All the News ... 3-14-08

TPM Headline:Franken Team's Closing Argument: Coleman's Case Has Failed

dday on The Democrats We Have

For too long we've heard from Democratic leaders that we just need Democrats, any Democrats, to gain back the majority from Republicans, or we just need a Democrat, any Democrat, in the White House, or we just need a filibuster-proof majority of Democrats, any Democrats, and everything will fall into place. This has always been a ploy to get grassroots financial support, and we are seeing the essential bankruptcy of that ploy today.

When President Obama submitted a budget that predicted passage of a revenue-raising climate change bill, hopes rose that Congress could successfully rein in carbon emissions this year.

But a cap-and-trade climate bill is almost certain to be filibustered by Republicans -- and in a letter delivered to the Senate Budget Committee yesterday, eight Democratic senators joined 25 Republicans to defend the GOP's right to set a 60-vote margin for passing emissions limits.

"We oppose using the budget process to expedite passage of climate legislation," the senators, including eight centrist Democrats, wrote in their missive.

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I've been reading G.Calvin Mackenzie and Robert Weisbrot's The Liberal Hour: Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s, and what jumped out at me is that, while John Kennedy and Barack Obama shared a lot of the same profile at the beginning of their Presidencies - both were cautious centrists who were wary of the left flank of their parties - in Kennedy's case what ultimately led to the eventual policy successes (most of them carried out under Lyndon Johnson) was the strength and ingenuity of the leaders in Congress, who were skilled enough and bold enough to push these changes through. I don't see that kind of urgency in today's Congress. They are perfectly content on the poll-driven margins to fulfill the John Kerry 2004 agenda - stem cell research, SCHIP, half-measures on energy, etc. I don't mean to denigrate these accomplishments. But actually, I do. We have too many problems that have gone unsolved for too long, and it seems like the political muscles among liberals in Congress have completely atrophied. And these hornets have been allowed in the nest, these corporate whores who exist as moles inside the caucus to make sure all this hope and change doesn't hold a hope of changing anything.

Under normal circumstances, these would be debates we could have and struggles we could play out for a year or so. But the string has run out. The time has all but passed. And yet the same elites predominate. If there's an excess of fear out there right now, at least part of it stems from the feeling that these elected men and women are either unable or, more likely, unwilling, to ever do what's necessary, not for prosperity, but for survival.

Think Progress: MSNBC producers told ‘not to incorporate’ Cramer’s Daily Show interview into their programming.

• Alejandro Says:

  ---

  I don’t think they planned on Cramer being that eviscerated.

  It was that devastating.

  It was that discrediting to NBC (GE).

  March 13th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
• C&L: Cramer dodges any mention of Jon Stewart interview
  

  CNBC's Jim Cramer refused to mention his interview with Jon Stewart on Friday's edition of Mad Money.
  
  "A lot of people are talking about what happened," Cramer explained. "I want to be very clear. Be very clear that although I was clearly outside of my safety zone, I have the utmost respect for this person and for the work that they do, no matter -- no matter how uncomfortable it was to be on. So I want you to take a look at this clip from yesterday of Cramer versus Stewart," he announced.
  
  Mad Money then cut to video tape from Cramer's appearance on Martha Stewart's show. Cramer never mentioned or showed any clips of his appearance on The Daily Show.

• swopa Jim Cramer’s Lesson for Phil Donahue
  

Maybe you're already sick of reading about Jon Stewart's posterizing of CNBC's Jim Cramer -- but in case you're not, Matt Yglesias makes a point that deserves echoing:

It’s worth thinking a bit about the General Electric Corporations news media properties more generally. They hired Phil Donahue, and then fired him when he had the highest ratings on the network because they didn’t like that he was against invading Iraq. . . . [Keith Olbermann's popularity] prompted a huge freakout from their big news stars like Tom Brokaw about how it was injuring their credibility to appear on a network that’s cobranded with a network that features a liberal. Meanwhile, at their other cobranded network, CNBC, they have on air a bunch of frauds. . . . And when someone points the fraud out, the whole GE team circles the wagons to defend Jim Cramer and CNBC. Liberals? That wrecks their credibility. Liars and frauds? That’s great. Go peacock!

As Yglesias concludes pessimistically, "Jon Stewart satirizing it doesn’t really change anything." But I suppose it's helpful example if you're looking to prove to someone how in the so-called liberal media, the best job security lies in saying what rich people want to hear.

Sullivan: The Cavalry Has Arrived?

Geithner was on Charlie Rose earlier this week, Larry Summers just gave a talk at Brookings, and Ben Bernanke is scheduled to appear on 60 Minutes this Sunday, his first TV interview:

Fed chairmen generally don’t grant on-the-record interviews, aiming to avoid settings that could confuse or unsettle markets. Of course, Mr. Bernanke delivers speeches regularly (with audience questions often carried on live TV) and testifies frequently before Congress. Last month, he took questions from reporters for the first time in a public setting in an appearance at the National Press Club. In addition, over the years select quotes from interviews with Mr. Bernanke (that were otherwise off-the-record) have occasionally appeared in news outlets.

After weeks of near silence, it's good to see America's top economic officials describing what's ailing the economy and how they plan to fix it.

Tom Ricks:

The way forward in Afghanistan

Sarah Chayes, one of the more courageous people out there, has laid out a good comprehensive plan for what we should do in Afghanistan. I have a few quibbles -- for example, I don't think the Kabul government ever enjoyed a monopoly on the use of force in the country -- but overall, this is a very impressive document, certainly more thoughtful than anything else I've seen. Funny how people always bellyache about "the interagency," and then one person living in a mud compound in Kandahar produces a cross-government plan.

(Hat tip to one a smart officer in Kandahar on this.)

The story of Iraq as the story of the American presence

Phil Bennett, one of the more astute newspaper editors I've ever met, has a good piece in this coming Sunday's Washington Post about how for Americans, the story of Iraq has become the story of the American presence. He notes that in my new book and others, Iraqis play a very minor role. As readers of ForeignPolicy.com's book discussion know, I think his observation is correct.

Tommy R. Franks watch

General Franks may have been even worse a wartime commander than I thought. Readers of my book Fiasco know that I think he got the war in Iraq off on the wrong foot in 2003, believing the war was over when the enemy capital fell. I've just started reading Seth Jones's book on the war in Afghanistan, In the Graveyard of Empires, which someone told me is going to be the Fiasco of that war. I was struck by this observation by Jones that the invasion of Afghanistan also was botched:

Instead of defeating al Qa'ida and the Taliban in 2001, the U.S.-led Coalition merely pushed the core leadership of al Qa'ida and the Taliban out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan. This outcome was not inevitable."

More to come.

TPM headline: Reports: Obama Looking At Opening Channel To Ayatollah Khamenei

TPM: U.S. Drops Use of "Enemy Combatant"

Announcement just out from the Justice Department:

In a filing today with the federal District Court for the District of Columbia, the Department of Justice submitted a new standard for the government's authority to hold detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility. The definition does not rely on the President's authority as Commander-in-Chief independent of Congress's specific authorization. It draws on the international laws of war to inform the statutory authority conferred by Congress. It provides that individuals who supported al Qaeda or the Taliban are detainable only if the support was substantial. And it does not employ the phrase "enemy combatant."

Benen sees A STEP UP IN DRUG CZARS....

It was encouraging to hear that President Obama would lower the role "drug czar," downgrading the position from cabinet rank. It's even more encouraging to learn more about Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, the president's choice for the job. Andrew Marantz described the Kerlikowske nomination as "a victory ... for common sense."

Both as a candidate and as president, Obama has repeatedly pledged allegiance to "what works." And most analysts agree that, since its inception in the 1970s, the drug war has not worked. Research suggests that programs like DARE yield almost no benefits, while the medicinal use of marijuana yields many. Anti-drug propaganda has done little or nothing to curb domestic drug abuse, while the international drug trade continues to wreak havoc in key U.S. allies like Afghanistan and Mexico. Meanwhile, the Office of National Drug Control Policy soldiers on, as expensive and ineffective as ever.

If Kerlikowske's record is any indication, he is just the man to clean up this mess. From a personal standpoint, he has experience with the issue: A son from a previous marriage has a history of arrests, some of them drug-related. (This could lead to some awkward questions at his confirmation hearing.) Professionally, his record of lowering crime rates gives him instant credibility. [...]

Kerlikowske is no get-tough-on-drugs zealot. When asked to help design a new police station as police chief in Port St. Lucie, Fla., Kerlikowske recommended making room for a library instead of a jail.

Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance, told Marantz he's "cautiously optimistic." Kerlikowske is "likely to be the best drug czar we've seen," he said. "But that's not saying much."

It's not necessarily a high-profile, front-burner issue, but if you're looking for areas in which the Obama administration will offer a clear break with the Bush administration, keep an eye on the new team's emphasis on drug treatment over incarceration, state experimentation on decriminalization, and alternative drug courts.