PERRspectives: April 2009 Archives

April 2009 Archives

	Republican Brand to Undergo Extremist Makeover With the departure of Arlen Specter and its party identification flat-lining at 20%, the GOP is launching a national rebranding effort. As part of its National Council for a New America, the Party of No will host public forums around the country for its rag-tag band of tea-bagging faithful and anyone who else wants to attend. As it turns out, this is the Republicans' second attempt at reinvention in 12 months. A year ago, former Virginia Rep. Tom Davis warned... more Posted on April 30, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	AP Blames Obama for Deficit, Ignores Bush Tax Cuts Last month, I examined how Liz Sidoti, Ron Fournier and other of the Republican bath water drinkers at the Associated Press present conservative opinion pieces to readers using headlines which wrongly begin with the word, "Analysis." Now in an another broadside deceptively titled "Fact Check," the AP pins blame for the federal budget deficit on President-then-Senator Obama and Congressional Democrats. Sadly for the myth making machine that is the AP, long before last fall's bipartisan economic bailout it was President... more Posted on April 29, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Hate Crimes Debate Recalls Bush 2000 Jaw-Dropper To be sure, the heated debate over expanded hate crimes legislation in the House provided yet more lowlights for that chamber. In what may have been the second most disturbing utterance ever on the subject, North Carolina Republican Virginia Foxx described the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepherd which inspired the bill as a "hoax." But the most ghoulish statement still belongs to George W. Bush. And as it turned out, it almost cost him the presidency in 2000. During his... more Posted on April 29, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Scalia Flips Off Media Again in Decency Case By a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court Tuesday upheld new FCC fines against broadcasters who air "fleeting expletives" such as those used in recent years by Bono, Cher and Nicole Richie. In his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia as usual missed no opportunity for a skirmish in the culture wars, blasting "foul-mouthed glitteratae from Hollywood." Of course, given his own penchant for flipping off reporters - in a church no less - Scalia could again run afoul of the standard... more Posted on April 29, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Specter to Get the Jeffords Treatment from Republicans Long before Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter announced he was switching parties, his conservative colleagues began targeting him over his blasphemous support of the Obama stimulus package. Republican Chairman Michael Steele, who in February said he was "open" to punishing Specter, today called the new Democrat's about-face "not only disrespectful, but it's just downright rude." As it turns out, the venom Republicans have reserved for Arlen Specter is just more of the same poisonous retribution they wrought on Vermont's Jim Jeffords... more Posted on April 28, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Specter Switches Parties in Final Hamlet Act The Washington Post and AP are reporting that Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter will officially change parties. But while Specter's gambit to escape both his reactionary party and an uphill battle in the 2010 GOP primary could provide Democrats with a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate, President Obama's allies shouldn't be so sure. After all, whether involving his tortured indecision and reversals over NSA domestic surveillance, the U.S. attorneys purge, presidential signing statements, the Employee Free Choice Act and... more Posted on April 28, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Federalist Society Tries - and Fails - to Defend Bush Torture Team Not content with its past role in screening candidates for positions in the Bush judiciary and Justice Department, the conservative Federalist Society is back to defend the Bush torture team it helped create. Ironically, the Federalists' conference call today came just three days after McClatchy reported that Steven Bradbury - one of its members and a figure at the center of the storm over the release of the OLC torture members - refuted their claim that the military's SERE training... more Posted on April 27, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Glendon's Hypocrisy on Obama and Notre Dame The grandstanding over President Obama's commencement address next month at Notre Dame reached a new level with word that Harvard professor and former Bush ambassador to the Vatican Mary Ann Glendon has decided to decline the University's Laetare Medal. But while Glendon is apparently unwilling to appear on the same stage as the pro-choice Obama, she was "profoundly moved" and "honored" to receive an award given to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Martin Sheen and others who share his views on the... more Posted on April 27, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	WaPo Spreads Bogus Small Business Tax Hysteria Back in March, ABC News was forced to update its jaw-droppingly shoddy reporting on the impact of President Obama's proposal to restore upper-income tax rates to their Clinton-era levels. Now in a piece titled, "Small Businesses Brace for Tax Battle," the Washington Post too is fanning the flames of hysteria over supposedly draconian new tax burdens for America's small business owners. Alas, the Post is just the latest to resuscitate a Republican zombie talking point on taxes - debunked but... more Posted on April 27, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Broder Parrots GOP "Criminalizing Politics" Talking Point on Torture As it turns out, there are three certainties in life: death, taxes and David Broder faithfully regurgitating Republican talking points. Given his past fascination with Hillary Clinton's marriage (but not Rudy Giuliani's serial nuptials) and paeans to the trustworthiness of John McCain (but not Barack Obama), it comes as no surprise that Broder Sunday declared calls for the prosecution of potential Bush administration war crimes "an unworthy desire for vengeance." In so doing, Broder became just the latest to parrot... more Posted on April 26, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	King Solomon in the White House A new Gallup poll revealed that so far, the extremely popular President Obama has exceeded Americans' high expectations for him. But while I have no argument with the high marks he received for his handling of foreign policy and the economic recovery, Obama's first 100 days have at times resembled the tale of King Solomon. Eager to find middle ground on the stimulus, torture, health care and global warming, President Obama despite his overwhelming political capital time has shown a... more Posted on April 24, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Conservatives Politicizing Crime. Again. Dating back to at least the presidency of George H.W. Bush, conservative defenders of the Republican faith have turned to the "criminalizing politics" evasion when confronted with the lawlessness and wrong-doing of their leaders. And so it is once again with the fierce debate regarding the potential prosecution of the architects of the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture. Now, after deploying the criminalization of politics defense for everything from Iran-Contra and the U.S. attorneys purge to the Scooter Libby... more Posted on April 23, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Bush Team Peddles 9/11-Iraq Link Torture Failed to Produce Coming just days after the Obama administration released the OLC memos which justified the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture, a 200 page Senate Armed Services Committee report is producing a new wave of shocking revelations. As it turns out, intelligence and military officials were preparing the brutal interrogation program eight months before its approval by the Bush Justice Department. And in trying to sell the invasion of Iraq, the Bush torture team ordered the abuse of detainees to manufacture... more Posted on April 22, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	The GOP's Seinfeld Defense of Torture During one of the more memorable episodes of Seinfeld, George Costanza helps Jerry prepare for a lie detector test by advising, "it's not a lie if you believe it." And so it is with Republican defenders of the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture. As it turns out, Marc Thiessen, David Rivkin, Peggy Noonan, Michael Hayden, Michael Mukasey and Dick Cheney are just some of the cavalcade of conservatives whose tortured defenses of the indefensible sound like catch-phrases from the... more Posted on April 21, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Republicans Fume as Obama Fails to Sense Chavez' Soul That Republicans would be outraged over President Obama's handshake with the buffoonish Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez was predictable in much the same way one can forecast the daily setting of the sun. But while Obama brushed off the significance of the brief encounter at the Summit of the Americas, Nevada Senator John Ensign deemed "irresponsible" what New Gingrich blasted as bolstering the "enemies of America." Apparently, President Obama failed, as George W. Bush did with Vladimir Putin, to first look... more Posted on April 20, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	GOP Pleads Save the Rich as Income Gap Hits Record Among the more comic moments of last week's right-wing tea-bagging extravaganza was the plea from former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer to save the rich. But even as Fleischer wrongly fretted that "their burden keeps getting heavier," new data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) revealed the income gap between rich and poor tripled between 1979 and 2006. As it turns out, income concentration is greater than at any time since 1929. That inescapable conclusion is just one headline from... more Posted on April 19, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Defining Political Deviancy Down In 1993, Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously warned that American society was "defining deviancy down." To the approval of conservatives, Moynihan cautioned that when it came to crime, family breakdown and other social pathologies, "we have been re-defining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the 'normal' level in categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standard." Now 16 years later, so it is with American political culture. As this week's... more Posted on April 18, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Mukasey Defends Bush's "Hypothetical" Torture As the latest from the Wall Street Journal and Politico reveal, the apologists for George W. Bush's regime of detainee torture are circling the wagons. While one anonymous Bush official claimed the Obama's release of the torture memos "laid it all out for our enemies," former Attorney General Michael Mukasey in an op-ed written with his CIA counterpart Michael Hayden proclaimed, "The President has tied his own hand on terror." Of course, in his 1700 word screed, Mukasey never acknowledges... more Posted on April 17, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Obama Adopts GOP's "Criminalizing Politics" Defense on Torture During his confirmation hearings in January, Attorney General Eric Holder declared "waterboarding is torture." But in language eerily reminiscent of the administration Barack Obama was to replace, Holder assured Republican advocates of torture, "we don't want to criminalize policy differences that might exist" with the outgoing Bush White House. Now with word that the Justice Department will not prosecute CIA personnel who used the brutal interrogation techniques he immediately banned upon taking office, President Obama is sounding like the man... more Posted on April 16, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	NSA Surveillance Illegally Targets Americans. Again. Back in February 2006, Texas Senator John Cornyn led Congressional Republicans with his famous defense of President Bush's regime of illicit NSA domestic surveillance, "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead." Now, as the New York Times revealed today, one of those illegal targeted was apparently one of Cornyn's Capitol Hill colleagues. And as it turns out, this is the second time in six months the National Security Agency's lawless fishing expeditions have come to light. As... more Posted on April 16, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	10 Republican Lies for Tax Day The truth may set you free, but not if you're a Republican and the subject is taxes. After all, 95% of American families as promised received a tax cut from the Obama stimulus package. And while three-quarters of Americans support President Obama's proposal to roll back the Bush tax cuts for those earning over $250,000 to their Clinton-era levels, it turns out that affluent voters, too, chose Barack Obama over John McCain. Making matters worse, a Gallup poll Monday revealed... more Posted on April 15, 2009 \| Comments (13)

	The Circle of Strife: Right-Wing Furious over DHS Terror Warning The conservative blogosphere is apoplectic over news that the Department of Homeland Security has issued a warning over the growing threat of right-wing terror in the United States. Coming as it does just after bloody episodes including the politically-motivated slaughter of policemen in Pittsburgh and Unitarian church-goers in Tennessee, the vaguely worded statement seems to have struck a nerve among the raging right. Of course, given the increasingly incendiary rhetoric from leading Republicans and their amen corner in the conservative... more Posted on April 14, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Latest Laffer: Rich Too Smart to Pay Higher Taxes Back in 2004, President Bush rejected John Kerry's plans to roll back the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, arguing, "The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway." Now five years later, supply side snake oil salesman Arthur Laffer has resurrected the Bush claim. Barack Obama will raise taxes on lower and middle class Americans, Laffer now insists, because the rich are too smart to pay them. That moment of conservative clarity came during Laffer's appearance Saturday... more Posted on April 13, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	U.S. Captain Rescued, No Reagan-Style Hostage Deal News that American Captain Richard Phillips was rescued by U.S. forces from Somali pirates must have come as something as a shock to the right-wing noise machine. After all, over the past two days, frothing-at-the-mouth conservatives branded Barack Obama "eunuch-in-chief", "President Pantywaist," and worse, while Newt Gingrich twittered Friday, "The correct answer to piracy is to destroy, not negotiate with it." Apparently, these children of the Reagan revolution conveniently forgot the Gipper's arms-for-hostages deals during the Iran-Contra crisis. The Iran-Contra... more Posted on April 12, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Conservatives Tormented by Gay Elephants When it comes to conservative politics, it's a very small world indeed. Here in the United States, Pastor Rick Warren canceled an Easter appearance on ABC's This Week after his comic reversal on Prop 8 produced a firestorm of criticism from his allies in the religious right. And while Politico Friday reported a split in the ever-shrinking ranks of gay Republicans, in Poland a conservative city councilor decried the existence of gay elephants altogether. As the 2004 imbroglio over gay... more Posted on April 12, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Book Highlights Notre Dame's Pro-Choice Commencement Speakers While the trumped-up imbroglio over President Obama's invitation to deliver the commencement address at Notre Dame continues to simmer, the attitudes and voting behavior of American Catholics belie the manufactured controversy. And as it turns out, a 2003 book of the school's commencement speeches issued by the University of Notre Dame Press shows the political diversity of its past speakers. Among the headliners is 1995 honoree and 1975 South Bend graduate, the pro-choice Condoleezza Rice. Sadly for the likes of... more Posted on April 11, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	Tea Baggers Protest No Taxation with Representation If nothing else, the conservative movement is an irony producing machine. Aided and abetted by their echo chamber at Fox News, on Tax Day next week members of the raging right will gather at so-called Tea Parties around the country. There, the protesters, at least 95% of whom received a tax cut courtesy of President Obama and Democrats in Congress, will in essence decry "no taxation with representation." And if their misunderstanding of the Boston Tea Party wasn't bad enough,... more Posted on April 10, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	Mitt Romney Reinvents Himself. Again. As a downtrodden Republican Party battles to rebound from its November beat-down, one 2012 GOP White House hopeful is rising like a phoenix from the ashes. While Bobby Jindal disgraced himself on national television and the Palin clan became icons for petty crime and failed family values, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is again positioning himself as the Republicans' next best hope. In his latest extreme makeover, Mitt is selling off ostentatious mansions, bankrolling GOP candidates nationwide and pushing as... more Posted on April 9, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Before 9/11, Rumsfeld Almost Gutted the U.S. Military Despite the Obama administration's 4% increase in the Pentagon budget, Republican leaders and their conservative echo chamber are predictably issuing dire warnings about draconian cuts in defense spending and "disarming America." Of course, critics of Secretary Gates' strategic shift of resources to boost the nation's ability to fight current wars and future counterinsurgencies neglect to mention the Department's proposed budget (excluding funds for Iraq and Afghanistan) jumps next year to $534 billion, a $21 billion increase. And as it turns... more Posted on April 8, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Poll Shows Strong Support for Upper Income Tax Hikes Despite the predictable cries of "socialism" and "class warfare" from the raging right, support for President Obama's plan to return upper income tax rates to Clinton-era levels continues to enjoy overwhelming public support. That is one of the headlines from the latest CBS/New York Times poll which showed 74% back a tax increase for households making over $250,000 a year. Of course, it wasn't just Americans overall who during campaign 2008 preferred Barack Obama's planned tax cut for 95% of... more Posted on April 7, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Right Blasts Obama for "Humble" Foreign Policy When it comes to foreign policy, George W. Bush was right - once. During the 2000 campaign, then candidate Bush declared the world would welcome America's role if the United States was not arrogant, but a "humble nation." But now that Barack Obama in London, Paris, Prague and now Ankara is practicing to near universal acclaim what Bush only preached, the usual suspects on the right are predictably furious. First a little background. Before the advent of the disastrous and... more Posted on April 6, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	From Republican Rhetoric to Right-Wing Terror The slaughter of three Pittsburgh policemen by an assailant who "didn't like our [gun] rights being infringed upon" has again highlighted the growing danger from incendiary Republican rhetoric spawning right-wing terror. After all, just days ago, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) announced, "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous." Fox News host Glenn Beck warned of a "Constitution under attack" and predicted a coming "civil war" while featuring guests like NRA chief Wayne Lapierre whose group spent millions in 2008... more Posted on April 5, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	The Phony War on Catholics Barack Obama, in the telling of some Republican leaders and their amen corner in the media, is "declaring war on Catholics." So says former Bush speechwriter turned Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson in parroting the wishful thinking and trumped-up controversy of conservatives in a diatribe this week. Sadly for the right-wing echo chamber, both with their votes and their attitudes on a wide range of social issues, American Catholics are with Barack Obama. The manufactured outrage over Obama's Notre Dame... more Posted on April 4, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	What If? President McCain in Europe Just five months after George W. Bush asked, "What's the G-20?," President Obama is drawing rave reviews for his leadership at the group's crucial summit in London. But while Obama's nimble diplomacy and deft touch is helping America and the world forget what was, it's worth contemplating what could have been under a President John McCain. While Obama this week helped resurrect America's trans-Atlantic alliance with France and Germany, back in 2003 McCain played an essential role in undermining it.... more Posted on April 3, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	GOP "Death Tax" Fraud Back from the Grave In 2001, President Bush waged a largely successful campaign to curb the estate tax. But eight years after denouncing that scourge of the ultra-rich, Republicans have resurrected their "death tax" talking point, complete with its repeatedly debunked claims about the impact of estate levies on small businesses and family farms. Even as they decry the deficit spending the Bush recession has required, Congressional Republicans aided and abetted by some Democrats are pushing an estate tax windfall for the wealthiest Americans... more Posted on April 2, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	April Fools: GOP Budget a New Windfall for the Wealthy It may be April Fool's Day 2009, but the Republican Party is playing the same joke on the American people. After brushing off last week's calamitous Republican "road to recovery" blueprint as a "marketing document," Rep. Paul Ryan unveiled the GOP's alternative budget in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. In it, Ryan offers the same snake oil his party has been selling since the days of Reagan and Bush. The cure for what ails the U.S. economy, it turns out,... more Posted on April 1, 2009 \| Comments (3)