January 08, 2009

1/8: The Trouble With Harry

Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is not a popular guy among the netroots. Two months ago, Markos Moulitsas blasted Reid after Senate Dems voted to allow CT Sen. Joe Lieberman to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Cmte. Moulitsas called Reid a weak leader and declared that "he doesn't deserve to run the caucus, or, frankly, to hold his seat." Now, bloggers in almost every corner of the Leftosphere are slamming Reid for his awkward handling of the Roland Burris affair. They're accusing him of "political malpractice" and are describing him as "a hazard to [Barack] Obama's agenda" who must be replaced if Dems are to accomplish their goals. Moulitsas writes: "So Reid was outbluffed by Lieberman, then he was outbluffed by [Senate Min. Leader Mitch] McConnell on seating [Al] Franken, and now he'll be outbluffed by the guy appointed by the crooked governor."

Reid, for his part, did not help himself when he told The Politico that AK Sen/convicted felon Ted Stevens shouldn't face jail time. Jane Hamsher was disgusted by Reid's remarks:

"[A]fter having thrown a huge public hissy fit about not being able to seat Roland Burris because Blago is such a crook the taint would be unbearable (words he will at any moment have to eat), this is the moment he chooses to come to the defense of a guy who actually has been convicted? Worst. Political. Instincts. Ever."

REID: The Netroots Pile On

Reid is taking a lot of criticism from liberal bloggers for his awkward handling of the Burris affair:

• Daily Kos' Kagro X: "The joke's on Harry Reid. Again."
• Moulitsas: "Reid was outbluffed by Lieberman, then he was outbluffed by McConnell on seating Franken, and now he'll be outbluffed by the guy appointed by the crooked governor. [...] If Republicans were truly smart, they'd give Reid an electoral pass. He's the best thing Republicans have going for them in the entire Congress."
• MyDD's Charles Lemos: "For heaven's sake, Harry pick your fights better. This fight over Roland Burris is over. Behind on points and cut about the eye, it's a TKO in the second round."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "I think it's fair to say Reid's handling of this has been, for lack of a better word, clumsy."
• Hamsher: "A seventy-one year old dude who hasn't held office for 14 years, appointed by a crook, takes the Senate Majority Leader to the cleaners. Reid is a red state senator, up for re-election in 2010 and under pressure from the right, who is already making noise about appeasing Republicans who aren't going to be appeased. He's a hazard to Obama's agenda, which is why leading Senate Democrats tried to ease him out as Majority Leader last year. See: Daschle, Tom."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "Harry Reid has now, according to this poll, through his obstinance and idiocy, helped create popular support for Burris to not be seated. Since Burris will be seated anyway, these people will be pissed, Reid will look like a clown for being rolled over and put in his place by [IL Gov. Rod] Blagojevich, and Republicans, with an assist from the Democrats who ran around calling Burris tainted for several weeks, will now claim Democrats are just as corrupt as Republicans. It really is impressive how Reid and company got themselves into this mess. Their ability to inflict maximum pain on themselves for no gain is really unparalleled. [...] If you could be sued for political malpractice, I would be leading a class action suit against the Democratic leadership right now."
• digby: "It's not like it wasn't patently obvious from the moment Blago announced the appointment that fighting it would be a complete waste of time and not useful in any way to the furtherance of the agenda or the needs of the American people. And it's not like it wasn't obvious from the beginning that the Democrats were running around like shrieking five year olds on the playground with absolutely no idea what they were doing. Now, we've got Reid on record saying that [AK Sen.] Ted Stevens shouldn't go to jail, which is very collegial, I'm sure, but doesn't look very consistent with his noble stand against the 'taint' of Blagojevich [...] This has been about the most inauspicious beginning of any congress I've seen, a total embarrassment to the Senate Democrats, who've managed to make the House look like the more restrained, deliberative body."

FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver offers a qualified defense of Reid: "Sure, Harry Reid has managed to trap himself now on the subject of Roland Burris, and is getting a lot of criticism for it. But how many of you saw his dilemma coming? At the time the Blagojevich scandal broke, did Reid and the Democrats really have any choice but to distance themselves as much as possible, and assert flatly that they wouldn't seat anyone that he nominated? Did they really have any reason to expect that a quasi-credible candidate like Roland Burris would actually accept Blagojevich's nomination (as opposed to someone like, say, Patti Blagojevich?) I think Reid can be criticized for one thing -- for failing to advocate for a special election. But even if the Democrats had made a more earnest push to hold a special election, that would still have provided for the possibility that Blagojevich would attempt to nominate someone in the meantime. What were they supposed to have said? 'You know Rod, we really have no legal grounds to block your nominee, so please pretty please with a cherry on top don't do it?'"

Conservative blogger Pejman Yousefzadeh chimes in: "Republicans could not have possibly invented a better Senate Democratic leader."

HOLDER: Obstruction For The Sake Of Obstruction?

Liberal bloggers are criticizing GOP Sen. Arlen Specter, and the GOP more generally, for attacking Obama's choice for AG, Eric Holder:

• Benen: "Sen. Arlen Specter's (R-Pa.) angry crusade against Eric Holder's A.G. nomination seems petty, pointless, and counter-productive. [...] Specter wants to punish Holder because Obama didn't seek his 'advice'? Please."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Holder's last government appointment was as Deputy Attorney General where he served for four years. Try as conservatives might to huff and puff over him, that's the very model of a banal choice of a well-qualified candidate. The idea of having lengthy discussions with people about whether or not a guy who was unanimously confirmed as Deputy Attorney General could be qualified to serve as Attorney General is a little silly. The Transition has a lot on its plate what with the two wars and the economic crisis."
• dday: "The efforts by the right-wing to derail the nomination of Eric Holder is an object lesson in how they will press every advantage, use every trick, and enlist every argument to deliver defeats to their adversary, simply because they treat politics like the sports section, charting wins and losses. They are very effective in the minority, and with a dreadfully bumbling majority as their opponent, that effectiveness will be magnified."

HOLDER II: Ready To Rumble

Meanwhile, conservative bloggers want GOP senators to challenge Holder at his confirmation hearing:

• Yousefzadeh: "Attorneys-General who have a past of seeking to undermine the Sixth Amendment right to counsel are no friends of civil liberties. I had thought that the Marc Rich pardon was the biggest strike against Eric Holder. Turns out that something potentially even bigger is out there. I want lots and lots and lots of Judiciary Committee hearing questions on these issues. The phrase 'What were you thinking?' ought to be employed a great deal. And in the event that no reasonable answers are offered, the Senate should not even think twice about rejecting this nomination."
• AmSpec Blog's Doug Bandow: "With the Democrats possessing 58 (after the imminent seating of Roland Burris) or 59 (if Al Franken wins the court fight) votes in the Senate, it won't be easy (make that well nigh impossible!) to stop an Obama Cabinet nominee. But there's more reason to believe that the Eric Holder fight could be interesting. And even if he wins, he will face some embarrassing questions. [...] This increasingly looks like a target of opportunity for conservative groups. Heck, if Sen. Arlen Specter is getting involved, you know there's got to be something there!"

PCCC: New Hope For Progressives?

The netroots are excited about the emergence of a new organization called the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which seeks to "provid[e] needed infrastructure and strategic advice to progressive candidates so they can run first-class campaigns and win." The Huffington Post's Ryan Grim writes:

"The organization will be the first of its kind exclusively to focus on electing progressive Democrats in congressional elections. It won't focus its energy on unseating conservative Democrats, but [Adam] Green, a cofounder, didn't rule out the possibility. Instead, it will prioritize competitive open-seat primaries and help general election candidates like [Sam] Bennett and [Tom] Perriello run effective campaigns."

• Open Left's Chris Bowers: "The organization is for real, composed of former campaign staff, MoveOn.org staff, and labor organizers. It is also on track to raise $650,000 this year, and has MoveOn.org backing. It should hit its fundraising targets no sweat, and it's experienced team knows what it is doing in a campaign setting. This is an exciting new piece of progressive infrastructure that should combine nicely with other emerging efforts, such as the primary project that I mentioned last month."
• digby: "This is an essential component of progressive politics. The stale CW of the village Democrats gets passed on to congressional candidates by simple osmosis --- there's no creativity, no use of modern methods and no real progressive message and the progressive ends up losing. Adam Green is a serious guy with some great ideas and his partners are obviously among the smartest tech people around. This is a very, very exciting project and I'll be watching with interest to see how it all unfolds."
• Open Left's David Sirota: "This is terrific news, and the news about PCCC's talks with Tom Geoghegan (the newest Better Democrats candidate) is fantastic. As I wrote earlier today, Geoghegan is one of the greatest living movement progressives in America and has a terrific shot at winning the March 3 special election in Illinois to replace Rahm Emanuel."

CHENEY: Still Beloved By The Rightroots

Yesterday, VP Dick Cheney held a lunch discussion with a small group of conservative bloggers and journalists at his home. Quin Hillyer reports:

"In a luncheon round table interview today with a small group of conservative journalists, Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that 'we don't torture' but that 'enhanced interrogation techniques' have 'produced a wealth of information' that has protected the United States against terrorists -- and, on a far more personal level, said that his four decades in public life have been a 'helluva ride' that he is 'seriously thinking' about recording in memoirs after he leaves office."

Several righty bloggers who attended the luncheon are praising Cheney:

• NRO's Kate O'Beirne: "He expressed concerns about the president-elect's approach to the war on terror based on his campaign rhetoric but noted that Senator Obama did vote to reauthorize the terrorist surveillance program. He recommends (hopes?) that the Obama team will carefully study the whats and whys of the Bush administration's (successful) efforts in countering the terrorist threat before abandoning certain strategies. While hoping they get it right, he's worried. So, so am I. Fortunately, the vice president is giving 'serious thought to writing a book.' Let's hope we will continue to benefit from his unparalled experience and sound judgment. Finally, for the umpteenth time the caricature of this talented, temperate, dedicated patriot struck me as insane."
• RedState's Erick Erickson: "The untold story of this administration, and one that I asked him about with very little success at getting an answer (to be honest, my question was poorly formed as it is a difficult topic), is that Cheney has been the great conservative influence at the White House. [...] For almost eight long years after 9/11/2001, we were not attacked at home. We were safe at home. Men, not boys, made tough decisions that they stood by. They did not back down. Many people don't like that they did not back down. Many people on the wrong side of history don't like their aggressive prosecution of the Global War on Terror. But they've kept us safe. 'At the end of eight years, we don't get a lot of credit for what didn't happen,' Cheney said matter of factly. No one ever does. Cheney pointed out that had we gone the judicial route many on the left wanted (and the prior administration had engaged in), we'd have never gotten the information we got from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. A prosecutor could not have made him squeal like a pig. But he was not arrested and prosecuted. KSM went through enhanced interrogation and still sits at Gitmo. [...] Cheney is unapologetic as he should be. It was a fascinating lunch."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolence

Jonathan Zasloff recently pointed to Nelson Mandela as proof that "an oppressed and occupied people does not necessarily resort to terrorism." Yglesias adds:

"And of course there's the civil rights movement in the United States. And it's worth emphasizing here the extent to which strict adherence to non-violence was important to helping the movement Martin Luther King led to get what they wanted. When people who you regard as being 'on your side' start killing people for what you deem a reasonable cause, you tend to look on the killing in an understanding light. But when you don't regard those people as 'on your side' then things like firing rockets at populated areas or dropping bombs on schools begins to look monstrous. And when you're faced off against monsters, the last thing you want to do is give them any room to breath. The white south resisted desegregation pretty fiercely, but resistance would have been much fiercer if the civil rights movement had been killing tons of people and stoking fears that empowering blacks would lead to massacres.

Much the same applies to the South African situation. At a certain point, it became clear to the apartheid leaders that there system was untenable. But they were still more interested in the upholding the interests of white South Africa than in abstract considerations of justice. The fact that ANC behavior didn't imply that the organization was led by cold-blooded killers made it much easier to contemplate handing power over to them. In Israel, decline in political support for wild 'Greater Israel' notions has been swamped by the way Israeli discourse has become dominated by fear that any easing up on the Palestinians will endanger Israeli lives -- a fear that's hard to assuage driven by how violence-obsessed the Palestinian movement has been."

LEST WE FORGET: Area Teen Accidentally Enters Teen Center

From The Onion:

"SANDUSKY, OH -- In a moment of confusion, area teenager Eric Dooley briefly walked into a local teen outreach center Tuesday, a place that neither he nor any of his teenaged friends would ever knowingly enter. 'Oh, geez. I'm sorry,' the 15-year-old said as he quickly assessed the four battered foosball tables, outdated PlayStation console, overly friendly counselor, and garish orange and purple paint scheme -- all intended to appeal to him -- before exiting the facility in less than six seconds. 'This isn't where I'm supposed to be. Sorry. Sorry.' Dooley reportedly joined a gang later that afternoon."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at January 8, 2009 12:51 PM