February 03, 2009

2/3: But Why Gregg?

Liberal bloggers were initially excited about the news that Barack Obama was thinking about nominating Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) as Commerce Sec., since Gregg's replacement could potentially give Dems 60 seats in the Senate. However, following reports that NH's Dem Gov. John Lynch plans to appoint a GOPer to Gregg's Senate seat, lefty bloggers don't understand Obama's thinking. "What makes Gregg so indispensable as Commerce Secretary I can't say," Jane Hamsher writes. Moreover, several liberal bloggers have expressed concerns about the fact that Gregg -- who opposed Obama's economic stimulus bill in the Senate Appropriations Cmte -- will be in charge of one of the federal departments overseeing the economy. "Essentially, we are handing over an entire federal department to a right-wing conservative in exchange for the possibility of an election victory in 2010 and one more vote on a few pieces of legislation in 2009-2010," Chris Bowers complains.

Meanwhile, most conservative bloggers remain strongly opposed to ex-SD Sen. Tom Daschle's nomination as HHS Sec., while a few argue that GOP senators are better off confirming Daschle because "he is the most centrist nominee America is likely to get."

UPDATE, 12:55 PM: Daschle has withdrawn his nomination.

GREGG: What's The Point?

The netroots don't understand why Obama nominated Gregg as Commerce Sec. if Gov. Lynch plans to appoint a GOPer to his Senate seat:

• Firedoglake's Hamsher: "What makes Gregg so indispensable as Commerce Secretary I can't say."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "There's clearly some grand plan here -- by both Obama and Gregg (though each may have a separate plan) -- but I'm not sure I see it yet."
• BooMan: "Because I don't know what is going on in the backrooms, I cannot really judge the intelligence of the appointment of Gregg to Commerce. What I do know is that it would be stupid to appoint Gregg if there is nothing of considerable value to be gained in return. I don't think it is enough to get credit for bipartisanship..."
• TAPPED's Mori Dinauer: "Perhaps the calculation is that another moderate Republican vote in the 111th Congress is just as good as another Democratic vote. But by that logic, why not just appoint a Democrat in the first place?"
• Obsidian Wings' publius: "I see that New Hampshire's Governor Lynch has promised to appoint a Republican to replace Gregg. To me, this promise makes the Gregg appointment seem a lot more risky. In fact, a placeholder Republican could be far worse than Gregg himself. Here's why -- Gregg was facing a very tough re-election campaign in increasingly hostile territory. For that reason, he would have probably voted with Obama a lot [...] A placeholder Republican, by contrast, wouldn't feel any of these pressures. If he or she sees it as a temporary two-year spot, what incentives are there to vote with Obama?"
• Senate Guru: "Not only is our Democratic President willing to put another Republican in his Cabinet (making three, along with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- I recall hearing today, but I have not confirmed, that three members of the opposing Party in the Cabinet at the same time is the most since FDR's first term!), but the Democratic Governor is willing to meet the demand of the Republican Senator that he be succeeded by a Republican, despite the fact that the President, the Governor, and the clear political trend in New Hampshire is Democratic. Democrats are bending over backwards to embody the spirit of bipartisanship to which Republicans in the Senate only exploit and pay lip-service."
• Daily Kos' brownsox: "The administration, and Senate leadership, should be able to pressure Lynch to nominate a Republican who will act as a placeholder, opening the seat up in two years' time (possibly for a run by Rep. Paul Hodes). If they can't do that, this will be quite the fiasco for the party. [...This] does raise the question, though, of why President Obama wanted Gregg in the first place, since it was clearly never about getting the 60th Senate seat. Obama is evidently well aware that Gregg won't take the job if it means his seat goes to a Democrat, and it seems that Gregg is his guy anyway."

GREGG II: Great, The New Commerce Secretary Is Opposed To Obama's Stimulus Bill

Several liberal bloggers are questioning Gregg's loyalty to Obama's economic agenda:

• Brian Beutler: "Surely Gregg's desire to replace himself with somebody who will often oppose his new boss's agenda is evidence of his deep commitment to the administration, the cabinet, and the agency he appears poised to head."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "If I were a Republican United States Senator who was supportive of Barack Obama's economic recovery agenda at a time when the vast majority of my colleagues seem inclined to obstruct it, I would feel that the U.S. Senate was a promising venue from which to advance that agenda. And if I wasn't supportive of said agenda, I don't think I would be inclined to serve in Obama's cabinet."
• Open Left's Bowers: "So, for some reason, in the wake of total Republican intransigence on the stimulus bill, the Obama administration will respond by putting a Republican in charge of one the federal departments overseeing the economy. Judd Gregg himself has said he will oppose the stimulus package. That is certainly an, um, interesting way for the Obama administration to incentivize Republican opposition. Oppose President Obama, and he will reward you by giving you a cabinet position."

In a separate post, Bowers complains: "Gregg's lifetime Progressive Punch rating of 10.08 out of 100.00, and 6.91 'when the chips are down,' should make him a much needed right-wing champion for the Commerce Department. [...] Essentially, we are handing over an entire federal department to a right-wing conservative in exchange for the possibility of an election victory in 2010 and one more vote on a few pieces of legislation in 2009-2010. So, we get possibilities, while a right-wing Republican gets a federal department. That's a pretty crappy deal. Our ability to win elections in 2010 will be dependant on how effectively we govern in 2009-2010. If we govern like conservative Republicans, which we will now be doing in the Commerce department, we will probably get booted out of office, just like they were. And, when they get back in power, liberal Democrats won't be running the Departments of Defense, Commerce and Tranportation."

On the right side of the blogosphere, Larry Kudlow gives voice to Bowers' worst fears: "The fact that Pres. Obama put Gregg in his cabinet speaks well of the president. [...] Commerce secretary is generally regarded as a lesser post, but if Gregg is invited to the economic policy meetings, as I suspect he will be, then he will be a strong voice at the table -- in part because of his own stature and in part because Obama has put him there. So if the administration wants to go off on a class-warfare binge -- jacking up taxes on successful earners and investors -- you can bet Judd Gregg will argue strongly against it. In fact, you can bet that Judd Gregg doesn't like the Pelosi-Reid stimulus package one bit, and that he will argue against it in various administration meetings. [...] Judd Gregg is also someone who wants to reform the big entitlement programs, like Social Security and Medicare, which is something Pres. Obama also wants. Here, too, Gregg could be a go-between for bipartisanship."

On the other hand, Michelle Malkin distrusts Gregg because of his support of the TARP program: "Gregg championed the Crap Sandwich and regurgitated every Chicken Little talking point and fiscal myth to sell it. Gregg then crusaded to release the second half of the Crap Sandwich despite the Treasury Department's obstinate lack of disclosure and miserable bungling of its ever-evolving objective. And he calls himself a 'fiscal conservative?' What we have here is a perfect fit."

DASCHLE: Confirm Another Tax Cheat? Heck No!

Most (but not all) conservative bloggers believe that Daschle should not be confirmed as HHS Sec.:

• Power Line's John Hinderaker: "In my view, Daschle has been a borderline crook through most if not all of his Senate career. [...A]ppointing Tom Daschle to a Cabinet position doesn't constitute 'reform.' Obama promised 'change,' but increasingly, that 'change' looks like more shameless graft, corruption and cronyism than ever took place when the Republicans were in charge."
• Commentary's Jennifer Rubin: "Tom Daschle racks up a repulsive record of tax avoidance and feeding at the trough of the special interests he will oversee. Among the tidbits -- he earns $2.1M from some private equity fund which throws in a car and driver he never reported as income. It was, he thought, a gift. (A gift??) As one keen observer put it, he monitized his senate career in two short years to the tune of over $5M. He apologizes. And the Senate seems to be marching right along. [...] At some point the average voter looks at this and wonders: have they no shame?"
• Hot Air's Ed Morrissey: "Considering Daschle's close ties to health-care contractors and the myriad tax failures surrounding that relationship, Daschle's apology should not keep the Senate from giving him the [John] Tower treatment."

Many conservative bloggers are declaring that the Dem Party as a whole is corrupt:

• Right Wing News' John Hawkins: "[T]he Democratic Party is incessantly calling for taxes on the American people even as some of its highest ranking members have cheated on their taxes. [...] The Clintonesque idea that 'character doesn't matter' has obviously permeated the Democratic Party from top to bottom, which is no surprise when the guy at the top of the party habitually lies, laughs off campaign promises, and knowingly appoints people who don't even follow the laws they're in charge of enforcing."
• Hinderaker: "The New York Times says that the story of Daschle's sudden wealth...'offers a new window into how Washington works.' I'd say it's more of an old window, actually; Democratic Party corruption has been with us for a long time."
• Morrissey: "[F]our looks less like coincidence and more like a pattern of people who want to jack up taxes while doing their best to keep from paying them."

DASCHLE II: The Alternative Could Be Worse, GOPers

A few conservative bloggers are urging GOP senators to vote to confirm Daschle in spite of his tax failings -- in large part because they believe that he is "the most centrist nominee America is likely to get":

• Townhall's Hugh Hewitt: "My two cents on the latest confirmation dance is sure to disappoint my most partisan listeners: Tom Daschle should be confirmed quickly because (1) his biggest error it looks to me to be the sort of error that a former senior elected official used to riding around in government cars could easily make, while the others look like the screw-ups that a suddenly wealthy former senator could easily make, (2) he wouldn't have endangered his political career and ambitions for this amount of money given the huge income he had coming in, and (3) we absolutely have to fix the confirmation mess or more and more people will flee public service at the highest levels. [...A] double dose of restraint when presented with the opportunity to slice and dice a nominee make the GOP's policy objections much more potent, and no matter how much you disagree with him -- and I worked pretty hard for [SD Sen.] John Thune, twice, because I disagreed with Daschle a lot -- he is a good man and a smart one, and I'd rather have a center-left pro running DHS who will at least be open to the arguments of the big medical groups/hospitals/insurers than an ideologue from the university world."
• Townhall's Carol Platt Liebau: "In the end, Republicans should support Daschle's nomination. Lest, however, they be seen by voters as nothing more than Beltway insiders excusing their former leader's behavior, they need to employ a simple, three-step explanation -- and offer it loudly, clearly and repeatedly, perhaps in some shape resembling the following: (1) What Daschle did was wrong -- and if he were the nominee of a Republican president, we would likely demand that his nomination be withdrawn. [...] (2) However, this is not a Republican presidency, and we understand that big decisions and important issues confront us. We are concerned that if Daschle's nomination goes down in flames, his replacement will be even more extreme -- even more likely to try to 'reform' our health care system by putting the government in control of it. [...] (3) In the spirit of bipartisan cooperation and commitment to free market principles when it comes to health care, we will not obstruct Tom Daschle's nomination, despite our clear disapprobation of his conduct with regard to his taxes. President Obama apparently believes that Daschle is the best man for the job, and we believe he is the most centrist nominee America is likely to get."

Meanwhile, liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald -- who blasted Daschle yesterday -- expects the Senate to confirm him: "Just to be clear: I didn't write about Tom Daschle's sleazy history in order to initiate a crusade to defeat his nomination. I wrote about Daschle because the ways in which he is sleazy are illustrative of how the Washington establishment generally works. [...] It doesn't really matter how slimy Daschle is or what revelations emerge about what he has done. The last thing that is disqualifying in Washington is an eagerness to profit off of one's political connections. [...] Daschle is going to be confirmed no matter what is discovered about him."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: What Roe Means To Pro-Lifers

The Atlantic's Ross Douthat tries to explain how pro-lifers feel about Roe v. Wade:

"...It's hard to come up with a parallel case that isn't hopelessly imperfect and/or loaded, but I think that liberals interested in imagining their way into the pro-life psyche might start with the kind of alienation that many of them experienced during the [George W.] Bush years ... then imagine a Supreme Court ruling that wrote a blank check for interrogation into the U.S. Constitution, so that no act of Congress could touch the President's right to torture ... and then further imagine that waterboarding and worse things became a routine, rather than extraordinary, aspect of American counterterrorism and law enforcement efforts over subsequent years and decades.

Allowing, again, for the immense imperfection of the analogy (yes, the government performs torture and merely allows abortion; yes, the number of waterboardings would never, ever approach the number of abortions; and so forth) this is roughly the kind of landscape that pro-lifers have inhabited for thirty-five years: Not only is the law of the land hostile to our convictions, but those convictions are officially deemed beyond the constitutional pale and thus essentially un-American. Symbolically alone, this would be a galvanizing force for any political movement. But the constitutionalization of abortion policy makes a substantive difference, too, or so pro-lifers believe: When you actually poll Americans, or contrast our abortion laws with those on the books in countries that are in other respects more socially liberal than we are, the most plausible 'compromise' on the issue absent Roe looks substantially closer to the pro-life position than the legal regime we have now. Which leaves pro-lifers convinced that the Supreme Court's jurisprudence has done to abortion policy what liberals think [ex-Dick Cheney CoS] David Addington and company tried to do with the President's power to order torture -- it's taken a distinctly minority opinion about a fraught issue and insisted that it's the only position the American government is allowed to take."

LEST WE FORGET: Phelps Congratulates Cardinals on Super Bowl Win

The Huffington Post's Andy Borowitz:

"Olympic champion Michael Phelps weighed in today on last night's Super Bowl, congratulating the Arizona Cardinals on their 'awesome victory.'

'The Cardinals really tore it up last night,' said Mr. Phelps, who said he saw almost the entire game until he got 'a wicked attack of the munchies' late in the fourth quarter.

'Maybe it was the Doritos commercial, I don't know, but suddenly I got unbelievably hungry,' said Mr. Phelps, giggling uncontrollably. 'I was like, man, I have got to get me some chips, stat!' [...]

Mr. Phelps said he celebrated the Cardinals' victory by eating four bags of Doritos and swimming a victory lap on his living room rug."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at February 3, 2009 12:53 PM