September 21, 2005

9/21: Nomination Conflagration Concatenation

A number of interesting stories are vying for the top slot this a.m.: more WH nominations of questionably-qualified individuals draw plenty of flak from the left and right; the conservative blogosphere hearts Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who in a 9/20 presser told reporters not to be "stuck on stupid"; while the Katrina aftermath remains contentious, people are looking nervously ahead to Hurricane Rita; and the New York Times' TimesSelect program still has buzz, albeit negative buzz. No one story dominates, but all and more are covered below:

BUSH: What's This, Nepotism In Government?

Conservative Michelle Malkin blasts the Bush admin. for nominating Gen. Richard Myers niece Julie Myers to a DHS customs post, though she has "with little immigration or customs experience": "Oh, give me a ^*&%$# break and a half! This nomination is a monumental political and policy blunder in the wake of the Michael Brown/FEMA fiasco. And I can tell you that contrary to the Miss Mary Sunshine White House spokeswoman's comments, rank-and-file DHS employees and immigration enforcement officials are absolutely livid about Myers' nomination." She posts an e-mail from an apparent DHS nominee upset with the nod. And Malkin captures a photo of Myers "Another disastrous crony appointment in the making." == Header at Ankle Biting Pundits: "Immigration Nominee Latest Sign That Bush And GOP Don't Get It On Border Policy." == Liberal TalkLeft: "The Bush Administration continues its policy of handing out top Administration jobs based on cronyism. Did it not learn from Michael Brown? Apparently, not."

Think Progress' Nico Pitney: "One week ago, the Office of Women's Health of the FDA 'sent an e-mail notice to women's groups and others announcing the appointment of Norris Alderson as its new acting director.' Immediately, eyebrows were raised. Alderson was a Mike Brown-redux -- an 'FDA veteran trained in animal husbandry who spent much of his career in the agency's Center for Veterinary Medicine." As reported in the Washington Post, "Asked yesterday who exactly was running the office, FDA spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino said that Alderson had never been appointed acting director." Pitney posts an image of the Google cache of the FDA page with Alderson's name, then updates later to note the cache has been removed.

Right Wing News' John Hawkins has a list of 8 things Bush can do to improve his approval ratings. Among them: "Now would be a great time to get rid of any dead wood in the administration -- like Norm Mineta, Douglas Feith, &Michael Chertoff . Nothing says, 'We've got a new attitude,' like getting rid of incompetent &/or unpopular cabinet members." And: "Social Security reform is going nowhere. Bush should admit just that, blame the Democrats for obstructionism, and accuse them of putting seniors at risk by refusing to reform the program." And: "Split Bush's illegal immigration policy into two parts. The tough enforcement of our immigration laws and new proposals to beef them up? That's very popular and should be done now. The soft amnesty and guest worker programs? Those are not popular and should be packaged together and pushed much later after the other changes go into effect."

Daniel Drezner, who worked informally with the Bush campaign in '00 but supported Kerry in '04, writes: "It's no secret that I've been disenchanted with President Bush for some time now." Citing a Washington Post story, he writes, "a lot of conservatives have joined the club." He also rounds up a number of links from prominent right-leaning blogs, writing, the "conservative blogosphere is not really thrilled with the administration either." He adds: "So it was definitely amusing to read" a much-referenced post from Pandagon's Jesse Taylor stating: "'I find the conservative blogosphere to be one of the most closed-minded, insular, circular pits of denial I've ever encountered.'"

KATRINA AFTERMATH: Stuck On You

It took a few weeks, but it seems that Katrina finally has its Giuliani figure in Lt. Gen. Honore. He's been praised by the media already, and like ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, he's now a favorite of conservative bloggers, owning to a 9/20 presser which Michelle Malkin writes has catapulted him to "pop culture and political superstardom." Responding to reporters' questions about Rita: "Let's not get stuck on the last storm. You're asking last storm questions for people who are concerned about the future storm. Don't get stuck on stupid, reporters. We are moving forward." Radioblogger has the transcript, and Political Teen has the video. As of late this a.m., "stuck on stupid" is the #5 most-searched phrase on Technorati. Radioblogger's post is also currently the most-discussed item on Memeorandum right now. Vodkapundit: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnesses to a rare and wonderful moment: a new catch phrase has been born."

Linking to a Washington Post story on the levee collapses, Captain's Quarters writes, "the evidence now shows that the north levee breaks that did most of the damage to New Orleans should not have occurred, given the level of the water and the pressure it generated. ... Perhaps that's why in those first few hours, federal and state authorities said that no one expected the levee failures."

Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds notes that the Wall Street Journal has made note of the PorkBusters effort to single out cong. pork he's been co-spearheading. == Liberal Exegesis calls conservative rhetoric opposing excessive gov't spending "subtly seductive," adding, "it is critical for us to criticize the spending priorities of the administration while not falling into the trap of going after government spending itself. The difficulty of doing this is precisely why this very public conservative despair is a win-win situation for them."

Beltway Blogroll's Danny Glover writes, along with a friend, he has "launched a site called Hurricane Job Hunter as a forum for volunteering my writing and editing services. I also have recruited some of my journalistic colleagues to help. The site will enable people left jobless by the hurricane to contact us so we can write cover letters, resumes or other materials they need as they try to recover from the storm. That is the easy part. The hard part is finding the people who need the help, especially when we are nowhere near the hurricane's path or the key evacuee areas, and when many of the storm's victims are homeless, computer-less or never had computers or Internet access before the hurricane hit. ... I believe in the power of the Web to connect people and make things happen."

Hurricane Rita is now at Cat 4, and Galveston has announced a voluntary evacuation. Houston blogger Charles Kuffner wonders if his city will do the same: "As I live in the Heights, I don't expect flooding to be a problem in my neighborhood, though some areas on the southern end, closest to the White Oak Bayou, did flood during TS Allison. We're making plans for staying and for leaving; we'll decide tomorrow what we need to do." Houston Chronicle's SciGuy writes that predictions of Rita-related damage at $7.55B might be low-balling it.

KATRINA AFTERMATH II: Mmmm... Davis-Bacon

DLC's Bruce Reed and Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum are among a number of liberals who have recently criticized the Bush admin. for lifting the Davis-Bacon Act in the Gulf region. Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall has labeled it the "Gulf Coast Wage Cut," and uses the phrase to link to a 9/16 TPM post in multiple 9/20 posts. In one, Marshall is on the lookout for "one single" House GOPer "willing to co-sponsor H.R. 3763, the bill to overturn President Bush's Gulf Coast Wage Cut." He also posts a list of House Dems who haven't signed on, noting which ones were part of the "Faint-Hearted Faction," i.e. the list TPM compiled of Dems who were open to Bush's Soc. Sec. overhaul. FL's Allen Boyd and TN's Harold Ford Jr. are 2 who make both lists.

Contrarian Mickey Kaus doesn't think the Bush move was a bad one: "Now Bush is using various indefensible regulations that Democrats defend at the behest of public employee unions -- the civil service rules that cost the Dems the 2002 election when Bush suspended them as part of the Homeland Security bill (prompting many Democrats to oppose it), and now Davis-Bacon's wage regs. The way to defuse this new Bush weapon is for the Dems to stop defending the indefensible regulations! Not to accuse Bush of playing 'politics' or exploiting a 'wedge issue.'"

In response, Matt Yglesias argues for Davis-Bacon: "Scrap Davis-Bacon and the GOP doesn't call off the tax cut jihad. But progressives will have knee-capped unions, one of the only forces in American society that's actually capable of serving as a constituency for the principle that the government ought to have revenue."

ABRAMOFF: Safavian The Best For Last

DCCC's Stakeholder has a roundup of posts related to the arrest of ex-Bush admin. chief procurement officer David Safavian, noting among other things "Safavian's (lack of) credentials for his former post" and the fact that "until now, the connections between [disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack] Abramoff and the White House had been relatively meager." Sisyphus Shrugged has a lengthy explanation of Abramoff and Safavian's activities w/r/t the Marianas Islands and involvement of House Maj. Leader Tom DeLay.

Seeing the Forest notes that Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) briefly put a hold on Safavian's nomination, and calls him a "(temporary) hero."

Liberal Las Vegas Gleaner notes that Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) has received donations from Safavian as well as Abramoff. Irritated with Dems' inability to field a candidate against Ensign, he adds: "One could, one supposes, make some point or another about how such contributions merely reflect how Ensign's political principles and positions are amenable to those peddled in the halls of Congress by influential crony capitalists who use the federal government chiefly to enrich themselves and their clients at the expense of the broader public interest. But with Ensign facing no opponent in his bid for re-election next year, really, why bother?"

NDN Blog, noting that Safavian had a role in Katrina recovery efforts and was quoted by the Washington Post about it on 9/10: "It's nice to know who exactly is steering our ship of state through this tumultuous period. Really makes you wonder why House Republicans would be so afraid of an independent investigation of the government's handling of the crisis..."

Liberal TAPPED suggests one overlooked "is who Safavian was replacing as chief procurement officer, and why that person stepped down. That would be Angela Styles, who had repeatedly clashed" with House Gov't Reform Cmte chair Tom Davis "by pushing for tighter oversight rules and opposing efforts to loosen restrictions on corporate contracting. Styles, it should be said, spent a lot of her time carrying water on behalf the OMB's competitive sourcing initiative; but on the whole she was a force for restraint and stricter oversight in the contracting process..."

SCOTUS: Doing The Splits

Swing State Project describes Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) as a "skittish senator known for bolting and running," notes that Baucus has announced he will vote for judge John Roberts, and asks: "Why is Max Baucus running from the Democratic Party? Instead of running away, why can't Max Baucus play with the team?" Office numbers are provided, readers are implored to call and ask for themselves. Header at MyDD, which also urges readers to call Baucus' offices: "Baucus Conspires With The Enemy."

Senate Jud Cmte ranking Dem Pat Leahy has announced he will vote "yes" on Roberts. Daily Kos' Armando comments: "Leahy surrenders. Will vote yes on Roberts. Depressing betrayal. This signals that many Blue State Dems plan to vote yes. Incredibly stupid and HARMFUL to the next fight in my opinion."

Conservative David Wissing, on Senate Min. Leader Harry Reid's announced decision to vote against Roberts: "Frankly, it would seem that this move by Reid just gave Bush even more incentive to put up another conservative and not even bother consulting with the Democrats. What would be the point?" Patterico, at A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days: "When pressed for specifics, Reid said that Judge Roberts's performance at his confirmation hearings was at an eighth-grade level, and nowhere near the standard of Justice Scalia's dissent in the Hillside Dairy case. Kidding! I just enjoy reminding people of Reid's claim that Justice Thomas's dissent in the Hillside Dairy case was inferior to Justice's Scalia's. For some reason, that always makes me laugh. I think it's because Justice Scalia wrote no dissent in that case."

At Confirm Them, Erick Erickson notes that a source of his in a position to make suggestions for the SCOTUS "has a decided preference for O'Connor's spot" -- judge Michael Luttig.

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: Call Us Crazy, But We Don't Think Bloggers Are Taking To The NYT's New Program

On 9/20, the New York Times announced 500 layoffs including 45 newsroom job cuts, plus newsroom cuts at the Boston Globe, which it owns. Power Line: "As life-long newspaper junkies, we take no pleasure in the industry's current crisis. Apart from anything else, we web-based commentators need newspapers to produce the raw material for our commentary. But my sympathy for the Times, the Globe, the Chronicle, et al. is tempered by the knowledge that there is a path to solvency, which I think would likely succeed, but that they would never consider: stop being so liberal."

Ex-Times contributor/frequent Times critic Andrew Sullivan writes, the TimesSelect program "begins to make a little more sense. The NYT is in financial trouble. It still seems dumb to me to charge for online content. Isn't online ad revenue booming for them?" Earlier in the day he wrote (in a post featured on the Washington Post's opinion page last p.m.: "MEMO TO ARTHUR SULZBERGER: I would have linked to John Tierney's excellent NYT op-ed today on how Wal-Mart is better able to deal with natural disasters than FEMA. But only Times Select readers can read the link. So I won't. Nyah nyah." == John Tabin's Never Pay Retail has the link.

Mark in Mexico: "The New York Times may have stepped in it, big time, with [TimesSelect]. Editor and Publisher says that the popular columnists Dowd, Friedman, Krugman, Brooks et al have dropped out of the top five in the 'Most E-mailed Articles' list from the Times which they typically dominate."

Jonah Goldberg, at The Corner: "This will in turn send precisely the wrong feedback for the Times, confirming their strongest biases and undermining their already weak efforts at balance ... Krugman will become comparatively more popular because his slice of the shrinking pie will have increased. I think in years to come we will see this pattern repeated in television and print as the Dinosaurs of the MSM chase their base rather than try to be all-purpose news providers. Fox, obviously, is accelerating this process."

Hugh Hewitt accuses the Washington Post of "agenda journalism" in passing along the estimate from an organizer of the 9/24 DC anti-war protest that there will be "thousands" of military family members present: "My observations of military families would estimate that for every Cindy Sheehan, there are at least 100 proud and genuinely supportive family members who do not 'support' the troops by condemning the war. The Post refuses in this article to provide any estimates, even though this isn't an impossible or even difficult task, just one certain to undermine the reporter's agenda of implying that significant numbers of military family members are opposed to the war."

ABLE DANGER: Does Anyone Else Keep Wanting To Add "Will Robinson" To This Phrase?

This a.m. brings the Senate Jud Cmte's Able Danger hearings. To the disappointment of conservative Tom Maguire, the Pentagon has disallowed its employees to testify. He writes: "I had imagined that Specter's hook into an oversight role was the issue of intelligence sharing between the military and the FBI. My hope was that Specter would produce a witness who could explain the details of the meetings allegedly scheduled between the Able Danger team and the FBI - were the meetings actually scheduled, and what legal area shut them down?" He goes through the list of witnesses, describing their backgrounds to the best he can determine. Defense Dept. lawyers, or lawyers at OIPR would be the obvious candidates, and the Pentagon seemed to rule out Defense Dept lawyers."

Liberal AMERICAblog also notes the Pentagon's non-participation, asking rhetorically if they're "nervous about the truth coming out? Even Specter doesn't get it. What ever happened to the idea of freedom and democracy, or are they just words?"

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "I don't know enough facts to pass a definitive judgment on the Pentagon's decision, but on the face of things I don't have a problem with it. The testimony of the DOD witnesses would seem to involve senstive national security information, and the Committee presumably can get that testimony in private session."

ELECTRONIC VOTING: ICYMI, The Diebold Story Continues To Simmer

Noting that shares of Diebold "hit a 52-week low today, for some reason," BradBlog wonders if it has anything to do with his report on "exclusive stunning admissions" by a Diebold "insider" last week "acknowledging that the company's 'upper management' -- as well as 'top government officials' -- were keenly aware of the 'undocumented backdoor' in Diebold's main "GEM Central Tabulator" software well prior to the 2004 election." In that post, he pointed readers to a "little-noticed" gov't Cyber Security Alert from 9/04: "A vulnerability exists due to an undocumented backdoor account, which could a local or remote authenticated malicious user modify votes. No workaround or patch available at time of publishing. We are not aware of any exploits for this vulnerability."

FRIST: Good News -- He Just Saved A Lot Of Money On Car Insurance

AMERICAblog, on Senate Maj. Leader Bill Frist selling all the stock in his hospital chain just prior to said stock dropping by 15%: "His defense at the moment is that the stock is in a blind trust and he has no idea how much is there, but the fact remains that he can give the order to sell all of it at any time to the trust and it would be foolish to think that an owner of a large hospital chain would not have some idea of what is happening in his own business." At Eschaton, Duncan Black suggests that readers "call the good Senator's office and find out if he has any other stock tips he'd like to share."

ROVE-PLAME-MILLER: Was Bolton The Source?

Arianna Huffington: "I'm now hearing that the investigation may be inching closer to never-confirmed UN Ambassador John Bolton. According to two sources, Bolton's former chief of staff, Fred Fleitz, was at least one of the sources of the classified information about Valerie Plame that flowed through the Bush administration and eventually made its way into Bob Novak's now infamous column." Huffington wonders if Bolton "actually be a target" of the investigation.

NORTH KOREA: That's More Like It

Conservative In From The Cold: "A day after supposedly agreeing to give up its nuclear weapons program, North Korea has thrown a monkey wrench into the process, demanding that the U.S. give Pyongyang a light-water nuclear reactor before it begins disposing of its nukes. ... Does this surprise anyone? I'm not on the staff at Foggy Bottom, but I can't recall a single international agreement that North Korea has actually kept." Scrappleface's Scott Ott was ahead of the news with the fake-news headline "North Korea Vows to Give Up Nukes, Lying."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: You Might Not Be A Libertarian If ...

Michael Berube Online guest contributor John McGowan writes, "there are many liberalisms; Adam Smith and John Rawls have just about nothing in common, yet each is recognizably a liberal thinker. There is simply no way to produce a coherent account of a single ideology called 'liberalism. I believe, in fact, that liberalism is best understood as a range of responses to the conditions of modernity -- responses that are often local and specific, that are not coordinated with other liberal expedients, and that belie the holistic 'ism' applied to various liberal thinkers and liberal practices." More: "Probably the surest litmus test for distinguishing one with a liberal sensibility from someone who has a conservative one is the individual's response to modern cities. Liberals find the multi-ethnicity, cacophony, and jostling crowds energizing and thrilling. Conservatives find those same cities emblems of social chaos (and, in the American context, dens of iniquity). The conservative response to the city is 'there ought to be a law.' For this reason, conservatives can never be libertarians. Thoreau's 'the best government is the one that governs least' runs directly counter to the conservative fear of chaos."

LEST WE FORGET: Be Prepared

IMAO's Frank J.: "'What's with all the hurricanes?' you're probably asking, 'And why isn't the U.S. government stopping them?' Well, hurricanes are a global problem, and thus the U.N. should take care of them." Until they get around to solving this problem, he offers hurricane survival tips. One: "There is a rumor about opening windows to equalize air pressure in your house in the case of strong winds. This is bunkum. Keep your windows shut, especially if you're my neighbors and like to play loud music." More: "When taking inventory of your supplies, make sure to ask your self important questions: "'If I have a sudden craving for quesadillas, am I prepared?' 'While I might have enough water for drinking and cleaning my socks, if a water balloon fight breaks out, do I have enough water (and balloons) to return fire?' 'If the water balloon fight turns into a war and then a quagmire, how long can I keep armed with water balloons until my water supply is exhausted?' 'If the only food left is Spam, am I prepared to eat it, or is that the time to resort to cannibalism?'"

Posted by at September 21, 2005 12:20 PM