate from the bench."  Bush said of some judges whose nominations were being held up that "They will strictly and faithfully interpret the law. They won't use the bench from which to legislate."  What about foreign law?  Kevin Fobbs tells us:

The Supreme Court may not continue to be the supreme court of the land if the judicial philosophy of Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer of using foreign law rulings in adjudicating American cases is permitted to become standard practice by the justices.

Couldn't be clearer.  Their position might be overstated, simplistic, and full of straw men, but it's clear: judges can't use their personal preferences, or even the laws of another country, to make their decisions.  They interpret the law, plain and simple.

So why, then, does it matter that Harriet Miers' heart is pointed to Christ?  Why does it matter her friend Nathan Hecht is being put on TV to tell us that in the 70s she sought a "deeper commitment to faith"?  How does any of this tell us whether she'll interpret the Constitution and the law rather than legislating from the bench?

I assume, then, ahem, that this will be the first question out the mouths of conservatives during her confirmation hearing: Ms. Miers, as you know, your job as a Supreme Court justice is to faithfully interpret the law.  Given how well publicized it is, then, how can we be sure that your Christian faith will not get in the way of this?

-- Michael

Strict Constructionist

E.J. Dionne's column, excellent as usual, calls the right-wing on their hypocrisy in regard to Harriet Miers' religious beliefs:

"We have no religious tests for public office in this country," thundered Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), insisting that any inquiry about a potential judge's [John Roberts, in this case]religious views was "offensive." Fidelis, a conservative Catholic group, declared that "Roberts' religious faith and how he lives that faith as an individual has no bearing and no place in the confirmation process."

But now that Harriet Miers, Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee, is in trouble with conservatives, her religious faith and how she lives that faith are becoming central to the case being made for her by the administration and its supporters. Miers has almost no public record. Don't worry, the administration's allies are telling their friends on the right, she's an evangelical Christian .[...]

"Maybe it's the judicial implications of her evangelical faith, unseen on the court in recent decades," Olasky wrote on his blog. "Friends who know Miers well testify to her internal compass that includes a needle pointed toward Christ."[...]

Let's be clear: It is pro-administration conservatives, not those terrible liberals, who are making an issue of Miers's evangelical faith. Liberals are not opposing Miers because she is an evangelical. Conservatives are telling their friends to support Miers because she is an evangelical.

Which, of course, is unarguably hypocritical.  But it's funny that Dionne doesn't make the more obvious point here.  It's not only that republicans have said the stuff about the religious test and are now using religion to gain support.  It's that republicans have always been very clear about what they think judges are supposed to do: they think judges should strictly interpret the law and the Constitution, and that's it.

Even when Bush announced Miers, he said that she "will strictly interpret our Constitution and laws. She will not legislate from the bench."  Bush said of some judges whose nominations were being held up that "They will strictly and faithfully interpret the law. They won't use the bench from which to legislate."  What about foreign law?  Kevin Fobbs:

The Supreme Court may not continue to be the supreme court of the land if the judicial philosophy of Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer of using foreign law rulings in adjudicating American cases is permitted to become standard practice by the justices.

Couldn't be clearer.  Judges can't use their personal preferences, or even the laws of another country, to make their decisions.  They interpret the law, plain and simple.

So why, then, does it matter that Harriet Miers' heart is pointed to Christ?

Miers nomination thoughts

I don't have any better explanation that anyone else for the Miers nomination.  In my too-clever-by-half moments I think that something like this is going on: that Miers is an intentionally disappointing nominee; that a republican strategist has no intention of seeing Roe overturning -- so that it can be continuously used in future elections to push the republican party even further to the right ('we need politicians who are even more socially conservative!').

It's also possible, I suppose, that the right really does want her, and is trying to dupe Dems into not opposing her.  That this intra-republican party war a smoke screen. 

But I think it's more likely that movement conservatism wants a fight while the White House wants someone to seem inoffensive.  And that an unexpected consequence of the Miers nomination is that some on the right are realizing that Bush is actually not very competent, i.e., he doesn't do the job of being president very well.  Some of them are just now realizing that his judgment is bad, his decisions arbitrary, his governing philosophy non-existent.  Of course, it would have been nice if they had figured this out before they all went and voted for him last year, but one can you expect from the modern republican party?

The good news for Dems, I suppose, is that this nomination could be bad for the long-term health of the republican party.  Really makes one wonder how a republican nominee in 2008 will handle the Bush legacy.  Unless things turn around dramatically, it seems like Bush is headed for a unusually unsuccessful two-term presidency, unsatisfactory to the left and the right, and that the lack of success will be obvious all but the most blind partisans.  How does a party run on such a legacy?

-- Michael

Priorities

I'm genuinely surprised how poorly the republican party seems to be handling the threat of a fuel shortage.  Bush's misguided and slightly weird exhortation that citizens should voluntarily hold off on unnecessary travel, even while he wants the federal government to relax environmental standards has been criticized by many corners in ways better than I can do. 

But this news out of my home state is particularly stupid:

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Hundreds of thousands of Georgia children got a break from classes Monday after Gov. Sonny Perdue asked schools to close for two days as a hedge against possible fuel shortages, leaving many parents struggling to arrange child care.

The shortages that Perdue feared never materialized, largely because Hurricane Rita proved less damaging to Gulf Coast refineries than initially expected.

Wow, the response to that writes itself:

Democrats, including state party Chairman Bobby Kahn, criticized the move.

"The first thing he decided to do was close schools," Kahn said. "That shows something about his views on education and his priorities."

Quite right, Mr. Chairman.  Sounds like a good republican campaign slogan for the '06 elections: "Vote republican -- ensure that your kids' education is less important than keeping gas prices only moderately high."

-- Michael

But I thought tax cuts increased the revenue base?

It's nice that occasionally some republicans pretend to act like grown-ups, and at least try to be internally consistent in their craziness:

Congressional Republicans are not arguing with Bush's pledge that the federal government will lead the Louisiana and Mississippi recovery. But they are insisting that the massive cost -- as much as $200 billion -- be paid for. Conservatives are calling for spending cuts to existing programs, a few GOP moderates are entertaining the possibility of a tax increase, and many in the middle want to freeze Bush tax cuts that have yet to take effect.

Yes, folks when the government is actually facing an immediate money crisis some republicans feel compelled to acknowledge that tax cuts for the rich don't actually increase revenues.  Of course, this is also an acknowledgement that theory they've been hawking explicitly or implicitly for years is complete horseshit, and that they've been totally intellectually dishonest and have been intentionally deceiving the American people since the Reagan years.  But nevertheless, it's nice to see a few of them offer a glimmer of honesty in those rare moments.

-- Michael

Pathetic

Scary answers from Bush today on Katrina.  As always, it's hard to convey a sense of the president's, um, unique speaking style from transcribing what he said.  So I encourage you to go listen to the NPR piece.  If you don't have time you can read below.

Bush on why he said "I don't think anyone anticipated a breach of the levees."

BUSH: What I was refering to is this.  When that storm came by a lot of people said we dodged the bullet.  When that storm came through at first people said phew.  There was a sense of relaxation.  That's what I was referring to.  And I - I myself thought we had dodged the bullet and ya know why.  Because I was listening to people, uh, probably over the airwaves, saying 'the bullet has been dodged.'  And that was what I was referring to.  Of course there were plans in case the levee had been breached.  But there was a sense of relaxation at the moment, the critical moment, and thanks for giving me a chance to clarify that. 

First there's the fact that the even if Bush meant that no one anticipated a breach of levees in Katrina, he's wrong.  The National Weather Service's warning prior to the storm said this:

COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 18 TO 22 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE LEVELS...LOCALLY AS HIGH AS 28 FEET...ALONG WITH LARGE AND DANGEROUS BATTERING WAVES...CAN BE EXPECTED NEAR AND TO THE EAST OF WHERE THE CENTER MAKES LANDFALL. SOME LEVEES IN THE GREATER NEW ORLEANS AREA COULD BE OVERTOPPED.  SIGNIFICANT STORM SURGE FLOODING WILL OCCUR ELSEWHERE ALONG THE CENTRAL AND NORTHEASTERN GULF OF MEXICO COAST.

Second, it's astonishing that Bush manages to pretty explicitly blame the media for his own laziness.  "And I - I myself thought we had dodged the bullet and ya know why.  Because I was listening to people, uh, probably over the airwaves, saying 'the bullet has been dodged.'"  Well, he must have turned off the TV on Monday, because the mainstream media coverage of the levee breach was fairly thorough, continuous, and overall about as good as I've seen the media do in this country.  That's the thing, though: what kind of president blames the mainstream media, the same media his party has made a small industry out of criticizing, for not giving him the information that he should have gotten anyway?  Well, I guess, this kind of president.  One that is not remotely capable of dealing with reality. 

Here he is when asked about when he realized the extent of the Katrina disaster:

I knew that a big storm was coming on Monday that's why I spoke to the country on Monday morning about it I said "there's a big storm coming."  I had pre-signed emergency declarations in anticipation of a big storm coming.   Which is by the way extraordinary.  Most emergencies the president signs after the storm has hit.  It's a rare occasion for the president to anticipate the severity of the storm and sign the documentation prior to the storm.  So in other words we anticipated it that there was a storm coming.  But as the man's question said basically implied ya know wasn't there a moment when everyone said well gosh 'we dodged the bullet,' but the bullet hasn't been dodged. 

Look what a great president I am.  Can you believe how well prepared we are?  I pre-signed emergency declaration.  Stop the fucking presses.  I took two seconds out of my busy days clearing brush to sign some paper.  I'm really extraordinary if you think about it.  Not only did I anticipate that there was a storm coming, I actually put my name on some paper as well.  God, what fucking genius I am.

The point here, of course, is that I don't see how any reasonable could hear the president's words and not realize what a petulant, petty, image-obsessed man he is.  Dan Froomkin might be right that "an emperor-has-no-clothes moment seems upon us."

-- Michael

Katrina Straw Man Watch

I've seen it once or twice so far, and usually it's been poorly articulated, but I'm curious to know: how long will it be before we get serious attempts at a right-wing starve-the-beast explanation for FEMA's role in the Katrina fiasco?  Along the lines of something like this:

FEMA screwed up so badly with the whole Katrina thing blah blah blah I told you the federal government can't be trusted.  Blah blah blah the answer is not to try to make FEMA better blah blah blah make it even smaller and less significant.  Blah blah blah private sector.

Has anyone seen tried seriously?

-- Michael

UPDATE: I guess the answer to my questions above, "how long will it be," is "about 7 hours."  Must be something in the water, because Ezra found one this morning, not surprisingly, from Tony Snow.  Ezra also outlines what the Democratic answer should be to privatization nonsense:

This is a pretty constant conservative fallacy when it comes to privatization. The market may encourage efficiency, but only if it works like a market. When politicians run the bidding, that's never assured. If you let corrupt pols privatize, the privatization will be corrupt. And if they have a tendency to install campaign cronies in positions of power, there's no reason to expect they won't award contracts in exactly the same manner. So forgive me if I don't quite see the efficiency gain in trading an incompetent individual who helped on the campaign for an unqualified corporation that donated to the campaign. Halliburton's "misplaced" how many billions in Iraq now?

Moreover, nothing, nothing is inherently inefficient about the public sector. Some corporations turn out to be corrupt, like Enron, or inefficient, like any number of bankrupted, bloated brands, and some government agencies do the same. But some don't.[...]

Bush's decisions transformed a remarkably efficient government agency into a fatally incompetent one, so conservatives want to let him do it a second time. It's completely insane. This isn't a private vs. public debate -- contrast Clinton's FEMA with Bush's version to see that. But the right would much prefer that it was. Democrats should make sure voters understand that Bush took a superb organization and destroyed it by handing control to a politically-connected incompetent.

I think that's about right.  Focus a little more on the cronyism, throw something in there about how it's important to have competent people in positions of power, people who are experienced and qualified to do the job, how it's too bad that our republican government doesn't take it's responsibility to the American people serious.  Whittle that down to some talking points and some campaign ads (lots of cake-cutting, guitar-playing Bush also) and it seems like you have a '06 campaign strategy.  We want to come to Washington to clean up the mess made by the little babies in power.  You get the idea.

(Thanks to other Michael for the catch.)

What every Democrat should say

Not surprisingly, Paul Krugman sums it up nicely:

The lethally inept response to Hurricane Katrina revealed to everyone that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which earned universal praise during the Clinton years, is a shell of its former self. The hapless Michael Brown - who is no longer overseeing relief efforts but still heads the agency - has become a symbol of cronyism.

But what we really should be asking is whether FEMA's decline and fall is unique, or part of a larger pattern. What other government functions have been crippled by politicization, cronyism and/or the departure of experienced professionals? How many FEMA's are there?

Not that that's a particularly original thought, it's just that I'm glad it's being articulated.  It seems to me that this basic point -- how many people lost their lives and their homes as a result of republican cronyism, and how deep does republican cronyism go in this government? -- is one that Democrats have to hit relentlessly.  Every Democrat, in the reddest of states, has got to make it clear that the Katrina disaster could have been avoided if only we had had people who take their jobs seriously.

The argument really makes itself, and it's virtually air-tight.  Michael Brown is/was unqualified.  No one disputes this.  President Bush appointed him to his position because of political connections.  The president doesn't take his job seriously, and he doesn't take the job of the head of FEMA seriously; that puts American lives in jeopardy.  Speaking of putting American lives in jeopardy, here's the second part of what every Democrat should say:

And finally, what about the department of Homeland Security itself? FEMA was neglected, some people say, because it was folded into a large agency that was focused on terrorist threats, not natural disasters. But what, exactly, is the department doing to protect us from terrorists?

In 2004 Reuters reported a "steady exodus" of counterterrorism officials, who believed that the war in Iraq had taken precedence over the real terrorist threat. Why, then, should we believe that Homeland Security is being well run?

So to sum up, seems to me there are three main points that should be repeated endlessly:

1) Bush's appointment of a man with no qualifications except for political connections to FEMA ensured that lives were lost. 

2) How many more executive branch agencies that serve important functions in our society are being run political cronies?  How many American lives are at risk as a result of this?

3) If Bush can appoint a political crony to such an important position, what's to make us think that the people fighting the "global war on terrorism" "global struggle against violent extremism" "global war on terrorism" are qualified?  Why should we believe that the president is serious about our safety?

-- Michael

9/11

I really don't think it's that appropriate to observe the 4th anniversay of 9/11 with a concert by Clint Black, or by turning the day into political propaganda.

Thousands walked today in remembrance of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in tribute to U.S. troops abroad. By their presence, marchers endorsed the worldwide fight against terrorism that began after airliners slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field four years ago.

Nor do I think that it's appropriate that some Americans still don't want to accept the truth about 9/11 and the Iraq war, namely that they're unrelated:

Russell Farkouh, 42, a Fairfax, Va., defense consultant whose family burial plot in Brooklyn, N.Y., looks out on what used to be a World Trade Center vista, said Bush did the right thing going to war in Iraq.

"The only thing those guys recognize and appreciate is force," he said, endorsing the view that Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida terrorists were linked.

Ray Embree, 67, of Springfield, Va., a retired special forces master sergeant, said: "I support the president I support the military and I support going after the enemies of our country."

It seems much more appropriate, in my opinion, to remind ourselves of who's really responsible for the terrorist attacks four years ago (al Qaeda), to feel a sense of mourning for the victims, and to hope that one day we have a government who takes international terrorism seriously.

-- Michael

Just to make sure we're clear about what the 4th Circuit is saying

There's something pretty horrifying about reading this WaPo article about the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the US can detain US citizens indefinitely during wartime. 

A federal appeals court ruled today that the president can indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. soil in the absence of criminal charges, holding that such authority is vital during wartime to protect the nation from terrorist attacks.

Of course, when one reads such an article, one thinks of the stuff one usually thinks of: isn't the idea of a federal court ruling that the president has the right to indefinitely (without charges or trial) hold a US citizen bizarre, grotesque and unconsitutional.  Doesn't it seems like it could easily be arbitrarily abused, which is why the founding fathers specifically mentioned the writ of habeas corpus in the Constitution.  Yes, I thought those things as I read the article.

But what really goes off scale on the horrifying-o-meter is the WaPo's correction, which says, and I'm not kidding:

Clarification to This Article
A previous online version of this story did not specify that the court ruling applied only during wartime. That has been changed in this version.

Thanks guys.  Next time, please print an extra clarification that say something like this:

Clarification of the Clarification
A previous online version of this Clarification did not specify that the word "wartime" shouldn't be construed to mean that anyone has declared war on anyone else in any kind of official or legally binding sense.  Or that there are any specific criteria for deciding what is a war or what isn't a war other than how the president is feeling on any given morning.  Or that when the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals talks about detaining people indefinitely during "wartime" what they really mean is "whenever the president feels like he needs to call something a war to boost his poll numbers."

That would be helpful.

-- Michael

And in other news: the sky is blue

I guess I shouldn't criticize the WaPo for running this article about how no one at FEMA is qualified to do anything.  Because I'm glad that they're writing about, and I'm glad that it will become unavoidable public knowledge.  It's just that there's something that I find really funny about the headline on their webpage:

Huge fucking news!  FEMA Leaders Lacking In Disaster Experience!  Unbelievable!  We've only know about this for the last week!  It's been widely reported on by everyone and their mother, but we just found out about it!  Stop the presses!  We at the Washington Post are shocked, shocked to find out that this administration appoints political cronies to important positions!

-- Michael