Shifting Coalitions and the Politics of War Crimes

Once upon a time, Karl Rove dreamed of putting together a coalition of voting blocs that would form an unbreakable permanent majority. Bush was at the helm of a conservative movement that would maintain Republicans' current strength with neocons (=neoconservatives, those who believe US might makes right), theocons (=those who support prayer in schools, Moral Majority, et al.), and paleocons (=those who are fiscally conservative but otherwise libertarian, a/k/a Eisenhower Republicans).

Together with some swing voters they were able to lure consistently over several elections, this Republican movement was able to maintain a razor-thin majority in Congress and in presidential elections for several cycles.

Then, somewhere between Katrina and Iraq, Social Security and Terry Schiavo, people realized that Bush was doing a horrible job. His approval ratings tumbled into the low 40% range, and they have been around 28-35% all throughout this year. But despite the consensus that Bush is the worst president ever, he consistently draws about 30% in the polls. So who's been peeling off, and who's left?

One group that has been peeling off is made up of people who are sort of conservative but justd not totally batshit insane. Like former Republican (and commander of forces in Iraq) Gen. John Abizaid:
Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) is another former Republican who couldn't stand it any more. He won his first race last fall.

As you may have guessed, the 30%ers who still support Bush by and large actually are crazy. Check out Paul Krugman's description of the scene at the Republican debate on Tuesday:

[A]side from John McCain, who to his credit echoed Gen. Petraeus (and was met with stony silence), the candidates spoke enthusiastically in favor of torture and against the rule of law. Rudy Giuliani endorsed waterboarding. Mitt Romney declared that he wants accused terrorists at Guantánamo, "where they don’t get the access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil ... My view is, we ought to double Guantánamo." His remarks were greeted with wild applause....

What we need to realize is that the infamous "Bush bubble," the administration’s no-reality zone, extends a long way beyond the White House. Millions of Americans believe that patriotic torturers are keeping us safe, that there’s a vast Islamic axis of evil, that victory in Iraq is just around the corner, that Bush appointees are doing a heckuva job — and that news reports contradicting these beliefs reflect liberal media bias.

And the Republican nomination will go either to someone who shares these beliefs, and would therefore run the country the same way Mr. Bush has, or to a very, very good liar.

The 30%ers who still support Bush are the remainder of the coalition, now that the reasonable people have split off. The paleocons like Abizaid and Webb have left over issues like torture. And since they applaud waterboarding but sit on their hands when their candidate speaks against torture, it becomes clear that the 30%ers will not support a candidate unless he supports war crimes:

At the end of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East of which the United States was a leading member (the Tribunal was established by Douglas MacArthur) convicted former Japanese Prime Minister Tojo and numerous other generals and admirals of a panoply of war crimes. Among them was torture:

The practice of torturing prisoners of war and civilian internees prevailed at practically all places occupied by Japanese troops, both in the occupied territories and in Japan. The Japanese indulged in this practice during the entire period of the Pacific War. Methods of torture were employed in all areas so uniformly as to indicate policy both in training and execution. Among these tortures were the water treatment...

The so-called "water treatment" was commonly applied. The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach until he lost consciousness. Pressure was then applied, sometimes by jumping upon his abdomen to force the water out. The usual practice was to revive the victim and successively repeat the process.

Support for war crimes makes Rudy Giuliani a good choice for the neocon wing. But the theocons just can't get behind a guy who has such a dodgy record of marriages and support for abortion. So the 30%ers are threatening to splinter even more.

There is some danger that people will only see Bush's criminally poor job performance as a reflection of his unique leadership abilities, when in fact his performance has been the perfect embodiment of his movement's principles. Conservatives may be disowning Bush, but they are not abandoning his horrible world view. Some people are worried that the lack of philosophical unity among the new Democratic supporters will translate to flimsy support. I don't think we have anything to worry about as long as Republicans stick with Bush in principle, if not in name.

Picking Nits?

Now that Democrats run Congress, some interesting investigations are getting underway, just as Republicans warned us they would. There are now some big, sexy scandals brewing as a result. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has been holding hearings on pretty much every aspect of the corruption and incompetence surrounding Iraq. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has been pursuing the sordid US Attorney firing scandal. But there is a much less sexy scandal brewing as well: White House staffers have been misusing their email accounts.

Various rules and regulations demand the following of White House employees:

• Using official government resources for political/party purposes is prohibited
• Using political/party resources for official government business is prohibited

Many White House employees do political work in addition to their official government duties, which is not prohibited. In order to comply with the demands of the rules, the Republican National Committee provided many White House employees, especially Karl Rove, with laptops and Blackberries to use in performing their party duties. You see, it would be not just unethical but illegal for them to use their White House email accounts to conduct party business.

The problem is that they also used their RNC emails for official government business. Business such as the politically motivated firings of US Attorneys. Froomkin explains:

The use of non-government e-mails first became an issue about four weeks ago, when some of the e-mails turned over in a congressional investigation of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys showed that Rove deputy Scott Jennings repeatedly used an RNC e-mail address (sjennings@gwb43.com) in his official communications. One e-mail to Rove was sent to a kr@georgewbush.com address.

But the problem extends beyond just using the wrong email account for the wrong job function. The White House email servers are set up to automatically back up every single email, while the RNC email servers allow users to permanently delete whatever they want. Sure enough, many vital emails were in fact deleted:

Countless e-mails to and from many key White House staffers have been deleted -- lost to history and placed out of reach of congressional subpoenas -- due to a brazen violation of internal White House policy that was allowed to continue for more than six years, the White House acknowledged yesterday.
...
Since 2004, White House staffers using those accounts have been able to save their e-mail indefinitely -- but have also been able to delete whatever they felt like deleting. By comparison, the White House e-mail system preserves absolutely everything forever, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act.

It is fairly easy to come up with some knee-jerk objections to Waxman's pursuit of such a minor 'scandal'. One could argue that Republicans all warned everyone during the 2006 campaign that a Democratic Congress would just do non-stop investigations instead of pursuing a positive agenda, and the email scandal plays right into that narrative. Since there are so many other scandals going on right now, one could argue that citizens will get so-called "scandal fatigue", whereby the marginal increase in shame per scandal goes down as the number of scandals goes up. One could also argue that by pursuing small-bore stuff like email archiving, the Democrats are just going to look like they're being vindictive as a result of the Clinton impeachment.

But, assuming Democrats handle themselves correctly, I believe this email scandal could be an essential piece of the narrative Democrats ought to be creating for 2008. For one thing, all the fishiness around Iraq and the US Attorney scandal has established a narrative of malfeasance in the White House that puts the onus on to the Administration to counter. Even if people don't pay too much particular attention to it, the email scandal could help contribute to this narrative.

An analogy can be drawn to the Mark Foley scandal from last October--it's not that Republican leadership really influenced policy by protecting a sexual predator, it's they helped people condense the narrative of corruption and arrogance that surrounded the Republican Congress. We also know from the groundbreaking work of Samuel Popkin that voters tend to form a narrative and then adjust it with new information, rather than constantly weighing and reweighing all the evidence. The email scandal could thus be extremely helpful as one more thread in a richly woven tapestry of corruption.

But better yet, since RNC email accounts were involved, it provides a link between the Bush White House and the entire Republican party (by definition) that, if properly invoked, could help in virtually every other campaign around the nation next year.

Clin-ton and The Politics of Failure

Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy for president on her website today. Senator Kang tells us, "The politics of failure have failed. We must make them work again!" Clinton's record makes me nervous that she will be the candidate to try to make them work again, although there is hope for her yet.

Clinton is the last gasp of the pointless wing of the Democratic party. She is the chosen candidate of the so-called centrists at the DLC, who have been the main repository for conventional Democratic wisdom inside the beltway for nigh on 15 years. This is the kind of wisdom that says don't attack Bush on Iraq. The wisdom that says the passioned, ideologically energized base should accept unity for unity's sake, as long as it's insider unity and not principled unity. The same wisdom that says anti-war activists are out of touch with the majority of Americans. (Presumably "majority" is some sort of slang for "11%", which is the support escalation is getting in national polls.)

The DLC and its ilk, with their money and their insiders, dominated the discourse when top-down media like TV were it. That domination got Democrats control of zero branches of government. Now that the internet has come into its own a little, the passionate people on the bottom have started building their way up. We now control two branches, and it's because we realized the center was whatever real people care about, not whatever the DLC says it is.

Even outgoing DLC head Tom Vilsack has apparently read the writing on the wall about campaigning on failure. In his presidential campaign, Vilsack is staking out a position on Iraq that relies heavily on opposing US involvement there. And fortunately for him, his old friends at the DLC will be supporting him by...backing Hillary.

But leaving the DLC alone for a minute, what did Hillary herself say in her announcement video?

"Let's talk about how to bring the right end to the war in Iraq." How about instead we talk about how you don't regret supporting the war in the past. Let's talk about how when you use the term "war" it makes people think there is some way to win, whereas when you say "occupation" and "civil war" it sounds more like something we shouldn't be a part of (and like what it is). Let's talk about how limp-wristed, squirmy nuances like not regretting giving Bush authority in Iraq but regretting "the way the president used the authority" don't convince anyone you're serious.

"You know, after six years of George Bush, it is time to renew the promise of America." You know, that is most idiotic political boilerplate you could have used. You know, this is the kind of endlessly repeated phrase that sounds great in a beltway strategy session but nowhere else. If you take two seconds to think about it, renewing the promise of America is actually completedly drained of meaning. This is the kind of stock phrase that makes everyone else wonder how politicians can say so many words while communicating so little.

"So let's talk, let's chat, let's start a dialog about your ideas and mine." So let's chat about how I've hired some high priced consultants to tell me that top-down doesn't excite people any more. Let's start a dialog about how I can send signals that I'm hip to the new reality by announcing online instead of in a traditional press conference. Let's talk about how this focus-grouped pandering strategy is actually the only real hope for her campaign: if she really does listen, she will hear how lame her position on Iraq is. She will hear how universal health care doesn't make any sense if it maintains a role for private insurers.

Don't get me wrong: if Hillary wins the nomination, she'll have my vote. And she'll have a better chance of getting the nomination if she does listen to people on the internet. But she's pretty well set up already.

The primary schedule gives a big bonus to whoever raises the most money by having the first four primaries at basically the same time (Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina). And with California now looking to join the fray, things will only get more expensive. Clinton is certainly the candidate who can raise the most money. But running a campaign based on advertising forces you to listen to consultants, and listening to consultants means you're not listening to people. Listening to your backers, your colleagues, and your beltway think tanks is the central tenet of the politics of failure. Hopefully Hillary will follow through on listening to the people. The politics of failure can't and won't work again.

Obamarama08 - Updated Repost

Note: I originally posted this when Obama for President started heating up in October. Now that he's declared, enjoy it in slightly updated fashion. --IVFK

Blacks in Chicago average about half the income of local whites. Barack Obama himself is probably doing his part to bring the average up, and good for him - he's a sharp guy who took advantage of his opportunities. But every politician has a pretty good living wage. What's sticks out about Obama? Why is he different from other politicians? Why do people love him so?

I think it's his silver tongue. Obama can give a damn good speech when he wants to, and frankly that's something recent Democratic Presidential nominees Kerry and Gore were unable to do. He's a charismatic guy, and he gives off the air of someone who is thoughtful, principled, and really smart. And what's more, he looks less stupid than most Democrats when he talks about religion. This is both good for Democrats and good for religion. The rampaging maniacs who currently control religion-in-politics are ruining us politically and ruining the reputation of religion. So on these two fronts, I think Obama is a great candidate.

Unfortunately, Obama doesn't meet the leadership standards I would really like to see, at least not at this point. My leadership standards are essentially the same ones that are being pushed across the internet by concerned rank and file Democrats. They include pulling the debate to the left instead of caving to the center and unplugging the influence machine in DC that puts its own above the country. But Obama came of political age at the tail end of the Clinton triangulation era, before these values rose to prominence.

In 2000, Obama was dealt an embarrassing defeat right here in Hyde Park. In the Democratic Congressional primary, entrenched incumbent Bobby Rush mopped the floor with him. His stated reason for tilting at this particular windmill was an astute observation that Bobby Rush is not a particularly responsive legislator.

For example, Rush is beloved across the netroots for his sponsorship of the legislation to destroy net neutrality. One begins to suspect some undue influence may have swayed his opinion on the issue, though. Telecom interests gave Rush hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars. He also helped arrange a hefty donation by telecom interests to a technology center in Englewood. I would argue the long term interests of his constituents are better served by having a measure of freedom on the internet than by having a technology center. Internet freedom is what allows jerks like me to fight otherwise unaccountable insiders like him. But at least Rush doesn't see a contradiction between constituent service and corporate corruption.

At any rate, Obama took his purified optimist shtick out for a test drive and was soundly defeated. He challenged the corrupted insider interests, and they put him in his place. The lesson he appears to have learned is not that he should try harder. Rather it is that he should play the insider game, even if he sticks to his populist rhetoric. For example, he has had problems respecting the will of the party's voters in Connecticut, where his show of support for Ned Lamont was tepid at best. He apparently feels it's OK to praise George Bush.

Obama also has some phraseology in common with Joe Lieberman. Of particular note is the unspecified phrase "a different kind of politics" to denote some sort of transcendent bipartisanship. I don't think anyone is saying that rancor, partisan or otherwise, is a good thing, but it's not a nuanced or sophisticated phrase to say. It basically tells to me, as a member of the liberal base, that Obama is committed to centrism. Again, no one is saying people shouldn't agree on stuff, but when you go for centrism, you move the whole debate to the right.

David Callahan recently wrote a book called The Moral Center in which he makes the case for (a) more moral bottom lines in political rhetoric, (b) more centrist policy solutions, and (c) more unity thereof. However, as this reviewer points out, the reason moral bottom lines would resonate is that they would appeal to people's hunger for (allegedly) Kantian absolutes. Per her interpretation of Kant, there is always one right thing and everyone should always do it. But if we take that interpretation, then "moral center" is an oxymoron and trying to find one will do nothing to sate the hunger.

But the point of pulling the debate to the left is that you have to if you want things to end up in the center at the end. If you start off shooting for the center, you get negotiated down by the right and end up with something right of center. For example, say you want to decrease income disparity. You can start (as Democrats are doing) by tinkering around the edges of the issue by lowering student loan rates. Doing so is a great idea, but it is certainly going to be opposed by the powers that be on Wall Street (who also happen to run the Treasury Department right now). To get anywhere, negotiations will need to happen and anything that ends up succeeding will probably be watered down significantly. In the end, not much will change with this pretty centrist approach. Whereas to fix the issue of income disparities between blacks and whites in Chicago will require a significantly more visionary, boldly leftist set of policies.

Offering up some bipartisan praise or refusing to go against a powerful guy at your office (especially if he's president of the US) aren't capital sins in and of themselves. But putting things like this together with co-opting Lieberman rhetoric leaves me thinking that Obama isn't on board with the grassroots platform. Not to say he would be a bad president (and certainly better than anything Republicans will ever offer), and not to say he couldn't straighten himself out, but I'm just not sold on him yet.

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOOOTBALLLLL!

Frankly I don't really think this post needs any introduction. Except to say that if the whole President thing doesn't work out, Obama definitely has a future in sports broadcasting...