September 2010 archive

As I noted last night in Prime Time, I had to turn Joe Biden’s interview with Rachel Maddow off because I can’t really afford a new TV.  I wondered if others noticed the savage disconnect between the Institutional Democrats and reality.

Well, Gregg Levine at Firedog Lake did.  I’ll spare you the embedded video because I don’t want responsibility for your monitor either, but I’ll quote extensively as it’s a long piece.

Biden Scolds Dem Voters for Enthusiasm Gap; Tells Progressives to "Get in Gear"

By: Gregg Levine, Thursday September 16, 2010 7:00 am

Vice President Joe Biden made room in his busy schedule Wednesday to appear on “The Rachel Maddow Show” to address the much-reported enthusiasm gap between fired-up Tea-publicans and a disappointed Democratic base. How do I know that was his reason? He said so…

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Biden then launches into a list of Democratic accomplishments-tobacco regulation, hate crime laws, insuring kids (SCHIP…)-none of them, as best I recall, ones that were first enacted during the Obama Administration…

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Actually, Mr. Vice President, you didn’t mention a single thing that your administration or this Democratically controlled 111th Congress has gotten done. You are just telling progressives out there that they “better get energized,” that they “get in gear,” that they “should not stay home” come November.

Why? Because. . . because. . . Pete Sessions!

Joe Biden is not saying Democrats need an excited progressive base to win in November, and here is what the administration is going to do to excite them; Biden is saying Dems need an excited base-so the progressive base damn well better get excited. Period.

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He (Obama) brought us goals? Obama gave us the goals? Progressives haven’t been articulating goals since. . . when now? 2006? 2002? 1932? 1916? . . . 1899? OK, maybe Biden just phrased that badly-but still, Joe, what goals have been met, exactly?

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(T)he progressive base hasn’t been warning about the opposition? It has been the progressive blogosphere, far out in front of any Democratic Party organ, that has been telling the establishment that they had created space for the Tea Parties by aligning the White House too closely with the banksters. It was progressives that begged for a bigger stimulus, a jobs agenda, and health care reform that actually helped people and did so before the midterm elections.

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Make no mistake, what Joe Biden was doing last night was blaming progressives now for Democratic losses later.

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Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, I was a consultant-of the branding and marketing variety-and Biden’s performance reminds me of some of my worst clients from those days. These guys (and gals) would sit behind the two-way mirror watching focus groups, and they would deride the respondents and curse about how their stupid target consumers were wrong-wrong!-about their product. It was the consumer who was doing a bad job of understanding the product. It was the consumer that was not paying attention to the right things. It was the consumer that had failed to understand the benefits of these clients’ brands.

Those were not successful brands. And without a change in their point of view, they didn’t become successful brands.

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(B)enefits were not what Vice President Biden was selling to Rachel Maddow and her presumably progressive audience on Wednesday. Biden went with fear and loathing, blame and bluster. That strategy didn’t work for my clients in boom times, and it won’t work for Democrats now.

Jon Aravosis @ AMERICAblog Gay points out that the DNC web site on its “Civil Rights” page,  no longer mentions the repeal of DOMA which was one of the top three promises made to the GLBT community by Candidate Obama.

#  Enacting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which includes measures prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity;

# Ensuring full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples;

# Repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and our national security;

It the DNC now calls for “civil unions”. How about marriage guys?

And WTF does this mean?

Repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and our national security

Meanwhile, Sen. Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) have written Attorney General Eric Holder to not appeal Judge Virginia Phillips’ ruling that DADT violates the 1st Amendment.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

September 16 is the 259th day of the year (260th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 106 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1932, in his cell at Yerovda Jail near Bombay, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi begins a hunger strike in protest of the British government’s decision to separate India’s electoral system by caste.A leader in the Indian campaign for home rule, Gandhi worked all his life to spread his own brand of passive resistance across India and the world. By 1920, his concept of Satyagraha (or “insistence upon truth”) had made Gandhi an enormously influential figure for millions of followers. Jailed by the British government from 1922-24, he withdrew from political action for a time during the 1920s but in 1930 returned with a new civil disobedience campaign. This landed Gandhi in prison again, but only briefly, as the British made concessions to his demands and invited him to represent the Indian National Congress Party at a round-table conference in London.

In 1932, through the campaigning of the Dalit leader B. R. Ambedkar, the government granted untouchables separate electorates under the new constitution. In protest, Gandhi embarked on a six-day fast in September 1932. The resulting public outcry successfully forced the government to adopt a more equitable arrangement via negotiations mediated by the Dalit cricketer turned political leader Palwankar Baloo. This was the start of a new campaign by Gandhi to improve the lives of the untouchables, whom he named Harijans, the children of God.

I dunno, I think your best bet is gloating with Keith and Rachel tonight.

• Bravo– Top Chef marathon (including Part 2 of the Season Finale)
• Discovery– Man v. Wild (last week’s and new)
• ESPN– Yankees @ Rays, Dodgers @ Giants
• FX– Terriers x 3 (premier)
• Lifetime– Waitress
• Oxygen– Catwoman x 2 (so you don’t miss it.  Truly horrible)
• Turner Classic– Al Capone, The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (gangsta)
• TNT– Dark Blue x 2 (both premiers)
• Travel– Man v. Food marathon (including premier, Niagra.  There was this one place I used to go where you could get a Porterhouse for $6 right across from the Mall and within spitting distance of the Falls.)

Later-

• AMC– Rubicon (this week’s), Dirty Harry
• Bravo– More Top Chef (another premier.  What about ‘Finale’ are they misunderstanding?)
• Turner Classic– King of the Roaring ’20s: The Story of Arnold Rothstein
• USA– Covert Affairs (repeat of last night’s Season Finale)

Jon has Jon Hamm, Stephen Saul Griffith.  Alton does Rice and Beans (they’re better than you think).  Boondocks– Smokin’ With Cigarettes.

It all started on the day that I died. If there had been an obituary, it would have described the unremarkable life of an unremarkable woman, survived by no one. But there was no obituary, because the day that I died was also the day I started to live. But that comes later. This was my life. Days blended together, consistently ordinary, thanks to a job that was the practical version of my passion. I was supposed to be an artist by now. Instead, I was designing ads for beauty cream.

The day I died was the day I started to live. In my old life, I longed for someone to see what was special in me. You did, and for that, you’ll always be in my heart. But what I really needed was for me to see it. And now I do. You’re a good man, Tom. But you live in a world that has no place for someone like me. You see, sometimes I’m good. Oh, I’m very good. But sometimes I’m bad. But only as bad as I wanna be. Freedom is power. To live a life untamed and unafraid is the gift that I’ve been given, and so my journey begins.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Seven civilians killed in US-Iraqi raid

by Azhar Shalal, AFP

Wed Sep 15, 11:46 am ET

First of all, the reasons the Beltway pundits and bloggers are concentrating on O’Donnell’s defeat of Castle is that it’s in their backyard, the margin was huge, and those idiots really didn’t expect it because they have no fucking clue how much we hate their elite corporatist butt-kissing asses.

But if you really want to do a little celebrating I’d like to draw your attention to two less covered and more positive victories last night.

The first is Ann Kuster’s 42% margin over Katrina Swett in New Hampshire’s 2nd District-

Kuster  handily defeated self-styled Blue Dog Katrina Swett, who co-chaired Joe Lieberman’s 2004 presidential campaign. Kuster, a lawyer, community activist and women’s health expert, had the support of progressive groups like MoveOn, Democracy for America, Progressive Campaign Change Committee and EMILY’s List. Swett ran hard to Kuster’s right and tried to paint Kuster’s progressive supporters as an electoral liability.

The second is the abject FAILURE of Mike Bloomberg’s hand picked Wall Street Representative Reshma Saujani in her race against Carolyn Maloney in New York’s 14th District.

There is some really twisted logic behind the notion that Obama would be vulnerable in 2012 if the economy’s bad, and yet the country would look to a creature of Wall Street like Mike Bloomberg for salvation.  Of course, it’s equally twisted that the tea parties exploded in response to the bank bailouts, and yet Bain Capital billionaire Mitt Romney is their favorite for 2012. Maybe that gave them hope.

But it didn’t work out so well yesterday.  The millions that Wall Street pumped into Saujani’s campaign at the behest of Team Bloomberg cast her irrevocably as a tool of Wall Street in the eyes of voters who have had quite enough from the financial oligarchy.  She wound up with only a pathetic 19% of the vote.

Michael Bloomberg and his proxies couldn’t even orchestrate a serious challenge to a congressional seat in a year of unprecedented dissatisfaction with incumbents.   If 19% doesn’t qualify as a public rebuke of their organizing abilities, I don’t know what does.

Did the Tea Party just throw the Democrats a bone that will allow them to hold on to their majority in the Senate and narrow their losses in the House?

The victory last night of Tea Party candidate, Christine O’Donnell to challenge Democrat Chis Coons for the last 4 years of Vice President Joe Biden’s Senate seat along with some far right candidates for the House that even  devoted Republicans are reluctant to vote for just may have saved the Democrats from demise.

The big news last night was O’Donnell’s win over Republican Party stalwart, Mike Castle who has never known defeat. It has left Republican voters disgusted and shifted the odds of Coons winning which will help maintain the status quo. With Castle’s silence on supporting O’Donnell and the The NRSC, the Republican campaign arm in the Senate, not about to toss her any campaign money, the Coons chances rose. According to Public Polling Policy Poll, Castle primary voters support Coons over O’Donnell 44-28 in general election. Ouch!

The Alaskan and New Hampshire Senate seats will most likely stay on the Republican side of the isle. Even though in NH the Democratic candidate, Rep. Paul Hodes, is very popular, it is still an up hill battle. Democrats may be able to hold onto the Florida, Nevada and California seats. Forget Arkansas, the President and his crew screwed that pooch backing the un-reelectable Blanche Lincoln in her primary against progressive, popular, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. If the Democrats can take control of the message that “It’s the Economy, Stupid” and it was Republican policies that put it in the toilet just as it did under Reaganomics, they just might be able to cut their losses and hold the Senate.

h/t to David Dayen @ FDL, Nate Silver @ NYT and Chris Cillizza @ The Washington Post.

Up Date: From Jake Tapper at ABC News:

Speaking more broadly about yesterday’s primary results, including O’Donnell’s victory, (WH Press Secretary, Robert) Gibbs said the “practical implications” of “intra-party Republican anger has changed the complexion of a number of races at a state and a district level.  And that has real-world practical implications for the outcome of what happens in November. Again, last night, I think — I think is a pretty good example, both in a congressional race and in a Senate race in Delaware, that makes winning those races for the Republicans a fundamentally harder task.”

Asked if the conservative voter anger would now turn against establishment Democrats, Gibbs said he remains “confident.. that on election night we’ll retain control of both the House and the Senate.”

Up Date #2: This isn’t good:

New Reuters/Ipsos FL poll: Rubio 40, Crist 26, Meek 21

From the Political Wire:

When voters were asked their choice between Rubio and Crist if Meek was not in the race, the contest is essentially tied — Rubio 46% and Crist 45%.

I stand corrected. FL will most likely go to the Republicans.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the t internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Enough with the partisan posturing

Will the 2010 election campaign provide us with a debate worthy of a great nation in trouble? The early harbingers aren’t good. The pundit herd has already declared the election over, with only the scope of the Democratic reverses yet in question. The two parties are gearing up for a fierce debate on whether to extend the Bush tax cuts to everyone including the wealthiest 2 percent or merely to everyone except the very rich.

We can’t afford this partisan posturing. Fifteen million Americans are unemployed. Poverty is up. One in four homes is under water, worth less than what is owed on it. Voters deserve a serious debate about what is to be done. And what are the choices that the two parties present?

Eugene Robinson: Christine O’Donnell’s win is the GOP’s loss

When you ride a tiger, you go wherever the tiger wants to go – even off a cliff.

The Republican Party – viewed less favorably by voters than even the Democrats, according to polls – has been planning to win in November by harnessing the energy and passion of the Tea Party movement. But tonight’s stunning result in Delaware demonstrates that the Tea Party will go wherever it chooses, heedless of Republican strategists’ grand design.

Christine O’Donnell’s victory over Rep. Mike Castle in the Senate primary is a huge political story. How huge? This one race, in one of the nation’s smallest and least populous states, comes pretty close to wiping out the possibility of the Republicans taking control of the Senate in November.

That’s because any reasonable scenario giving the GOP a Senate majority involves capturing the Senate seat that used to belong to Vice President Biden. Castle, a veteran congressman, would have been favored to win – perhaps easily – in the general election. He is Delaware’s kind of Republican: fiscally conservative but moderate on social issues. He’s pro-choice and he favors gun control, in keeping with the attitudes and values of his state.

If this sounds like something out of a Dumas novel, imprisoned on the word of an unknown person without charges, no legal representation or trial, held on an isolated island in a tiny cell with the only contact your jailers who are free to torture and torment you and your fellow inmates, you’d be wrong.  This is the military prison at Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba where the United States has held people from all over the world who have been charged as enemy combatants since 9/11 during the never ending, nebulous “war on terror”. President Obama promised during his campaign to close it and after his inauguration, he set a deadline of one year to shut it down that has come and gone months ago.

In a Washington Post Op-Ed, Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor who served as an assistant attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, has some suggestions for the dilemma that Guantanamo poses, not all of them are legal or constitutional. There are two problems that Mr. Goldsmith attempts to address, closing Guantanamo and trials for the detainees.

Jack Goldsmith: A way past the terrorist detention gridlock

Nine years after Sept. 11 and 20 months into the Obama presidency, our nation is still flummoxed about what to do with captured terrorists. The Obama administration is stuck about where the Bush administration was, with little hope in sight for progress.

Guantanamo Bay has proved harder to close than the Obama administration anticipated. Many terrorists there are too dangerous to release and, for a variety of evidentiary reasons, cannot be brought to trial. Our allies have taken fewer detainees than we would like. These men will thus have to be held in U.S. custody. But neither Congress nor the American people is keen on transferring them to the United States…..

Difficulties with trials have left the Obama administration, like its predecessor, relying primarily on military detention without trial to hold terrorists. Courts have given their general blessing to military detention as a legitimate form of terrorist incapacitation. But military detention still raises hard legal questions, about which Congress has said practically nothing. As a result, unaccountable judges are making fateful detention decisions, demanding release of some whom the administration thinks are dangerous terrorists. President Obama pledged last May to seek congressional clarity on detention but has yet to follow through. The abundant dysfunctions in our system for incapacitating terrorists have led to increased reliance on targeted killings and outsourced renditions, neither of which is optimal from an intelligence-gathering perspective. . . .

First, give up on closing the Guantanamo Bay facility.

Second, acknowledge that military detention will remain the primary basis for holding terrorists, and strengthen the system.

Third, stop using military commissions, which are a good idea in theory but have for nine years proved unworkable in practice.

Fourth, separate the legitimacy of civilian trials from the security of such trials.

Fourth, separate the legitimacy of civilian trials from the security of such trials.