PERRspectives: December 2007 Archives

December 2007 Archives

	Bloomberg God's Gift to the GOP? From the beginning, God has been at the center of the Republican presidential race. And He has not been kind to the GOP or its would-be leaders. While John McCain back-tracked from his claim that "the most important thing is that I am a Christian", Rudy Giuliani left it to the priests to decide whether he is a good Catholic. A desperate Mitt Romney delivered a speech on faith in which he ejected Muslims and atheists from the American community.... more Posted on December 31, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	That's Entertainment: Hyperpartisanship and Politics as Theater As the 2008 campaign begins in earnest, one of the emerging storylines is so-called hyperpartisanship, the bitter and increasingly divisive conflict between Democrats and Republicans that is said to be fueling cynicism - and apathy - among voters. In Iowa, Barack Obama proclaims that he will transcend partisan cleavages, while John Edwards vows to fight. Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will meet in Oklahoma next week with prominent figures from both parties to encourage the 2008 candidates to form... more Posted on December 30, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Bush a Block Off the Old S-CHIP On Saturday, President Bush scored a triple victory when he quietly signed a bill extending the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) through March 2009. First, the President teed up "socialized medicine" as the definitive 2008 GOP talking point in response to any new health care initiatives coming from the Democratic Party. Second, he added another win for the GOP campaign of obstructionism, blocking Democratic successes at any cost in the hope of painting Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi as... more Posted on December 29, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Huckabee: Bhutto Did Not Graciously Submit to Woman's Role The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has given the White House hopefuls of both parties ample opportunities for grandstanding. While Hillary Clinton predictably played up her past relationship with Bhutto, John McCain touted his foreign policy experience. The co-chair of New Hampshire's Veterans for Rudy Giuliani declared his candidate would chase Muslims "back to their caves." But for the most disturbing - and ironic - reaction, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is in a class by himself. Bhutto was killed, Huckabee... more Posted on December 28, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Supreme Court Test for GOP Vote Suppression Strategy As the Washington Post detailed on Tuesday, the Supreme Court this term will decide a set of voter identification cases which could well determine the outcome of the 2008 election. In a narrow legal sense, the cases will address the constitutionality of new voter ID laws in Indiana and other states. But more important, the Roberts Court will decide whether to rubber stamp an essential tactic in the all-out Republican war to suppress the votes of minority - and likely... more Posted on December 26, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Misdirection: Bartlett Ignores GOP's Racist Present for Dems' Racist Past In one of the most disgusting and disingenuous acts of political misdirection in recent memory, former Reagan and Bush 41 advisor Bruce Bartlett is asking Americans to ignore the Republican Party's racist present and instead focus on the Democratic Party's racist past. Taking to the pages of the Wall Street Journal, Bartlett extracted a catalog of quotes from Jefferson to Biden to document the Democratic Party's' shameful past history when it comes to African-Americans. But no amount of sleight of... more Posted on December 24, 2007 \| Comments (4)

	Romney Adopts GOP "Give Me Death" Line on Civil Liberties In an unprecedented and blistering "undorsement" on Saturday, the Concord Monitor implored New Hampshire voters not to support GOP White House hopeful Mitt Romney under any circumstances. Labeling Romney "a disquieting figure" who "most surely must be stopped," the Monitor profiled the serial flip-flopper whose pronouncements on national security and civil liberties issues "are often chilling." Just how chilling, it turns out, Salon's Glenn Greenwald detailed the very next day. While Americans by now have grown accustomed to Romney's tough... more Posted on December 24, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Medals of Dishonor: How the Right Rewards Cover Ups & Payback On Friday, right-wing mouthpiece and failed Bush Labor nominee Linda Chavez demonstrated the Iron Law of Republican scandal management. Claiming the CIA official purportedly responsible for destroying detainee interrogation tapes "deserves a medal," Chavez showed the conservative commitment to rewarding those who conceal White House wrong-doing. The corollary, of course, is the GOP Payback Principle: those exposing Bush administration criminality should be prosecuted. In her Friday column titled "Destroying CIA Tapes Deserves a Thank You," Chavez argued that the 2005... more Posted on December 23, 2007 \| Comments (21)

	Putin, Bush and Post-Presidential Riches The similarities between President Bush and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, it would appear, are seemingly endless. On Wednesday. Putin followed in Bush's footsteps as the 2007 recipient of the Time Man of the Year. And now, Putin too has grand plans to reap a financial windfall upon leaving office. As it turns out, though, the scope and scale of Putin's post-presidential avarice puts George W. Bush to shame. As we learned from Bush biographer Robert Draper back in September,... more Posted on December 22, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	U.S. Papers Inject Anti-Abortion Rhetoric into Omagh Trial Coverage In a Belfast courtroom Thursday, a judge acquitted electrician Sean Hoey, accused of the 1998 bombing that killed 29 people in Omagh, Northern Ireland. But while coverage of the story in Northern Ireland, Ireland and the UK focused on DNA evidence, police incompetence and the legacy of past terror incidents, many American newspapers had a different agenda altogether. The Oregonian and other news outlets instead chose to turn the Omagh verdict into anti-abortion propaganda. In Belfast, Dublin and London, coverage... more Posted on December 21, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Groundhog Day for Bush on CIA Tapes, Iran NIE Americans watching President Bush on Thursday could be forgiven for confusing his press conference with the movie Groundhog Day. In the 1993 film, Bill Murray wakes each morning only to realize he's reliving the previous day. Discussing the mushrooming CIA tapes scandal yesterday, President Bush claimed he had no recollection of knowing about the tapes' destruction in 2005 until briefed by CIA director Michael Hayden last month. Of course, that's virtually the same line he offered regarding the controversial Iran... more Posted on December 21, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	New Divorce Research Best News in Bad Week for Giuliani These last few days have not been kind to Rudy Giuliani. New revelations in the Bernard Kerik case are keeping the spotlight on the former New York mayor's ethical woes. New polls show Giuliani's national lead in the GOP White House race has evaporated and the prospect of dual losses in Iowa and New Hampshire threaten his national campaign strategy. Adding insult to injury, Giuliani checked into a Missouri hospital yesterday after experiencing flu-like symptoms. But in one aspect of... more Posted on December 20, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Putin Succeeds "Good Friend" Bush as Time Man of the Year This morning Time named Russian President Vladmir Putin its 2007 Man of the Year. It is altogether fitting that Time selected Putin as a successor to two-time winner George W. Bush. Like his friend the American president, Putin for good or ill (mostly ill) has made his nation a major force in global affairs. And as Time notes, he did so "at significant cost to the principles that free nations prize." In its tribute "A Tsar is Born," Time details... more Posted on December 19, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Romney Laments Hypothetical Loss of Son, '94 Planned Parenthood Gift The past 24 hours have been deservedly cruel for former GOP Iowa frontrunner Mitt Romney. In New Hampshire Monday, Romney got teary at the thought of losing one of his five sons in combat, despite having previously lauded their work on his campaign as their service to America. And on Tuesday, ABC released a photograph of Senate candidate Romney at a 1994 fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, a group he previously claimed he could not recall himself or his wife supporting.... more Posted on December 18, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	10 More Moments in Mike Huckabee's Extremism Last week's "Top 10 Moments in Mike Huckabee's Extremism" provided a snapshot of the dangerously radical zealot who now also happens to be a frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. But as more skeletons emerge from Governor Huckabee's closet, Americans are getting a fuller picture of a man who seeks to render the wall separating church and state, to paraphrase Alberto Gonzales, quaint. As it turns out, Mike Huckabee isn't merely a religious extremist who threatens mainstream America values, but... more Posted on December 18, 2007 \| Comments (10)

	The Republican War on Dogs Harry Truman once famously said, "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." Judging by the current crop of Republican presidential candidates, a GOP victory in 2008 won't be a very good deal for the dog. As we found out this weekend, the son of Republican frontrunner Mike Huckabee joined Mitt Romney among the tormentors of man's best friend. As Newsweek details, then 17 year old David Huckabee was dismissed in 1998 from his job as a Boy... more Posted on December 17, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bush to Add Veto to Torture Signing Statement When it comes to the debate over Congressional legislation to ban waterboarding of detainees by the CIA, President Bush is proving Marx's dictum that historical events occur twice, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. After all, while the White House is threatening to veto the new interrogation restrictions passed this week by the House, President Bush happily issued a signing statement to the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act letting him alone judge what constitutes "cruel, inhuman,... more Posted on December 16, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Gonzales Stripped of ABA Lawyer of the Year Title The indignities never seem to end for former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. On Wednesday, I reported that the Journal of the American Bar Association had named Gonzales its 2007 "Lawyer of the Year". Now, just two days later, the ABA has bowed to the public outcry and announced it would strip Gonzales of his title. Instead, the ABA is bestowing a Miss Congeniality prize on him, relabeling Gonzales the "Newsmaker of the Year." Apparently, the ABA was too smart by... more Posted on December 15, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Bush Plays Dumb on Mitchell Report, Own MLB Steroid Role In Washington today, President Bush predictably decried the conclusion of the Mitchell report, proclaiming "steroids have sullied the game." Even less surprising is Bush's call to put the steroid scandal "behind us." George W. Bush, after all, was the managing partner of the major league baseball's Texas Rangers, a team that featured many prominent abusers of performance-enhancing drugs, including his good friend Rafael Palmeiro. Speaking at the White House Rose Garden this morning, President Bush told reporters: "Like many fans,... more Posted on December 14, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	"Republican of the Year" Awards We'd Like to See This week, the Journal of the American Bar Association announced the selection of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as its 2007 Lawyer of the Year. In a process that prioritized the absolute value of the contenders' beneficial or deleterious contributions to the legal profession, Gonzales edged out such notables as Duke lacrosse team prosecutor Michael Nifong, Hatch Act hatchet woman and loyal Bushie Monica Goodling, and Plamegate villain Scooter Libby. As Edward A. Adams, the Journal's editor and publisher, described... more Posted on December 13, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	The Verdict is In: Romney Speech a Double Failure The verdict on Mitt Romney's over-hyped speech on "Faith in America" is in, and the results are not pretty. It's now clear the address was a double failure. As a statement of political philosophy, Romney's new religious test proclaiming the exclusion of Muslims and atheists from the American community was rejected by most commentators (save his friends at the National Review and its online allies). But more importantly for Mitt Romney's fading prospects in Iowa, his primary audience of skeptical... more Posted on December 12, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Perino, Bush and the Unlearned Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis On Saturday, White House press secretary Dana Perino confessed her ignorance regarding the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs fiasco the previous year. Of course, it should come as no surprise that the chief spokesperson for President Bush would confuse John F. Kennedy's signature national security triumph with his greatest foreign policy failure. After all, President Bush is not merely ignorant of the history, but determined that JFK's two lessons from the Bay of Pigs - taking... more Posted on December 11, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Lessons of Colorado: Tony Perkins and Right-Wing Terror In response to the tragic church shootings in Colorado, Family Research Council head Tony Perkins naturally pointed the finger of blame at the "secular media." The senseless massacre of several deeply religious people by one of their own reflected, he claimed, "hostility that is being fomented in our culture from some in the secular media toward Christians." Of course, Perkins has it almost exactly backwards. Whether concerning abortion, gay Americans, immigration or judicial appointments, the line connecting the rhetoric of... more Posted on December 11, 2007 \| Comments (4)

	Top 10 Moments in Mike Huckabee's Extremism As former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee catapults to the top of the 2008 Republican presidential race, amazed media on-lookers ponder his meteoric rise. The authentic, charismatic former minister, they say, is swaying disheartened conservative voters, especially the legions of evangelicals in Iowa and other states, disillusioned with President Bush and unimpressed with his potential successors. But despite emerging stories from his checkered past such as the Wayne Dumond affair or his past AIDS bigotry, a true portrait of Mike Huckabee... more Posted on December 10, 2007 \| Comments (16)

	Reagan Debunked Huckabee's AIDS Bigotry - in 1987 Like all of the 2008 Republican White House hopefuls, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is quick to claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan. But when it came to the AIDS crisis, President Ronald Reagan was positively enlightened compared to the extremist Senate candidate Huckabee years later. As it turns out, everything Mike Huckabee argued in response to the AIDS epidemic in 1992 - quarantining victims, blaming gay Americans, decrying federal funding to fight the disease - Ronald Reagan himself debunked... more Posted on December 9, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Text of Bush Letter to Kim Jong-Il Released In a dramatic reversal of policy, President George W. Bush this week sent a personal letter directly to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. According to the text of the letter obtained by the AP and other media outlets, Bush urged Kim to come forward with the details of his nuclear plan. "I want to emphasize," Bush wrote, "that the declaration must be complete and accurate if we are to continue our progress." But according to anonymous sources within the White... more Posted on December 8, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Bush Dishonors the Legacy of Pearl Harbor The anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor gives us an opportunity to remember our tragic loss that day, and reflect on the almost unimaginable sacrifices that generation of Americans made to protect the liberty of all who followed. But as I first suggested in 2005, our observance now includes a new ritual. With each passing year President Bush dishonors the memory of Pearl Harbor, misappropriating its meaning and lessons to support his partisan political purposes and his war in... more Posted on December 7, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Mitt Romney Creates His Own Religious Test In his overdue and over-hyped address today on "Faith in America," GOP White House hopeful Mitt Romney sought to disarm evangelicals' fears about the role of his Mormon faith, fears that threaten his campaign's prospects in the lynchpin state of Iowa. But while he likely failed in that task, Romney assuredly succeeded in redefining the U.S. Constitution's ban on religious tests for political office. According to Romney's notion of public service, Muslims and atheists need not apply. In a speech... more Posted on December 6, 2007 \| Comments (0)

	Controversial Romney Article Restored to New Republic Web Site On the day of Mitt Romney's make-or-break speech regarding his Mormon faith, Americans would do well to consult the New Republic for background reading. Over the past year, the magazine in print and on its web site has explored in detail the implications - real or imagined - of Romney's faith on his campaign and potential presidency. How fortunate, then, that one of TNR's more controversial pieces was restored to its web site just as Romney prepared to take the... more Posted on December 6, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Huckabee Proclaims Ignorance of Iran NIE, Evolution Mike Huckabee is quickly learning that the frontrunner's life isn't always an easy one. After first brushing off questions Tuesday about his creationist beliefs, the former Arkansas Governor went on to display complete ignorance of the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran now dominating the news and debate in Washington. But while Huckabee might be excused for being a foreign policy neophyte, the former Baptist minister is an old hand when it comes to promoting creationism at the expense of... more Posted on December 5, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Hypocritical Huckabee Dodges the Mormon Question After collecting the endorsement of 60 religious leaders today, newly minted Iowa frontrunner Mike Huckabee dodged the question about whether he considers Mitt Romney's Mormonism to be a cult. But while Huckabee declared he would not "go off into evaluating other people's doctrines and faiths," his campaign seems content to do just that. And when it comes to Islam, the former minister has proven rather eager to stand in judgment. Claiming he respects "anybody who practices his faith," the former... more Posted on December 4, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Right Claims Iran NIE a CIA Plot Against Bush President Bush's amen corner in the conservative commentariat is apoplectic over the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran. After all, the report's conclusion that Tehran suspended its nuclear weapons program inn 2003 knocked the legs out from their "World War III" rhetoric. And as you'd expect, the same people who helped bring you the war in Iraq are now quick to claim CIA incompetence and conspiracies are behind the new assessment. At the head of the list of the... more Posted on December 4, 2007 \| Comments (9)

	Mitt Romney, You're No Jack Kennedy Mitt Romney's announcement that he will deliver a major address Thursday concerning his Mormon faith confirms three fundamental truths about the former Massachusetts Governor. First is Romney's desperation in the face of evangelical darling Mike Huckabee's surge in Iowa, a development that threatens his entire campaign. Second, with his insistence that the President be a "man of faith" and his promised exclusion of Muslims Americans from his cabinet, Mitt Romney brought this faith-based trap on himself. And last, to paraphrase... more Posted on December 3, 2007 \| Comments (3)

	Texas Previews a Huckabee Presidency The state of Texas this week offered Americans a preview of a Mike Huckabee presidency. In Austin, the veteran science director of the Texas Education Agency was forced to resign after coming under withering assault by creationism advocates. Judging by his words and deeds, the former Arkansas Governor and Baptist minister promises a similarly grim future for the teaching of evolution and the scientific method in the United States. Despite opponents' claims that her ouster was purely a "personnel issue,"... more Posted on December 2, 2007 \| Comments (2)

	Will David Broder Weigh In on Giuliani's Tryst Fund? As the scandal surrounding his surreptitious taxpayer-funded Hampton frolics continues to envelop Rudy Giuliani, two questions are coming into focus. Obviously, the first is to what degree Giuliani's efforts to conceal his NYPD-financed romps with then-mistress, now third wife Judith Nathan imperils his presidential campaign. The second? Will David Broder, supposed dean of the Washingtonpress corps and inquisitor of the Clinton marriage, break his silence on Rudy's? That the Giuliani story has legs is supported by the proliferation of nicknames... more Posted on December 1, 2007 \| Comments (1)

	Giuliani's Dog Day Afternoon There are three certainties about life in the United States: death, taxes, and the predictably explosive reaction of Americans to the mistreatment of dogs. With the latest revelations that New York residents paid the NYPD to walk the dog of Giuliani mistress-turned-third wife Judith Nathan, the mushrooming scandal surrounding Rudy's Tryst Fund is about to go to the dogs. As Talking Points Memo highlighted this morning, Giuliani's surreptitious taxpayer-funded Hampton frolics weren't limited to those 11 trips to Judith Nathan's... more Posted on December 1, 2007 \| Comments (0)