5/15/08

DESPONDENT REPUBLICANS TURN TO DRUGS

By Bill Press

Tribune Media Services

Hillary Clinton scored a huge victory over Barack Obama in West Virginia: enough to keep the Democratic primary contest alive and enough for her to continue to make the case, however unpopular, that maybe, just maybe, she’d be a stronger candidate against John McCain than Barack Obama.

Overshadowed by Hillary Clinton’s big win in West Virginia, however, was a big victory for Democrats in Mississippi — which is even more significant, in terms of its impact on November 2008, than the results of one more primary.

In Mississippi’s First Congressional District, Democrat Travis Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis in a district that George W. Bush carried in 2004 with over 60 percent of the vote. Even though Republicans spent $1.3 million desperately trying to hold onto the seat. And even though — or maybe because — Dick Cheney flew to Mississippi and spent election eve campaigning for the Republican candidate. Poor Greg Davis. Campaigning with Cheney proved almost as dangerous as going hunting with him!

Not only that, forgetting that “all politics is local,” Republicans tried to win the special election by linking it to national politics. They said Childers would be a puppet of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They accused him of embracing “the same values” as Barack Obama. But the Pelosi/Obama attacks backfired, proving that Obama, especially, may have more appeal in the Deep South than Republicans bargained for.

The Democratic victory in Mississippi doesn’t stand alone. This is the third special election held this year — all in Republican strongholds — and under the leadership of DCCC Chair Chris van Hollen, Democrats have won all three: in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi. On March 8, Democrat Bill Foster replaced former House Speaker Dennis Hastert as Representative from Illinois’s 14th Congressional District, held by Republicans for over 30 years. On May 3, Democrat Don Cazayoux captured a solid Republican seat in Baton Rouge, La. Just 10 days later, he was joined by new Democrat Travis Childers from Mississippi.

The capture of all three conservative districts is a great omen for Democratic chances in November and raises hopes of breaking an institutional jinx. Historically, neither party cleans up two election cycles in a row. The party that picks up over 20 seats in a so-called “wave” election typically loses ground in the next cycle. The last exception to that rule was in 1976. After adding 43 seats in 1974, thanks to public outrage over Watergate, Democrats actually bounced back in 1976 to score an additional gain of — one!

This year promises to be different. Having already won three Republican seats in special elections, Democrats are already two ahead of 1976. According to Politico.com, GOP House experts are predicting Democrats could pick up an additional 20 seats this fall. That could give them an advantage of 70 seats in the next session of Congress.

Which, of course, leaves Republicans tongue-tied. After his party’s latest embarrassing defeat, Republican House Leader John Boehner explained: “The results in Mississippi should serve as a wakeup call to Republican candidates nationwide. As I’ve said before, this is a change election. . . . Our presidential nominee, Senator McCain, is an agent of change.” This is, almost word for word, how Boehner defended his loss in Louisiana, 10 days earlier: “The result this weekend in Louisiana’s Sixth Congressional District should serve as a wakeup call to Republican candidates across the country. . . . Our presidential nominee, Senator McCain, is an agent of change.”

Even Republicans are asking: How many “wakeup calls” does Boehner need before he get gets the message? And is the Republican leadership really that bankrupt of ideas?

If there were any doubt Republicans are in complete disarray following three consecutive losses, they quickly proved it. After holding an emergency summit meeting, Boehner and other House GOP leaders emerged to announce they had adopted a new slogan for the 2008 campaign season: “The Change You Deserve.” There’s only one problem. It turns out that very same phrase is already the trademarked advertising slogan for the antidepressant drug Effexor.

Manufactured by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Effexor is prescribed for “depression, anxiety disorder, and panic disorder in adults.” It is, in other words, just what congressional Republicans need. Except they should be taking it, not selling it.

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5/8/08

THE CANDIDATE AND THE PASTOR

By Bill Press

Tribune Media Services

Imagine this: A preacher endorses a candidate for president. Then we learn the preacher has, for years and from the pulpit, made disgusting, inflammatory and un-American statements. Yet the mainstream media totally ignores the preacher’s remarks and never pressures the candidate to explain all the ugly things the preacher has said and done over the last 20 years.

Impossible scenario? That depends on whether your name is Barack Obama or John McCain — and whether the preacher’s name is Jeremiah Wright or John Hagee. Obama, of course, was held personally responsible by the media for everything Jeremiah Wright ever said, and forced to repudiate him. McCain, on the other hand, has been given a free ride by the media and never challenged to answer for Hagee’s comments — even though, in many ways, they are more outrageous than anything heard from Pastor Wright.

Hagee is founder and senior pastor of San Antonio’s 19,000-member Cornerstone Church. He’s also a leading televangelist, whose radio and television broadcasts are seen and heard in 99 million homes. On many occasions since he began his ministry in the 70s, Hagee has come under criticism for his controversial remarks on women, gays, Israel and Catholics.

Hagee shows no mercy for the Catholic Church. He has called it “the Great Whore” and “an apostate church,” and accused Catholicism of being nothing more than “a false cult system.” Hagee also blames the Catholic Church for the Holocaust, telling viewers in one telecast that Hitler learned his hatred for Jews from growing up as a Catholic. When launching his wholesale slaughter of Jews, according to Hagee, Hitler told his followers: “I’m not going to do anything in my lifetime that hasn’t been done by the Roman Church for the past 800 years. I’m only going to do it on a greater scale and more efficiently.”

On women, Hagee makes St. Paul, notorious for treating women like second-class citizens, look like a feminist. “Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher?” asks Hagee. “The answer is lipstick.” As if that’s not insulting enough, he continues: “Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? . . . You can negotiate with a terrorist.” Real cut-up, that John Hagee.

We all remember that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson were condemned for asserting, the day after Sept. 11, that God had punished America for, among other “sins,” our tolerance of gays. Yet John Hagee made a similar claim five years later about Hurricane Katrina and nobody cared. Appearing on NPR’s “Fresh Air” on Sept. 18, 2006, Hagee said: “The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades.”

An incredulous host Terri Gross asked if he was really saying that God had flattened the entire city of New Orleans, because a gay pride parade was scheduled in the French Quarter. Yes, said Hagee, that’s exactly what I meant. “All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.”

Hagee is also founder of Christians United for Israel, which sounds innocuous enough until you realize that, like most evangelical Christians, he only supports Israel in order to trigger another war that would bring about the end of the world. As he himself told a July 19, 2006 CUFI event in Washington, D.C.: “The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God’s plan for both Israel and the West . . . a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation and the Second Coming of Christ.”

Now here’s what’s different about Obama/Wright and McCain/Hagee. John McCain actually sought out Hagee’s endorsement, said he was proud to receive it, and continues to brag about it.

My question is not: How could a Christian preacher say such ugly things? But rather: Why did the media pay so much attention to one preacher, and zero attention to the other?

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4/24/08
THE DIRTIEST CAMPAIGN EVER?

By Bill Press

Tribune Media Services

After Hillary Clinton’s surprisingly comfortable win in Pennsylvania, the Democratic primary moves on North Carolina and Indiana. And so continues the dirtiest and most vitriolic political campaign in history — or so the mainstream media would have you believe.

The night of the Pennsylvania primary, ABC’s Charlie Gibson lamented that the campaign had become “so nasty and negative and dirty.” The next day, The New York Times bemoaned a primary contest that was “even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pandering contests that preceded it.” And David Broder of The Washington Post lamented a campaign that has become “markedly more negative.” Same with the rest of the media. When they’re not complaining about how long the primary’s lasting, they’re carping about how nasty it is.

What I want to know is: What rock have they been living under? Have they ever covered a political campaign before? By any standard, the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has been one of the most civilized in our lifetime.

Of course, both candidates have emphasized differences between them. That’s what campaigns are all about. Obama says Clinton’s vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq means she can’t be trusted to make other foreign policy decisions. Clinton says Obama doesn’t have enough experience to govern from day one, especially when the phone rings at 3 a.m. Tough? Maybe. But nasty? No way. Those are legitimate issues.

Clinton tells superdelegates that Obama’s such a weak candidate he can’t beat John McCain. Obama counters that Clinton has so much baggage, she can’t beat John McCain — and, besides, she’s too beholden to insurance, pharmaceutical and oil company lobbyists. Tough? Sure. But dirty? Absolutely not. Those, too, are legitimate issues.

Seriously, if you can’t challenge the credentials of your opponent, or his or her ability to win and govern, you might as well not even have a campaign. Flip a coin or draw names out of a hat instead.

Of course, as they say, “politics ain’t beanbag.” And we learned that from the very beginning. In the 1800 presidential campaign, as David McCullough recounts in his masterful biography of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson paid James Callender to vilify his opponent. In a campaign booklet, Callender called Adams a “repulsive pedant,” a “gross hypocrite,” and “in his private life, one of the most egregious fools upon the continent.” Not only that, Callender portrayed Adams as a “hideous hermaphroditical character which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”

Shown proofs of the campaign pamphlet, Jefferson assured Callender: “Such papers cannot fail to produce the best effects.” But Adams gave as well as he took, allowing Yale president Rev. Timothy Wright to warn what would happen were “atheist” Thomas Jefferson elected president: “The Bible will be burned, the French ‘Marseillaise’ will be sung in Christian churches and we may see our wives and daughters the victims of legal prostitution; soberly dishonored; speciously polluted.”

And these were our Founding Fathers!

Politics weren’t much gentler in President Lincoln’s day. In her excellent book, “Dirty Politics,” Kathleen Hall Jamieson recounts the terms used to describe candidate Abe Lincoln: “filthy story teller, despot, liar, thief, braggart, buffoon, usurper, monster, Ignoramus Abe, old scoundrel, perjurer, robber, swindler, tyrant, fiend, butcher, and land-pirate.” Notice that “Honest Abe” wasn’t on the list.

Of course, you don’t have to go that far back to wallow in dirty campaigns. Think 1988 and Lee Atwater’s promising to make Willie Horton “a household name.” Think South Carolina 2000, when George W. Bush’s henchmen accused John McCain of fathering an illegitimate black child (actually, his adopted daughter from Bangladesh). Think Georgia 2002 and ads equating Max Cleland with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Think 2004 and the “Swift Boat” smears against John Kerry.

The truth is, we’ve seen a lot of dirty campaigns, but this isn’t one of them. You can call the 2008 Democratic primary many things. Call it historic. Call it hard-fought. Call it colorful, lively, and long. Just don’t call it dirty.

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4/10/08

MAKE IRAQIS SPEND THEIR OIL MONEY, NOT OURS

By Bill Press

Tribune Media Services

The Iraq War dog-and-pony show’s back in town, with the same old tired arguments for staying the course.

Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker anesthetized Congress with a “progress report” almost identical to the one they gave last September. According to the duo, dubbed “the surge twins” by Maureen Dowd, we’ve made some progress, but not enough; we can bring home some troops, but not all; the surge is working, except when it’s not. Yawn.

Even after five years of war and one year of the surge, Petraeus had to admit he saw “no light at the end of the tunnel” and no possibility of bringing more troops home until at least September — when conditions might allow further withdrawals, or might not. The whole presentation had a kind of “Alice in Wonderland” quality to it. As Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh summed it up: “We’ll know when we get there, and we don’t know when we’re going to get there.”

Petraeus and Crocker did succeed in one respect, however. They managed to run out the clock for another eight months, thereby helping President Bush achieve his number one goal in Iraq: keeping the war alive until he can dump it in the lap of his successor. That’s all Bush asked of Petraeus, and he delivered. “General, you did a heck of a job!”

Despite their lackluster performance, at least one good idea did emerge from Petraeus’ and Crocker’s appearance before Congress. It didn’t come from them. It came from Democrats. And here it is: If we’re going to stay in Iraq any longer, let the Iraqis pay for it — with their own oil money. Allah knows they can afford it. In fact, they’ve got a surplus, while we’re running a deficit. So why should we continue to pick up the tab?

This is not exactly a new idea. During the buildup to the Iraq war, remember, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz assured Congress that the entire cost of the operation would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues — without costing American taxpayers one dollar. Today, at least $600 billion later, that’s just another one of George Bush’s broken promises.

But now the Iraqi oil fields are up and running, the pipelines are repaired, the price of oil’s at an all-time high, and money’s pouring into the Iraqi government’s coffers. In fact, according to Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Iraq has over $30 billion squirreled away in U.S. banks, collecting interest, and it could reap an additional $100 billion in oil profits from 2007 and 2008. Meanwhile, American taxpayers are not only paying for the cost of the war, we’ve spent $47 billion so far on Iraq reconstruction.

Adding insult to injury, American troops in Iraq are forced to buy gas on the open market, paying $3.23 a gallon for gas in Baghdad that they’ve sacrificed their lives to help deliver. Which means the Pentagon’s spending $153 million a month in Iraq on fuel alone. Thus does the Iraqi government show Americans its gratitude: by sticking it to us at the pump.

Ironically, even though over 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq, it may be the cost in dollars, and not in lives, that in the end unites both supporters and opponents of the war in demanding a change in direction. Arch-conservative Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, a cheerleader for the war from the beginning, told Petraeus and Crocker it was way past time the Iraqis started to pay for their own security. If they don’t, warned Rohrabacher, “There’s going to be trouble on the Republican side, as well as the Democratic side, of getting support for an ongoing conflict.”

Enough’s enough. Time to put all those Iraqi oil profits to good use. If we’re going to be stuck in Iraq any longer, at least let the Iraqi government pay for it. They can afford it. We can’t.

 


4/3/08
GEORGE W. BUSH: THE OUTLAW PRESIDENT

By Bill Press

Tribune Media Services

It’s hard for this liberal to admit, but conservatives actually get some things right.

They are correct, I believe, in advocating smaller, more efficient government; fiscal responsibility; balanced budgets; a non-interventionist foreign policy; and a constitutionally limited chief executive.

The problem is — as I document in my new book, “Trainwreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (And Not A Moment Too Soon)” — once conservatives came to power, they delivered just the opposite: a bloated federal government; out-of-control federal spending; record budget deficits; a trigger-happy foreign policy; and a president who thumbs his nose at the law and Constitution.

Indeed, while failing in many things, George Bush and Dick Cheney have succeeded in restoring the imperial presidency of Richard Nixon. From the beginning, they have operated as if they are above the law. By refusing to reveal the names of oil executives on Cheney’s Energy Task Force, tapping phones without a warrant, or authorizing the use of torture, Bush and Cheney have put into practice Nixon’s rule: “When the president does it, that means that it’s not illegal.”

This week we saw two more blatant examples of their disdain for the law. First was an 81-page memo provided to the Defense Department by Deputy Attorney General John Yoo in March 2003, shortly after the invasion of Iraq. Yoo advised officers of the Pentagon that, in interrogating suspects in the war on terror, they didn’t have to worry about international treaties prohibiting torture. They didn’t even have to worry about U.S. laws against assault, maiming or other forms of physical abuse. After Sept. 11, advised Yoo, any abusive treatment of prisoners was justified as self-defense.

In other words, on behalf of the Bush White House and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, Yoo made the argument that, in wartime, anything goes: an argument long ago rejected by the civilized world, especially after Nazi atrocities in World War II. And an argument that led directly to the abuses of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

Perhaps more chillingly, Yoo’s 2003 memo — released to the ACLU under a Freedom of Information request — cites an earlier, 2001 Justice Department memo, still classified, advising the Bush White House that Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure do not apply to actions taken against American citizens as part of the so-called “war on terror.” That memo was most likely used by Bush as the basis for his illegal NSA wiretapping program, which continues to this day.

But it’s not only on national security matters that the Bush White House flouts the law. This week’s second example: Construction of Bush’s 670-mile fence along the border with Mexico has been held up because of legal challenges from ranchers, property owners, and environmental organizations. Rather than resolve those differences under the law, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that the administration will simply ignore 30 different applicable federal laws, declare itself exempt from the law, and build the fence by the end of the year. Property rights, states rights and the environment be damned.

How convenient. Wouldn’t you and I love the privilege of deciding which laws we like, or which laws we would obey — and chucking all the rest?

What’s so shocking about these two Bush administration actions is not simply their utter lawlessness. It’s how far they are from what conservatives profess to believe. Starting with the Founders, conservatives have always stood for strict limits on presidential power as a safeguard against tyranny. In keeping with James Madison, conservatives Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley Jr. taught that the Congress, not the president, was the most powerful of the three branches of government.

Even Barry Goldwater opposed the idea that presidents could ever operate outside the law. As if anticipating the power-grabbing days of Bush and Cheney, Goldwater warned in 1964: “This is nothing less than the totalitarian philosophy that the end justifies the means. . . . If ever there was a philosophy of government totally at war with that of the Founding Fathers, it is this one.”

But here again, as in so many areas, today’s conservatives have thrown true conservatism out the window. George W. Bush doesn’t believe he has to obey the law. He believes his is the law.

“If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier,” he once confessed, “. . . as long as I’m the dictator.” Fortunately, he won’t be much longer.

 


3/27/08
HANG IN THERE, BARACK AND HILLARY

By Bill Press

Tribune Media Services

You might call it Press’ First Rule of Politics: The longer you’re inside the Beltway, the more disconnected you are from the real world. And nothing proves it more than the current whining about how harmful this year’s continuing primary is to the Democratic Party.

You’ll notice that most complaints about the primary come, not from real Americans, but from talking heads on television: — 90 percent of whom live inside the Beltway, and 95 percent of whom are incapable of thinking for themselves and merely echo what other gasbags have to say.

It’s ironic that those complaining about the Democratic primary’s taking too long are the same bloviators who were complaining, only a few months ago, that the party’s nominee would be decided too early. At least they’re consistent. They were wrong then and they’re wrong now.

But it’s hardly the first time the media intelligentsia have been hopelessly out of touch with reality. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Washington’s sanctimonious talking heads demanded that Bill Clinton resign the presidency. Meanwhile, out in the heartland, a majority of Americans said he should hang in there and fight.

We’re seeing the same disconnect today. Inside the Beltway, most pundits are demanding that Hillary Clinton quit the primary because Barack Obama’s ahead in delegates. Besides, they argue, Democrats are worried that the long primary is irreparably damaging the Democratic party.

Nonsense. Once again, the chattering class is living in its own world. It’s not true that Democrats are sick and tired of the primary. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, only 22 percent of Democrats believe that Hillary Clinton should abandon the race. Curiously enough, the same number, 22 percent, believe Barack Obama should drop out. Meanwhile, 62 percent of all Democrats want the primary to continue until there’s a clear winner. Most Americans, in other words, get what the Washington elite doesn’t: You don’t call the game at halftime just because one team’s ahead.

Nor is there any evidence that the unusually lengthy primary is damaging the Democratic party. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Starting in Iowa, Democrats have come back to life with a vengeance. The Iowa Democratic caucus attracted a record 227,000 voters — many of them first-time and young voters. That was almost twice the Republican turnout. And that outburst of enthusiasm has continued in every state.

In Ohio, as reported by Dan Balz in The Washington Post, 2.2 million voters turned out for the Democratic primary, compared to only 1.1 million Republicans. Voter participation in Texas was equally lopsided: 2.9 million Democrats vs. 1.4 million Republicans.

And the excitement has kept growing with each additional primary. When registration for the April 22 Pennsylvania primary closed on March 24, state officials announced that Democrats had set a new record for either party: over 4 million registered voters. Leading up to the primary, Democrats added 161,000 new voters, while Republicans lost almost 60,000. The same pattern is being observed in North Carolina, Indiana and other states with upcoming primaries.

There are only two reasons for that newfound energy: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. They’re providing us with the most exciting primary contest in our lifetime, and the end result will be extremely advantageous to Democrats. Whenever it’s over, and whoever wins, Democrats will have built a ground operation in every state, including states and congressional districts they never bothered to campaign in before. And Democrats will have created a huge new historic pool of dedicated voters to help propel them to victory.

When will either Obama or Clinton lock down the nomination? Who knows? But whether it’s Puerto Rico in June or Denver in August, there will still be plenty of time to unite the party against John McCain. All those newly energized Democrats are not going to go away quietly. They will quickly rally to prevent a man from reaching the White House who would simply deliver the third Bush presidency.

So far, so good. Unless it gets really, really ugly — which neither Clinton nor Obama will allow — the Democratic primary of 2008 is not hurting the Democratic Party. It’s the best thing that has ever happened to the Democratic Party. Let every state vote!

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