January 22, 2009

1/22: Caroline Bows Out

The netroots welcomed Caroline Kennedy's decision to withdraw her name from consideration for Sec/State Hillary Clinton's old Senate seat. Their reaction was not surprising, since leading liberal bloggers have vigorously opposed Kennedy's Senate bid ever since she first announced her interest in the seat. Markos Moulitsas hopes that NY Gov. David Paterson appoints someone other than the remaining heavyweight candidate in the race (NY AG Andrew Cuomo), since doing so would mean "we might actually see a competitive primary for the 2010 special."

Meanwhile, conservative bloggers are criticizing NY Fed Chair Timothy Geithner for claiming that he was using TurboTax when he (incorrectly) filed his taxes. "Tim Geithner wants us to believe that his errors are TurboTax's fault and wants to be Treasury Secretary anyway," Pejman Yousefzadeh wrote derisively. However, it appears that righty bloggers are losing hope that GOP senators will launch a vigorous effort to oppose Geithner's nomination.

Finally, if you're interested in reading our summary of yesterday's Internet Advocacy Roundtable sponsored by Netroots Nation, please scroll down the page...

NY SEN: So Long, Caroline!

The netroots are pleased that Kennedy has withdrawn her name from consideration for the vacant NY Senate seat:

• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "I didn't know how David Paterson was going to justify appointing Kennedy when virtually every poll showed an ever-widening gap between her and Andrew Cuomo as to whom New Yorkers would prefer. The main argument for Kennedy, despite her inexperience and her pathetic roll out (courtesy of [Joe] Lieberman/[Benjamin] Netanyahu handler Josh Isay) was her name recognition and ability to hold the seat in 2010. If Cuomo is beating her handily in the polls, that argument disappears. Good for David Paterson. He was getting steamrolled by the Kennedy machine over this from day one, but he never relented. [...] Kennedy was a weak candidate from the start, and both New York and the Democrats stood to lose a lot of she choked in the Senate. Teddy's health crisis yesterday offers her a graceful way to exit the stage. If she truly does feel called to public service in politics, now is her chance to prove that she's got what it takes by running for office."
• Daily Kos' SusanG: "Pssssst...did you hear the latest? Caroline said that she was all like ... David, I'm SO not down with how you dissed me. All the wishy-washy playing hard to get. First you like me, then you don't. First you're bragging about taking me, then you're pretending you never asked me. Forget the prom! Just forget it! I wouldn't be an appointed senator if you were the last governor on earth! (Head toss. Foot stomp. Exit stage left.)"

Daily Kos' Moulitsas hopes that Paterson doesn't appoint Cuomo: "If Cuomo gets passed over for any of the other contenders, we might actually see a competitive primary for the 2010 special. And ultimately, that would be the most (small 'd') democratic solution of all. So fingers crossed for 'anyone but Cuomo'. But regardless who it might be, I wish Paterson would just pick someone already!"

NY SEN II: Good Riddance

Conservative bloggers also welcomed Kennedy's decision to drop her Senate bid:

• Michelle Malkin: "The commentariat will say it was the 'uhs' and 'you knows' that killed Caroline Kennedy's bid for Hillary's Senate seat. The halting media appearances certainly didn't help. But ultimately, it was the regal sense of entitlement that done her in. Dynastic expectations coupled with lack of public disclosure and questionable work ethics do not sit well with the American public. Fare thee well, Queen Caroline."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "It's one thing if people want to elect someone whose primary distinction is her heritage to elected office, or if voters choose someone who could be considered weak on the 'experience' side. That's what democracy is about, and it's voters' right. It's quite another if someone with those attributes simply manages to secure a Senate seat by appointment. In my view, it's repugnant to the idea that all of us, as Americans, cherish: That we are a country where merit and performance counts more than bloodlines."
• NRO's Jim Geraghty: "There is a place in this world for Caroline Kennedy to do good work; it just isn't the U.S. Senate. The Republic is better off for her withdrawal from consideration for Hillary Clinton's seat."
• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "That ends one major source of embarrassment for the Democratic Party. Now if we could just do something about [Al] Franken..."

Glenn Reynolds: "In a blow against nepotism and political dynasties, Caroline Kennedy withdraws her name for Senate. Opening the way for Andrew Cuomo!"

GEITHNER: Oh, So Now It's TurboTax's Fault?

Conservative bloggers are criticizing Geithner for claiming that he was using TurboTax when he (incorrectly) filed his taxes:

• RedState's Yousefzadeh: "Tim Geithner wants us to believe that his errors are TurboTax's fault and wants to be Treasury Secretary anyway. [...J]ust how does he expect to gain trust with the mealy-mouthed 'TurboTax ate my return' excuse he is now offering -- under oath, one might add -- to the United States Senate?"
• Geraghty: "[I]f the software that he used to prepare his taxes reminded him of this provision of the tax code, and he still didn't pay, it looks worse, and tougher and tougher to believe that they were 'completely unintentional' as he said in his opening statement. [...] I suspect Geithner did not help himself with that answer."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "Let's review. Geithner signed a form acknowledging his responsibility to pay his taxes. He accepted money from the International Monetary Fund to offset payment of his taxes. He did not pay his taxes. Upon getting an audit by the IRS, he paid back taxes for 2003 and 2004, but still did not pay his 2001 and 2002 taxes. He first said he did not realize he had the obligation. Today he said Turbo Tax screwed him up. [...] Tim Geithner was either lying then or lying now. The odds are, in blaming Turbo Tax today before the Senate in sworn testimony, Tim Geithner committed perjury."

NRO's Ramesh Ponnuru thinks GOP Senators should take Newt Gingrich's advice and oppose Geithner: "Republicans do not have the power to derail the nomination by themselves and probably cannot derail it, period. Given that fact, why shouldn't they stand up against the idea that paying taxes is for unimportant people? That, in a crisis of authority, confidence, and responsibility, the Treasury job should go to someone who has the first, inspires the second, and has demonstrated the third?"

Michelle Malkin thinks GOP senators are going to "capitulate": "It looks increasingly like the GOP is going to ignore the bad signs and capitulate on Obama's Treasury Secretary nominee. [...] Do not say, 6 months or a year from now, that you were not warned, GOP."

HOLDER: A Tortuous Confirmation Process

Liberal bloggers are blasting Senate GOPers for forcing a one-week delay in a vote on the nomination of ex-Deputy AG Eric Holder as AG. Lefty bloggers are directing most of their fire at TX Sen. John Cornyn, who said that he's concerned about Holder's definition of waterboarding as torture, since it could potentially "open intelligence officials to prosecution":

• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "Flailing about to show their relevance, Republican Senators blocked a confirmation vote on Attorney General-designate Eric Holder until next week. This politics-as-usual garbage was led [by PA Sen.] Arlen Specter, in an effort to take President Obama 'down a peg', and today John Cornyn jumped in, objecting to Holder's assertion that waterboarding is torture. [...] My suggestion to Cornyn? Have himself strapped down and subjected to the process, and then he can explain why it isn't torture."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "To hear Republicans tell it, they want to block Holder from serving as the nation's chief law-enforcement officer because he hasn't ruled out prosecuting those who broke the law. It's quite a worldview."
• The Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman: "Can demanding that someone nominated for a prosecutorial post promise not to prosecute a particular group of lawbreakers, as a condition of agreeing to his appointment, charged as an obstruction of justice? Reading the statute, I don't see why not. As to the idea that this is all Holder's fault for saying that waterboarding is torture, was he supposed to lie under oath? Of course waterboarding is torture, and we have a treaty obligation to prosecute those who engaged in it or ordered it. The new AG faces a complicated policy-political-legal set of problems in dealing with that mess, but the blame rests squarely on the torturers and their accessories after the fact, such as Sen. John Cornyn."

GUANTANAMO: Close It? Never!

Conservative bloggers are criticizing Obama for signing an executive order calling for the closing of Guantanamo detention center within the next year:

• RedState's Josh Painter: "[O]n the first day of his watch Obama has begun the process of making our nation less safe, something his predecessor worked so hard for so many years to prevent. This is just one of the reasons why so many of us feared the elevation of Obama to the presidency. He doesn't understand national security, nor does he realize the potential consequences of his words and deeds."
• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "One of the reasons so many foreigners wanted Barack Obama to become President is that they think he's a small, weak pansy who cares more about making bureaucrats in Europe like him than he does about looking out for his own country. Incidentally, they have Obama's number. [...] Even if Obama was staying up at night, crying into his pillow about how those poor Al-Qaeda terrorists were stuck in prison for years just because they wanted to kill Americans, he should have at least waited a while before making a move. It would have still been a bad idea any time he did it, but doing it right off the bat sends the worst possible message to people who want to do us harm at the worst possible time."
• Geraghty: "If Obama moves forward, his administration will have to answer a basic question: If not Gitmo, then where? And if the answer is Fort Leavenworth, he'll have to explain why he's ignoring the objections of Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, once a potential running mate. If it's Camp Pendleton in California, then Obama is overruling the objections of local congressmen, and we're left wondering where Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer will stand. The U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina? Again, local lawmakers staunchly oppose the idea [...] Republicans don't have a ton of issues in which public opinion is on their side; they should press the argument that American policy on detainees in the War on Terror ought to consider the objections of Americans in places like Kansas, California, and South Carolina as much as it considers the objections of the editorial boards of Le Monde, Der Spiegel and the Guardian."

DNC: R.I.P. 50-State Strategy?

Open Left's Chris Bowers recently spoke to "a source close to the transition at the DNC" who told him that the DNC is "moving away" from the 50-state strategy pioneered by ex-DNC Chair Howard Dean:

"In short, the DNC will be moving away from the long-term, decentralized, fifty-state strategy of Howard Dean's tenure, and toward serving as a short-term, centralized re-election effort for President Obama in 2012. It will continue the move away from paid media ushered in by Howard Dean, maintain or increase the amount of resource expenditures in most states, and the number of states it targets will be a broader effort than the narrow focus we saw in 2001-2004 (but more narrow than 2005-2008). However, it will return to the traditional role of the DNC as a supplement for the sitting President's re-election campaign, rather than as the long-term, localized institution building operation that is was from 2005-2008."

Moulitsas is not happy about this report: "Assuming Bowers' source is correct, the DC Democratic establishment will like this. They hated losing control of that cash and letting the states decide for themselves how to best spend it. This is a return to how the party has traditionally operated. [...] The reason that there's an inherent conflict with turning the DNC into Obama's 2012 reelection effort is that there's no reason for the Obama operation to have staffers in Utah. But there's a reason for the Democratic Party to have staffers in Utah -- helping Democrats get elected to important local- and state-level offices and building a bench for federal offices. If Obama's DNC wants to staff up in battleground states, then great. But the rest of the states shouldn't be discarded. We've been down that road before, and it wasn't pretty."

FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver offers his thoughts: "One can imagine a lot of scenarios in which there is a potential trade-off between enhancing Barack Obama's election chances (and/or his political capital) and those of a downballot candidate for Congress or some other office. In the special election in Georgia, for instance, Barack Obama did not want to visit the state because he evidently felt that stumping for Jim Martin would be a poor use of his political capital. That might or might not have been the 'correct' decision (in retrospect, since Martin got beaten badly, it looks wise). But the point is, there is a trade-off there: Obama's interests versus those of a congressional Democrat. And with Obama largely taking over the DNC, such trade-offs are liable to be resolved more often than not in Obama's favor."

SENATE DEM PROGRESSIVE MEDIA SUMMIT: Senators Courting Bloggers

Several prominent liberal bloggers attended the "Senate Democratic Progressive Media Summit" yesterday, where they met with a number of Dem Senators. Jerome Armstrong writes:

"I was at the progressive media summit yesterday, learning about the agenda of the Democratic Senators. About 20 of them showed up to take questions over the 5 hours. If I had to sum it up in one word: ambitious. I recall last year, attending, that the atmosphere was much different. Then, all about stopping [George W.] Bush; now, a huge agenda of things to do. And promises galore.

[OR Sen.] Ron Wyden, Universal healthcare -- [MA Sen. Ted] Kennedy's bill. [NV Sen.] Harry Reid, Immigration Reform this year; EFCA 'still a few more votes for cloture' but this summer. [OH Sen.] Sherrod Brown, Universal healthcare, local green electricity. [ND Sen.] Byron Dorgan, a national 'smart grid' for electricity. [NM Sen.] Jeff Bingaman, Cap and Trade this cycle. [NY Sen.] Chuck Schumer, local water/sewer upgrades nationally. [NM Sen.] Tom Udall, serious start to getting off oil. [MT Sen.] Jon Tester, all the stimulus to infrastructure jobs (including green). Hey, lets dream."

Liberal bloggers were particularly excited about [MI Sen.] Carl Levin's declaration that "there needs to be an accounting on torture in this country."

INTERNET ADVOCACY ROUNDTABLE: What Should The Netroots Do In The Obama Era?

Yesterday we attended the Internet Advocacy Roundtable, a Netroots Nation-sponsored panel discussion held at the Center for American Progress. The five panelists were:

• Amanda Terkel, Managing Editor for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org
• Ari Melber, Net movement correspondent for The Nation
• Cheryl Contee, who blogs at Jack & Jill Politics
• Mike Lux, who blogs at OpenLeft.com and who served as a "progressive liaison" for the Obama transition team
• Sam Graham-Felsen, who served as Obama's campaign blogger

The discussion focused on how online progressive activists can exert influence on the Obama admin. In his opening remarks, Lux noted that Obama's rhetoric about bridging the partisan divide has ruffled some progressives' feathers, but he doesn't necessarily see this as a bad thing. Lux argued that Obama's post-partisan approach "will create tension at times," but that this can be "a healthy tension" as long as there is open and constructive dialogue between the Obama admin. and progressives. Lux observed that there has often been friction between progressive-leaning Presidents and activists (such as Abraham Lincoln and abolitionists; and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and labor leaders), but that "together they achieved great things."

Eventually the conversation turned to the Obama team's Internet outreach. Terkel thinks the Obama admin. has been cautious in embracing user-generated content: "There is a White House blog, which is great, but there are no comments." Terkel also noted that the Obama communications team was reluctant to answer the top-rated question on Change.gov (about appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Bush crimes) because it didn't mesh with their broader political strategy of appealing to conservatives (Melber recently wrote about this incident).

Contee observed that Obama -- unlike John McCain -- never participated in a conference call with bloggers during his campaign, and she wondered whether he would do so as President. Similarly, Lux expressed his hope that the Obama admin. would "engage a bit more -- not just with the blogs, but with progressive media more generally." He recommended that the Obama team do interviews with The Nation and liberal talk radio shows in addition to reaching out to more visible progressives such as MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. Melber agreed with Lux and described Obama's recent meeting with centrist and liberal pundits as "a missed opportunity to engage bloggers." While Melber was pleased that Maddow was invited to the meeting, he wondered why Obama didn't invite any progressive bloggers: "The only quote-unquote blogger was Andrew Sullivan, who voted for Bush, and who probably should have been at the right-wing meeting instead."

Graham-Felsen, understandably, defended the Obama campaign's outreach to progressive bloggers, as well as the campaign's outreach to Internet users more generally. He pointed out that the Obama camp held weekly conference calls with selected bloggers during the general election (even though Obama himself did not participate in these calls) and that "we basically exerted zero censorship" on my.barackobama.com. Graham-Felsen also spoke positively about the new DNC-housed Organizing For America. He noted that many of the leaders in Obama For America (such as Mitch Stewart, who led Obama's caucus effort in IA and his general election effort in VA) will have prominent roles in the new organization. He emphasized that the new OFA will have a strong grassroots message: "We are not going to just tell people what to do. We want to have a conversation."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: What Kinds Of Speech Should Be Protected?

Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias isn't comfortable with the fact that "a Dutch court has ordered prosecutors to put a right-wing politician on trial for making anti-Islamic statements":

"I think as a matter of principle that people should be permitted to make offensive analogies about the Koran or anything else they care to. That said, I do think that principled belief in free speech is ultimately tied to practicalities. If I was genuinely convinced that for people of diverse faiths to coexist peacefully required an elaborate set of legal restrictions on offensive speech -- with the only alternative being bloodshed and many deaths -- then I'm not going to pretend that I might not flinch away from principle. But the principle of freedom of expression as a good solution for life in a diverse society has, I think, stood the test of time in the United States of America. And it does work, in part, precisely because it's understood as a principle, as a civic commitment to a shared value. Which is perhaps a more complicated answer than some people are hoping for, but I think that in the real word questions of principle and questions of pragmatism are more intertwined than people sometimes care to admit."

LEST WE FORGET: Inauguration Crowd Moves To White House Gates To Watch Presidency Happen

From The Onion:

"WASHINGTON -- Moments after witnessing the historic inauguration of President Barack Obama Tuesday, the massive, euphoric crowd shifted to the White House gates to watch the rest of his four-year term unfold. 'This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the new president administrate as it happens,' said Hawaii resident Matt Rogers, who paid a scalper $100 to secure his portion of sidewalk until January 2013. 'These first 100 days will really set the tone for his presidency, and I'm going to see it all from 50 yards away.' This is reportedly the largest crowd of presidential spectators to assemble since 1974, when 20 million Americans stood for six months outside disgraced former president Nixon's home in San Clemente, CA just to rub it in."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at January 22, 2009 01:33 PM