October 11, 2007

10/11: At Least Everyone Can Agree On Guns

We're not sure if Howard Dean was the first to coin the phrase "god, guns, and gays" to describe the issues that drive the GOP base (but we're definitely sure you will correct us if we're wrong). Either way, we do find it interesting how willingly conservatives at The Corner and RedState seem willing to embrace a similar label coined by The Corner's David Freddoso: "Guns, Babies, and Taxes." RedState's Erick Erickson comments on the phrase: "Down here in Georgia, over in Louisiana, up over to Kansas, and in most of the rest of the country, David is absolutely right -- the Republican base, which consists of conservative voters, looks at babies, guns, and taxes." As much as the MSM constantly focuses on Rudy Giuliani's problems with social conservatives, we've long suspected his real problem may come from gun owners.

GOP FIELD: It's Almost As If Bush Has Done Damage To The GOP Brand Or Something

The Corner's Larry Kudlow warns GOP WH '08ers after watching 10/9's debate: "Look, the reality right now is that Republicans need to prove their bona fides all over again. The top four candidates are all solid and strong players. But policy proposals are going to be crucial as Hillary Clinton develops her own detailed plan, along with Barack Obama and John Edwards. Message to Republicans: No more veggies on spending and taxing. Put some steak on the plate."

GIULIANI V ROMNEY: First Consult All The Lawyers

The Mitt Romney/Rudy Giuliani feud over the line item veto generated plenty of conservative posting 10/10. Power Line's Paul Mirengoff blogs: "Giuliani showed too much deference to the Supreme Court. It probably worked on television, but I don't think it works analytically." Pepperdine Univ. law prof. Douglas Kmiec writes at National Review: "Giuliani's the-Constitution-made-me-do-it excuse just doesn't wash."

Team Rudy then emailed a response to The Corner's Kathryn Jean Lopez from ex-SG Ted Olson: "The Clinton Administration line item veto was unconstitutional. Anyone who does not understand that has not read the Supreme Court's opinion striking it down and does not have a clear understanding of the Constitution."

Romney spokesman Kevin Madden the emailed Lopez: "As Professor Kmiec notes, Justice Antonin Scalia vociferously dissented from the Supreme Court's judgment striking down the line-item veto. Justice Scalia certainly has a 'clear understanding of the Constitution' and that's why Governor Romney has pledged to appoint justices that share his strict constructionist jurisprudence."

The Corner's Ramesh Ponnuru later comments: "Romney's Instinct for the Capillary ... The line-item veto is not a promising line of attack for Romney."

GIULIANI: The Anti-Candidate

Corner contributors spent much of 10/10 debating Rudy Giuliani's conservative credentials. Highlights include:

• The Corner's Mark Levin: "Rudy is no conservative, despite George Will's pronouncement ... Yes, Rudy takes some conservative positions. ... But he has a record that goes beyond law enforcement and tax-cutting that should cause any conservative some pause. What is his governing philosophy?"
• The Corner's David Freddoso: "I have to agree with Mark. There is a long philosophical debate to be had over what makes a conservative, but conservatives in Washington have a rule of thumb for awarding the label to actual politicians: It's the trinity of conservative issues: 'Guns, Babies, and Taxes.' ... There's no question that Giuliani is a strong law-and-order guy, but the smart Democrats caught on years ago to how strong the crime issue was and adopted it. On a good day, Dianne Feinstein qualifies as a law-and-order conservative."
• The Corner's John Podhoretz: "Guns, Babies, and Taxes? ... Well, that's a cute one, David, that all of conservatism can be placed under that triptych. Amazing that in my 46 years on earth and my 25 years as a member of the conservative movement, I've never heard it before. Besides, it seems to leave out a few things, like, oh, national defense. Not to mention crime."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "Down here in Georgia, over in Louisiana, up over to Kansas, and in most of the rest of the country, David is absolutely right -- the Republican base, which consists of conservative voters, looks at babies, guns, and taxes. And in Washington, D.C., if you look at the major right of center interest groups, they boil down to guns, babies, and taxes, with labor/business issues close behind."
• Campaign Standard's Matthew Continetti: "Giuliani adopts more conservative positions than liberal ones, but I don't think it's quite accurate to say that he is a conservative, at least as the term is understood in contemporary American politics. It may be more accurate to say that Giuliani is anti-liberal: his opponents - and he defines himself by whom he opposes - are far more likely to be on the left than on the right. And indeed, he has gone out of his way this year to inform interest groups on the right that he will leave them alone, as long as they do not actively oppose him."

ROMNEY: But Everyone Does It

Conservative Mitt Romney sympaticos pushed back against the damage done by Romney's 10/9 "We're going to let the lawyers sort it out" Iran answer. Power Line's Paul Mirengoff: "Let's try to evaluate this objectively. First, no candidate has been more forceful or specific than Romney in insisting that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable. ... Second, as is clear from the exchange quoted above, Romney gave his answer about consulting lawyers in the context of questions about a president's legal obligation (if any) to obtain congressional authorization. ... Third, Romney made it clear that, bottom line, he 'would make sure that we would take the action necessary to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon.'"

Townhall's Hugh Hewitt blogs: "Presidents always consult with their lawyers before deciding whether to use force and whether to consult with Congress. I am quite certain Ted Olsen did so as part of the Reagan Administration legal team, and Mayor Giuliani as Associate Attorney General may have been part of that review as well, though the AAG typically is more concerned with law enforcement than the War Powers Act.

THOMPSON: If You Can't Take The Heat, Then Go Take A Nap

The Corner's Mark Levin did not appreciate debate reviews that included observations about Fred Thompson's age. Levin blogs: "I have spent some time with Thompson. He is intellectually curious and sharp. He is engaging and vigorous. Yes, he chooses his words carefully. He speaks in a southern accent. But the attacks on him appear to have a Northeastern-liberal-style feel to them, emanating largely from the NewYork-Washington, D.C axis."

The Corner's John Podhoretz responds: " I still think he was awful in the first hour of the debate, though much better in the second - and that, if his first moment had taken place during a major debate with a Democrat in a general-election season, it would have finished him and the Republican party off for good."

The Corner's David Freddoso adds: "The mention of Fred's 'senior moment' is hardly a cheap shot. The guy is a presidential candidate, if he can't take his knocks then he should go back to acting."

CLINTON: Torturers Are In The Eye Of The Blogger

A 10/9 Washington Postarticle claiming Hillary Clinton was "vague about how she would handle special interrogation methods used by the CIA" and "could not say whether she would change or continue existing policies" elicited heavy criticism from mostly Barack Obama netroots supporters. A strong critic of Clinton and Obama, Open Left's Matt Stoller blogged: "To me, these two paragraphs get to the heart of the Clinton-era political model. ... She cannot handle a political system where one party is acting in utter bad faith, and ultimately turns to bad faith herself. And so she ratifies the horrifying behavior, and will continue to do so as President." Obama partisans attacking HRC on the issue include:

• Mark Kleiman: "Part of HRC's problem is that the Bill Clinton regime didn't have entirely clean hands, specifically on the "rendition" issue. But it now seems clear that if we want the country to make a clean break with current policies on maltreatment of captives, we can't do so by putting HRC in the White House."
• Andrew Sullivan: "I don't know what she will really do. I do know that it goes against everything we know about Clinton that she would revoke any of the powers - including the power to order torture - that Cheney has given the executive branch. And I don't trust her."
• Matthew Yglesias: "Clinton has long distinguished herself as unusually friendly to executive power for an opposition party legislator, so there's little reason to believe that if she becomes president she'll be eagerly rolling the boundaries back from where Bush pushed them. I wonder if conservatives will be happy about the idea of HRC-administered torture, on the grounds that they just really love torture, or, maybe, once it's being done by a politician they don't admire they'll start to see that there's a problem here."

Undecided Kevin Drum initially was critical of Clinton: "Spin and ambiguity are part of the game. But if you can't even take a full-throated, non-weasely position against torture and abuse of prisoners in American custody, what the hell good are you?" But later updated: "Want to know how efficient the Clinton campaign is? Twenty minutes after I posted this I got an email from Peter Daou, their internet director, telling me that Hillary hadn't been fully quoted."

The HRC comments the Post decided to leave out included: "I think we have to draw a bright line and say 'No torture - abide by the Geneva conventions, abide by the laws we have passed,' and then try to make sure we implement that." Drum comments: "I like the "bright line" comment, but "what we think we know about what is going on right now" isn't exactly a ringing denunciation. I think we have a pretty good idea of what we know right now."

Taylor Marsh, The Left Coaster's Jeff Dinelli, and Talk Left's Jeralyn Merritt all defended Clinton. Dinelli writes: "Is there any way to make that clearer? Should she have written it down on paper and handed it to Kornblut and Balz? Or are they simply conducting an interview whereby no matter what Hillary says, they're going to clip and paste together the contents of the answers to serve the theme the writers want to convey?"

Mark Kleiman explains how Clinton could clear up the issue: "1. Issue a simple statement: "When I'm President, there will be no waterboarding, no cold room, no sensory deprivation, no 'long time standing,' and no renditions." ... 2. File, and ask for hearings on, a bill for the relief of Khaled al-Masri."

CLINTON II: Big Girls Don't Apologize

After first claiming that "the moment to define Hillary [Clinton] with her 2002 [Iraq AUMF] vote -- rather than her current antiwar rhetoric -- has passed" MyDD's Todd Beeton explains why Clinton's vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment on Iran is a much better avenue of attack for her opponents:

The Kyl-Lieberman amendment can not truthfully be seen as giving Bush a blank check to use military force against Iran, but it certainly makes Clinton vulnerable to the claim that she didn't learn the right lesson from her Iraq vote and she knows it. ... I tend to think, though, that she's most vulnerable on this issue to the extent that her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment reveals her to be much more hawkish than her supporters might think she is.

Also looking at Clinton's AUMF vote, the IA Independent reports that Clinton campaign chair Terry McAuliffe told a Grinnell, IA, coffee shop Clinton would never apologize for her '02 vote because: "A woman? ... Can you imagine?"

Open Left's Chris Bowers links and comments: "I always suspected something along these lines, but I didn't expect anyone to get a high profile Clinton support to actually come out and say it. ... I don't think that McAuliffe is necessarily wrong to worry that Republicans will make gender related attacks against Hillary Clinton. After all, they have been doing so for decades. However, if the Clinton camp is going to decide that ever apologizing for making a big mistake will be problematic because she won't look "tough enough," then, well, that unfortunately sounds a lot like the current administration."

DODD: If We Were Allowed To Give, We Would Totally Plunk Down $20.04 For A Chance To See Fenway

Atrios liked Chris Dodd's latest fundraising pitch so much he plunked down $20.04. From Dodd: "There's something magical about playoff baseball under the shadow of the Green Monster ... So let's go to Fenway Park... I've got two extra seats -- great seats -- to Game Six of the American League Championship Series against ... Here's how it works. You make a minimum contribution of $20.04 (in honor of the last time the Red Sox won the World Series, 2004) and you have as good a shot as anyone else to attend the game."

OBAMA: Mixed Messages

Noting Barack Obama's 10/10 attempt to capitalize on the 5th anniversary of the Senate's 77-23 Iraq AUMF resolution, MyDDTodd Beeton claims: "any Democrats purged their 2002 AUMF demons in 2004 when they supported John Kerry." Turning to Iran, Beeton links to Obama's explanation for why he did not vote for the Lieberman-Kyl amendment on Iran's Revolutionary Guard and comments: "Not exactly a stark difference there and Obama's authority on the subject is somewhat undermined by his own absence from that vote."

Also examining Obama's attempts to distinguish himself Iraq, AMERICA Blog's John Aravosis links to NJ/MSNBC reports that voters are holding up '2013' signs at Obama campaign stops and comments: "I still don't understand why Obama and Edwards didn't just say 'yes, at the end of my first term major combat operations truly will be over in Iraq.' They could go on to qualify that we'll still need troops to protect the embassy, etc. ... But the 'we can't remove them in three to six months' line was kind of irrelevant - we're not talking three to six months, we're talking 5 years. ... Again, it's just a bad answer."

Also critical of Obama's messaging, Open Left's Chris Bowers quotes from Obama's website: "Americans are tired of divisive ideological politics, which is why Senator Obama has reached out to Republicans to find areas of common ground. He has tried to break partisan logjams and take on seemingly intractable problems." Bowers responds:

It feels like Obama is identifying a problem, changing his definition of the problem in mid-speech, and then explaining the problem away by the end. First, we are told that our major national problems are going unsolved because of ideological and partisan division for which both sides are to blame. Then, we are told that, actually, Republicans and conservatives are to blame. After that, it turns out that Republicans and conservatives will work with you and become progressives if you just ask them. Um, OK. ... Obama's rhetoric is both confusing and just plain wrong.

OBAMA II: They Won't Be Fooled Again

Barack Obama continued to take moderate netroots criticism for his 10/9 promise to support a new trade agreement with Peru. At Working Assets, David Sirota follows up on a post from 10/9: "Following his announcement yesterday that he will be supporting Wall Street's push to expand NAFTA into Peru, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has embarked on a campaign of misdirection - ironically (or perhaps, predictably) similar to the original campaign of deception that marked the original debate over NAFTA. ... To the Obama partisans who refuse to acknowledge these basic facts out of a blind sense of Partisan War Syndrome, go ahead - fill up the comments with your excuses, your misdirections, your justifications and your absurdly dishonest claims."

Open Left's Glenn Hurowitz adds: "Obama is once again helping pass one of President Bush's top priorities ... I don't know for sure if Obama honestly felt that the Peru Free Trade Agreement was, on balance, the right thing to do, or whether he just wanted to curry favor with the major corporations whose financial support is fueling his campaign. It's probably a little of both. ... That's why it's hard for me to get excited about Obama's admittedly ambitious climate and energy plan or his plan to end the war. Having lofty goals is great, but those goals will be meaningless without the stiff spine needed to achieve them."

BLOGGERS VS BLOGGERS: It's A Shame We Can't Get These Crazy Kids Together

The fight between progressive and conservative bloggers over the Dems use of a Baltimore family (the Frosts) in the SCHIP debate got even more personal 10/10 when Ezra Klein challenged Michelle Malkin to a 'good faith' argument over SCHIP. Klein blogs: "My sense has been that Malkin doesn't want an argument. Rather, she wants to feed her readers the steady stream of outrage that keeps her traffic numbers up. If this is a policy argument you care so deeply about as to travel to the Frost family's house to see if they really deserved S-CHIP benefits, surely you'll want to set up a web cam and talk through the issue. ... This is the politics of hate. Screaming, sobbing, inchoate, hate. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to drive to the home of a Republican small business owner to see if he "really" needed that tax cut."

Malkin responds: "A good-faith debate would require that Respectable Liberal Blogger Ezra Klein actually be a person of good faith. ... He is proudly touting the discovery of a blog post I wrote about my experience with Maryland's individual health insurance market in 2004. ... Is it Respectable Liberal Blogger Ezra Klein's view that only commentators and analysts who adore the current state of the market are allowed to criticize S-CHIP's mission creep? If anything, health care entitlement growth will make the problems I wrote about three years ago worse-problems due in significant part to the government regulations. ... Most noxious is the continued sanctimony of left-wing bloggers positioning themselves as champions of the children of working-poor in their embrace of S-CHIP expansion. Notice how they say nothing about the entitlement creep that has this working-poor children's health insurance program covering a growing number of adults."

Malkin also explains why she visited the family's $160K commercial property: "The reason I went to the Frosts' commercial property was to try and interview Halsey Frost. He wasn't there, which is why I ended up talking to one of his two tenants, who was happy to share his views. In fact, he noted that two other media outlets had stopped by. He was happy to talk to them, too. So much for my 'grilling' and 'harassment' of the Frosts' friends."

Hillary Clinton internet director Peter Daou posted Clinton's support of the Frosts at Daily Kos: "There was a young boy who was 12 years old named Graeme Frost. He was in a bad car accident and he didn't have health insurance but thankfully he had a program that I helped start in 1997 with Ted Kennedy and others called SCHIP. ... I don't mind if they pick on me. They've done it for years. I think I've proven I can take care of myself. But George Bush and the Republicans should lay off Graeme Frost and all the other millions of American children getting their insurance from SCHIP."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Six Simple Steps For Dating Bloggers

Jerome Armstrong identifies "Six Things You Can Do Now" to help recruit blogger support for your organization: 1. Take the first step with outreach to local bloggers; 2. Have a daily-updated website to engage and empower the bloggers; 3. Be on the blogs and advertise on the blogs; 4. Get your opposition research onto the blogs; 5. Use YouTube; 6. Create a web presence on Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites.

LEST WE FORGET: We'd Hate To See What The Marlins Would Do For Nick Saban Night

Deadspin points us to the winner of MLB.com's inaugural Minor League Promotion of the Year Award. The Fort Myers Miracle won for their "Billy Donovan Night" in honor of the Florida Gators coach who first signed to coach the Orlando Magic but then backed out one day later. From MLB.com: "[A]t the heart of the evening was this little nugget of genius -- any fan who had second thoughts about attending the game was given the opportunity to negotiate out of their ticket purchase by consulting with a lawyer."

Posted by Conn Carroll at October 11, 2007 12:54 PM