PERRspectives: May 2009 Archives

May 2009 Archives

	Before Tiller Murder, Palin Refused to Condemn Anti-Abortion Terrorism As I've noted before, the distance between the incendiary rhetoric of the Republican Party and anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-government and above all anti-abortion extremism is a growing ever shorter. With Sunday's murder of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, that disturbing dynamic deserves deeper examination. After all, while even arch-conservative Attorney General John Ashcroft once deemed such anti-abortion violence "terrorist," Alaska Governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin refused to "use the word there." In May 2003, the FBI finally captured... more Posted on May 31, 2009 \| Comments (9)

	Obama NYC Date Night Highlights Bush Vacation Record That Republicans are apoplectic about President Obama's "date night" in New York is pathetically predictable. That the GOP and its conservative water carriers remain silent about George W. Bush's record-breaking presidential vacation time is less surprising still. To be sure, some will quibble with Obama's decision to fulfill his pledge to his wife that they would attend a Broadway show after the campaign. Few would question Obama's work ethic while confronting the myriad, simultaneous challenges bequeathed to him by President... more Posted on May 31, 2009 \| Comments (6)

	Harvard MBAs Debut Oath for the Most Dishonest Profession On Friday, the New York Times profiled a group of Harvard Business School students who have taken an "MBA oath" to act responsibly and "serve the greater good." The ethical pledge of "responsible value creation" can't come too soon for America's future business leaders. After all, a February 2009 Marist poll found that in the wake of the nation's financial meltdown, a majority of Americans give corporate leaders a D or F for their honesty and ethical conduct. And as... more Posted on May 30, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Liddy, Gingrich, Limbaugh and Supreme Menstruation Back in 1995, Newt Gingrich famously concluded menstruation rendered women unfit for combat roles in the military. Now just two days after Gingrich branded Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor "racist," convicted Watergate felon and right-wing radio host G. Gordon Liddy agreed that both of Newt's arguments disqualify Sotomayor. Period. After echoing Tom Tancredo's slander that the National Council of La Raza to which Sotomayor belongs is a "Latino KKK," Liddy Thursday recycled Gingrich's theory of menstrual disqualification: "Let's hope that... more Posted on May 29, 2009 \| Comments (7)

	NY Times, McClatchy Parrot Rosen Attack on Sotomayor's Temperament Earlier this month, George Washington University professor and New Republic legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen turned to anonymous sources in a blistering - and controversial - attack on Judge Sonia Sotomayor's judicial temperament. Now just days after the raging right predictably made Rosen's smears a centerpiece in the battle against Sotomayor, the mainstream media is following their lead. As it turns out, 24 hours after McClatchy claimed, "Sotomayor's take-no-guff demeanor could alter court dynamics," Thursday's New York Times headline announced, "Sotomayor's... more Posted on May 29, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Judicial Intimidator Cornyn Defends Sotomayor from Rush You know things are bad for the conservative movement when John Cornyn comes to the defense of Sonia Sotomayor. On Thursday, the Texas Senator called rejected as "terrible" charges from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich that Sotomayor is a "racist." Coming from a man who casually condoned threats against American judges, Cornyn's statement is telling indeed. Speaking on NPR, Cornyn responded to Gingrich and Limbaugh's rush to the gutter: "I think it's terrible. This is not the... more Posted on May 29, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Bush, Rove Addressed La Raza, Deemed "Latino KKK" by Tancredo 48 hours after announcing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor "appears to be racist," Republican Tom Tancredo today blasted her association with the National Council of La Raza, deeming the organization "a Latino KKK without the hoods or the nooses." As it turns out, of course, the GOP itself has a long tradition of reaching out to La Raza, including appearances at the group's events by George W. Bush, Karl Rove and John McCain. In an apparent effort to top Newt... more Posted on May 28, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Justices, Not Umpires During his confirmation hearings in 2005, Chief Justice John Roberts introduced the sound bite that is now the predictable companion to Republican outrage over "judicial activism." "Judges are like umpires," Roberts analogized, adding, "Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them." Now as Senate Republicans seek to derail President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, the GOP's judge-as-umpire canard is back. Of course, that tired analogy is just as untrue - and damaging - as it... more Posted on May 27, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	John Kyl: From "Up or Down Vote" to Filibuster Bluster Back in 1998, Arizona Senator John Kyl was one of 28 Republicans to oppose the nomination Sonia Sotomayor to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. But while he was one of the most ardent voices demanding an "up or down vote" for President Bush's judicial selections in 2005, since November Kyl has been threatening to filibuster President Obama's picks for the Supreme Court. The latest shot across the bow from Kyl, the Senate's #2 ranking Republican, came on Sunday, just... more Posted on May 26, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	After Notre Dame Debacle, Donohue Decries Irish Clergy Hysteria In the run-up to President Obama's commencement address at Notre Dame last week, few of his opponents were as outspoken as William A. Donohue. After all, the face of the Catholic League compared Obama to Klansman turned conservative politician David Duke and denounced the President as "someone who supports selective infanticide." But now that Obama, who continues to enjoy the overwhelming support of American Catholics, has delivered his graduation speech to great acclaim, defender of the faith Donohue is on... more Posted on May 25, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Israel Again Cites Secret Bush Agreement to Expand Settlements Despite encountering a wall of opposition from both the Obama administration and Congress during his recent visit to Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted he would nevertheless expand existing settlements in the West Bank to account for "natural growth." But as the Israelis again made clear, they are relying on a secret 2004 agreement with President Bush which, contradicting his administration's public statements, gave a greenlight to new settlement activity. To be sure, the line from Washington has been... more Posted on May 24, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Did Alberto Gonzales Lie to Congress over Torture? "Senator, that I don't recall remembering." With those six words uttered during the furor over his purge of U.S. prosecutors, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales likely etched his epitaph. But as it turns out, "hypothetical" may be the most important word Gonzales ever spoke to Congress. New revelations this week suggest that in the spring of 2002 then-White House Counsel Gonzales personally approved the use of waterboarding, months before the Justice Department's infamous Bybee memo blessed the practice. By labeling... more Posted on May 23, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Obama Repudiates Bush Doctrine in Annapolis Speech On Friday, President Obama addressed the graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy. In promising to "maintain America's military dominance," Obama also signaled a clear break with his predecessor's Manichean worldview and the Bush doctrine of preemptive war. As it turns out, George W. Bush debuted those discredited concepts seven years ago during a service academy commencement address of his own, his speech to the West Point class of 2002. Obama's repudiation of Bush's aggressive unilateralism was evident in a pledge... more Posted on May 22, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Bush Finally Greeted as Liberator In the run-up to the war in Iraq, Dick Cheney infamously predicted, "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted in liberators." Just days later John McCain too declared, "There's no doubt in my mind" that "we will be welcomed as liberators." Now six years later, George W. Bush is finally doing some liberating, not in Baghdad but in New Mexico. Speaking to graduating high school students in Artesia, the ex-President revealed it was he himself who had been... more Posted on May 22, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Gingrich Called CIA's 2007 Iran NIE a "Coup d'Etat" Yesterday, I detailed the legion of leading Republicans and their acolytes in the right-wing echo who less than two years ago insisted that the CIA was an "anti-Bush cabal" seeking to "undermine" the President. Leading the calls for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to step down over her claim the CIA "misled" Congress is her disgraced predecessor, Newt Gingrich. As it turns out, Gingrich himself didn't merely calls the agency's 2007 Iran National Intelligence Estimate "misleading." Newt labeled it a "coup d'etat."... more Posted on May 21, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	GOP in 2007: CIA "Misleading" and an "Anti-Bush Cabal" That House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has badly bungled the imbroglio over what she knew and when about the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture is hard to dispute. Seemingly snatching PR defeat from the jaws of victory, Pelosi should have instead simply called the Republicans' bluff and insisted on investigations of torture architects, perpetrators and "accomplices" alike, letting the bipartisan chips fall where they may. But by savaging Pelosi for her statement that the CIA "misled" Congress, Bush's Republican water... more Posted on May 20, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	An End to Bush's "Big No" on Energy Conservation President Obama today announced plans to dramatically cut vehicle emissions while substantially increasing fuel efficiency by 2016. In so doing, the President didn't merely set the first national standards for gas mileage standards and curbing the production of greenhouse gases. Obama's move also represents a complete repudiation of the George W. Bush approach to energy conservation Ari Fleischer once summed up in four words: "that's a big no." As the Washington Post noted, President Obama plans to put an end... more Posted on May 19, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	John Ensign Praises Club Gitmo, Slams U.S. Health Care Nothing, it would seem, pleases the Republican mind more than regurgitating demonstrably false and shockingly mean-spirited talking points. So Nevada Republican Senator John Ensign must been ecstatic to score a twofer last week. In a single sentence, Ensign not only faithfully reproduced the GOP's "Club Gitmo" talking point, but resuscitated the old Republican claim that there is no health care crisis. Ensign's back-handed jab at the American health care system came even as he was insisting the Guantanamo Bay detention... more Posted on May 19, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Two Last Words on Obama at Notre Dame From the beginning, the feigned outrage among social conservatives over Barack Obama's invitation to deliver the commencement address at Notre Dame was a political device, a manufactured controversy designed to create a rift between the President and the American Catholic community which overwhelmingly supports him. As the data showed, there was no conflict between Obama and Catholic voters, but perhaps instead a reflection of turmoil within the Church itself. Now that the speech, which Andrew Sullivan deemed "deeply Christian," has... more Posted on May 18, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	10 Inconvenient Truths for Obama's Notre Dame Foes As protesters greeted President Obama's supposedly controversial commencement address at Notre Dame, Politico pronounced the "speech critical for Obama with Catholics." But little discussed in the coverage of the manufactured outrage is Obama's overwhelming support among Catholic voters that has continued from Election Day forward. They not only support his appearance at Notre Dame, but express views on social issues including abortion and same-sex marriage which differ little from the overall electorate that put Barack Obama in the White House.... more Posted on May 17, 2009 \| Comments (5)

	Palin Fails Second Test on 1st Amendment On Wednesday, former beauty pageant contestant Sarah Palin rushed to the defense of another, proclaiming of Carrie Prejean, "I can relate as a liberal target myself." But by insisting "those who disagree with her deny her protection under the nation's First Amendment Rights," Governor Palin once again revealed her ignorance of the United States Constitution. As it turns out, Palin also failed First Amendment 101 during the 2008 campaign. In a statement released late Wednesday, Palin breathed new life into... more Posted on May 15, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Sessions Resuscitates GOP's "Club Gitmo" Talking Point If nothing else, Alabama Senator and ranking Judiciary Committee Republican Jeff Sessions can be counted on to faithfully regurgitate his party's talking points. In February 2006, Sessions joined John Cornyn (R-TX) and Pat Roberts (R-KS) in propagating the "give me death" defense of President Bush's regime of illegal domestic surveillance, proclaiming, "Over 3,000 Americans have no civil rights because they are no longer with us." Now, as the Obama administration wrestles with the fate of Guantanamo Bay terror detainees, Senator... more Posted on May 14, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Lindsey Graham: Waterboarding Illegal, But It Works During his spirited defense today of the Bush administration's so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tortured logic itself. Graham not only cited former CIA agent John Kiriakou's discredited account of waterboarding's success, he went on to claim "one of the reasons these techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work." During the same hearings, he dropped jaws by concluding that the Bush White House "saw the law as a nicety we could not afford." As... more Posted on May 13, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Cheney's MAD Dick Cheney's MAD, just not in the way you think. As Time, the AP and virtually every pundit across the political spectrum debate the meaning of Cheney's ubiquity on your television screen, it may be an old Cold War theory which best explains his strategy. The former vice president isn't merely trying to rewrite history or work the jury with his repeated claims that torture "saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives" and that "nothing devious or deceitful or... more Posted on May 13, 2009 \| Comments (4)

	Cohen, Ford and the 1-2-3 Torture Test At the end of the day, evaluating the Bush administration's program of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques is like a three-part exam. Was it legal? Was it moral? Was it uniquely effective? If the answer isn't "yes" to each and every one of those three questions, the Bush regime of detainee torture cannot be justified. Sadly for its defenders, this test isn't graded on a curve and there is no partial credit. And that, in a nutshell, explains why the policy... more Posted on May 12, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Liz Cheney Wrongly Claims Dad Following Gore's Example In rejecting George W. Bush's insistence that the new occupant of the White House "deserves my silence," Liz Cheney Tuesday defended what she deemed her father's "obligation to speak out." But by likening former vice president Dick Cheney to his predecessor Al Gore, daughter Liz made her dad's critics' point for them. Despite his warnings on global climate change and later criticism of Bush over Iraq and torture, throughout Dubya's first year Al Gore showed public respect and vocal support... more Posted on May 12, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	McChrystal Ball In replacing General David McKiernan with Stanley McChrystal as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates didn't merely signal a change of strategy but a change in attitude. Having led the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq from 2006 to 2008, General McChrystal is said to be among the military's new breed emphasizing counterinsurgency strategies and tactics. And as he showed in proclaiming the defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq in October 2007, he's apparently... more Posted on May 12, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Bush was Laughing at You, Not with You That the right-wing blogosphere panned Barack Obama's attempts last night at presidential humor as "lame" and "mean-spirited" comes as no surprise. That conservatives were apoplectic when Wanda Sykes crossed the line in lampooning the Palin family's method failures and likened Rush Limbaugh to a terrorist was even less so. But to conclude that Saturday's White House Correspondents Dinner proved "class made an exit with the Bush Administration" is to blissfully ignore President Bush's eight-years of joking at the expense of... more Posted on May 10, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Will Jay Bybee Be Disbarred...Like Bill Clinton? As the controversy over the Bush administration's regime of detainee torture continues to fester, the fate of appeals court Judge Jay Bybee hangs in the balance. Even as the torture memo author lobbied his Nevada Congressional delegation to come to his defense, New York Republican Peter King declared, "Judge Bybee should be given a medal for what he did." And while many are calling for his impeachment and prosecution, a draft of an internal Justice Department report purportedly recommends that... more Posted on May 9, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	The GOP War on Doctors, Patients and Health Care Reform Back in 1993, Bill Kristol mobilized Republicans to block the Clinton health care plan with an infamous two- word talking point, "no crisis." Now 16 years later, GOP pollster and master of double-speak Frank Luntz is offering conservatives a new lexicon for scuttling President Obama's health care initiatives. While feigning support for "reform," Luntz insists, Republicans should oppose Obama by warning of threats to the "doctor-patient relationship." Of course, the President is threatening no such thing. And as it turns... more Posted on May 8, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Burned by Roberts, Rosen Smears Sotomayor On Monday, the New Republic's prominent legal analyst Jeffrey Rosen published a rumor-filled assessment of Obama Supreme Court short-lister, Sonia Sotomayor. And by Thursday, as ThinkProgress reported, what Glenn Greenwald deemed Rosen's "anonymous smears" and "a model of shoddy journalism" were being parroted throughout the media. But as to why Rosen took a tabloid approach to evaluating Sotomayor, his motivation may be simple. Jeffrey Rosen may be trying to compensate for his early cheerleading for - and subsequent buyer's remorse... more Posted on May 7, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	20 Years After Iran-Contra, Cheney Defends Torture's "Little Guys" Announcing his Christmas 1992 pardons of Caspar Weinberger and five other Iran-Contra figures, President George H.W. Bush introduced a time honored Republican scandal evasion by decrying "the criminalization of policy differences." Now 22 years after his own role in a Congressional minority report which blasted the allegations of Reagan administration abuses of power as "hysterical," Dick Cheney is back to defend the "little guys" now at the center of the Bush 43 administration's regime of detainee torture. In an interview... more Posted on May 6, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Mormons Engulfed by Marriage, Baptism, Torture Controversies While President Obama's looming commencement address at Notre Dame sadly remains controversial among a vocal minority of Catholics, it is one of America's fastest growing faiths which is at the center of three political storms this week. On Tuesday, ABC confirmed AmericaBlog's reporting that a Provo LDS member posthumously baptized Obama's late mother. Continuing his church's active role in opposing marriage equality, a Utah Congressman moved to block Washington DC's plans to recognize same-sex marriages from other states. And... more Posted on May 6, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Obama's Cinco, Bush's Dieciséis As his unfortunate joke to Jay Leno about his meager bowling skills revealed, impromptu humor is not Barack Obama's strong suit. On Monday, to laughter from attendees and the press alike, President Obama flubbed his day-early White House celebration of Cinco de Mayo by proclaiming it, "Cinco de cuatro." And that, the right-wing blogosphere insists, demonstrates that "our genius president" is the beneficiary of a fawning media that would have savaged President Bush for the same slip-up. Unlike George W.... more Posted on May 5, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Hunting People for Jesus: Growing Fundamentalism in the U.S. Military After revelations that some American soldiers were given Bibles and encouraged to "hunt people for Jesus," the Pentagon on Monday denied allegations that the U.S. military allows its personnel to seek the conversion of Afghans to Christianity. But while the copies of the New Testament translated into Pashtun and jaw-dropping video from Bagram may seem like exceptions that prove the rule of American prohibition on proselytizing by the military, they are just the latest episodes in the disturbing rise in... more Posted on May 4, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Romney Brands Democrats the Monarchist Party Republicans are not merely beaten and battered. As they revealed once again at the kickoff event for their latest extremist makeover, they are confused as well. According to the McCain/Palin ticket and later myriad Republicans in Congress, Barack Obama is a "socialist." While their tea-bagging faithful slander Obama as a "communist," their erstwhile leader Glenn Beck and others warned of Democratic "fascism." And on Saturday, the once and future GOP White House hopeful Mitt Romney called Democrats "the party of... more Posted on May 4, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Bybee Latest Proposed GOP Medal Recipient This week, Judge Jay Bybee broke his silence regarding his infamous August 2002 torture memo, calmly declaring "the conclusions were legally correct." But while some Democrats want the 9th Circuit Appeals Court judge impeached or at least to testify before Congress, New York Rep. Peter King believes Bybee should be "given a medal." As it turns out, King's is just the latest conservative voice calling for a GOPy medal for perpetrators of Republican wrongdoing, a list that also includes the... more Posted on May 3, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	One Psychiatrist, Two Psychologists and Torture This was not a proud week for the American mental health profession. On Thursday, ABC News documented the essential role of two $1,000 a day psychologists contracted by the CIA to architect its detainee waterboarding program. And on Friday, Harvard-trained psychiatrist turned right-wing water carrier Charles Krauthammer rationalized the Bush torture regime for his readers in the Washington Post. In the same article in which ABC briefly acknowledged its role in propagating former CIA agent John Kiriakou's misinformation about the... more Posted on May 2, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Condi Rice Butchers American History. Again. Much has been made of Condoleezza Rice's use Monday of the bogus Nixon tautology in defense of torture. Falling back on Tricky Dick's infamous statement that "when the President does it, that means it's not illegal," Rice told a group of students that "by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture." But perhaps overlooked in Rice's banality of evil is her latest misuse of history. Having previously appropriated... more Posted on May 1, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	How Republicans Learned to Love the Judicial Filibuster The end of the Souter era on the U.S. Supreme Court also officially marks the beginning of the GOP's new found love of the judicial filibuster. After years in the majority insisting President Bush's picks for the bench deserved an "up or down vote," the same Republican Senators are now threatening to turn to the judicial filibuster they once promised to eviscerate with the so-called "nuclear option." Of course, Republicans made clear that their "up or down vote" talking point... more Posted on May 1, 2009 \| Comments (1)