PERRspectives: March 2009 Archives

March 2009 Archives

	The Republicans' Deficit Attention Disorder "Reagan," Dick Cheney once famously declared, "proved that deficits don't matter." Not, that is, when a Republican is sitting in the Oval Office, as the tripling of the U.S. national debt under Ronald Reagan and doubling under George W. Bush confirmed. Now with the mystery budget unveiled to great fanfare - and even greater laughter - by House Republicans last week, the on-again/off-again deficit hawks of the GOP are at it again. Having blasted Barack Obama's supposed "banana republic" budget... more Posted on March 31, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Right Denounces Online Tactics It Uses Every Day Across the right-wing blogosphere, red meat reactionary Andrew Breitbart is being hailed as a visionary hero for his call to arms, "online activists on the right, unite!" In his jeremiad, Breitbart warns that a "digital war has broken out, and the conservative movement is losing" and insists the right's "embrace of Judeo-Christian ideals" has prevented it from adopting its opponent's "propaganda techniques that were perfected in godless communist and socialist regimes." Of course, from astroturfing and paid blog commenters to... more Posted on March 30, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Growing Blowback for Bush Torture Team The past 48 hours have not been kind to the architects of the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture. In the UK, British police are investigating whether its MI5 intelligence service was complicit in the torture of former Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohammed. Meanhile, a Spanish court is poised to launch a criminal probe of Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo and four other Bush administration officials over their roles in crafting the legal framework condoning U.S. torture. And in a devastating piece... more Posted on March 29, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Bush Cocaine Use Back in the News Tabloid rumors are now making the rounds that a supposed friend of vice presidential daughter Ashley Biden is shopping a video alleged to show her using cocaine. But while any gossip (no matter how dubious) regarding the first and second families gone wild is always sure to make the news, this imbroglio is certain to refresh memories of George W. Bush's purported predilection for the white powder. After all, as former Bush press secretary Scott McClellan suggested in his book... more Posted on March 29, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Issa: No More Laura Bushes The blogosphere is buzzing with the news that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is pushing for new requirements in federal law to mandate First Lady Michelle Obama open her policy work to the public. But what Issa first started in 2008 as a campaign to rein in a future President Hilary Clinton and first spouse Bill could well have been a reaction to another out-of-control presidential wife. Given her high-profile White House roles on AIDS, gangs and Burma, Congressman Issa may... more Posted on March 28, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Democrats. Saving American Capitalism Since 1933. Even as President Obama prepared to meet with the CEO's of the nation's largest banks and financial institutions, his detractors' hysteria about his plans to rescue the economy reached a fever pitch. In Washington, GOP leaders decried Obama's "banana republic" budget, only to unveil warmed-over tax cuts certain enrich the wealthiest Americans while accelerating the Reagan-Bush emptying of the Treasury. Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal spoke in apocalyptic terms of "civil war" as "Democrats bid business adieu." Of course, forgotten... more Posted on March 27, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	Newt Gingrich and the Great Republican God Swap Nothing, it would seem, defines the modern Republican Party more than belief in free markets and God. So it is only natural that leading lights of the GOP would find rapture at the intersection of the two. Following in the footsteps of John McCain, Sam Brownback and Bobby Jindal, with his looming conversion to Catholicism Newt Gingrich is just the latest Republican presidential hopeful past and future to enter the marketplace of faith and exchange his religion for another. As... more Posted on March 26, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Bush's Answer to Chuck Todd: Go Shopping During President Obama's press conference Tuesday, NBC White House correspondent Chuck Todd demonstrated once again why he ought to return to his previous role as a political analyst. Even as Americans are losing their jobs, homes and retirement savings, Todd asked the President "why haven't you asked for something specific that the public should be sacrificing to participate in this economic recovery?" Of course, Todd only needed to look to Obama's predecessor for another presidential model of sacrifice. Whether the... more Posted on March 25, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Judd Gregg and the GOP's Triple-Double on National Debt Timing, they say, is everything. On the very night President Obama suggested Republican critics of his $3.6 trillion budget plan have a "short memory" when it comes to the sea of red ink he inherited, PBS' Frontline offered a stinging reminder in a documentary titled "Ten Trillion and Counting." Featured prominently among the Republican amnesiacs was Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH), who just one day earlier slammed Obama's "banana republic" budget. Absent, of course, from Gregg's recollection for PBS was the... more Posted on March 25, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Foes of Notre Dame Address Forget Obama Won Catholic Vote Unlike John Kerry four years earlier, Barack Obama comfortably carried Catholic voters by 9% in the 2008 election. But judging from the howls and catcalls from hard line conservatives and anti-abortion activists over the invitation to President Obama to deliver the commencement address at Notre Dame, you'd never know he was the choice of Catholic Americans last fall. In a letter to Notre Dame president the Reverend John I. Jenkins, the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) called on the... more Posted on March 24, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Spreading the Wealth to Sarah Palin's Alaska Last week, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin joined the parade of 2012 Republican White House hopefuls posturing for GOP primary voters by refusing their states some of the $787 billion recovery package. Now facing a bipartisan firestorm at home from communities desperate for the stimulus spending, Palin is backtracking from her rejection of funds she mocked as "intended to just grow government." But whether she ultimately takes the money or not, Sarah Palin's Alaska will continue to rely on the kindness... more Posted on March 24, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	AP Redefines Opinion as "Analysis" If Politico has emerged as the ESPN of politics, covering the game but not the content of government, the Associated Press in recent weeks has delivered another media innovation. Time and again, the AP has delivered opinion pieces to its readers using the headline, "Analysis." But if a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, some of the output of the AP smells like something else altogether. Chief among the op-ed writers masquerading as journalists is Liz Sidoti.... more Posted on March 23, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Growing Fundamentalism Grips Israeli, U.S. Militaries Ever since 9/11, analysts of all stripes have created a cottage industry in studying comparative fundamentalism across Islam, Christianity and Judaism. (In 2007, for example, CNN featured Christiane Amanpour's special report on "God's Warriors.") Now with the revelations from Israeli soldiers of atrocities committed during their assault on Gaza, new questions are being raised about the growing power of religious nationalists within the IDF. As it turns out, that expanding role parallels a disturbing rise in the influence of Christian... more Posted on March 22, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Red State Socialism and the Politics of the Stimulus In just their latest posturing for the 2012 Republican presidential race, governors Sarah Palin (R-AK) and Mark Sanford (R-SC) joined Texas' Rick Perry, Mississippi's Haley Barbour and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal in announcing they would reject some of the federal stimulus funds allocated to their states. But as the steady one-way flow of tax dollars and earmarks spreading the wealth from Washington to their states shows, de facto red state socialism is alive and well. As a 2007 analysis (above) of... more Posted on March 22, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Sarah Palin and the 3-Step Libby Legal Defense Fund Facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees over her myriad ethics woes, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced she may launch a legal defense fund. Decrying "the political blood sport" including the "the politically motivated Troopergate probe" which have engulfed her over the past year, Palin may turn to supporters to pay off the half-million dollar debt she has incurred. Luckily, there's already a proven model for bankrolling the legal fights of Republican wrongdoers. As Scooter Libby showed, it's... more Posted on March 21, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Obama Omits Reagan's Cake and Bible in Message to Iran On Friday, President Obama took the unusual step of sending video greetings to the people of Iran to mark the celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. Unsurprisingly, many on the right were quick to scoff at Obama's call for "engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect" and paean to "the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization." But while Commentary tried to rewrite history by claiming Obama's message was "perfectly in keeping with George W. Bush's... more Posted on March 20, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	When Presidential Humor Attacks The right-wing blogosphere is predictably abuzz in the wake of President Obama's shockingly insensitive off-the-cuff joke comparing his bowling to the Special Olympics. Following as it did Joe Biden's request at a rally last year that a wheelchair bound man "stand up," Obama's unfortunate appearance with Jay Leno isn't going to help matters for the new White House. Of course, when it comes to thoughtless presidential humor, George W. Bush was the master. As his teasing of children, the blind,... more Posted on March 20, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Rice Denies Bush Pushed Bogus Saddam - 9/11 Link On the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war, Condoleezza Rice joined the long list of Bush White House figures taking to the airwaves to rewrite their boss' tragic legacy. "No one," she told Charlie Rose last night, "was arguing that Saddam Hussein somehow had something to do with 9/11." Of course, Rice was just one of many Bush administration officials making that claim before and after the invasion. And as it turns out, Ari Fleischer and George... more Posted on March 19, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Van Susteren Joins Carlson with Conflict of Interest This has been a busy week for journalistic conflicts of interest. Over the weekend, former MSNBC host Tucker Carlson blasted Jon Stewart as a "partisan hack," a charge made without noting either his own 2004 bludgeoning at Stewart's hands or his ceaseless advocacy on behalf of Scooter Libby, a man whose legal defense fund was led by Carlson's father Richard. And now comes word that Fox News' Greta Van Susteren, who landed three softball interviews in six months with Alaska... more Posted on March 18, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Cheney Ignores Bush Pledge That Obama "Deserves My Silence" During his first post-presidential appearance yesterday in Canada, George W. Bush said he would refrain from criticizing his successor, insisting President Obama "deserves my silence." Apparently, Dick Cheney did not read the memo. In a blistering attack on Obama just two days earlier, Cheney ignored Bush's Golden Rule. And as I noted Sunday, Dick Cheney has also rejected Vice President Al Gore's precedent of respect and restraint towards a new administration. For his part, President Bush in Calgary gave a... more Posted on March 18, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	O Canada: Bush Wins over Prime Minister Poutine As part of his effort to earn "ridiculous" amounts of money and "replenish the ol' coffers," George W. Bush Tuesday headed to Calgary for his first post-presidential speech. But while lawyers and shoe throwers gathered to protest the man many north of the border now view as a war criminal, most Americans have largely forgotten that in 2000 candidate Bush scored what he thought was one his first major endorsements from fictitious Canadian Prime Minister Jean Poutine. During the 2000... more Posted on March 17, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Fox News Splices Biden Again in Second Videogate Around the blogosphere, readers were shocked - shocked! - to learn that Fox News had deceptively edited a six-month old video to create the false impression that Vice President Joe Biden believes "the fundamentals of the economy are strong." But while Fox is guilty of ham-handed splicing, it's worth noting that the network is a repeat offender. As it turns out, back in 2005 Bill O'Reilly tortured another Biden clip about U.S. policy at Guantanamo Bay. As Media Matters and... more Posted on March 17, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Cheney Rejects Gore's Model for Ex-VP Decorum One day after Dick Cheney claimed President Obama is making the nation less safe, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs joked that CNN invited the former vice president only because "Rush Limbaugh was busy" and Cheney was "the next most popular member of the Republican cabal" available. But when CBS' Chip Reid protested the "sarcastic" tone towards the ex-VP, he apparently forgot that as vice president Dick Cheney told a sitting United States Senator to "go f**k yourself" on the... more Posted on March 16, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Meghan McCain's Ass, John McCain's Chelsea Clinton Joke Among the least compelling story lines in the continuing internecine Republican conflict is the war of words between Meghan McCain and Laura Ingraham. After Ingraham dissed as "plus-sized" the presidential candidate's daughter turned blogger, McCain responded by telling her to "kiss my fat ass." When McCain asked on ABC's The View, "What kind of message are we sending young women?" Ingraham used her radio show to advise her, "You're gonna have to deal with people teasing." If Meghan McCain had... more Posted on March 16, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Cheney's "Stuff Happens" Defense of Republican Failure Just days after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pooh-poohed the escalating chaos in the streets of Baghdad, saying with a shrug, "stuff happens." Now six years later, former Vice President Dick Cheney has elevated Rumsfeld's flip response to the level of theory in defending the Bush administration's eight-year record of failure. Of course, whether it was 9/11, sectarian conflict in Iraq, the rise of Hamas, the Bush recession or Hurricane Katrina, Cheney and the leading lights... more Posted on March 15, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Looking in Mirror, Carlson Blasts Jon Stewart as Partisan Hack Jon Stewart's demolition Thursday of CNBC's Jim Cramer may pale in importance to Edward R. Murrow's historic 1954 take-down of Joe McCarthy, but those who most likely would have backed the red-baiting Wisconsin Senator are just as unhappy about it. Former MSNBC conservative commentator Tucker Carlson is at the top of that list. Carlson, perhaps still smarting from his own 2004 smackdown by Stewart which helped doom his gig on CNN's Crossfire, blasted the Daily Show host as a "partisan... more Posted on March 15, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	GOP Myths Claim Bush, Not Obama, Inherited a Recession Two days after Americans learned that U.S. household wealth plummeted by a staggering $11 trillion (an 18% drop) in 2008, the Washington Post featured a critique of President Obama's rhetoric attributing the recession to George W. Bush. But while Obama's statement that "by any measure, my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster" is inescapably true, his Republican opponents continue to stand truth on its head. It was George W. Bush and not Barack Obama, they falsely maintain, who inherited a... more Posted on March 14, 2009 \| Comments (8)

	The Jon Stewart Effect: When Entertainment is News Some time ago, I did a presentation (video here, slides here) arguing that American politics has been transformed into just another form of entertainment. And that blurring of news, politics and opinion, I contended, posed a grave threat to American democracy as a well-informed citizenry devolved into what Al Gore deemed the "well amused audience." Which is why Jon Stewart's demolition last night of hedge fund manager turned CNBC host Jim Cramer was so important. In an age when news... more Posted on March 13, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	McCain Opposes Interior Nominee over Reagan Slight As part of his twilight struggle to remain relevant in national politics, failed Republican White House hopeful John McCain has apparently launched a new effort to block some of President Obama's executive branch nominees. But while the Arizona Senator claims his opposition to Christopher Hill as ambassador to Iraq is based on concerns over his past conduct of diplomacy with North Korea, McCain's rejection of David Hayes as the number two man at the Interior Department is personal. Hayes, the... more Posted on March 13, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Fleischer and Bush Still Peddling 9/11 - Saddam Link On the very day Politico detailed the concerted effort by former Bush aides to resuscitate their boss' moribund legacy, his one-time press secretary Ari Fleischer battled MSNBC's Chris Matthews on the subject of the Iraq war. But while a newly tenacious Matthews turned on a Bush White House he once praised as "good guys," Fleischer at least was consistent. Six years after the invasion of Iraq, Fleischer like President Bush continues to falsely link Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks.... more Posted on March 12, 2009 \| Comments (8)

	Michael Steele's Abortive RNC Chairmanship The modern Republican Party, it has been said, believes that life begins at conception and ends at birth. Troubled RNC chairman Michael Steele is learning that lesson the hard way. 24 hours after the publication of an interview in which he labeled abortion "an individual choice," Steele recanted. In the interim, Steele not only was on the receiving end of a hell storm from social conservatives, he apparently went back and read the 2008 Republican Party platform. To be sure,... more Posted on March 12, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Greenspan Joins Gramm in Rejecting Blame for Financial Crisis Three weeks after former Texas Senator and UBS vice chairman Phil Gramm took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to reject any blame for the meltdown of the American financial system, Alan Greenspan followed suit. In an op-ed Tuesday, the former Fed Chairman, too, denied paternity for the crisis, refusing to accept that" the 'easy money' policies of the Federal Reserve produced the U.S. housing bubble that is at the core of today's financial mess." Of course, Alan... more Posted on March 11, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	The Wisdom of Politico: Right Angry with President It Opposed It's not for nothing that Politico is (or should be) known as the ESPN of politics, highlighting the contest but not the content of American democracy. One day after President Obama as promised signed an executive order reversing the draconian Bush restrictions on stem cell research, Politico focused on the grievances and disappointment of hard line social conservatives. Of course, while neglecting to mention that overwhelming majorities of the American people and their representatives in Congress backed President Obama on... more Posted on March 10, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	The Distracted President: Bush, Stem Cells and 9/11 Within minutes of President Obama's reversal of George W. Bush's strict limits on federal support for embryonic stem cell research, the Republican noise machine was reliably regurgitating its "distracted president" talking point. But while House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's sound bite was faithfully repeated by Time's Mark Halperin, apparently lost in the phony debate which followed was history's most recent - and tragic - example of presidential distraction. That is, while George W. Bush was single-mindedly focused on stem cells... more Posted on March 9, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Will McCain Back Obama on Bush Signing Statements? As the New York Times revealed Monday, President Obama has instructed administration officials not to rely on the hundreds of signing statements issued by his predecessor. That move should please John McCain. After all, the Republican presidential candidate not only pledged "never to issue a signing statement." Back in 2005, McCain was doubled-crossed when President Bush issued a signing statement effectively negating the Detainee Treatment Act he authored. In his Times piece, Charlie Savage (who earlier won a Pulitzer Prize... more Posted on March 9, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Republicans, Science and Manufacturing Uncertainty On Monday, President Obama as promised reversed George W. Bush's draconian restrictions on federal support for stem cell research in the United States. But just as important as that key step was its larger message that this White House rejects the politicization of science which has dominated Republican strategy for a generation. And at the heart of that cynical subservience to business interests and social conservatives alike has been one of the Republican Party's most destructive tactics, manufacturing uncertainty. After... more Posted on March 9, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Majorities in Congress, U.S. Back Obama on Stem Cell Research On Monday, President Obama will reportedly reverse George W. Bush's draconian restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research. But while coverage in press outlets including CBS, Politico and the New York Times has focused on a "controversy" that is "certain to draw criticism from anti-abortion and religious groups," lost in the consensus media narrative is the overwhelming support for the research both in Congress and among the American people overall. To be sure, embryonic stem cell research has enjoyed... more Posted on March 8, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Bush to Face International Criminal Court He Opposed? The week in war crimes was a busy one. As the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing about creating a truth commission to probe the wrongdoing of the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department released the first set of secret Bush DOJ memos which effectively eradicated constitutional and other legal protections for American citizens and suspected terrorists alike. And while the CIA revealed it had destroyed 92 videotapes of detainee interrogations, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant... more Posted on March 7, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	After Death Threats, O'Connor Responds to GOP Attacks on Judges On Tuesday, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote OurCourts.org, her new online civics education project. But while O'Connor's goal is to counter alarming statistics including "only a third of Americans can name the three branches of government," her understandable motivation was the growing right-wing war on American judges. After all, amidst the incendiary rhetoric of John Cornyn, Tom Delay and other conservative leaders, Justice O'Connor was among those receiving... more Posted on March 6, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Voting with Their Wallets: Wealthy Taxpayers Backed Obama As Republican ratchet up their cries of "socialism" regarding President Obama's plan to return upper income tax rates to Clinton-era levels beginning in 2011, ABC offered a comic profile of Americans earning over $250,000 a year and their schemes to avoid the higher bills. Of course, lost in this propaganda-fest are two inconvenient truths. First, the wealthy, along with most everyone else, did very well indeed during the 1990's. Second, those wealth Americans - those with family incomes topping a... more Posted on March 4, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	"George W. Bush is My President." Six weeks into the presidency of Barack Obama, a growing chorus of voices among the leaders of the defeated and downtrodden Republican Party is calling for his failure. During a time of war and national economic crisis, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Delay, Michelle Malkin, Johan Goldberg and Rick Santorum are just some of the GOP politicians and pundits urging Americans to cheer against their president and his recovery program. Of course, that hyperpartisanship is a far cry from eight years ago,... more Posted on March 3, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Does CIA Still Deserve a Medal for Destroying 100 Interrogation Tapes? Back in December 2007, Americans learned that then-head of the CIA's clandestine service Jose Rodriguez two years earlier ordered the destruction of at least two videotapes of detainee interrogations. Today, government lawyers revealed the number of tapes destroyed was much higher, totaling almost 100. That shocking revelation prompts two questions. First is the issue of whether the videos might have revealed enhanced interrogation techniques constituting torture, actions which might have both jeopardized detainee prosecutions and led to legal action against... more Posted on March 2, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	The Last Time the Top Tax Rate was 39%... The last time the top income tax rate was 39%, the United States enjoyed a booming economy, rising incomes, low unemployment and expanding budget surpluses. Unfortunately, that simple truth has been ignored by Republican propagandists and mainstream media alike during the debate over President Obama's stimulus plan and budget proposal. In his budget, Barack Obama has basically called for the status quo ante Bush when it comes to the taxes paid by upper income Americans. By letting the 2001 Bush... more Posted on March 1, 2009 \| Comments (1)