Kurtz: Cry Me a River The Alaska GOP is making the incredible claim that Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) should resign so that a new election can be held free from any taint by the Bush-era Justice Department. Sully: Meanwhile, In Texas Thoreau isn't buying the creationists new line of attack:
They’re like a creature evolving to escape a predator’s notice, becoming smaller and smaller and fitting into ever-narrower cracks. Whatever you may think about their Trojan Horse language, it’s a hell of a lot more modest than the old flood geology. Evolution in action!
From a commenter at Balloon Juice, on Palin wanting a new election in Alaska after Steven's conviction was overturned, via
John Cole:
The guy she said should resign before the election ended up losing. Now she wants the guy who won to resign so that the guy she originally said should resign can get a fair election. What a maverick!Sargent:
GOP Rep Blasts Rush As Not “Serious” And An “Entertainer”In comments that passed unnoticed, Rep Zach Wamp of Tennessee, who’s running for Governor, blasted Rush Limbaugh twice on CNN as a mere “entertainer,” and suggested that rather than listen to Rush, we should listen to “serious” people on how solve our economic crisis.
RNC chair Michael Steele, you’ll recall, was forced to offer an abject apology for similar comments.
CNN’s Rick Sanchez asked Wamp whether he agreed with Rush or with Mitt Romney, who’s taken issue with Rush’s desire for Obama to fail. From Wamp’s reply, via Nexis:
“Frankly, we need to listen more to the people back home, and not so much just the voices out there. There’s not much difference between entertainment and journalism on some fronts.”
After a bit more back and forth, Wamp continued:
“Listen, I don’t want to get in the crossfire here. But the fact is entertainers sometimes say things. We really need serious-minded policy people to help chart this ship of state out of these rocky waters right now. And so we shouldn’t spend so much time caught in what others are saying.”
So Wamp believes Rush = An Entertainer Who Isn’t Serious And Shouldn’t Be listened To About The Crisis.
And he thinks he’s running to be a Republican Governor! Not to stretch the Bataan Death March comparison too far, but those prison camps are beckoning…
Ezra Klein: AMATEUR HOUR FOR THE HOUSE GOP.I cant quite decide whether to characterize Ross Douthat's post on the GOP budget as a defense or a different sort of attack, but in any case, he thinks I'm wrong to allege cynicism in the document. "Rather," he says, "there's a kind of deep innocence about it: The purity of its small-government vision is more detached from the grubby realities of American politics than any similar document I can remember."
I find this a bit weird. I think you could plausibly argue that the GOP budget represents a political misjudgment: Intended cynicism perverted by poor judgment. But naivete is trickier. The House Republicans are not a longtime minority party. They are not far removed from the realities of governance. Three years ago, they held power and wrote budgets. One year ago, it was a Republican administration signing the document. Unlike Gingrich's hordes, who hadn't written legislation in over 40 years, this isn't a group that lacks the memory of power and a familiarity with its attendant compromises. If they were confused about how to build a budget, they could have asked one of their colleagues who'd actually done it.
I'd say, rather, that this budget demonstrates the difficulty of building a minority platform. Serious players who might introduce moderating pressures are not, after all, interested in expending resources to better a piece of off-year messaging. AARP would probably have a lot to say to John Boehner if he proposed voucherizing Medicare from the majority but will probably ignore the fact that it was in Paul Ryan's fake budget. The Chamber of Commerce would have a few concerns about the repeal of the stimulus package if they thought it might happen. But with all those groups ignoring it, the GOP's budget was influenced mainly by the party faithful even as it was delivered straight to the media.
Which gets to the real import of the budget: Something has really gone awry in the House GOP's political operation. They should not have released this document. They certainly shouldn't have released its inane predecessor. And they certainly shouldn't have scheduled their press conference for April Fool's Day. It's really been amateur hour over there, and this budget debacle was simply what happened when they were suddenly challenged to play against the pros.
Benen: CONTEXT MATTERS....
The House Republican budget, unveiled yesterday -- new motto: Now, with numbers and stuff! -- quoted Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat:
If this moment has any parallel in American history, it is the height of the Cold War, around 1957, when the Soviet Union leaped ahead of America in the space race by putting up the Sputnik satellite. Yes, there are many differences between that age and our own. The main challenge then came from those who wanted to put up walls; the main challenge to America today comes from the fact that all the walls are being taken down, and other countries can now compete with us much more directly. The main challenge in that world was from those practicing extreme communism -- namely, Russia, China, and North Korea. The main challenge to America today is from those practicing extreme capitalism -- namely, China, India, and South Korea. The main objective in that era was building a strong state; the main objective in this era is building strong individuals.
Apparently, for Boehner, Cantor, Ryan, and other GOP leaders, Friedman's quote is a summary of Republican principles. Democrats, the argument goes, hope to build a strong government, while Republicans are looking out for individuals. Friedman, Republicans argue, gets it.
The problem, though, is that the Republican staffers who put together the party's alternative budget neglected to keep reading Friedman's book.
What this era has in common with the Cold War era, though, is that meeting the challenges of flatism requires as comprehensive, energetic, and focused a response as did meeting the challenge of communism. It requires our own version of the New Frontier and Great Society adapted to the age of flatness. It requires a president who can summon the nation to get smarter and study harder in science, math, and engineering in order to reach the new frontiers of knowledge that the flat world is rapidly opening up and pushing out. And it requires a Great Society that commits our government to building the infrastructure, safety nets, and institutions that will help every American become more employable in an age when no one can be guaranteed lifetime employment.
Now, these aren't just two random excerpts from a book; the paragraph in which Friedman talks about the need for ambitious government action, infrastructure investment, and a hearty safety net is the next paragraph, right after the one House Republicans included in their budget plan.
As Steve M. put it, "In other words, [Rep. Paul Ryan] quotes Friedman even though Friedman is advocating precisely the sort of government intervention Ryan thinks is destructive to individual initiative -- and, therefore, to America (and civilization) as we know it."
How embarrassing.
Benen: MAYBE THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WATER....
If I didn't know better, I might wonder if the powers that be are distributing crazy pills in the House Republican cloakroom.
I was just talking to Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), who's leaving Congress to run for governor of Michigan, about his proposed Parental Rights Amendment -- a constitutional change that would, among other things, prevent "any source of international law" to override parents' rights. He gave me an example of how open some Democrats were to handing over American rights.
"I'm watching Neil Cavuto," said Hoesktra, "and I see [Treasury Secretary] Tim Geithner is talking about how he might be OK with a world currency. I don't think Americans are going to be comfortable with that. You're going to see things that people perceive as eroding American sovereignty -- this is something that's clearly un-American. I mean, here's the secretary of the Treasury, and instead of defending the United States and defending our currency, he's saying he might be open to a world currency. What does that mean? It means turning our currency over to the UN."
Hoesktra isn't some random, no-name backbencher. He's been in Congress for 16 years, he's the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and next year, he expects to be the governor of one of the nation's largest states.
And yet, here's Hoekstra spouting ridiculous gibberish about global currencies, American sovereignty, and turning our currency over to the U.N.
What's wrong with these people? Geithner never said he'd accept "a world currency" -- he actually has vowed the opposite -- the Treasury Secretary simply addressed the notion of a global reserve currency. There's nothing "un-American" about it. That doesn't even make any sense.
Either Hoekstra knows this, and he's just riling up uninformed right-wing voters for partisan gain (in which case he's a hack), or he's popping off on a subject he knows nothing about after catching a segment on Fox News (in which case he's both irresponsible and foolish).
On a related note, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) chatted yesterday with a right-wing blog called Atlas Shrugs -- the same blog that argued in a 12,000-word post last year, in all seriousness, that Barack Obama is Malcolm X's illegitimate son -- about her conspiracy theories regarding global currencies and modern economics. Bachmann said, "And so we need to once again decide, do we want to be free, or do we want to be slaves?"
First, why would any group of people "want to be slaves"? Second, slaves to whom? Bachmann didn't say.
Benen: 'CHICAGO POLITICS' DOESN'T SOUND SO BAD....
Karl Rove, who has more first-hand knowledge of sleazy political tactics than anyone breathing, devoted his new Wall Street Journal column to denouncing President Obama's "Chicago politics."
As Rove sees it, policymakers should be "worried" about the White House's hardball tactics, which Rove believes are shaped by Obama's "training in the methods once used by Saul Alinsky, the radical Chicago community organizer."
Given that the president's strategies thus far have struck me as rather conciliatory and reasonable, I was curious to see what kind of indictment Rove could put together.
"Don't think we're not keeping score, brother." That's what President Barack Obama said to Rep. Peter DeFazio in a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus last week, according to the Associated Press.
A few weeks ago, Mr. DeFazio voted against the administration's stimulus bill. The comment from Mr. Obama was a presidential rebuke and part of a new, hard-nosed push by the White House to pressure Congress to adopt the president's budget. He has mobilized outside groups and enlisted forces still in place from the Obama campaign.
Senior presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett and her chief of staff, Michael Strautmanis, are in regular contact with MoveOn.Org, Americans United for Change and other liberal interest groups. Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina has collaborated with Americans United for Change on strategy and even ad copy. Ms. Jarrett invited leaders of the liberal interest groups to a White House social event with the president and first lady to kick off the lobbying campaign.
Its targets were initially Republicans, as team Obama ran ads depicting the GOP as the "party of no." But now the fire is being trained on Democrats worried about runaway spending.
Americans United is going after Democrats who are skeptical of Mr. Obama's plans to double the national debt in five years and nearly triple it in 10. The White House is taking aim at lawmakers in 12 states, including Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor. MoveOn.Org is running ads aimed at 10 moderate Senate and House Democrats. And robocalls are urging voters in key districts to pressure their congressman to get in line.
Hmm. The president is encouraging lawmakers to support his legislative agenda; White House aides are occasionally in communication with their political allies; and liberal groups are urging members of Congress to support bills they agree with. The horror!
Seriously, are we supposed to find this scary? If these are the "Chicago" tactics the political world should be wary of, I think our democracy will survive.
