2/21: The Portly Pepperpot
In today's edition -- bipartisan concern over the Bush admin's port security decisions, an attempt to put Able Danger back on the radar, residual coverage from last weekend's shooting incident, a neocon's second thoughts, bloggers vs. the media and the media vs. the media, plus gossip and muckraking from the midterm SEN races. And perhaps it was only a matter of time before we had to cover ourselves.
PORT SECURITY: Everyone's Dubai-ous
On 2/17 we touched briefly on what would become the bipartisan swarm of the weekend -- the Cmte on Foreign Investment decision to sell U.S. ports to a company in Dubai, U.A.E.
The RCP Blog: "It feels a bit like a rerun of the Harriet Miers nomination where the administration dug its heels despite knowing within hours it had made a grave mistake. The port sale is potentially even more damaging politically to the president because it strikes at one of his few remaining core political assets: the public's perception of Bush as an aggressive fighter of terrorism and staunch defender of America." 
Conservative The Astute Blogger: "Most people think it's simply nuts to have our ports managed by a foreign company, let alone an Arab company -- especially in a time of war. This feeling is widespread even though the port operator is NOT responsible for port security -- the US government is, (and would remain so even if this deal goes through)." Instead, he jokingly argues, the U.S. should sell the port to a Danish company to show solidarity over the Muhammad cartoons.
Citing a British paper, Think Progress highlights "mostly overlooked" part of the story is that the company "would also control the movement of military equipment on behalf of the U.S. Army through two other ports." Georgia10 at Daily Kos: "The decision was made in secret, without a full investigation and without the input of those who will be most affected by this deal. If this administration has the temerity to invoke 9/11 at every press conference and speech, then let it show us that why we can feel trust a foreign government to prevent another such attack." Bark Bark Woof Woof worries that the objections are, "frankly, based in the xenophobic idea that we shouldn't put the security of major trading outlets in the hands of Arabs because, well, they're Arabs." Instead he gives another reason to oppose the sales: "It comes down to the basic fact that there are just some things in this country that shouldn't be privatized or outsourced, and defense and national security is one of them."
Conservative Michelle Malkin somewhat incredulously posts video of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) "embracing" Halliburton over the UAE company. Meanwhile, liberal AMERICAblog's Chris in Paris is surprised to find GOP Govs. George Pataki (NY) and Bob Ehrlich (MA) criticizing Bush for not discussing the decision with them, and comments: "Ehhh, why would Bush start discussing now? That's not how the Soviet-style team has worked in the past so why would anyone expect them to change?"
ABLE DANGER: Ready, Willing & Able Danger
We haven't covered the Able Danger data-mining program since 12/16, just before the NSA eavesdropping program took broke and became the once-secret program to speculate about. Last p.m. a number of bloggers participated in a conf. call -- organized by Mike from TOPDOG08 -- with Mark Zaid, atty for Able Danger whistleblowers including Lt. Col. Anthony Schaeffer. Most on the call are self-described conservatives, but an exception is Rory O'Connor. Several on the call primarily did round-ups of what the others wrote.
Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey admits to his own neglect of the subject: "Other issues have pushed Able Danger off of my radar screen, and even Zaid noted that no explosive developments have arisen from the story in weeks. Nonetheless, the above bloggers have done an excellent job in maintaining some interest in the story. The conference call gave me an opprortunity to pick the thread back up and start pressing Congress for more hearings." At The Jawa Report, Bluto thinks there's a sinister explanation: "The biggest question I have is this: why isn't the mainstream media all over this story? It stinks to high heaven of coverup. NBC can provide nightly coverage of the Katrina aftermath for five months, but a story that has profound implications for national security doesn't rate thirty seconds?"
More at QT Monster's Place, The Strata-Sphere, Able Danger Blog, Decision '08; by piecing together reports of who asked which question, you can almost put the call together Rashomon-like.
The Cheney shooting accident story isn't over yet. For the right, it's a media story about how out of touch the MSM is; for the left it's about Cheney's secrecy and influence, and particularly the weekend TV role of one confidant.
Matt Drudge's response to the new Time and Newsweek covers focusing on Cheney was summed up in his all-caps headline: "MAIN PRESS PLANS ANOTHER WEEK OF CHENEY SHOOTING COVERAGE." Picking up from Drudge, GOP Bloggers heads a story: "MSM Digging Its Own Grave." RedState's Nick Danger: "If this is what they do, I don't understand why they think the White House is behind the public's growing disdain for them. Their own actions are disdainful. What do they expect the public to do, cheer them on?" More: "The worst part is, we all know why they're doing it. They hate the Vice President's guts. They hate the entire Administration. They are extremely partisan Democrats, and they think that their role is to use their platform in journalism to throw every spear they can, at every Republican they see, every time they get a chance." Mickey Kaus gently suggests that Drudge has it backward: "The newsweeklies are the caboose on a story more often than they're the locomotive, no?" Liberal Michael Shaw dissects the Time cover at Huffington Post.
Vodkapundit's Will Collier channels David Bowie for the header: "Ground Control To MSM: Your Judgement's Dead, There's Something Wrong." Observing that the MSM is "intent on stretching the non-story of why they didn't get a press release as soon as they would have liked into a second week," he plays the why-don't-you-cover-this game, sharoimg a story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution which seems to indicate a U.S. citizen was attacked in his home by agents of the Chinese gov't but so far hasn't appeared in any nat'l newspapers.
Ex-Cheney adviser Mary Matalin showed up on a "Meet the Press" panel 2/19 and drew a lot of negative commentary from the left -- Josh Marshall: "Matalin claimed that Vice President Cheney never sent surrogates out to blame Harry Whittington for last weekend's hunting accident in the first days after the news broke ... How can she be serious when she was one of the lead surrogates sent out to do just that?" He quotes Matalin from the 2/13 Washington Post saying that Cheney "didn't do anything he wasn't supposed to do," and adds: "This just isn't even up for debate. Until they were forced to switch course the party line was that Whittington screwed up by sneaking up behind the vice president." Think Progress pointed out that she wouldn't confirm that Cheney's beer with lunch was "literally one beer." Arianna Huffington has a lot to criticize, from Matalin's physical appearance to her arguments: "The impact of her appearance was to make the whole story seem even less under control than having a beer and shooting your friend in the face. As for what she said, there were so many intelligence-insulting lies and half-truths it's hard to know where to start."
Matthew Yglesias: "Laura Rozensays Dick Cheney's not going anywhere. Mickey Kaus says Bush would have to be crazy not to consider dumping him. They're both right! Bush would need to think this over, and then he'd need to realize that Cheney knows too much."
TERRORISM: Neocons -- Dead And Loving It
Longtime neocon Francis Fukuyama becomes ex-neocon Fukuyama in a 2/19 essay for the New York Times, "After Neoconservatism." Comparing the "tragedy" of Marx's theories when forced by the Bolsheviks to the Bill Kristol/Robert Kagan rushing of democracy, he declares: "Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support."
Peaktalk disagrees that neoconservatism is dead, but takes him seriously: "[A] number of assumptions have to be tested against our democratization experiences in the Middle East and against the realization that there are no quick and easy fixes. We will need some tweaks and adjustments and we will even have to work with democratically elected regimes -- yes, that's you Hamas -- that do not quite fit our standards of governance." Roger L. Simon is more skeptical: "Fukuyama not much more than a decade ago announced 'the end of history.' In this article he says he was misread on that score and he really meant liberal democracy would lead to the end of history. ... Fukuyama seems to be a man in a hurry. The Iraq War here he declares to be a failure after only three years."
Kevin Drum: "I can't help but think that in some sense Fukuyama is the foreign policy version of Bruce Bartlett: a man who has decided that both the Bush administration and its cheerleaders don't take conservative principles seriously, and that even when they do they aren't willing to do the toughminded, real-world analysis it takes to get their policies right. Unlike, say, Charles Krauthammer or Bill Kristol, Fukuyama is at least trying to face up to the obvious failures of the war on terror over the past few years so that he can figure out a better way to proceed in the future." Feministe: "Fukuyama doesn't say this outright, but one of the biggest tragedies of this administration's policies is that now any time the United States reaches outside of its own borders, even if it's for positive goals like the extension of human rights or relief efforts, it's immediately regarded with suspicion."
Liberal Yale law prof Jack Balkin: "The fall of Communism was, after all the great confirmation of neoconservatives' fervent anti-communism and their belief that promoting American ideals of democracy and freedom could make the world better. But that very example also shows why the Bush Doctrine was so deeply unrealistic. The fall of communism began with Truman's policies of containment in the late 1940's, which were continued with various fits and starts along the way by every U.S. President thereafter for 40 more years." Paleocon Vox Popoli agrees: "It is this sort of thing that makes the New York Times still relevant, its ludicrous daily columnists and sophmoric political reporting notwithstanding. Fukuyama's recommendations are more neo-Marxian globalist nonsense, of course, but his critique of neoconservatism is completely correct."
After reading Jane Mayer's New Yorker story on U.S. torture policy, which cites an internal DoD memo opposing the admin's plan, Andrew Sullivan gives Bush about as wide a berth as he can before reiterating his criticism: "Their motives might be decent: they were doing all they thought they should to protect the country; and they still are. But I repeat: we have a lawless executive, consciously and with pre-meditation dedicated to the practice of torture."
Philly Daily News' Will Bunch has published an article in The American Prospect reports that Sen. Rick Santorum's (R-PA) leadership PAC paid for groceries, coffee at Starbucks, while only 18% goes to other GOP candidates. He also reports that the company handling the Santorum's house refinancing gave them a surprisingly good deal, and also donated $24K to Santorum's PAC. It got linked by a number of lefty bloggers, though in general most of those linking simply summarized the story. Some added the nickname "Little Ricky." Words Have Power sums up the general sense of outrage: "Once again, we see a key Republican leader using lobbyist money to feather his nest and improve his life style. Once again, we see a key Republican leader getting special treatment from the representative of an industry that he is responsible to regulate."
Minnesota Democrats Exposed's Michael Brodkorb floats a rumor that Dem SEN candidate Amy Klobuchar (D) is changing managers, from Jessica Vandenberg to ex-Progressive MN head Ben Goldfarb. He cites a member-only online forum, where his original source comments: "With Goldfarb at the helm we wonder if Klobuchar's campaign will take on a more left leaning tact."
Conservative Dean Barnett "I've often said in private that Hackett was the most overtly mean-spirited politician I've ever seen. This contrasts with guys like John Edwards who radiate warmth and sunshine when the cameras on but are ruthless jerks in private." According to Daily Kos, calls it the "work of bitter former staffers who saw Hackett as a job through November and even perhaps their ticket to DC." Barnett isn't so sure, and (as a longtime critic of dKos) blames the mean-spiritedness on Moulitsas himself: "Markos has made it cool to be mean. Where politicians once tried to maintain a public façade of kindness and optimism, Markos and his not-so-merry band have insisted on unrestrained bile."
SPENDING: Caught By The Earmark
Truth Laid Bear announces the 1st of what presumes will be many PorkBusters "Hall of Shame" Awards -- Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) collects the "Lifetime Achievement Award," while Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is named "Grand Prize Winner."
Lefty David Sirota calls attention to the "stealth agenda of Congress's earmark 'reform' zealots": "Think about what a congressional earmark is: it's a line in a big spending bill, inserted by a member of Congress, to direct federal funds to a specific project. If you entirely ban earmarking, as many of these earmark 'reformers' like [Sen. Tom] Coburn seem to desire, you delegate the responsibility of directing that spending to the executive branch. And that begs the question: why is it better for unelected appointees in the executive branch to decide how federal money is spend than having your elected officials decide?"
BLOGS VS. THE BELTWAY: The Do-Nothings
A diarist at Daily Kos heads a post: "ENOUGH!!!! Professional Politicians on Daily Kos." From the entry: "Let's get really serious, folks, and stop participating in the circus. STOP HELPING DEMOCRATS DO NOTHING. Stop giving them total and unfettered access to the audience, unless they have something MEANINGFUL to REPORT to us. Stop reacting like star-struck teenagers to their celebrity, stop fawning all over them. Stop with all the feel-good nonsense. Stop feeding the beast." By the looks of the poll attached to the diary entry, most agree.
BLOGS VS. THE MSM: Hey, No Take-Backs!
NYU prof Jay Rosen reports that he had conducted a Q&A with Washington Post's John Harris and intended to publish it, as he had an earlier interview, but cannot. He explains: "I would tell you the reason, but in fact I don't know the reason. Harris apologized for not being able to explain more, and for wasting our effort." What can do is list one of the questions he asked Harris, an essay-length question that terminates with: "Do you ever worry that Bush might have changed the game on you, and put in practice a different set of rules? And if you don't worry about that, why the hell not? And why shouldn't you guys -- the Post and the press corps at large -- change the game on Bush and company?"
At NBC's Daily Nightly blog, WH correspondent David Gregory apologizes to WH spokesperson Scott McClellan for their much-remarked exchange last week, and then insists that the WH press corps is doing precisely its job. First one: "Let me say at the outset that I was wrong to lose my temper at Scott McClellan. ... I said, 'Don't be a jerk to me personally, just answer the question.' I regret saying that because it's never appropriate to speak that way and because it created a distraction from the issues at hand." Then the other: "The way we do our business is not always pretty and we should be accountable for that. I happen to believe, however, on balance, our dogged pursuit of lots of information, all the time, is a good thing."
Crooks and Liars' John Amato posts video of FNC's Bill O'Reilly hectoring "Fox News Watch" host Eric Burns over comments critical of O'Reilly by "FNW" contributor Neal Gabler: "Bill told Burns he should have edited out what O'Reilly found offensive. Now we know what O'Reilly does on his show. Don't like an opinion-cut it." Amato alludes to O'Reilly's recent legal issues: "How much was Gabler sued for? How much payola did FOX settle on to bail Neil out of legal troubles? None that I can think of. ... How long do you think Gabler will last?"
In an op-ed for the DC Examiner, Hotline senior writer/Blogometer author William Beutler criticized Dem netroots efforts to oust Dems who are squishy on party loyalty. Bloggers like Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas "have been calling for the Democratic campaign committees to challenge every Republican-held House and Senate seat." But the money isn't available and the bloggers "don't trust the party committees." Instead, Beutler writes, "they back feel-good candidates who will call Republicans 'chickenhawks,' yet don't have the organizational wherewithal to run effective campaigns. To wit: No candidate supported by Moulitsas has yet won a seat in Congress."
Dems "actively court liberal bloggers" because they can raise money, as when bloggers helped ex-Rep. Ciro Rodriguez raise more than $75K for his primary challenge to Rep. Henry Cuellar, a conservative Dem from TX. Beutler: "What's ironic is that those targeting Cuellar are mimicking the anti-heretic tactics of the Republican-oriented Club for Growth -- which made Cuellar its first Democratic endorsement in late January. If the Club for Growth is the Republican Party's tax-cut enforcer, the liberal netroots are enforcers of a similar kind for the Democrats. Yet it's harder to know what they"re enforcing, and woe to the politician who tries to guess the netroots' preferred position on Issue X -- and guesses wrong." Another difference, according to Buetler: the Club "raises and spends its own money and makes its own mistakes." The netroots" mostly direct donations to campaigns." Beutler: "This is an improvement insofar as the candidate knows the district best, but if Rodriguez or other liberal challengers lose and the netroots don't feel responsible, they won't learn from their mistakes. The result could be greater resentment, to say nothing of another revolt in the next campaign cycle."
MyDD's Matt Stoller, who says the Hotline "has an institutional tendency to hew to right-wing talking points," accuses Beutler of "ignoring an important side effect; we unlocked money from Moveon, we piled on with unions, and the League of Conservation Voters endorsed. We created 'buzz', but we weren't alone. Lots of Texas Dems and Congressional Dems do not like Cuellar, and know he is a closet Republican." As to whether candidate supported by bloggers like Kos have won, Stoller writes: "Um, Stephanie Herseth? Ben Chandler? This is absurd, and dishonest." And as for the blogosphere not having being held accountable for supporting losing candidates, Stoller writes: "The loosely confederated party insiders mostly direct donations to campaigns. This is an improvement insofar as the candidate knows the district best, but if Brad Carson or other conservative challengers lose and the insiders don't feel responsible, they won't learn from their mistakes. See how easy it is to create Beltway wisdom?" Atrios calls Beutler the "Wanker of the day" and writes that "the relatively small amount of money channeled through the netroots is often mocked by Those Who Know Where Our Money Should Go. But the truth is the netroots has played a critical role in helping Democrats get elected in special elections, stepping up when not enough others would."
Moulitsas calls Beutler "an inside-the-beltway guy who believes the CW he hears in coffee shops and cocktail parties. So he repeats partisan talking points and insider drivel in right-wing publications."
Beutler responds here and in the comments; Stoller replies.
Disclaimer and disclosure: Beutler's opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions or decisions of what is covered by the Blogometer. This entry was written and edited by other Hotline staffers without input from Beutler.
MISCELLANY: Things You Were Afraid To Find Out
- Earlier this month, NJ-based meta-blogger Jeff Jarvis asked readers to help a columnist compile a list of blog-related words. That column is now out, and it turns out it was for William Safire's "On Language" column for this week, titled "Blargon."
- When we covered the temporary (as it worked out) retirement of OH blogger Tim Russo in mid-Jan., the reasons for planned departure from the political blogging scene were not on the record. Now the reasons have come to light in a thread at Daily Kos, which was then highlighted in a front-page entry. That and Russo's continued role in the OH Dem blogosphere is the subject of heated debate among OH bloggers, particularly in the comment thread at Heights Mom.
- Extreme Mortman's latest interview with bloggers in early primary states is with liberal The Little Green Blog from NH.
- As he did during the Harriet Miers controversy, Right Side Redux's Justin Hart has compiled a list of arguments for and against the NSA wiretap program; he lists many more pro-wiretap arguments than con.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Reba Babble To The Nag
At Tapped, Greg Sargent is the latest political writer to face the wrath of letter-writing Brooklyn gadfly Reba Shimansky. Sargent describes his own piece: "It's chock full of over-the-top criticism of Rudolph Giuliani from beginning to end. Nonetheless, Shimansky zeroed in on two words buried in the middle: the part which describes Giuliani's post-Sept. 11 performance as 'undeniably admirable.'"
LEST WE FORGET: God-Schmod, I Want My Monkey Man!
Bloggers across the 'sphere have long used Create a Character software to make sidebar representations of themselves as "South Park" character; now there's The Simpsomaker, where you can turn yourself (or anyone elese you can think of) into a character from "The Simpsons."
