PERRspectives: June 2009 Archives

June 2009 Archives

	God's Plan for Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin Three weeks ago, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee declared California's passage of Proposition 8 "a miracle from God's hand." Now, new revelations from Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford, two of Huckabee's would-be (or would have been) rivals for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, show they, too, believe they are part of God's plan. As the mushrooming scandal over his "soul mate" Argentine mistress and potentially other women increases pressure on him to resign as South Carolina's Governor, Sanford insisted God... more Posted on June 30, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Michael Jackson and John Roberts' Reagan Flashback Week For the second time in five days, the tide of current events washed ashore Chief Justice John Roberts' Reagan-era past. On Monday, Roberts authored the Court's majority opinion in the Austin case which almost realized his 1980's goal of gutting the Voting Rights Act. And as the New York Times recalled Friday, back in 1984 then associate White House counsel Roberts didn't have very kind words for the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. As Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage recounted,... more Posted on June 26, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	The Curious Case of Tom Coburn Politics, they say, makes strange bedfellows. And perhaps none is stranger than Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn. As the Washington Post reported today, the tenant of the mysterious "C Street" brownstone was a key player in both the Ensign and Sanford affairs. As it turns out, the arch-conservative Coburn also happens to be a friend and confidante of President Barack Obama. During his nationally-televised implosion on Wednesday, disgraced South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford made passing reference to "the Fellowship," a... more Posted on June 26, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Washington Times: Social Conservatives Fall from Grace You know things are bad for God's Own Party when the arch-conservative and faithfully Republican Washington Times runs an article proclaiming "social conservatives fall from moral high ground." Declaring "Republicans retreat from values claims," the Times catalogued the damage done to the party of supposed "values voters" by an endless string of scandals extended by John Ensign and Mark Sanford in the past week. For Democratic schadenfreude alone, the Times introduction was worth the price of admission: Social conservatives, the... more Posted on June 25, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Chip Reid and the Spirit of Jeff Gannon Jeff Gannon may no longer be a fixture in the White House briefing room, but his spirit seemingly lives on with CBS reporter Chip Reid. Not, that is, as a male escort, but as an ever more reliable mouthpiece for Republican talking points. During Tuesday's press conference, Reid was quick to echo Fox News' Major Garrett's snide ("What took you so long to say those words?") - and demonstrably false - claim that an "appalled and outraged" President Obama had... more Posted on June 24, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Mousavi and Reagan's Iran-Contra Fiasco As President Obama offered perhaps his strongest rhetorical support to date for opposition protesters in Iran, CQ offered a look back at the former 1980's prime minister turned accidental reformer, Mir-Hossain Mousavi. In 1983, Mousavi, CQ reported, ''had to be aware" of Iranian-sponsored attacks on the United States in Lebanon, including the devastating barracks bombing that killed 241 Marines in Beirut. As it turns out, Mousavi was also intimately involved in another of Ronald Reagan's disastrous encounters with Iran just... more Posted on June 23, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Voting Rights Act Survives Roberts' Supreme Court Challenge - Barely In a highly anticipated ruling today, the United States Supreme Court preserved - for now - the Voting Rights Act of 1965. While its 8-1 decision enabled municipal governments to opt out of Section 5 federal "pre-clearance" requirements for 16 mostly Southern states, the majority opinion avoided the larger constitutional issue. Which means that the long conservative campaign to suppress the overwhelmingly Democratic minority vote is far from over. As the Washington Post reported this morning, the case (Northwest Austin... more Posted on June 22, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Health Care Denied, Delayed and Rationed As the debate over health care reform heats up, Republicans in Congress are predictably regurgitating the talking points penned by GOP spinmeister Frank Luntz to once again block progress. Perhaps none of the GOP fearmongers has been more prolific than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Time and again, McConnell has warned that President Obama's proposal "denies, delays, or rations health care." Of course, health care that is denied, delayed and rationed is exactly the crisis Americans face today. McConnell was... more Posted on June 20, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	The Krauthammer Doctrine In what could be deemed "Colbert's Law," Stephen Colbert in 2006 famously told President Bush, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias." Which is why, according to Washington Post columnist and Fox News regular Charles Krauthammer, Fox did a "great service to the American polity" when "it created an alternate reality." Call it the Krauthammer Doctrine. Last week, the former psychiatrist and Democrat turned iconic conservative flamethrower accepted the 2009 Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism by announcing, "There... more Posted on June 18, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Ronald Reagan, Cream Puff As the chaos and unrest escalates in Iran, Republicans have predictably exhumed Ronald Reagan to club President Obama. Confusing Soviet domination of Eastern Europe with an Iranian election among candidates all blessed by the ruling theocrats in Tehran, John McCain blasted the President, recalling that Reagan "stood up for Polish workers in Gdansk." Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) wasn't content to declare to Gipper "always knew" to "be vocally supportive of all those people who are oppressed," he denounced Obama as a... more Posted on June 18, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	McCain's Double Trouble with Letterman and Iran In ways large and small, Americans are reminded almost daily of the wisdom of their rejection of John McCain last November. Now you can add the Iran unrest and the Letterman-Palin flap to the growing list. The same John McCain who in April 2007 sang in jest "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" on Monday scolded President Obama, insisting "I hope we will act." That flashback came just days after McCain, who in 1998 slandered Chelsea Clinton with a vulgar... more Posted on June 16, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Fleischer Declares Reform Movement Bush's Gift to Iran Freedom, George W. Bush repeatedly insisted, "is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." Now with tens of thousands of protesters in the streets of Tehran, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer declared the reform movement is his boss' gift to Iran. In an email last Friday on the eve of the Iranian vote, Fleischer wasn't content to give his boss credit for the defeat of the Hezbollah coalition in the Lebanese elections a week... more Posted on June 15, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Despite His Past Iran Follies, Romney Blames Obama for Election Fraud That Richard Perle and Frank Gaffney, two of the neocon cheerleaders for the disaster in Iraq, would blame President Obama for the election fraud in Iran is unsurprising. That once and future Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney of all people would parrot the charge is hilarious. After all, from his repeated conflation of Shiite and Sunni to his aborted crusade for disinvestment from Tehran and other jaw-droppers, Mitt Romney's pronouncements on Iran have been a comedy of errors. Just... more Posted on June 14, 2009 \| Comments (0)

	Another Susan Smith Moment for Conservatives It was just nine months ago that McCain campaign volunteer Ashley Todd manufactured a hoax in which a African-American attacker supposedly carved the letter "B" in her face. Now the conservative faithful have again been duped by one of their own. For the last two months, 26-year old blogger Beccah Beushausen won over anti-abortion activists nationwide with her heartbreaking accounts of her unbelievably difficult pregnancy. Unbelievable, it turns out, because it simply never happened. Just days after the assassination of... more Posted on June 13, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	The Obama Effect in Lebanon, the Bush Defect in Gaza In the wake of the surprisingly strong showing by the pro-Western coalition in Sunday's elections in Lebanon, the debate is raging as whether President Obama can take any credit for it. McClatchy, Newsweek, Politico, the AP and a host of others pondered whether the President's dazzling speech in Cairo and recent diplomatic efforts in Beirut amounted to an "Obama Effect" which helped blunt Hezbollah and its allies, or instead played little role in the face of competing Christian factions, Saudi... more Posted on June 9, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Mike Huckabee Sees the Hand of God. Again. As has been widely reported, on Friday the thrice-married, nouveau Catholic Newt Gingrich declared, "We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism." But in less noticed remarks during the same "Rediscovering God in America" lectures, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee announced "a miracle from God's hand" was behind the approval of California's Proposition 8. Of course, for Huckabee, who repeatedly cited divine intervention to explain his surprising early success during the 2008 GOP presidential primaries, such... more Posted on June 7, 2009 \| Comments (3)

	Powerline's Hinderaker Reminds Us of Bush's Genius That President Obama had a very good week seems beyond dispute. His groundbreaking speech in Cairo Thursday was praised worldwide. Meanwhile, NBC's Brian Williams aired a fawning two-hour look inside the Obama White House that the Daily Show rightly compared to an episode of MTV's Real World. But when Newsweek's Evan Thomas described Obama's stratospheric global standing as "sort of God," that was more deification than 2004 Blog of the Year Powerline could stomach. Of course, John Hinderaker's nausea could... more Posted on June 6, 2009 \| Comments (1)

	Republicans Again Turn to Intel Leaks They Once Decried When the New York Times in December 2005 revealed President Bush's program of illegal domestic surveillance by the NSA, reaction from the White House and its Republican allies was swift - and furious. "These politically motivated leaks," Pete Hoekstra declared, "must stop." But now desperate to defend at any cost Bush's regime of detainee torture, Capitol Hill Republicans have learned to love leaking classified national security information. As The Hill reported Thursday, Hoekstra and his allies on the House Intelligence... more Posted on June 5, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	After Failing Islam 101, Romney Blasts Obama Egypt Speech If Barack Obama's speech in Egypt is being criticized by both Osama Bin Laden and Mitt Romney, the President must be doing something right. After all, as Mitt's rich history of jaw-dropping mistakes and demeaning statements about Islam suggests, Governor Romney is perhaps the person least qualified to pontificate on American outreach to the Muslim world. Consider, for example, Mitt's November 2007 revelation that Muslims need not apply for positions a future Romney cabinet. Mansoor Ijaz related his exchange with... more Posted on June 4, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Cheney: "Never Any Evidence" for 9/11-Iraq Link We Made Repeatedly Former Vice President Dick Cheney's acknowledgement yesterday that there was "never any evidence" that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks on the United States was doubly surprising. The first shock was that for one of the few times during his legacy reclamation project, Cheney told the truth. And second, the leading members of Team Bush, including the President and Cheney himself, have continued to propagate the myth of the bogus Saddam-9/11 link they first introduced in 2002. Appearing on... more Posted on June 3, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Cheney and the Asterisk Republicans During his appearance Monday at the National Press Club, former Vice President Dick Cheney again stated his support for same-sex marriage. Understandably supporting the rights of his own daughter Mary, Cheney proclaimed, "Freedom means freedom for everyone," adding, "I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish." Which makes Cheney just the latest Asterisk Republican. Marriage, it turns out, is between one man and one woman, * unless either the man or the... more Posted on June 2, 2009 \| Comments (2)

	Ashcroft Called Clinic Bomber Rudolph a "Terrorist" Coming just weeks after DHS issued its supposedly controversial warning over the growing right-wing terror threat in the United States, the assassination of Dr. George Tiller has reignited the now white-hot debate regarding anti-abortion terrorism. While the American Prospect's Adam Serwer concluded, "the murder of George Tiller is undoubtedly terrorism," Michelle Malkin predictably rolled her eyes. But for one leading conservative, there was little doubt. In 2003, then Attorney General John Ashcroft branded clinic bomber Eric Rudolph a "terrorist" and... more Posted on June 1, 2009 \| Comments (1)