Political News Tracker

Yesterday was a slow news day.  Here’s some of what happened.

• CIA said Justice Department investigating its destruction of evidence will not give them enough time to destroy more evidence.  Wait… it will hinder their own investigation.  Or something.
• In the “gee, ya’ think?” category, we’ve got “Ohio elections official calls machines flawed.”
• WaPo continues their Frontrunners feature profiling Mike Huckabee.
• Bush getting his way in getting Congress to spend as he sees fit could raise the deficit $240 billion.  And he’s ever cared about such things before?  He believes in the tax fanasy, logic and facts be damned.
• Pelosi says Republicans “like” Iraq war.  Republicans bitch and moan, fail to prove her wrong.
• It doesn’t seem possible to many, but some of us are still realists, understand how misguided and badly informed Americans are, and paid attention for the last 14 years.  Al Jazeera tells us why Democrats could lose.

• The gang of misfits that supposedly plotted to blow up the Sear’s Tower (right when Bush needed a big terror scare to distract us) were all either acquitted or effectively acquitted through mistrial. Who saw that coming? And here’s a more damning look at the “7 Boobs” and the administration tendency to, how shall we say, exaggerate such claims.
• An analysis of how Bush keeps getting his way, by refusing to negotiate with anyone. And “there may be a cost”? MAY?
• Stripped energy bill passes the Senate, Democrats “capitulate” to Republicans. Tax handouts for polluters to continue unabated. Yay, Republicans!
• Senate Judiciary Committee holds Rove and Bolten in contempt of Congress. It’s buried on page 36 of the NYTimes and probably won’t amount to anything anyway. Yeesh.
• The Frontrunners series continues at WaPo taking on Barack Obama today.
• The fall of Roger Clemens.
• 199 representatives (guess which party) and one executive just love them some waterboarding and are willing to defend it against the civil barbarian hordes.
• The New Jersey General Assembly passed legislation to abolish the death penalty. The Senate’s already approved it, and Governor Corzine has promised to sign it. Reason prevails.
• Huckabee will set the womens’ rights movement back years. But that could easily be said of practically any Republican.
• Bush is apparently “troubled” by the use of steroids in baseball. Of course the article doesn’t say that he was an owner during the explosion of steroid use in baseball. He was the owner of Sammy Sosa. Glass house meet stone.
• The crazy douchebag movement (also known as the Minutemen) experiences dissension in its ranks over its Fearless Leader Gilchrist’s endorsement of Huckabee.

Tracking some of the best from the editorial pages around the media.

• Amity Shlaes’ thorough debunking of the folly of the Fair Tax, the package Huckabee is pushing and not telling us the truth about.
• Huckabee as Jimmy Carter Redux? Hmmm…
• Dick Morris gives us the reasons why Oprah’s endorsement will be a “big boost” to Obama.  I completely agree.  No one else I’ve talked to about it does, but I see this starting a wave that will submerge the Clinton camp.
• Reid Wilson on “Immigration:  Not Really A Third Rail.”  Excellent article, takes a clear-headed and sane look at how illegal immigration, an issue vocally espoused by a group much smaller than their volume level would imply, will affect the upcoming election.
• And continuing with immigration, Mort Kondracke takes on Lou Dobbs, analyzing three recent works that demonstrate how Lou Dobbs “winning” would be a disaster for the US.

It seemed obvious that the law & order wing of the Republican party (not to mention the anti-taxers, the economic conservatives, etc.) would not be pleased with a Mike Huckabee nomination.

That said, perhaps you’ve heard of the new attack that broke today at huckabeefacts.com, a site set up for the exclusive purpose of releasing a video featuring the mother of a woman Wayne Dumond killed after being released from prison at the “alleged” behest of Mike Huckabee. Yeah, it’s bad. And the video is short, to-the-point, and produced and released by a fairly low-level behind-the-scenes Arkansas Republican named Keith Emis. Watch it below.

Ahh, a little civility.  But no respect for Kucinich.

The Democrats, for the most part, managed to pull off something the Republicans simply couldn’t, which is put forward their ideas for America while actually answering the questions posed to them and doing it within the time limits imposed by the debate format and while maintaining respect for both the moderator and their opponents.  It made for some staggeringly unimpressive viewing, but it’s pretty clear which side is more in control of their messaging, their campaigns, and the election process in general.

Like yesterday’s Republican debate, the focus was explicitly off of Iraq because the moderator said so, based on Iowa voters’ supposed lack of interest.  Hmm.  They moved on instead to another failure of the current administration, that of the economy and each laid out their plan for dealing with all of the challenges facing America.  Edwards was particularly galling with his single-minded focus on corporate interests, which, don’t get me wrong, are pervasive and need to be tamed, but I think Edwards came off as particularly shrill and evasive in dealing with other issues.  Clinton and Obama were both solid and uninspiring but provided a little fun with some brief sniping at each other.  Dodd was actually pretty powerful, very well-spoken and forceful.  Some may say he veered toward Gravel’s brand of debating (speaking of whom, where was he?), but he came across to me more strong, less ranting.  The moderator was more sure of herself this time, perhaps due to the respect given by the candidates unlike yesterday’s sometimes shocking childishness by the Republicans.  Many of the questions seemed uncomfortably couched in Republican phraseology and specific talking points, but that could just be my point of view.  There was one bizarre diatribe by the moderator referring to racial problems with Biden’s speech in the past which he batted down well and was supported with applause by the rest of the candidates.  Obama, who was the recipient of one of Biden’s supposedly indelicate remarks, defended Biden well against the awkward and ridiculous attack.

As before you can check out the whole debate at the Des Moines Register.

Round-up time.

• Bunch of violence in Iraq, 3 bombs, 27 dead, 150 wounded. Surge still working, I guess.
• Ike Turner, still dead.
• After three year “break,” war seems to be ramping up again in the Congo. Bad news all around here, hinges on the same ethnic tensions between Hutus and Tutsis that led to genocide in Rwanda. Yeesh.
• The natives (nativists?) are restless in Iowa.
• Dumbest fucking news story I may have ever seen. And I can’t pick on the NY Times here, I’ve seen this dumb shit everywhere.
• The Mitchell investigation report is coming out today, naming 50-80 major league baseball players as despicable cheaters. Hope some good comes out of this.
• Continuing their excellent series covering the front-runners for president, WaPo takes on John McCain.  AMERICAblog points out the hideous picture they use, saying looks matter in politics.
• Philly getting safer. Good for them.

Round-up of the big news leading the papers and outlets today.

• Twin bombs in Algiers kill dozens, including 11 UN staffers; al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claim responsibility.
• Punishments retroactively lightened for some offenses related to crack cocaine following Supreme Court decision.
• Republicans hold on to 2 House seats they were heavily favored to win but many thought might be closer than expected.
• Ike Turner, R.I.P.
• Giuliani spins N.I.E. report into a praise for Bush’s war in Iraq; questions “how you read” report.
• CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows economy outweighs Iraq in voters’ minds, 29% to 23%
• The 29 convicts Bush has pardoned, including carjackers, drug dealers, and a moonshiner. Awesome.
• Six kids shot deboarding a bus in Vegas. WTF?
• A great series from the Washington Post gives an overview of all the candidates. Today’s mark: Fred Thompson.

First off, who in the hell let Alan Keyes in the room? Has he ever won anything in his entire political career? Yet these are the same geeks saying Kucinich, an established congressman, cannot participate in the Democratic debate. Sad. Keyes is an embarrassment, refusing to even answer the questions he’s asked, deciding instead to chastise the moderator and use the free forum as a lectern to foist his particular brand of crazy on an American people that’s growing tired of such crazy. (I hope.)

Anyway, very little of interest actually happened. There was a hysterical moment when Thompson (apparently, he’s still alive) refused to give his up-or-down vote on whether he believes climate change is happening. Ron Paul made a couple of good points but downplayed the most insane points of his “plan” or whatever. The frontrunners did nothing to either hurt or help their cause, unless you count Huckabee speaking pretty forcefully about his religion. Has to, I guess, in Iowa. And I’m not sure whether that’ll hurt or help him in the grand scheme. McCain seemed old, tired, and wholly unimpressive. Romney was same old Willard, nothing really new. He’s got his stump down and whenever in trouble he managed to veer back into it with no problems. Some of the lesser, loony candidates got a couple good shots in at him, but he dealt with them far better than he handled Giuliani’s “sanctuary mansion” attack.

So who won the debate? Adam Smith and Milton Friedman. It was a free market love-fest, with each candidate trying to convince the world that they best espouse a mostly failed, utopian ideology. C’est la Republican vie.

Watch it here if you’re interested.  You shouldn’t be.

Check out this great, raving kind of opinion piece by Ben Tanosborn at al Jazeera.  It’s called “Consentership, more pernicious than dictatorship,” and it starts with the tag “Bush will soon be on his way out, but rest assured that his replacement will be a clone.”  I’m not sure I agree with several of his conclusions (like, uh, that one), but it’s a broadside attack on the political culture of America that settles for the corrupt and inept boobs foisted upon us by the few who really get our leaders elected and the people who refuse to deal with their “own cowardice and lack of civic guts.”

It’s beginning to look as if in early 2008, consentership will continue to dominate our Tweedledum-Tweedledee politics with Republicans and Democrats achieving renewed solidarity in foreign affairs, be it the forever-occupation (or negotiated presence) of Iraq, a non-stop continuing demonization of Iran and other “terror-villains,” or the constant denunciation of any nation that challenges our imperial hegemony and right to collect tribute in any way we see fit.

Give it a look, it’s pretty good.

Not really.

From the “where are they now” files comes word that Fred Thompson, the one-time GOP savior and all-time laziest campaigner, will eschew New Hampshire in favor of focusing what little time his 136 year old body can stay awake for on a strong showing in Iowa.  Ostensibly this will help propel him out of the cellar in later states like South Carolina and the Super Tuesday states.  Or so the theory goes.

Cute, hunh?  Old timer still thinks he can win.

Here’s that excellent video from Sunday’s Meet the Press with Tim Russert in which Giuliani giggles himself hysterical to subconsciously downplay his business dealings with known terrorists. Seriously.

And if you’re interested in watching the whole thing, which you damn well should be, you can check it out (after a brief and stupefying commercial) on the MSNBC home page. Russert gives him a thorough once-over, hitting all the high notes of Giuliani’s tragically flawed campaign and “leadership” history. Thanks, journalism!

And finally, it’s “Giuliani Time!” Take the quiz from the New Yorker, featuring such gems as

“7. True or false: When Giuliani blamed an underling named Jerome M. Hauer for the foolhardy idea of placing the city’s emergency-management headquarters in the World Trade Center, he was confronted with a memo in which Hauer had argued against the site and in favor of a less visible target in Brooklyn.”

I’m gonna go with “true.”

Here are some of the articles floating around that may end up beating down the Huckmentum before it has a chance to really take hold. The only question is who’s going to rise from the ashes of all of these Republican scandals and be the last man standing? McCain? Thompson? They’re the only ones who haven’t had a major scandal break in, oh, the past two weeks or so. I’m betting on McCain. (And the news broke today that polling shows all the major Democratic candidates destroying Huckabee in the general election. Grain of salt here though, kids.)

Mike Huckabee - Minister of Death, Michael Collins, Scoop

“Mike Huckabee is the ’surging’ candidate to watch in the Republican presidential primaries, at least for the moment. The former Arkansas governor is an ordained Southern Baptist minister and a believer in the ‘inerrancy‘ doctrine of Biblical scripture. Inerrancy means, quite simply, that the believer accepts every bit of the Bible as literal truth (Adam & Eve, an earth just 6,000 years old, etc.)”

The dark side of Mike Huckabee, Max Brantley, Salon, 11/13/07

“LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The Pony Express has reached us here in the Arkansas backwoods with the latest journals from the big cities. So the country correspondents have taken a break from hand-setting lines of type to read the Beltway boys and girls rave about our former governor, Mike Huckabee.“

Documents Expose Huckabee’s Role in Serial Rapist’s Release, Murray Wass, HuffPost, 12/4/07

“Little Rock, Ark — As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman.”

Huckabee Hides His Full Gospel, David Corn & Jonathan Stein, Mother Jones, 12/10/07

“Is Mike Huckabee the presidential candidate shunning Mike Huckabee the preacher? Before entering politics, he was a pastor at two Baptist churches. Now his campaign tells Mother Jones it won’t make his sermons available to the media and the public.”

I’ve blogged before, but this is the new one. It will be newsy. Less opinionated than before, but there will be some.

This blog is almost entirely for me. Not that I don’t care about you, but I care more about me. I follow a lot of political news, and it can be hard to keep it all together. Hence this.  Anything noteworthy and interesting that I find in the world of politics will go up here.

Hope you find something that piques your interests.