October 15, 2008

10/15: It's The Same Old Song...

Liberal bloggers are pushing back fiercely against accusations that ACORN is trying to steal the election for Barack Obama. Lefty bloggers have watched the GOP make a fuss about voter fraud for years, and they're convinced that the conservative campaign against ACORN is just another bad-faith effort designed to to justify more restrictive voting laws and/or portray Obama's eventual victory as illegitimate. Josh Marshall declares: "There's no evidence of vote fraud. Nothing. This is an effort of a losing political party to a) lay the groundwork for challenging their defeat at the polls b) lay the groundwork to pass laws to make it harder for poor people and minorities to vote."

Liberal bloggers are also hammering home the point that registration fraud and voter fraud are two different things, and that there has been little evidence of the latter. Nevertheless, the vast majority of conservative bloggers are convinced that by submitting so many fraudulent registration forms, ACORN is paving the way for widespread voter impersonation. Marc Ambinder says that "it's hard to find an honest GOPer who actually believes that Barack Obama will benefit in any statistically significant way from ACORN-related voter registration shenanigans." However, there are plenty of conservative bloggers who believe that this is exactly what's going to happen.

ACORN: Wanna Know What This Is Really About?

Liberal bloggers are convinced that the conservative campaign against ACORN is a bad-faith effort to justify more restrictive voting laws and/or (to borrow Ambinder's phrase) "pre-emptively delegitimize Obama's victory":

• TPM's Marshall: "Let's be clear about what this is. These are random stories about fake vote registrations. The Drudges and Fox scoundrels of the world seem to think that if someone fills out a voter registration card for Mickey Mouse, that Mickey Mouse might show up and cast a vote they're not entitled to cast. It doesn't and there is zero evidence of any voter fraud or anything that would make voter fraud more likely. The level of lying, bad faith or at best ignorance of the people making these claims is really beyond imagining. This isn't vote fraud. There's no evidence of vote fraud. Nothing. This is an effort of a losing political party to a) lay the groundwork for challenging their defeat at the polls b) lay the groundwork to pass laws to make it harder for poor people and minorities to vote."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "It's tempting to ignore the incessant right-wing whining about ACORN. We're dealing with a group of people who either a) don't understand the difference between registration fraud and voter fraud; or b) do understand the difference and hope to deceive voters. Either way, some well-intentioned folks are getting confused, so ignoring the nonsense isn't a viable option. To hear Republicans, Fox News, and far-right bloggers tell it, an untold horde of illegally-registered voters are going to swarm into precincts on Election Day and steal the election from McCain/Palin. While it's generally best not to impugn anyone's motives, in this case, we're clearly dealing with a group of partisans who are operating in bad faith."
• Ezra Klein: "It's probably worth saying that the ACORN gambit isn't exactly a new strategy. It's just the latest iteration of what Art Levine has termed the 'voter fraud fraud'. [...] When it comes to this ACORN stuff, there's nothing new under the sun. It's just that Republicans are more desperate, and more likely to lose, and there's more potential in stoking racial resentment and fear when the Democratic candidate is black, and so they're spending more time on it."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "If you want to reduce the number of bad forms submitted, you have basically three options: (1.) Make voter registration much easier and more automatic so as to reduce the need for registration drives. (2.) Let registration organizers toss out forms. (3.) Stop all registration drives by conflating good faith errors with systematic, criminal fraud. Conservatives like option (3) because they don't like it when large numbers of people vote. And that's what this is about, finding a backdoor way to delegitimize all efforts at large-scale registration drives. It'd be as if instead of trying to ban computers (obviously impossible) you passed a law saying you could throw someone in jail for selling a computer that's prone to crashing. It's computer sales fraud -- the thing's supposed to work! Well, nobody knows how to build a crash-free computer so, bye bye computer industry."
• TAPPED's Scott Lemieux: "As Matt [Yglesias] says, if for some reason it was critically important for virtually every single name collected in mass voter registration drives to be accurate, there's an obvious solution in effect in many other liberal democracies: have professionals trained by the government be responsible for ensuring that citizens are registered. Of course, we're not going to hear about that remedy from people frothing at the mouth about ACORN because the point isn't to make registration a perfect process, but rather to use inevitable errors as a pretext to suppress legitimate voters."

digby lays out what she perceives to be the GOP's true motives in making a fuss about voter fraud: "Their full blown propaganda campaign of the moment is aimed at furthering several different related goals. The first is to freak out the local registration offices, many of which are run by small town bureaucrats who are either subject to the propaganda or are GOP partisans themselves. They want to create a feeling of chaos around the voting processes and call the absentee ballots into question. The second is to intimidate voters into not participating and making it difficult for those who do. They want people to believe that they will be grilled and scrutinized when they try to vote and perhaps make lines long and the process so arduous that people will give up. Third, if the election is close, they will challenge its validity in court. After all, that worked like a charm in 2000. But barring that --- and it looks like it won't be close enough to do that --- they are laying the ground work to delegitimize the victory. That is an essential tool for rebuilding their movement and crating justification for the kind of character assassination and obstructionism that is their specialty."

ACORN II: For The Last Time, Registration Fraud And Voter Fraud Are Not The Same Thing!

Liberal bloggers are hammering home the point that registration fraud is not the same thing as voter fraud:

• Lemieux: "The rhetoric notwithstanding, registration 'fraud' is very different from vote fraud, and in fact the former is extremely unlikely to lead to non-negligible amounts of the latter. Even if somehow the fake names get through and are registered to vote it doesn't actually matter in terms of the integrity of elections since 'Mickey Mouse' and 'Amanda Huggenkiss' and 'Al Koholic' can't actually show up to vote because they don't exist. Until Glenn Reynolds et al. can actually find an example of 'Foghorn Leghorn' actually being permitted to vote, this is a trivial issue that certainly doesn't constitute 'vote fraud.'"
• Yglesias: "There's simply no way to gather over one million new voter registration forms without some of the forms having been filled out with bogus information. You could ask the group to automatically toss out the obviously wrong ones -- some guy saying he's Tony Romo, someone else saying he's Mickey Mouse -- but the law requires them to hand all the forms in to prevent them from tossing out forms filled out by people who say they want to register Republican. Consequently, if you go out and register over a million voters you'll wind up with a lot of bad forms being submitted. But just as 30,000 is a lot of people and also only a very small fraction of one million people, when you're talking about registering over a million new voters you'd need orders of magnitude more bad forms to constitute real evidence of a systematic fraud campaign."

On the right side of the blogosphere, Hot Air's Allahpundit agrees with his liberal counterparts that ACORN's registration drive probably won't result in widespread illegal voting: "It's not really voter impersonation that's the big worry, it's the logistical nightmare of poll workers having to sift so many bogus registration forms that bona fide registrations can't be processed in a timely manner. Which is a problem, but given the trend in party identification, especially among new voters, would seem to be more of a problem for Democrats than Republicans."

Allahpundit appears to be the exception in the conservative blogosphere, however. Most righty bloggers believe that ACORN is trying to steal the election through massive voter fraud:

• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "What Obama knows but doesn't want to acknowledge is that when hundreds of thousands of phony registrations have been submitted, and ACORN knows what those phony names and addresses are, the door to voter fraud is wide open. Absentee ballots can easily be cast on behalf of those non-existent but registered 'voters,' and they can cast ballots in person as long as someone from ACORN or the Obama campaign is willing to show up at the polls and give a false name. This is, however, a point of no concern to Obama, since he knows that every one of those votes will be cast for him and his fellow Democrats."
• The Next Right's Blue Collar Muse: "Much has been made of the Democrats' 50 state strategy to win the election. Who knew there was a fall back 15 state strategy to steal it if they couldn't win it?"

ACORN III: Don't Let The Dems Steal Ohio!

Conservative bloggers are pleased that the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that OH Sec/State Jennifer Brunner "must provide access to a state database showing new voters whose registration information does not match" DMV or Social Security records:

• RedState's Moe Lane: "Essentially, SecState Brunner is now back and stuck with the oh-so-onerous task of making sure that all of long-time Democratic ally ACORN's work of committing voter registration fraud in Ohio was actually done in vain. [...] All in all, it's good news for the good guys (us, and the voting public in general), bad news for the Democrats, and very bad news for the bad guys (ACORN)."
• Michelle Malkin: "...A Sixth Circuit court ruling tonight...orders fraud-friendly Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner to implement a new system to verify voter registrations. [...] Thug thizzlin' just got a wee bit harder."
• NRO's Kathryn Jean Lopez: "If the [Ohio] vote is close, there will be nothing but question marks election night."

OBAMA: The Grand Unified Anti-Obama Theory

NRO's Stanley Kurtz "connects the dots": "It took me a while to put the pieces together, but I think I've figured out what's had the Obama camp so worried about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records. It goes way beyond Bill Ayers. In fact, it connects the dots between Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Obama's own early radicalism. I lay out the details today in my new piece, 'Wright 101.' The gist of what I found is that, from his position as board chair at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama was funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to education programs built around the same extremist anti-American ideology preached by Jeremiah Wright. As I argue in today's piece, this puts the Wright issue back in play in this campaign."

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff finds Kurtz's argument compelling: "At one level, the connection between Jeremiah Wright (Barack Obama's spiritual mentor) and William Ayers (Obama's political ally) is apparent. After all, Ayers set out to bring 'America's chickens home to roost' decades before Wright applied that phrase to 9/11. But now Stanley Kurtz has demonstrated a more concrete connection, and one that implicates Obama directly, not just through 'association.'"

Liberal bloggers, on the other hand, are mocking Kurtz:

• Yglesias: "Specifically, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge on whose board Obama served gave a grant to an outfit called the Coalition for Improved Education in [Chicago's] South Shore (CIESS). CIESS was 'linked to a network of schools within the Chicago public system' called the 'South Shore African Village Collaborative.' According to Kurtz, this network which was linked to an organization which got a grant from a group on whose board Obama served, 'was very much a part of the Afrocentric "rites of passage movement"' and also at time did events featuring guys named Jacob Carruthers and Asa Hilliard. These two, in turn, seem to have held fringy opinions somewhat similar to some of Jeremiah Wright's fringy opinions. Ergo, according to Kurtz, Wright is back on the table. I'd say McCain's in luck with this one! Obama's doomed! Seriously, though, is there anyone who could withstand this kind of guilt-by-association? Obama was on the board of an outfit that gave a grant to an outfit that was linked to another outfit that organized an event where some dude spoke, and thus Obama is responsible for the dude? Really? I spoke at the Heritage Foundation once. Does that make Heritage's board members responsible for stuff on my blog? It doesn't make any sense."
• The New Republic's Jason Zengerle: "[Kurtz is] grasping for a grand unified anti-Obama theory. [...He] ends the article by pleading with McCain to use this as a reason to bring up Wright and, frankly, I kind of hope McCain does -- if only because we haven't had enough lunacy in our presidential campaigns since Ross Perot (along with his accusation that George HW Bush threatened to sabotage his daughter's wedding) left the stage. Although I do concede that when it comes to crackpot anti-Obama theories, I find the Bill Ayers Really Wrote Obama's Book one much more elegant."

OBAMA II: He Killed Vince Foster!

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers are mocking some of the other recent anti-Obama claims made by conservative bloggers:

• Mother Jones' Kevin Drum: "What's that, you say? Barack Obama is palling around with terrorists? That is so last week. Here's a more recent tour of the Gamma Quadrant: One: Bill Ayers really wrote Obama's book, Dreams From My Father. Two: Obama had an underage, gay affair with a pedophile. Three: It's entirely possible that Obama was involved with bombing the South African rugby team while he was at Columbia in the 80s. Four: Obama, Bill Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright (via a chain of associations too Rube Goldbergesque to summarize) were engaged in a conspiracy to teach Pan-African 'cultural nationalism' to Chicago schoolkids during the 90s. Five: Obama was having an affair with one of his fundraiser babes in 2004 until Michelle found out and banished the woman to a 'little Caribbean island.' There's no evidence yet that Obama was actually the secret love child of Malcolm X, but I'm sure we'll find it soon enough if we just keep digging."
• The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates: "I don't ever want to hear anyone complaining about black people and their conspiracy theories. The cat on the corner -- or even the Reverend -- yelling about the government inventing AIDS is off his rocker. But my God, all these people do is sit around think. And this is what they come up with -- Bill Ayers wrote Barack's memoir. Wow."
• Sadly, No!'s Brad: "If you thought tales of Vince Foster's murder and of smuggling cocaine through the Arkansas governor's mansion were fun, then hold onto your seats. The next four years are going to be something to behold."

MCCAIN: Pallin' Around With Saddam's Lobbyist?

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about Murray Waas's recent report, "McCain Transition Chief Aided Saddam In Lobbying Effort":

"William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime. The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government."

• Think Progress' Satyam Khanna: "Did McCain know Timmons was 'palling around' with Saddam's friends?"
• Democracy Arsenal's Adam Blickstein: "McCain's campaign is now intimately tied to Saddam Hussein's murderous regime in Iraq with William Timmons overseeing his transition planning and team. Under McCain's own rubric then, he himself is palling around with a pal of a globally malevolent terrorist who, over decades, killed tens of thousands. [...] McCain has once again put country last during a critical moment in campaign decision making. The McCain/Timmons situation is the Obama/Ayers connection on 100% pure anabolic steroids delivered straight to the vein. And hopefully, the media will jump on this, not because it is some political ploy by a desperate campaign as is the case with McCain's Ayers argument, but because this is a completely shady, improper and duplicitous breach of trust towards the American people, reflective of a leader who simply has no good leadership qualities left."
• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "[This story] fits in well with one of the running narrative of this general election -- that McCain is too close with lobbyists, that he relies too heavily lobbyists to run his campaign, and that lobbyists would play too powerful a role in his administration. Indeed, the position held by Timmons is as powerful a position as they come."
• Benen: "Hmm. I wonder what the response would be from the political world in general, and Republicans in specific, if a top Obama campaign aide was associated with lobbying on behalf of Saddam Hussein."

Several liberal bloggers think that Obama should mention Timmons if McCain brings up Ayers at tonight's debate:

• Daily Kos' SusanG: "The timing of Waas's piece couldn't be better, given that reports are circulating today that McCain intends to bring up Barack Obama's tenuous relationship with William Ayers in tomorrow night's debate. Looks like Waas just handed Team Obama a bit of ammo for return fire."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "Here's hoping McCain brings up Ayers [Wednesday] night. We can all watch John McCain's head explode when Obama hits him with his associate's ties to Saddam."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Conservative Civil War

The Atlantic's Ross Douthat:

"...Suppose that you accept the most cynical account of, say, Peggy Noonan's uncertainty about whom to vote for in this election, or Christopher Buckley's Obama endorsement -- that they're just craven, self-interested bandwagon jumpers who want to keep getting invited to all those swanky cocktail parties I keep hearing about. Suppose that you regard every right-of-center writer -- or single-issue fellow traveler with the Bush Republicans, in the case of Christopher Hitchens -- who's publicly hurled brickbats at the McCain campaign as a quisling and a coward, a stooge for liberalism and a rat fleeing a fast-sinking ship. In such circumstances, what's the best course of action -- denouncing the rats, or trying to figure out why the hell the ship is sinking?

Even if [David] Brooks and Noonan and Buckley and [Rod] Dreher and Kathleen Parker and David Frum and Heather Mac Donald and Bruce Bartlett and George Will and on and on -- note the ideological diversity in the ranks of conservatives who aren't Helping The Team these days -- are all just snobs and careerists who quit or cavil or cover their asses when the going gets tough and their 'seat at the table' is threatened, an American conservative movement that consists entirely of those pundits with the rock-hard testicular fortitude required to never take sides against the family seems like a pretty small tent at this point. And if I were [Victor Davis] Hanson or [Mark] Levin or [Mark] Steyn I'd be devoting a little less time to ritual denunciations of heretics and RINOs, and at least a little more time to figuring out how to build the sort of ship that will make the rats of the DC/NY corridor want to scramble back on board, however much it makes you sick to have them back. Who knows? It might just be the sort of ship that swing-state voters will want to climb on board as well."

LEST WE FORGET: Krugman Could Turn into Massive Douchebag, Colleagues Fear

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"One day after the Nobel committee announced that Paul Krugman had won the 2008 Nobel Prize for economics, colleagues of Mr. Krugman voiced concerns that winning the coveted award could turn him into an egregious douchebag. [...]

'I think it's safe to say that Paul had pretty high self-esteem before the Nobel thing went down,' said one of Mr. Krugman's Princeton associates, who spoke on condition of anonymity. 'But now he's walking around like he's Jay-Z or something.'

The first ominous sign, according to the associate, came at a meeting of the economics department this morning, when Mr. Krugman showed up with a coffee mug reading, 'No. 1 Economist.'

While his colleagues discussed the current global financial crisis, Mr. Krugman 'couldn't be bothered' and spent the meeting texting Matt Damon instead. At one point, one of his fellow economists asked him a question about credit default swaps, to which Mr. Krugman reportedly snapped, 'Credit default swaps can suck my ass -- I'm Paul Fucking Krugman!'"

Posted by Ian Faerstein at October 15, 2008 01:22 PM