You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June, 2007.
Happy anniversary to the most beautiful woman in the world, my sweetie.
I’m sorry to have to break it to hard-line social cons, but our marriage has yet to be destroyed… And to be honest, I highly doubt gay people being in love is going to be such a culprit.
Say, I wonder if the marriage rate in Massachusetts has gone up now that it’s actually ‘marriage season’.
Reflecting the shifting nature of the northwest suburbs’ voters (though, like Paul Froehlich, the voters aren’t shifting … the parties are), State Rep. Paul Froehlich made the much hypothesized switch from R to D.
Illinois Political Journ Rich Miller has a bunch of password-protected info and the papers have had some quote and reactions. Hiram Wurf has a good run-down and I highly recommend it.
To me, this switch reflects what’s going on nationally and (to a degree) locally as folks realize the Republican party is shifting ever more rightward towards an extreme of conservatism. Rep. Froehlich says, “In some ways, the party’s left me, in moving away from traditional Republican values.”
Precisely. It’s why I’ve tended toward Dem votes nationally and state offices over the last several years — for me, it’s about making sure America and Illinois continue to be about responsibility and community. Sure, there are exceptions (R.O.D. anyone?) as there always will be. There are also failures of ’spine’ every now and then — witness the recent collapse of courage on Iraq funding among DC Dems.
But by and large, the northwest suburban voting populace (Repub or Dem, not necessarily ‘right’or ‘left’) is moderate and the Dems have shifted toward the center of moderation as the Repubs have shifted rightward and away from it. That Overton Window can come back and bite you in the ass every now and then as the extremists push ever harder toward the edge.
Folks already on or near that extreme don’t see it as an extreme of course (instead, they call the traditionally moderate Illinois Republicans RINOs, Repubs in Name Only). Rather, they believe all Republicans ought to follow their close-held convictions. Just check Dave Diersen’s rants editorials sometime to see what I mean.
Good for Rep. Froehlich for sticking to his own convictions and going with what his heart told him was true.
A bit more follow-up on the Kotowski death threats issue…
The Well-Armed Teacher (Don Gwinn) has posted a few thoughts on the matter, taking on the role of devil’s advocate (which is fine enough in and of itself).
Mr. Gwinn notes that Sen. Kotowski has not proven threats were made. No, that is the job of the police invesitigating the matter. Kotowski said threats were received and the police were called.
He had chosen to keep it quiet. The ISRA is the one who went public with it — and Rich Miller and I independently came to similar conclusions along the lines of the ISRA was likely trying to get out ahead of the story.
Mr. Gwinn also takes issue with Kotowski’s statement that the ISRA should admonish those advocating political assassination and gun violence. He conveniently misinterprets what Kotowski says though.
Kotowski says:
“If Illinois State Rifle Association members were as law abiding and anti crime as they claim, then they would be the first to condemn these threats and help to champion the cause for measures designed to get guns away from those with criminal intent.”
Mr. Gwinn apparently thinks keeping guns away from those with criminal intent goes too far…. So be it, he’s entitled to his opinion.
Finally, Mr. Gwinn makes a demand similar to the ISRA’s demand for “proof” in carping: “I’d like to see Kotowski’s evidence that the ISRA in any way supported, directed, or encouraged anyone to threaten to hurt Kotowski, his family, or anyone else.”
Mr. Gwinn, there is no direct dictate as you well know. But, the ISRA and other gun lobbyists have worked, and worked hard, Sen. Kotowski’s election last November to target the guy with all their rhetorical ammo, including several hits that were blatant lies (that post details but a few of the instances in which the lobbyists and activists who derive political power, relative fame and even fortune in the form of donations from pushing 2A to the extreme have smeared Sen. Kotowski). It is that white-hot vitriol which has led to the current environment and if it is not stopped by those who helped create it … the next steps are in fact direct violence as history has shown us.
For further reading, and more answers to some of his Alfred E. Neuman like questions, Mr. Gwinn might be interested in the following statement released from Sen. Kotowski’s Senate Office on June 25. I post it here without comment (yet):
Senator Kotowski Issues Statement on Office Threats
SPRINGFIELD, IL – Illinois State Senator Dan Kotowski (D- Park Ridge) issued the following statement regarding the recent threats communicated to his legislative office:
“I was elected to serve as your voice in Springfield to improve our communities and help families in the 33rd Senate District. I have been thankful for the support of district residents as I have moved forward on a broad array of initiatives to make sure that our children, working families, veterans and seniors receive the support they need from state government.
As you are probably aware by now, the Illinois State Rifle Association, which lobbies for gun manufacturers, sellers, and some gun advocates, has chosen to target me for my stand on gun safety measures. That is their right in our democracy. It is even allowable in a democracy like ours, which I believe we are blessed to have, to deceptively portray my work on gun safety. That is part of the political process. They are entitled to their say, and the community is entitled to then sort out the truth from what are the dishonest attacks on my record.
However, when it comes to threats against my staff and family, I will stand up to protect those who are threatened as best I can, as any father, husband and employer would do. Let me share with you one comment on a website, which was inspired by the State Rifle Association’s targeting of me: “Sounds to me like Senator Kotowski deserves to be threatened. Why, if he were to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head three times, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.” We have also received threatening calls at our office. And I don’t need to remind people that when George Ryan was Lieutenant Governor, gun criminals made an effort to shoot up his Springfield home because he supported protecting our police from assault weapons.
I will not hesitate to do whatever it takes to protect people around me from such threats. I also will not stop for a moment to vigorously advance issues of concern to the 33rd Senate District. My job is to work on numerous important issues like providing greater opportunities for veterans, ensuring insurance coverage for women at risk of breast cancer, capping property tax assessments for homeowners, as well as helping improve the lives of neighbors, friends and all the constituents whom I am privileged to represent.
No one-issue lobbying group will keep me from continuing to do what I promised when I was elected to the Illinois State Senate: represent the broad needs and interests of the district that I am so proud to serve.”
# # #
This is a follow-up to my earlier posts (here and here) regarding the alleged threats made against Sen. Dan Kotowski and the resultant Illinois State Rifle Association myopic “Who-Me?” spin on the matter.
Sen. Kotowski introduced his legislation during the spring and gun lobbyists (and the activists linked into those lobbyists) went to work right away using their First Amendment rights. That’s democracy in action and even if I don’t agree with a person’s position, God bless ‘em for speaking up! Based on political journalist Rich Miller’s earlier post, it seems there were also several people who took the opportunity to go several steps further and sent in thinly veiled threats. Were they threats of bodily harm or simply electoral strife? That’s up to the justice system to decide; but Sen. Kotowski’s staffers culled through the hundred and hundreds of contacts received and transferred those that gave them the heebie-jeebies.
But even further outside the realm of rational society (beyond the tripe some folks choose to claim is ‘free speech’) another batch of possible criminals actually specifically threatened the Senator’s life — threats clearly credible enough that the Illinois State Police launched an investigation.
Enter the ISRA this week with their war of words.
In a way, I don’t blame the ISRA for trying to get out ahead of this story with their press releases since charges being file, let alone a conviction, could reflect so badly against them (both politically and socially). They are a political animal and need to do something in order to continue to exist lest they dry up and shrivel away in a morass of irrelevancy.
For better or worse, Mr. Pearson has managed to do a good job innoculating ISRA against any forthcoming events in the death threat investigation by distracting the ISRA’s most ardent supporters and goading them into thinking this is somehow an issue of 1A rather than basic human decency.
Loathsome and unfortunate as it is that Mr. Pearson chose that route instead of taking the high road of trying rein in some of the hyperbole and anger, chose it he did.
Indeed, it’s sick that some people take this “forward in revolution” politicking so seriously they’d make such threats, even if they end up being hollow. (God forbid the alternative … the Senator’s own family, including his mother, volunteers in his political office at times.)
As the course of this week has shown, a great many conservative and supposedly libertarian bloggers have jumped on the ISRA bandwagon by regurgitating their press release from Monday (and the follow-up release from Wednesday). The ISRA press release, as you would expect a partisan propaganda piece to do, accuses Sen. Kotowski of attempting to intimidate people (via the Illinois State Police) because they expressed their first amendment rights via a form-letter fax campaign organized by interests favoring liberal, unrestrictive gun laws. But clearly it was an attempt to miss the point, as the truth of the matter does not support that partisan claim. Several rational folks have erred on the side of critical thinking instead of swallowing the ISRA line wholesale, including these gun owners who quickly admonished a copy-and-paste job at an outdoorsmen’s blog.
Actually, it was at least one person in particular, perhaps more, that were attempting to intimidate Sen. Kotowski by allegedly phoning in death threats. And in cases of threats to bodily harm, the first amendment does not apply (there’s that whole “peaceably” part that Thomas Jefferson added).
Instead, the police get called … and they investigate the threat to determine the potential for violence. It happened in Virginia as police found bombs concealed in a religio-conservative’s car trunk. It happened in DC as police found a map with sniper sightlines drawn out in the possession of a conservative anti-immigrant counter-protestor.
And now it appears to have happened here in Illinois with alleged threats against a Senator’s life. All because people are being pushed further and further by red-hot rhetoric.
It’s pretty simple stuff really. The police were doing their job — they could care less about faxed form letters advocating one opinion or another because they wanted to get to the bottom of the threats. Much has been made of the one anonymous person noted in the ISRA press release whose fax was apparently not threatening, but who was visited by police anyway.
The police investigate as many leads as they can — and even track and ask questions of innocent people. That is standard operating procedure and part of conducting a thorough investigation. In fact, undercover Illinois State Police were observing the actions of family and friends at the wake held last night for the Vaughn mother and children; after having also interviewed family and friends who had nothing to do with the shooting whatsoever.
Sadly the ISRA’s staunchest backers have become so polarized in the zealotry provoked by months of vitriolic groupthink that upon reading the ISRA’s press release they didn’t even blink to consider the possibility the police were simply doing their job, investigating alleged threats. Ignoring that basic fact only serves to promote so much political spin at the expense of honesty and common sense.
For those readers who don’t realize that threats of violence aren’t covered by the first amendment, read up on your high school civics classes.
For those others who promote ever more liberal gun laws and a free flow of any and all arms, the nation is of two minds on that matter, as this Constitutional essayist discusses. That someone, even a legislator, disagrees with your point of view is not a rational reason for threatening their life.
Shame on the ISRA and other gun lobbyists for working to turn decent, law-abiding, otherwise rational gun owners into hard-liners who are so juiced up on the gun lobbyists’ rhetoric of smears, vitriol and lies that they would take the uncivilized, irrational step of actually threatening someone’s life.
That’s no longer “law-abiding”. People making such threats actively exempt themselves from the Bill of Rights, notably the first.
Moreover, the ISRA, NSSF, and others no longer are representing decent, law-abiding citizens as they claim. To be sure, there may be such folks still among their membership, but unless and until gun lobbyists and fellow gun owners strongly, clearly and repeatedly denounce such threats and work to pull those who would make threats back into the fold of civilized society the rest of us mainstreamers can only presume they too silently endorse such unlawful tactics.
There are any number of means to make one’s opinion known in our democratic society. Threatening to kill someone should not be accepted as one of them, yet gun owner blogs are chock full of provocative comments about putting bullets in someone’s head; defending self-declared liberties with the cartridge box; getting rope to hang someone from a tree; and similar.
The next step actually is murder and assassination. And if guns don’t kill people, but people kill people using guns — one would have to ask who incited the person wielding the gun?
To truly bear witness to the claim of advocating “safe, lawful and responsible firearms ownership”, Richard Pearson must step up to the plate and have the ISRA take on a level of responsibility as a leader by working to either tone down the acrid environment and bring those who would threaten others back into civil society or demand they be denounced and ostracized lest they act out their aggressions or incite others to do so in the worst possible way.
Until then, the ISRA leadership apears to be two-faced hypocrites. …Attacking a priest for using inflammatory rhetoric but ignoring their own vitriol. …Seemingly trying to cling onto some vestige of power or influence at any cost, including overtly partisan press releases which deliberately miss the point and month after month of smearing someone just because they disagree with their position.
That’s just pathetic and, given their months-long campaign of inciting an ever deeper frenzy, it may be potentially quite dangerous.
There is a clear pattern here. Normal, everyday folks, likely as genteel as can be, become activists as they grow concerned about one issue or another, or maybe a whole host of issues. They tune into like-minded folks and maybe join a group or two. Depending on who they start paying attention to … the rhetoric or the groupthink or the single-mindedness or something starts pushing some of those people over into the abyss as they fall from civil society into incivility and beyond, to criminality.
I certainly understand gun owners (from the most hard-line strident to the most mushy-middle moderate) wanting to have their say and I certainly respect that even as I disagree in part with their claims that any oversight whatsoever is heresy. Like a majority of Americans and Illinoisans I favor reasonable supervision over a completely free flow of weapons every which way; the ISRA’s most hard-line supporters obviously differ.
But telling a guy you’re going to bring a firearm and kill him? …F’ing ridiculous, whether you’re a gun owner or not.
A week ago the New York Times (reg. req.) ran a story rehashing a bunch of dirt that we Illinoisans all already knew about Sen. Barack Obama, chiefly noting his ties to indicted businessman and bipartisan political gadfly Tony Rezko. Fair enough. Such stories have been circulating Illinois media for years so it’s little wonder the NYT would pick it up and run with it as they begin focusing on the presidential candidates. As Rich Miller pointed out, the Gray Lady didn’t reveal much new info but the article was interesting in that the rest of the national media often follow in the NYT’s footsteps, and according to Mr. Miller they did.
At the time I pointed out that the New York Times may have an interest in helping a certain Senator from New York who just so happens to be running for president. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. Time, and any emerging patterns from their articles, will tell.
But Friday’s NYT article about Sen. John Edwards is a significant step toward bolstering that line of thought. Either that, or the New York Times has grown disturbingly lazy in its reportage.
MissLaura at Daily Kos quotes the dire-sounding article:
John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.
Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show.
Claiming that a person was using a charity for both financial and reputational gain is a pretty serious charge, especially when that person is running for the highest office in the land.
You’d think the New York Times would want to temper that by including some real-world discussions with folks who have used the center, even if just to get their take on whether or not the charity was working as promised and truly benefiting people (or not, as this article may come off sounding).
As MissLaura notes, Greg Sargent asks the pertinent question:
here’s no indication that the reporter made any genuine independent effort at all to discover whether the programs helped anyone.
Such an effort might entail, you know, speaking to such people, among other things. Yet no such people are quoted in the story.
So we checked in with the Edwards campaign. And yep — the campaign confirmed that the paper had turned down the chance to speak to any people directly impacted by Edwards’ programs. (emphasis added)
Were their phones not working that day? Or was it their brains that stopped computing?
This sort of major media editorializing-by-omission (disguised as news, no less) is conduct unbecoming for a newspaper that claims to be a leader.
New York Times, explain thyself.
On Thursday, Illinois political journalist Rich Miller sent me a copy of a press release from Sen. Dan Kotowski’s office. (I posted on the ongoing police investigation into alleged threats against Sen. Kotowski earlier.)
Here is Sen. Kotowski’s statement:
Illinois State Senator Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge) says threatening phone calls, faxes, and letters his office received during the past few months were handed over to local law enforcement including the Illinois State Police.
Kotowski says, “When someone calls my office saying, ‘I have a gun. I am going to come and kill you’, I have to worry about my safety, and the safety of our staff.” Kotowski added, “That is why I followed proper procedure and forwarded any correspondence with threatening material to the Illinois State Police.”
A recent release by the Illinois State Rifle Association accuses Kotowski of infringing on the First Amendment Rights of our citizens but Kotowski says this is ridiculous and irresponsible. “You won’t find a bigger advocate for free speech in the legislature, but someone’s right to free speech stops when they threaten to kill you.”
Kotowski and his office staff received threats during the first few months of the Spring Legislative Session, most of which specifically referred to his sponsorship of gun safety legislation. “If Illinois State Rifle Association members were as law abiding and anti crime as they claim, then they would be the first to condemn these threats and help to champion the cause for measures designed to get guns away from those with criminal intent.”
Kotowski concluded, “I believe that everyone should have a voice in the legislative process, but the ISRA does their membership no favors by perpetuating suspicious threats, and standing up for those who have misguided intentions.”
It’s clear from this that the ISRA press release earlier in the week (and the follow-up release ostensibly condemning Father Michael Pfleger, but also throwing a false low-blow Sen. Kotowski’s way) were simplistic attempts to distract attention from the real heart of the police investigation — death threats against the Senator.
Here’s a reminder from junior high civics — the First Amendment doesn’t cover death threats. And the police take such threats damn seriously, especially in the wake of 9/11, etc.
Sen. Kotowski, despite the ongoing police investigation, has answered the ISRA’s petty demand for details as to why ISRA members received police visits.
It’s time for Richard Pearson and the ISRA to make good on their word and condemn the ne’er-do-wells who have allegedly threatened the Senator’s life. After months of heated vitriol, petty smears and outright lies from gun lobbyists attacking Sen. Kotowski’s work representing his constituents in our state capitol it would be a respectable change of pace for the ISRA and others to come out strongly against those making such death threats.
If the ISRA can condemn Fr. Pfleger’s poor choice of words in his overly firey rhetoric, they ought to be able to condemn someone who made an actual, clear-cut death threat.
And all those gun enthusiasts who gleefully copied and pasted those alarmist (and off-base) ISRA press releases? Maybe they’ll now come back to their good senses and stop calling Sen. Kotowski and the police who are just doing their jobs all those petty, kindergarten names like Nazi, goon squad and the like.
Send your state senators all the faxes (and letters and calls) for or against whatever issue you like… But someone needs to make it clear that the line in the sand is drawn well before threatening anyone’s life.
Then again, we are dealing with people who seem to enjoy making such threats as a routine matter of course as libertarian gun enthusiast Bill St. Clair makes clear when he tells us: “Sounds to me like Sen. Kotowski deserves to be threatened. Why, if he were to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head three times, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.” (emphasis added)
If you don’t want folks to treat you like fringe extremists and you don’t want police thinking you could be the next Timothy McVeigh … learn some self-control.
And again, the ISRA and other leading gun advocacy organizations have plenty of culpability here given the copious amounts of fuel they’ve been pouring on this fire. It’s time they act like the leaders of the “safe, lawful and responsible firearms ownership” they claim to be.
(Update: c/p at Illinoize and Daily Kos. Full disclosure: I’ve noted before on Illinois Reason that I endorsed and volunteered for Dan Kotowski in 2006.)
Conservatives are fond of labeling Jimmy Carter the worst president in history (granted, part of that is a reflection of self-deprecating comments the humble Pres. Carter has made about his own tenure at 1600 Penn).
In his four years, Pres. Carter’s poll rating valley hit a low of only 28% approval. Pretty bad, sure. The only president to ever have had a lower nadir was Tricky Dick at 23% in the wake of Watergate.
As many also know (but few conservatives are willing to admit), our current president had previously been tied with Pres. Carter at only 28% approvals. Again, that’s pretty bad when so few of your fellow countrymen approve of the job your doing as our nation’s titular leader.
With a year and a half left to his administration, the current Pres. Bush has now managed to surpass Pres. Carter by earning himself a 26% approval rating. (Pres. Carter’s worst polling came toward the last six months of his term.) The highly unpopular “W” is also getting a whopping 65% disapproval rating.
So if, as conservatives are fond of saying, Pres. Carter was the worst president in history … and Pres. Bush is now considered by the vast majority of Americans to be even worse …
Does that make Pres. Bush worster? Worsest? Maybe that W really stands for “Worsterest”, ya think?
At the rate 43’s unpopularity is soaring, even Pres. Nixon may get a reprieve posthumously.
And remember, no matter how far they try to distance themselves from Pres. 26% the serious contenders for the Republican nomination all want to follow Pres. Bush’s lead on the major issues of the day (that’d be Iraq, Iraq, and Iraq … oh, and that war on terror that Iraq has distracted the conservatives away from).
The Tribune yesterday had a Metro section article entitled “Daley picks up award, some flak” about Mayor Richard Daley’s recent trip to Washington in which he was given an award for his efforts at protecting God’s green earth. He also offered some testimony before the House on matters involving municipal efforts at green practices, and was subsequently dressed down by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI).
The exchange highlights the difference between conservatives and progressives these days.
Rep. Sensenbrenner scolded Mayor Daley by repeatedly harping on an earlier Trib story detailing the several ways in which Daley’s own green efforts are not meeting their goals.
Sayeth the Tribune:
Most committee members praised Daley and his city as national models on the issue. But not Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), who repeatedly invoked a front-page article in Monday’s Tribune to back up his contention that goals to reduce emissions are often unattainable for governments. (emphasis added)
See, here’s the difference. Daley, despite his spin and obtuseness on his projects’ shortcomings, is going to keep fighting on and pushing and prodding and punching his way toward meeting those goals. Sensenbrenner wants to just give up that fight.
Progressives are willing to persevere, to find new ways of accomplishing goals when what is first tried might not work.
Conservatives of Sensenbrenner’s ilk are all too ready to quit or, worse, keep pounding their heads against the wall doing the same failed tactics over and over and over well after they’ve been shown to not work.
(And no, I’m no fan of Daley myself, though he does have some worthwhile goals and he actually works toward them.)
I posted earlier today about Ralf Seiffe’s bizarre and vitriolic ad hominem attack against a former President of the United States.
ReallyRightGuy already posted at Illinois Review exactly how the rest of us back here on earth feel about such temper tantrums. But I wanted to point out another of the more egregious Seiffeisms.
First and foremost is Mr. Seiffe’s completely myopic statement:
Carter’s remarks [about Palestine, Israel and the US] have been widely reported and are breathtakingly foolish. They show that the international sponsor of Ayatollah Khomeini and Yassir Arafat’s partner in peace still does not understand the dangers to the United States and to western values a religious-based political movement engenders. (emphasis added)
I wonder if Mr. Seiffe has ever heard of such religious-based political movements as:
- Culture Campaign, Sandy Rios forgot to add the word “War” in the middle of her alliterative title
- Illinois Family Institute, which strangely advocates against family structures it doesn’t like (based on the directors’ interpretation of their translation of the Bible)
- Americans for Truth, which seems to be more about one guy’s particular brand of truthism rather than any sort of mutually agreeable (and honest) truth
- Battle Cry, which glorifies militantism and explosions, and despises certain people based on their leader’s interpretation of that religious text known as the Bible
- American Family Association, another of those groups which curiously chooses to advocate against family types it deems unholy (AFA also doesn’t like Ford and Disney for the same reason)
- Focus on the Family, see the aforementioned anti-family institute and association
There are of course a great many other religious-based political movements all across Illinois and America. Pander bear candidate Mitt Romney found some of them in order to ask them what he should think about religioney stuff. I would’ve thought that perhaps, floating in the conservative circles as he does, Mr. Seiffe might have heard of a few of them.
And here Mr. Seiffe attacks Pres. Carter with the ol’ Alzheimer’s smear. (Too bad Pres. Bush just vetoed stem cell research again. Might’ve helped Mr. Seiffe’s own memory.)
Amazing what a little bit of reason will do. ReallyRightGuy over at Illinois Review chastises Ralf Seiffe for calling on folks to “Denounce Carter” because of Pres. Carter’s recent statements about the Bush Administration’s propensity to exacerbate problems by ignoring them. RRG in effect says instead, ‘Denounce Ralf Seiffe (and his ad hominem attacks)‘:
Good journalism would provide the URL of the complete Carter statement, so we can reach our own conclusions, instead of a one-word snippet.
It does not befit a principled conservative to question the mental competence of individuals who disagree with us. Its fine to call a policy nutz or counterproductive, but ad homonims [sic] are pointless.
Hear! Hear! More please…
Isn’t it refreshing to catch a little whiff of fresh rationality in the midst of so much conserva-partisan vitriol and loathing?
You don’t like it that Pres. Carter pointed out how the conservative policy of letting an open wound fester only makes things worse? Fine. Say so and explain yourself in so doing. But simply railing on a former president because he happens to hold other worldviews and has different ideas than you … well that’s childish.
Mr. Seiffe takes it several steps further though. Says he: “Republicans have the chance to take the kind of jab at Democrats that the Democrats have served up to our side forever. The question is whether the Republicans will recognize the opportunity and have the sang froid to exploit it.”
In other words, Mr. Seiffe wants to gain political chits by calling on his comrades to “exploit” someone’s remarks about a bloody coup (in which many were murdered).
Exploiting people’s murder?
The only word for that is disgusting. Well, maybe disgusting and sick. Twisted would work too.
And isn’t it odd that he considers speaking up and pointing out errors that cost people their lives to be a “jab”? Maybe the reason such truth-telling has been served up for “forever” is because what the conservatives are doing isn’t working. Pres. Reagan was elected, in part, in the wake of the Iran hostage crisis… And where are we with Iran now, nearly three decades on (with most of that time under Republican presidents)?
Apparently, the original 10 Commandments don’t quite cover it all for the folks at Illinois Review… Illinois Review editor Fran Eaton has a post up seeking comments for new commandments that Illinois conservatives ought to abide by.
Head on over and have fun suggesting some new ones since apparently all that stuff about not bearing false witness, not stealing, honoring thy father and mother, and the others doesn’t quite cut it with them. 
Looks like somebody took some good notes in How To Manipulate Statistics 101.
Greg Blankensh links and quotes from a Lawrence Kudlow column in today’s Washington Times (for those unfamiliar, the Washington Times is a conservative propaganda piece, akin to a print version of Fox). Curiously, Mr. Kudlow’s headline was “War Against Prosperity”… Mr. Blankensh embellished it to “The Democrat War Against Prosperity”.Nicely wordage, Mr. Blankensh. In all fairness, maybe the “i” and “c” keys got stuck on his keyboard, just like the “i” and “p” in Blankensh.
Right off the bat, you know the column is a doozy of a spin job what with Mr. Kudlow’s equating of the Democratic presidential contenders’ calls for tax investments to “attacks” and “assaults” (not to mention that whole “war” analogy launched with the headline)… Of course, the proposed taxes Mr. Kudlow rails against are for levels most Americans actually don’t see — certainly I’m not there, and Mr. Blankensh is likely not at that level either. And business taxes are business taxes — we’re all in this together, individuals and businesses alike, though Mr. Kudlow seems blind to that fact.
But far be it from Dems (and a few Repubs, as Mr. Kudlow notes) to hope for fairness in our tax structure so that those who enjoy the most benefit from the American system also contribute back most of the costs of paying for that system.
Listen, no one enjoys paying taxes but my relatively low tax charge helps keep my nation’s Army armed … and prevents planes from crashing over my house … and keeps highways up and running so I can visit my family … and on and on. Others enjoy even more benefits from America’s governmental system, as those wealthy upper classes and the like enjoy the fruits of our courts as the Equal sweeteners of the country sue the pants off the Splenda sweeteners, our Commerce Dept. promotes their businesses worldwide, and on and on.
But wait, those taxes aren’t investments that keep our nation’s engine oiled and running… Nope. According to the Bizzaro World of Kudlow and Blankensh they are assaults, indeed, taken together they are a war against keeping that very engine oiled and running even though without them we as a nation are forced to turn to Communist China and the oil princes of Saudi Arabia.
Ah yes, don’t we all miss those days in the 90s when jobs were too easy to come by, salaries didn’t stagnate and the Clinton economy was humming along just too well. Where’s the fun and challenge in an economy that works for all Americans, instead of the rich-getting-richer Americans we have now under President Take-Two-Tax-Cuts-and-Call-Me-in-’09?
Everyone knows you shouldn’t spend money you don’t have … well, everyone except Mr. Blankensh’s Republica allies. Call it the Republica War on Common Sense. Instead of bringing in revenues at reasonable Clinton levels, the elephants cut revenues and then went on a spending spree. Sen. John McCain said the Republicas were spending like drunken sailors. The pachyderms even had to raise the debt ceiling a few times under their watch in order to accumulate more debt from Red China and the Saudis.
But wait, Mr. Kudlow remembers his notes from How To Manipulate Stats 101. He chides Sen. Hillary Clinton by saying “business tax collections as a share of overall tax revenues have skyrocketed — well above levels witnessed during the Clinton 1990s.” Duh. That’s because Pres. Bush and the Republica Congresses cut income taxes … so other taxes are naturally going to have a larger share of the overall pie. That’s no fuzzy math.
At the heart of Mr. Kudlow’s slam against everyone contributing their fair share is another ridiculous argument in favor of the conservatives’ pipe dream of a flat tax. Essentially, it’s another huge windfall payout to the wealthy at the expense of everyone else — the wealthy gain as the see their tax bills cut by a third or more and everyone else is forced to make up the difference. Rich Little put it best during the Bush 43 Inauguration when he told the assembled GOP bigwigs that the Class War was over, and the wealthy won. But, Mr. Kudlow is still fighting those old battles against the middle- and lower-classes with his promotion of the flat tax. I’m surprised he didn’t bring up the idea of a national gross receipts tax, I mean, sales tax (aka, the conservatives’ Unfair Tax).
You want to see Mr. Kudlow’s ideas in action? Just talk to anyone who’s tried to get a passport at some point in the last year. Pres. Bush’s Dept. of Homeland Security put out an unfunded mandate requiring passports for travel between the US and Canada, Mexico and Caribbean nations. The State Dept’s passport processing center still hasn’t recovered — and there’s no money to devote to raising staffing levels to those necessitated by the unfunded mandate. You want to see more of the results of Mr. Kudlow’s taxes-are-bad myopia? One word: Katrina. Why was it that hurricane response under Clinton actually worked as well as could be expected, but under Bush it failed miserably?
One more point that completely obliterates Mr. Kudlow’s harping about taxes being a “war against prosperity”.
The stock market does significantly better (and is less volatile) under Democratic presidents than under Republica presidents. You can look it up. It could be because Democrats actually give two shakes about seeing that everyone does well, not just the “base” as Mr. Bush has called wealthy elitists, and when everyone fares better the entire economy rises right along with them.
But do you think Misters Kudlow and Blankensh can ever bring themselves to recognize common sense? …Don’t hold your breath.
A few weeks back I posted on the apparent propensity for conservative partisans to go to the extreme — to cross the line toward threats and, indeed, violence including preparing home-made bombs and drawing up sniper site lines to “take care of” perceived political opponents.
It’s allegedly happening right here at home, too, literally a few miles down the road.
Yesterday the Illinois State Rifle Association sent out an alarmist press release accusing state Sen. Dan Kotowski of infringing on the first amendment rights of Illinois gun owners.
Hardly.
The ISRA’s myopic piece reads in part:
The ISRA is expressing great concern over reports that Illinois State Police (ISP) detectives have been visiting the homes of people who phoned or faxed Sen. Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge) to express opposition to gun control legislation sponsored by the senator. [snip]
“The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of citizens to petition the government for the redress of grievances,” said ISRA Executive Director, Richard Pearson. “Of course, the manner in which citizens exercise that right must not include any threats of harm against elected officials.”
“When we first heard about the ISP visits to homes of people who had sent faxes to Sen. Kotowski, we were concerned that some folks may have acted inappropriately,” continued Pearson. “However, upon inspection of the faxes in question, we see absolutely no reason for the ISP to visit citizens’ homes — other than to possibly put a damper on the citizen’s desire to participate in the legislative process.” (emphasis added)
…I’ll have more on this as info is made public but suffice it to say that the ISRA’s “thorough investigation” has apparently not been thorough enough and at least one citizen sympathetic to the ISRA has indeed allegedly threatened the Senator’s office.
The Illinois State Police doesn’t typically just randomly start investigating protesters (that’d be the Karl Rove-influenced Dept. of Justice that does that). There must be just cause to launch an investigation, and in this case there allegedly is. Whether or not the alleged threat was a hollow one remains to be seen.
Now Mr. Pearson of course did a little CYA by noting that “threats of harm” are unacceptable. But based on the virulent rhetoric of those who adamantly advocate evermore liberal gun laws and the hyperbole, smears and truth-twisting spread by the big-dollar gun industry and their allies, something like this alleged threat was all too predictable. Indeed, posters at that Illinois Carry thread commented that they needed to step up the attacks and “go on the offense” … you and I know they meant verbal attacks, but not everyone thinks so clearly when they’re all ginned up on talk of revolution and killing ‘agressors’.
(Oh, and PS Illinois State Rifle Association director Mr. Richard Pearson: Police investigators don’t generally announce they’re going to stop by. Doing so might lead to the destruction of potential evidence or allow co-conspirators to, y’know, conspire. The single, unnamed ISRA member that the ISRA “thoroughly investigated” may not have been involved in any alleged wrongdoing — and I’ll take ISRA’s word for it that they were not — but unfortunately it only takes one alleged hooligan to tarnish the reputation of all with whom they are associated; and certainly only one alleged threat, whether idle or not, to launch an investigation so that justice may be pursued.)
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UPDATE 1: Arch-conservative Freepers have gotten a hold of the story… they of course don’t seem to consider there may actually be a cause for concern and instead jump straight to Godwin’s Law. And here we thought conservatives were against Nazi analogies and comparisons, but maybe they think it’s only ok when conservatives compare liberal lawmakers’ policies to Nazis but not when liberals compare our conservative president’s policies to Nazis. Got that?
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UPDATE 2: That ISRA press release is spreading like wildfire throughout the conservative-side blogosphere … as are the comparisons to Nazi Germany and the Soviet regime. And again, no one among the conservatives is bothering to actually ask why the police were called to investigate. Policestateamerica calls the Illinois State Police the “Gestapo” and Illinois Reason’s old friend Kurt “Superman45″ labels Sen. Kotowski “Commisar“.
Earth to liberal gun law activists: it’s not the faxes that the police are investigating, it’s the alleged threats made by others at the same time the faxes were sent.
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UPDATE 3: Pure class…
Sounds to me like Sen. Kotowski deserves to be threatened. Why, if he were to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head three times, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit. (emphasis added)
Bill St. Clair
Sr. Member
****
Member #19
Posts: 2643
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UPDATE 4: Illinois political journalist Rich Miller has a premium-content post up under the headline “Kotowski says he received death threats“. Now what could that be about? (Those of you with Capitol Fax subscriptions can enter the password to learn more on what Mr. Miller’s sources have discussed.)
Gee, I wonder if the ISRA is going to send out a revised press release indicating exactly why Sen. Kotowski’s office called the police. I won’t hold my breath.
But, it is fascinating to see how the gun lobbyists’ spin has literally avalanched across the conservative netroots. Lots of copying and pasting going on amongst the cons’ side of the blogosphere as several more posts simply quoting the ISRA release verbatim have popped up today, with not one questioning the ISRA’s spin or wondering what the threats may have been about (though there is a bunch of editorializing about “fascists”, hmmm…).
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UPDATE 5: Frequent Illinois Reason commenter (and convivial critic) C-Rock tells us in comments on this thread…
YOu also forget this is a war. Its a culture war. When I hear things like this, it makes me work even harder on wining this war. Plus our side is now all 4 Generation in its tatics and actions. The Internet caused that.
War analogies certainly help further the cause of rational debate, yeah right. This is the perspective conservatives are coming from on this (and other) matters.
What happens in wars? Death. Destruction.
This is what conservatives are so keen on? Death and destruction? Our nation already fought one “hot” civil war — we don’t need conservatives trying to perpetuate a “cold” civil war. And again, this incident bolsters my earlier point that conservatives seem all too ready to cross the line between democratic debate and rank violence.
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UPDATE 6: Richard Pearson and the Illinois State Rifle Association have posted another carefully parsed press release. This release is ostenibly about another march for reasonable gun oversight by community activist Fr. Michael Pfleger of Chicago’s St. Sabina.
Yet in slamming Fr. Pfeleger the ISRA can’t help but try and poke Sen. Kotowski in the eye again with their histrionics. Spinster ISRA chief Mr. Pearson claims:
Earlier this week, the ISRA released the results of an investigation into the apparent harassment of gun owners by the Illinois State Police [Author's Note: Police investigating an alleged crime is now "harassment"? Sounds like the ISRA is sympathetic to mobsters and other criminals]. In these cases, gun owners were treated to visits to their homes by state police detectives because they had sent faxes to Sen. Dan Kotowski expressing opposition to gun control legislation sponsored by the senator. Based on our investigation, there was not even the slightest hint of a threat conveyed in the content of the subject faxes. Nonetheless, these citizens had to bear the embarrassment of having the police show up at their homes with the additional strain of having to answer humiliating questions about their mental health and personal lives.
Yet again, the ISRA ducks the issue and tries to muddy the waters. It wasn’t the friggin faxes you dolts. The police are investigating phone calls made to the Senator’s office. In the course of their work, the investigators did indeed visit with others who had expressed similar interests (guns) as the one who made the alleged threat. The state police were apparently running a more thorough investigation than the ISRA bothered to conduct.
One wonders if Mr. Pearson is nuts for trying to claim their internal “investigation” was somehow thorough. Oh, wait. I might’ve just humiliated Rick Pearson by wondering if he’s nutty… Oops, my bad. I hope he recovers from the strain of having his hyperbole pointed out to him.
If you have nothing to hide what’s there to be embarrassed about with regards to helping our state’s finest conduct their investigation into a possible crime?
Here I thought conservatives appreciated and respected our first responders… Maybe all that flag-wrapping rhetoric is just for the tv cameras and the reality is that they’re just a bunch of whiney sissies who get embarrassed when Sgt. Friday knocks on the door and shows his badge. All the state police investigators wanted were the facts, not a bunch of ISRA politicking and posturing.
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UPDATE 7: In comments to this post (below), frequent Illinois Reason critic C-Rock claimed that state Sen. Pam Althoff had called into the NRA internet radio show “Cam & Company” saying that 500 homes had been visited by state police.
Turns out C-Rock got just about everything wrong in that 24-hour-old urban legend.
C-Rock’s fellow gun enthusiast 45superman notes on his own blog that it was not Sen. Althoff but one Mr. Tom Warchol (who had previously contacted Sen. Althoff) who called into the radio program. Furthermore, Mr. Warchol apparently misinterpreted what Sen. Althoff said and relayed the bad info to the radio broadcast. What Sen. Althoff actually told Mr. Warchol was that Sen. Kotowski’s staff had received 500 various contacts from gun supporters, not that the police had visited 500 homes.
Big difference.
The whole issue is a clear indication of just how easily and quickly even an unintentional smear can spread — and kudos to 45superman for having the decency to honestly correct the misinfo.
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Updates to come as details of this ongoing police investigation become available.
From the “Gimme a Break” file.
In “Judges Gone Wild” Illinois Civil Justice Leaguer “Mark Swain” writes today about the DC Federal judge who is suing the pants off his local dry cleaner because they lost his pants. Mr. Swain also writes about our own Illinois State Supreme Court Chief Justice Bob Thomas who recently successfully sued a newspaper columnist and the newspaper for which he writes.
Mr. Swain opines that pants-less Judge Roy Pearson in DC is seeking too much money (he is seeking $54 million after being talked down, though Mr. Swain incorrectly still lists his original suit for $67.3mil). And Mr. Swain also believes that Chief Justice Thomas’ accused could not have ever hoped for a fair trial in Illinois courts given Thomas’ position and the fact many of the witnesses on Thomas’ behalf were also judges, Supreme or otherwise.
Mr. Swain seems to come at this from a rational perspective — that these lawsuits are ridiculous and over-the-top — but he fails to see the point by calling them unfair. What Mr. Swain apparently doesn’t realize is that everyone is entitled to their day in court. Sure, most people would rather work through a problem and negotiate a mutually-agreeable compromise before landing in court, but sometimes the courtroom is the final destination.
As Americans we all have that right. Doesn’t mean we’ll win our case as we see it, but it does mean that we as Americans have a last resort, a place that should be a level playing field for all, to address our grievances.
Now if only Mr. Swain would complain about businesses suing businesses lacking in senses of fairness, proportionality, and judgment (that is where most of the conservatives’ nefarious “frivolous” lawsuits come from, after all). In recent weeks, Yellow Dog Democrat noted what would appear to many to be a highly-charged frivolous lawsuit as the makers of Equal fake sweetener sued the makers of Splenda fake sweetener.
Essentially, Equal was suing Splenda because Splenda used the claim “Made from sugar so it tastes like sugar.” Mr. Swain’s hyperbolic claims of “Ridiculous? Outrageous? Gross abuse of judicial process? Yes! Yes! Yes!” also apply to Equal, which was decidedly advocating inequality in good taste and fair play.
Well, at least half that statement is true. Splenda is made from sugar. I suppose the second half of the statement could be up for debate, but to my wife and I (and apparently Yellow Dog Dem) the yellow stuff sure tastes more like the white stuff than the blue stuff or pink stuff. And even though that opinion is just that, an opinion, is it worthy of a lawsuit? To Equal (a brand that was losing big-time to Splenda in the ‘free’ market) it certainly was worth a lawsuit as they claimed the Splenda marketing slogan somehow misled consumers into thinking Splenda was more natural or healthier than other brands of fake sugar (even though the slogan was at least half-true — “made from sugar” — and arguably entirely true).
And that, for better or worse, is the beauty of America. Come up with a better tasting and more profitable artificial sweetener … lose a pair of pants … call your fellow Supreme Court benchmates as witnesses … and you just may get the pants sued off your sweet little behind.
You don’t like it? Move to an unAmerican country.
Still more resonance on this simmering Saturday over the Obama Campaign’s memo slamming Sen. Clinton’s chumminess with outsourcing interests. This memo was supposedly written by someone low on the campaign totem pole, who was directed by a middle-manager to make it more harsh, according to Rich Miller’s CapFax blog.
[UPDATE: Rich Miller indicates he has sources telling him it was no middle manager, but was in fact Obama camp higher-up Robert Gibbs that ordered the 'harsher' rewrite ... Gibbs has a history of engaging in internecine bloodbaths and bullshit.]
Again, though I don’t excuse their use of the word, I tackled the ways in which the use of “Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)” in that memo from the Obama camp was not a slur, let alone “xenophobic”, Friday and Rich Miller replied Saturday eve. The fact that Sen. Clinton and a major supporter both described her as representing Punjab province in India just as well as New York state is the first clue that this is not some xenophic slur. Instead, it’s an odd claim to fame for a sitting United States Senator but ripe picking for an opponent to use against her as a way of demonstrating her possible split loyalties. (I mentioned on Eric Zorn’s post on this topic — though I don’t think he approved the comment — that if this had been Karl Rove attacking Sen. Clinton she would immediately be branded a “traitor” or “Manchurian candidate” for having agreed with her $50,000 supporter that she represents the Indian region of Punjab well in the United States Senate. How about representing New York state instead?)
The Chicago Tribune Saturday morning had a brief section 1, page 4 print story which echoed their earlier Swamp blogpost from Friday. Their story/blogpost wasn’t so much about the memo itself as the ‘reaction’ to it. In many cases it’s quite the manufactured reaction — the sort of “But he spilled milk” exclamation of someone who’s trying to distract from the fact his hand is in the cookie jar.
Part of that ‘reaction’ includes the letter sent to the Obama campaign and accompanying press release from Mr. Sanjay Puri, the head of the 50,000 member US-India Political Action Committee (USINPAC). Given his position, on first blush it makes sense for him to be out in front of this story.
But Mr. Puri’s near-immediate jump into this fray begs the question as to why the chief of the supposedly bi-partisan USINPAC would take such umbrage with an attack memo between Democratic campaigns anyway?
For one, USINPAC is actually heavily referenced throughout the Obama campaign memo. Mr. Puri would properly want to look out for his political action committee’s good name, as would any other such director.
But if you dig a little deeper, several dots appear that are ready for easy connecting.
Thursday’s New York Sun article lists the entire Obama campaign memo. In it, we see that USINPAC had been pushing for the creation of a Congressional “India Caucus” for years. It was Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) who granted their wish. She founded the caucus and is currently co-chair of the Senate India Caucus. (The Obama group’s memo lists the following as references: “[link to photo at USINPAC website, accessed 4/17/07; Roll Call, 4/28/04; PR Newswire, 4/29/04]“).
So there’s a direct link between Sen. Clinton, co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, and Sanjay Puri, head of USINPAC (the entity which had wanted that Caucus to be developed).
Even deeper, we find that Mr. Puri himself benefits from outsourcing as founder and chief of an IT services company. Swamp blog commenter Jeff L. indicates Mr. Puri is the head of Optimos, replete with what Optimos calls an Offshore Solution Center that benefits greatly from outsourcing contracts — hiring Indian workers to save US firms the cost of hiring US workers.
I also have some issues with the he-said/she-said reportage of the Puri letter.
Rich Miller quoted from Mr. Puri in his oft-updated post yesterday accusing the Obama camp of racial slurs. The Trib’s Swamp post and print article, among other media, also quote Mr. Puri in their news articles.
Now, Mr. Puri is certainly entitled to his opinion and he enjoys the same freedom of speech as Clinton, Obama, and even li’l ol’ me. But what is interesting is that the journalists covering this stuff locally haven’t bothered to tell anyone just who Mr. Puri is nor what his relationship to Sen. Clinton is.
Again, the full press release and letter from Mr. Puri is here and the full Obama campaign memo is here. Take 10 minutes to read both.
Mr. Miller quotes Mr. Puri’s letter in part:
I am writing on behalf of the over 50,000 members of USINPAC, the largest bi-partisan political action committee representing the Indian American community. As representatives of the Indian American community, we have been encouraged by your message of inclusion and your promise to bring a new kind of politics to our country. This is why we are so concerned about media reports indicating your staff may be engaging in the worst kind of anti Indian American stereotyping. (emphasis added)
How much less direct can Mr. Puri be? He is concerned about unnamed “media reports” because those reports indicate Obama campaign staffers “may be” engaging in the “worst kind” of stereotyping.
But does Mr. Puri list anything that he considers to be “stereotyping”? No. Does he himself have concern over the memo? Hard to tell since he only refers to concern over reports about the memo.
Basically, Mr. Puri relies on the tired old political game of “some say” x, y and z to reinforce that x, y and z may exist (even if they don’t).
The Trib also quotes Mr. Puri as saying:
“There cannot be a suggestion that Indian-Americans are somehow taboo,” said Sanjay Puri, chairman of the 50,000-member U.S.-India Political Action Committee. “That is not the message we want any leader to be presenting.” (emphasis added)
Again, Mr. Puri is as indirect in this accusation as one can be. “There cannot be a suggestion”??? Who suggested it? Nothing in the Obama campaign’s attack memo suggested Indian-Americans are taboo.
Instead, the memo attacks Sen. Clinton’s ties to outsourcing interests and people involved in questionable business deals.
They could be Idaho-Americans instead of Indian-Americans and the memo would read the same because it’s not about Indian-Americans (and certainly not about xenophobia), it’s about outsourcing and shadey business deals. (In the same manner, the memo could’ve read “Sen. Clinton (D-Boise)” and it would’ve made sense since it accuses Sen. Clinton of having loyalties other than to the state she represents.)
The memo slams Clinton’s coziness with outsourcing, plain and simple and that slam strikes directly at Mr. Puri, his business, and USINPAC’s major goals (increase US-Indian ties to benefit India — including through outsourcing).
Those who follow Barack Obama the presidential candidate certainly know that he has said he wants to run a different sort of campaign and rise above the politics-as-usual malarkey we see year in and year out (even moreso these last 7-odd years it seems). The continued employment by Obama for America of well-known politics-as-usual hired gun Robert Gibbs definitely brings that claim by the candidate into question. Candidate Obama already slapped Mr. Gibbs on the wrist once over some useless attacks in relation to a fundraiser (of all things). The Obama camp had a valid point regarding Sen. Clinton’s comfort and support for outsourcing.
If Mr. Gibbs is indeed responsible for turning this attack memo against Clinton into more muckraking than it needed to be, he does deserve a pink slip because he is clearly unwilling to change his ways so as to better fit the candidate, and ultimately that candidate’s supporters, that he works for. Some tigers can’t change their stripes. (How’s that for flip-flopping inside of 48 hours.)
Don’t get me wrong — if it were me I wouldn’t have used the word and I do find it offensive, but apparently not as much as others…
It’s not too often that Illinois political journalist Rich Miller calls for a political insider to be fired, but he is today saying that whoever demanded the re-write of a recent Obama Camp attack memo against Sen. Clinton needs a pink slip. And of course the Illinois Review picked up on it right away (though I was pleasantly surprised to see it was Greg Blankenship’s level head rather than more of the same Obama-is-Evil-Incarnate from Fran Eaton — I agree, it is too early for this).
The bugger for Mr. Miller is apparently the memo’s use of “Punjab” which can certainly be as derogatory as the word “macaca” when used in a demeaning context (which we now all know helped take down Sen. George Allen, R-VA, last year). In fact, Mr. Miller goes so far as to say that this may be Obama’s “Macaca Moment”. Now whether he firmly believes that or he just liked the alliteration I can’t say. But the attack memo (the text was obtained by The New York Sun) is indeed entitled: “HILLARY CLINTON (D-PUNJAB)’S PERSONAL FINANCIAL AND POLITICAL TIES TO INDIA.”
But the differences between a campaign using “Punjab” in a memo and Allen actually calling a fellow “Macaca” to his face are huge.
For one, there is no record of racism in Sen. Obama’s background. Unlike former Sen. Allen, he wasn’t hanging the Confederate flag, running around calling people n!%%3®$ and making sure they knew their place, putting chopped off animal heads in a black family’s mailbox or happily taking pictures and cavorting with known racists and white supremacists.
For another, Sen. Clinton herself said she could be the Senator from Punjab. The Obama campaign didn’t make it up. They weren’t trying to imply a slur. The context is that she used the word to describe herself, after one of her own supporters also did, and the Obama campaign used it against her. From the memo:
Sen. Clinton (D-Punjab) Joked That She Was Senator From The Punjab Region In India. “At the fundraiser hosted by Dr Rajwant Singh at his Potomac, Maryland, home, and which raised nearly $50,000 for her re-election campaign, Clinton began by joking that, ‘’I can certainly run for the Senate seat in Punjab and win easily,’ after being introduced by Singh as the Senator not only from New York but also Punjab.” [India Abroad, 3/17/06]
In essence, all the memo is doing is a little political jujitsu — turning a strong source of support and donations against Sen. Clinton by using her own words and claim. She was the one who said she could be the Senator from Punjab, the Obama campaign took her up on it to illustrate their point.
And their point, of course, is to highlight Sen. Clinton’s coziness with outsourcing interests in India, and their own quid pro quo commitment to supporting her campaign monetarily. Interestingly, The New York Sun has also been looking into Sen. Clinton’s zealous pursuit of donations from Indian-Americans (she is co-chair of the Senate Indian Caucus, and that’s not the Native American “Indian”).
As the Sun notes, organizations opposed to offshoring practices have been going after Sen. Clinton for some time. In light of that and the current two-term Republican administration telling us outsourcing American jobs is a good thing … this memo is actually an effective piece. It’s short for: ‘Do you want more of the same, or something different?’
Mr. Miller’s final points are that Sen. Obama has said he and his campaign would be above politics-as-usual. He already gave a verbal slap on the wrist to one of his campaigners after the Geffen fundraiser event a few weeks back. It remains to be seen what he’ll do here, but Mr. Miller’s point is well taken. There are other ways to say that Sen. Clinton is cozy with outsourcing American jobs that don’t involve using (D-Punjab)…
In fact, I believe a certain candidate 3 years ago used the term “Benedict Arnold Corporations” for those “American” companies that moved their “headquarters” to an offshore address to avoid taxes. I don’t think there’s a trademark on that phrase.
But Mr. Miller is over-reacting. Plain and simple.
(UPDATE: Clarification — it is abundantly clear from the context of the very-well-referenced Obama campaign memo that the use of the word “Punjab” was not meant in a derogatory manner, but rather as a mockery of something Sen. Clinton and her supporters joked about themselves … unlike Sen. Allen’s use of the word “Macaca” which clearly was intended as a racial slur and fit into a pattern of under-the-radar racism found throughout Mr. Allen’s lifetime. While the word “Punjab” could be taken as offensive in a different context, in this case it’s simply a reference to something Hillary said of herself last year while reveling in the support of a group of outsourcing interests, one of whom had originally made the reference to Sen. Clinton representing both the Punjab region and New York state.)
There is a pattern here. The recent falsified dust-up about comments Harry Reid did and didn’t make reveals yet again how the conservative partisans are all too willing to throw our brave men and women in uniform under the bus when it suits their political purposes.
They’ve done it in Washington by putting words in Reid’s mouth (claiming he has disparaged Gen. Petraeus when he has actually praised him, and then going on to claim Reid was somehow “attacking” the military based on news reports the conservatives made up about stuff he didn’t say).
They did it in Kansas by claiming that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius was misrepresenting the status of her state’s National Guard when, in fact, she was not (though Republicans and their allies were).
And conservative partisans have also done it here in Illinois by using our honorable troops as mere tools to advance the cause of ever-more liberal gun laws when they attacked State Sen. Dan Kotowski with lies about his Springfield proposals, falsely claiming his bills would disarm our troops. Actual vets were outraged.
Just because conservative partisans wrap themselves in the flag it doesn’t mean they can pee on it. It’s pathetic and unseemly, let alone the fact that lying is completely unethical. (We don’t let our children get away with lies. Why does the conservative base let their elected officials get away with it?)
After noting that former POW Sen. John McCain has been a completely two-faced hypocrite* on the falsified remarks about Gen. Petraeus attributed to Reid, Army veteran Markos Moulitsas points out:
If the military brass isn’t accomplishing its goals, then it must account for those failures to the people they serve — Americans and their elected representatives.
Why this is controversial is beyond me.
Wait, no it’s not. This is just the latest effort by Republicans and their allies like the Politico and David Broder to try and divide Reid from his fellow Democrats in the Senate.
It has nothing to do with Iraq or our troops. Those are merely political props for their grander political purposes.
Mere political props, indeed. I know America’s finest and brightest are better than that. When will these partisan conservatives realize that?
And why does the conservative base continue to allow their leaders to do this to our good troops?
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* - McCain claimed that actually calling the incompetent General Pace “incompetent” was “highly inappropriate” … this after McCain himself harshly questioned the competency of Gen. Casey not that long ago.
Self-declared pundit and marathoner, John Ruberry, jumps on the Smoking Gun Bandwagon and declares Wednesday was a bad day for Barack Obama. Of course, like former Alan Keyes worker and long-time Obama opponent Fran Eaton mere hours before him, Mr. Ruberry thinks the not-quite-the-whole-story Sun-Times article about this single letter of support that Obama wrote is a big stinky, smelly, smoking gun because … well … just because they say it is, so there.
As political journalist Rich Miller pointed out after actually reading that S-T article, there are several problems for those Obama-haters jumping to the false conclusion that this form letter is their much-hoped-for Obama Waterloo.
For one thing, the letter isn’t very good — it’s got a bunch of typos. If the letter were sent on my behalf, I’d be disappointed in it.
For another, Obama was not the only politician to write a letter of support for Rezko’s senior wellness center project. In fact, the project in question was hardly some exclusive back-room deal (like, say, snagging fast food spots on tollroad overpasses). No, this development project was for a mundane healthcare office and senior care center.
Finally, as Mr. Miller points out, the project was simply seeking a second mortgage, not any grants or special compensation in cash. The mortgage money would, like any loan, be paid back.
Mr. Ruberry goes so far as to say this typo-laden letter is obvious evidence that Obama was “pulling strings for Rezko”. If that’s what he thinks then so be it … but I’ve never heard of a typo-filled letter of support for a senior center being likened to “pulling strings” which usually instead conjurs up images of weasely guys in a dark, smoke-filled back room.
Then-State Senator Obama wasn’t requesting anything unique in his letter (would conservative partisans have us believe mortgages are unique?), and he certainly wasn’t demanding anything at all. It was just a letter of support for what would normally be considered a worthwhile project. I’m sure the pensioners using the facility appreciate the fact it got built seeing as how it’s still in use today, as Mr. Miller noted.
I sure hope Mr. Ruberry never asks any of his legislative representatives (from village hall to Springfield to Congress) to support any projects or plans. Oh, wait. That’s what representatives are there to do — represent us. Hypocritically, Mr. Ruberry has in the past called on his Congresswoman to do certain things he’d like to see get done, and to not do certain things she’d like to do. She doesn’t seem to be listening to him. But he’s still asking her “to pull strings” for him and do what he wants her to do.
Mr. Ruberry goes on to expound on this week’s New York Times article about Sen. Obama, which discusses his on-again, off-again Rezko ties. Now it remains unclear whether or not the New York Times put the article together to assist a certain Junior Senator from New York (who also is currently running for president). Even so, the Times article doesn’t cover any new ground. It summarizes a bunch of news reports from Illinois-based political journalists and just sort of puts it out there that Rezko has been investigated and charged and that Rezko had supported Obama in the past, etc. Mr. Ruberry points out that it includes a detailing of the empty lot matter in which Mrs. Rezko bought a city lot next to the Obama’s new home. Then again, in and of itself, it’s not an entirely unique thing for people who know each other to buy property near each other.
Just to reinforce how uttterly dire Mr. Ruberry wants to claim the Obama situation truly is, he informs us of the highly incriminating fact that Sen. Obama is a Chicago Democrat just like Gov. Rod Blagojevich whose campaign, Mr. Ruberry conveniently reminds us, is under investigation.
Watch out. That guilt by association canard will land you in the clink every time no matter how laughably weak it is.
Say, speaking of guilt by association… It occurs to me that Gov. Blagojevich (his campaign is under investigation, y’know) and Sen. Obama (his is not under any investigation at all) are both residents of Illinois…
Oh. My. Gosh…. I just realized that Mr. Ruberry is also a resident of Illinois who has even been to Chicago (!) himself so, obviously, it’s all highly questionable and may even be improper. I demand the media look further into Mr. Ruberry’s brush with unethical behavior and political gadflies who have been charged with wrong-doing.
Got it?
(Of course, this is not the first time, nor the second time, nor even the third time, that Mr. Ruberry has manifest his loathing of Democrats with silly little houses of canards that don’t stand up to an ounce of scrutiny… now is it?)
Republicans and their conservative allies have become rather adept at using the media like a pawn for their political machinations. Bully for them… And shame on the media for continuing to play along just because “they’re quoting what they said” (simply quoting what someone says, even when demonstrably false, is not reporting on an issue — it’s stenography).
This morning Tribune Washington bureau correspondent Mark Silva noted at the bureau’s Swamp blog that White House press secretary Tony Snow claimed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid allegedly called outgoing Joint Chiefs chair Gen. Peter Pace “incompetent” during a teleconference yesterday.
Problem is folks who were in on the call don’t remember Leader Reid actually saying that.
So where in the heck did the Press Secretary for the Leader of the Free World get such a notion?
Apparently, Mr. Snow got it from an anonymously sourced post at a conservative blog called Politico. Politico writer John Bresnahan has apparently simply made the whole thing up.
The ploy so far has worked, at least on the media, as CNN’s Shotgun Howitzer Wolf Blitzer has been reporting that Harry Reid is “bashing” the military.
Score one for the Republicans and manipulative partisan conservatives. Score minus-one for the press and free-thinking Americans who rely on honest, factual news reports for information.
Besides Mr. Blitzer’s breathless regurgitation of Repub talking points, the other interesting thing to note here is that even though reporter Silva detailed the background info on this being an apparent sham (including that Leader Reid seems to not have said what Sec. Snow and Politico.com claim he said) the title of the post still reads on quick glance as if Reid did in fact call Pace incompetent.
The Swamp’s title — the phrase that gets picked up by blog feeds across the Internet — reads, “Reid calls general “incompetent?” Snow calls Reid ‘outrageous’”.
While I understand this is ‘just’ a political news blog and not the print paper, the he-said, she-said crapola doesn’t do anyone any good. Why is it worthy of a newspaper to quote a Press Secretary’s reiteration of an apparent lie? The bigger story is that the Press Secretary is advancing the shinola on the national stage in the first place.
By attributing the word “incompetent” to Reid (even with the question mark, which makes little sense given that the header is set up in a comment and counter-comment format), Mr. Silva and the Tribune and Mr. Blitzer and CNN advance the conservatives’ partisan agenda by helping Snow carry water for Politico’s falsehoods. Mr. Silva even kicks it up a few notches by quoting assorted Republican officials with lines like, “There is room for him to express reasonable disagreement about our path forward in Iraq. But to attack our military is unacceptable.” (emphasis added)
Nobody rhetorically “attacked” our military, so why add that quote? And certainly Gen. Pace is not the whole entirety of the military in the first place, even if he personally had been the subject of a verbal dressing down.
Lying is unacceptable. Using our military as pawns to play political games against an opposing Majority Leader is unacceptable.
Is carrying water really what j-schools teach would-be reporters? Now Mr. Silva is a decent guy. His articles are usually balanced and well-presented. But this little side story reveals a much deeper problem with the Washington press corp.
The story isn’t the word “incompetent” nor some made-up notions of an “attack” so responses from Republicans along those lines are superfluous and distracting.
The story is the conservatives’ lie and how they’ve manipulated the media to advance their lie to give it a shine of truthiness.
UPDATE: Per Bob Geiger, one of the folks on that teleconference with Reid, the Majority Leader did indeed use the word “incompetent” but he did so with quite a bit more context than the conservative Politico website, Press Secretary
Tony Snow and assorted other Republicans have let on:
I was on that call. And let me explain to The Politico why I did not report on it.
It’s because those of us who actually participated in the conference call heard the context in which Senator Reid made his comments. What he said about Pace was not said in the spirit of throwing some rhetorical red meat to a bunch of liberal bloggers by gratuitously bashing General Pace — which is certainly what one could infer from The Politicos “reporting” on this story.
Rather, Reid was talking informally about George W. Bush’s refusal to dump Alberto Gonzales and told us what he said to Pace in a private meeting before Bush tossed aside the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff like a rotting fish.
Here’s exactly what Reid said:
“I guess the president, uh, he’s gotten rid of Pace because he could not get him confirmed here in the Senate… Pace is also a yes-man for the president and I told him to his face, I laid it out to him last time he came to see me, I told him what an incompetent man I thought he was.” (emphasis added)
Since all this “news” broke earlier in the day, conservatives have also started claiming that Sen. Reid has lumped Gen. Petraeus in with Gen. Pace. This, apparently is taken even further out of context than the strawman Pace comments…
Politico falsely writes that, “Reid made similar disparaging remarks about Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said several sources familiar with the interview.”
This, apparently, is a bald-faced lie which Reid’s office denies. In fact, Reuters News reports on the brouhaha:
Reid, when asked about the report, said, “I have high regard for General Petraeus.”
But he added that although the bloodiest three months of the Iraq war had taken place since President George W. Bush began his “surge” policy of adding troops earlier this year, this was not reflected in Petraeus’ assessment of the war.
[snip]
Asked if he thought Petraeus was incompetent, Reid said, “Not as far as I’m concerned,” but he added, “I’m not going to get into what I said or didn’t say.”
So it turns out Reid has not made “similar disparaging remarks” about Gen. Petraeus.
Yet, that lie is precisely the line being picked up by the media because that is what Republicans and partisan conservatives are promoting from coast to coast.
Backyard Conservative (and others) today make a big deal of Rep. Jeff Flake’s (R-AZ) little victory in the House whereby earmarks will be presented before votes, rather than afterward. This allows Congressmen to review the pork.
Too bad Rep. Flake and those who share his mindset were never able to rein in the rampant pork layouts which exploded under the Republican’s hypocritical decade-plus rule. Backyard Conservat