The Broad View

Whether it sticks or not, it *will* stink

Today's meaningless detours and distractions from anything that might be called "the issues" are especially instructive examples of Republican swarming tactics. Nothing is better than manufactured scandals that include prepubescent sexuality and high dudgeon over imagined slights.

The lesson: Republicans tirelessly throw anything and everything at their enemies in the sure knowledge that some of it -- even demonstrable lies -- will stick and what doesn't stick will still leave a residual stink. Expect a ceaseless barrage until the election.

So we have the "Lipstick On A Pig Controversy" being echoed far and wide, from Jake Tapper's musings, to Drudge, to Special Reports to juice up the cable news bore-a-thons, to endless attacks and defense on the blogs. And now McCain's got an ad up with the inevitable "sexism" charge.

Frankly, I don't think Sarah Palin is as intelligent or charming as a pig. And despite the woodies she's inspiring in folks like Pat Buchanan, I daresay Palin's not as succulent as any pig. She does, however, have a kind of low cunning. Maybe it would be better to find a hyena metaphor. (And please don't squeal "Sexism!" to me. I'd say the same thing if Palin were a man, except it would be wet panties on Ann Coulter.) At any rate, don't miss the video of McCain's own "lipstick on a pig" moment.

More serious and potentially more damaging to Obama is McCain's latest smear ad about Obama's legislation "to teach comprehensive sex education to kindergartners." Read all the details here; watch the ad here. The legislation in question is quite moderate, includes opt-outs for parents, emphasizes individualized curriculae developed on a school-by-school basis. Its most salient feature is instruction on, yes, the kindergarten level, in recognizing inappropriate "touching", i.e., pedophiles.

Of course, the facts of the matter will never gain the volume necessary to drown out the initial squawks. It will be another clod of dirt to hit and stick and stink.

Even better from McCain's point of view, the charges will likely result in long-winded explanations and apologies for misunderstandings from Obama. There's nothing that says "Leader of the Free World" than apologizing for, essentially, getting skunked.

I don't expect Obama or his campaign to heed his increasingly frustrated followers who are begging for some spine. One DKos diarist is screaming: "DON'T APOLOGIZE, Barack Obama!!!", "CALL THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN AT (866) 675-2008!!!! AND TELL THEM NOT TO BACK DOWN!", "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" and "STOP PRAISING JOHN MCCAIN FOR HIS MILITARY SERVICE! He's not honorable at all, and he just called you a child molester, Obama!" [Emphasis and screaming caps in the original, boldface removed for readability.]

Will they listen? Are they ready to ditch a strategy that is dooming them? Are they ready to fight fire with a frakkin' great flamethrower?

Obama the Octopus? Superdelegates take note!

The "other shoe" keeps dropping.

Just how many legs and feet does Obama have, and thus how many more shoes are there to drop? As I wrote to a friend, an Obama supporter, "What's next? Asking Joe Lieberman to be his running mate?"

Put another way, a question I put forward in a much earlier post: Just how many progressive principles is Obama willing to sacrifice in order to achieve "post-partisanship"? We are beginning to get the answer.

Consider his recent stance on FISA; the pandering to the right with his proposed augmentation of Bush's "faith-based initiative;" the obfuscations of his position on ending the war in Iraq; and his, uh, restatement of just what it means for a woman to have a "right to choose."

To my fellow-progressives, my fellow-liberals, those of you who giddily parroted Obama's "change" mantra, projected your own "hope" onto a blank screen, confused style with substance -- how are you feeling today about your candidate?

I know that the FISA business has caused a great stir on the listserves and in the comment area of Obama's website. But that may not be enough.

It may be time for serious re-thinking. It's not too late for superdelegates to change their minds. All it would take is a caucus, and a vote for Hillary, and the nomination could be hers after all.

That's what superdelegates are all about...being the grown-ups who keep the Democratic Party from being hijacked. And make no mistake, it is being hijacked, by a charismatic orator whose only ambition is for himself and who has now proven that he will say anything and do anything, including sacrificing family, friends, surrogates, supporters -- and the bedrock principles of the Democratic Party -- if they get in his way.

Hillary lets go, and soars

Hillary Clinton was magnificent today in defeat. Her concession speech was layered and nuanced yet at the same time powerful in reason and emotion. Only the blinkered and biased could possibly find fault with the speech or her delivery.

It's obvious now that Hillary has grown exponentially as an orator in the last six months. I would venture that if she had been able to convey the same passion, generosity, optimism and exhortative power from the start -- well, I just think she would be our nominee today.

Alas, it was not to be -- this time around.

I was not sanguine about an Obama/Clinton ticket, but after today's speech I'm not so sure. Could Obama share making history with Hillary? Can Bill behave? Can both Clintons be content to be supporting players? Obama would be wise to consider this unity ticket seriously.

Wake up and smell the roses

Thanks to TBV byliner Jillian and with a hat tip to Gothamist:

Opening the door to corruption

I realize I'm flogging this topic to death, but it doesn't do any good to dismiss the Spitzer scandal merely as an unwarranted and politically motivated fishing expedition by the Justice Department.

Glenn Greenwald, whose lawyerly credentials I respect, asks:

[H]ow can his alleged behavior -- paying another adult roughly $1,000 per hour to travel from New York to Washington to meet him for sex -- possibly justify resignation, let alone criminal prosecution, conviction and imprisonment? Independent of the issue of his hypocrisy -- which is an issue meriting attention and political criticism but not criminal prosecution -- what possible business is it of anyone's, let alone the state's, what he or anyone else does in their private lives with other consenting adults? [...]

[W]ould it be possible to pause for a moment for some critical thought about how odd this whole matter is? Prosecutions of individuals who hire prostitutes are extremely rare. It's even more rare when it's being done by federal prosecutors, rather than local or state prosecutors, who have to invoke an anachronistic 1910 federal morality statute, the Mann Act, to do so.

Yet here, this appears to be the result of a major sting operation -- complete with sophisticated wiretap schemes -- aimed at a rather insignificant "prostitution ring" (meaning: a small business that brokers meetings between prostitutes and clients, typically via Internet or phone). And in the midst of it all, Elliot Spitzer's name is leaked as nothing more than a single client.

Greenwald goes on to condemn the "bizarre, rather disturbing, and completely puritanical" moral condemnations coming from self-appointed guardians of the public moral fiber.

All true. And all irrelevant to the issue immediately before us. (The corruption of the Justice Dept. is another story altogether in which the Spitzer case is but one chapter.) Whether or not they are archaic and absurd, the laws are on the books. Spitzer flouted laws he had prosecuted vigorously while NY's attorney general. If he thought these statutes were unreasonable intrusions into private matters between consenting adults, he could have worked to change them. It was not his role as governor of New York to become a test case for their repeal.

Beyond that, Spitzer put the integrity of his administration at risk when he knowingly broke the law. As sophisticated adults, we may not care what an official does in his private life, but the official himself should care. When his private life contains dealings that must be kept secret for legal and public relations reasons, he is leaving himself open to blackmail, pure and simple. Those money transfers could have been construed as blackmail payments. To avoid exposure, Spitzer could have been pressured to use his influence in the award of contracts, or to grant clemency in a criminal case, or to hire a particular person for a lucrative or influential position in state government.

Spitzer's secret trysts with prostitutes were opening the door to corruption in government. For someone with Spitzer's career background, the blithe hypocrisy is breathtaking. In sum, that is what is so outrageous about this affair and why he deserves our condemnation.

Update: For more on the legal oddities of what looks increasingly like a political hit job by the Bush DOJ, read Scott Horton's take in Harper's (H/T Greenwald). Horton is an expert on the DOJ's targeting of Alabama's Democratic governor Don Siegelman. This DKos diary, by former DOJ lawyer "leevank", goes into more detail on the strange circumstances surrounding the investigation and complaint. Yes, it all stinks to high heaven. Unfortunately, Spitzer stinks too.

Above reproach

If Caesar's wife must be above reproach, how much more so must Caesar?

Some bloggers are focusing on the circumstances of the FBI's investigation into Gov. Eliot Spitzer's walks on the wild side.

Digby writes: "Far be it for me to mistrust the Bush Justice department or think they might have partisan motives, but it might be worth asking whether there might be a little partisan prosecutorial hanky panky involved. It certainly wouldn't be the first time." And this: "[T]he Mann Act is a musty relic of Jim Crow that should never be applied to consensual sex. It was bad enough back in 1910. That anyone would use it in 2008 is outrageous."

Jane Hamsher weighs in with a list of very valid questions whose answers suggest that the Spitzer case is a politically-motivated prosecution, the latest in a series of Justice Department hit jobs on Democrats.

All quite true. It was one of my first thoughts when I heard the news. I would put money on some of the evidence having been obtained using methods, such as National Security Letters, that were supposedly designed to catch terrorists, not Democratic governors. So far, we have only the FBI's word that the wiretapping of the Emperor's Club started as a money-laundering investigation.

Nevertheless... Had Spitzer not been an arrogant, intemperate idiot, there would be no case. It doesn't matter if the Mann Act is a relic or that the FBI should be spending its time catching evildoers instead of prostitutes and their johns. It's deplorable that the Justice Department is so thoroughly corrupted that Democrats are punished while Republicans walk for the same behavior -- but it matters not.

The bottom line is that the feds have Spitzer cold: They have wiretaps of him arranging meetings, discussing transportation to Washington, bank transfers, hotel bookings in his friend's name, wiretaps of the prostitute and her booker, and more.

Spitzer knew the law, knew the risks, knew his position and decided none of that mattered enough. He's not a babe in the woods. Every Democrat knows that the Republicans play a rough and dirty game. He could easily have anticipated being targeted by a politicized Justice Dept.

Would it have been so terrible to keep his pants zipped until he left Albany? Couldn't he just buy a magazine and say hello to his right hand? An old friend of mine once said, quite vulgarly and hilariously, "When the dick is hard, the mind is lard." He was a guy, so I guess he knew what he was talking about.

Client 9 from Outer Space

As more details emerge regarding the evidence and charges against Gov. Eliot Spitzer, aka Client 9, in the Emperor Club VIP prostitution ring and money laundering investigation, the more baffling Spitzer's behavior becomes. (Photo: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton.)

His attempts to keep his activities secret were laughable. Spitzer arranges to send the lucky gal down to Washington for a rendezvous at the Mayflower in a room rented under a donor's name. He uses telephones, text messages and email to communicate with the club, utterly oblivious to the possibility of wiretaps in the golden age of government domestic surveillance. Spitzer resembles the chiropractor who stood in for the dead Bela Lugosi in "Plan 9 from Outer Space" by swooping about with a cloak covering his face.

This was not merely a single, outlandish lapse in judgment or self-control. Spitzer was pre-paying in cash for future services. Spitzer was a lawyer and a prosecutor, for heaven's sake. He prosecuted prostitution rings as attorney general. He knows what the Mann Act says about transporting someone across state lines for purposes of sex. He knows that it's a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. He knew he was engaging in high-risk behavior.

High-risk behavior may have been the point. In a recorded conversation between Kristen, the prostitute, and her booker at the club, the booker confides that Client 9 sometimes asks women "to do things that, like, you might not think were safe." Urgh.

I am just so angry that this jerk has wasted our time and his opportunity to advance a progressive agenda in New York. As the Times notes in their editorial tomorrow:

A further tragedy here, beyond the personal one of the Spitzer family and the damage he has done to the reform cause, is that Mr. Spitzer’s targets are now relishing their tormentor’s torment. Those on Wall Street who fumed at having to make their world fairer for ordinary shareholders can now chortle with satisfaction in their private enclaves. For New York Republicans, who have blocked some of the most important reforms in Albany, it is hard to imagine the private glee — especially at a moment when they are fighting desperately to hold their majority in the State Senate.

Walter Shapiro provides a little background on the hopes which must now be dashed:

When Spitzer triumphed in 2006 with 70 percent of the vote (Hillary Clinton received 67 percent in her reelection that year), he became the first governor in modern memory (aside from maybe Cuomo) with the potential to change the corrupt political culture of Albany. In a way that would make Congress in the hey-day of Tom DeLay seem like the Athenian democracy, the New York state Legislature operates as a rubber-stamping body controlled by Bruno in the Senate and Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, in the Assembly. Spitzer had the dream and the reputation, and he was on the cusp of getting the votes to finally move New York state politics out of the Erie Canal era.

The thought of Bruno and Silver escaping because Eliot Spitzer needed to rendezvous with a prostitute on the eve of Valentine's Day is just galling.

Cable news commentators were in agreement tonight that the only reason Spitzer didn't resign this afternoon is that he must be in negotiations to avoid prosecution. Will his downfall and resignation be enough to satisfy a Justice Department in Republican hands?

If Spitzer resigns, Lt. Gov. David Paterson would succeed him and make history as the state's first African-American and first legally blind governor. Paterson will have many well-wishers in the job, but the vultures will be circling well before the next gubernatorial election in 2010. Andrew Cuomo is a likely contender, as is the uber-rich political dilettante, Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

I expect the repercussions of this to radiate outward. Spitzer was a Dem superdelegate supporting Hillary Clinton. She will not appreciate being linked with someone embroiled in a tawdry sex scandal. Beyond that, it will merely confirm some voters' cynicism regarding all crusading politicians. It will validate those who believe there's no difference between Republicans and Democrats.

I would be curious to know how people outside New York State view this sexcapade stink-bomb.

Spitzer and all the other crumb-bum husbands

As a Democrat and a New Yorker, I can only say that I'm mightily angered by the news today that Gov. Elliot Spitzer stands revealed as just another dumb pol who can't keep his pants zipped. Andrew Leonard says it all in Salon:

"If I needed yet another lesson in why hero worship is always, invariably, a bad and stupid idea, I could not ask for one delivered to me on a bigger silver platter. The stupidity and arrogance implicit in Spitzer's alleged involvement in a prostitution ring -- which he hasn't yet explicitly admitted to, but most certainly did not deny -- betrays not just the trust of his family, but also of those who supported him for fighting the good fight. He's not the man we thought he was -- and in a profoundly depressing way, it somehow makes us a little less than we thought we were, for having bought into his chivalry. It is a monumental fall from grace."

That stuff about betraying the trust of his family is a quote from Spitzer's lame-assed statement to the press: "I acted in a way that violated my obligation to my family."

I mean, what the hell does that mean anyway? It's always the same with these scumbags. They carry on secretly like horny little piggies and when they're caught they drag their hapless wives in front of the cameras for a mea-culpa-but-not-really. See? I can't be so bad because my wife is still here. They force us all to endure statements of such tortured syntax in order to avoid, at all costs, stating the plain truth: They are cheating, lying scum who've betrayed not just their "obligation" but their wives and children.

Whether they're booking female prostitutes like Spitzer and Vitter, or living a secret life of trolling for gay prostitutes like Craig and McGreevey, they all drag their wives in front of the cameras. What must it be like to be so publicly embarrassed and humiliated?

In this situation, I can only commend Hillary Clinton who was so infamously humiliated by the Cheater-in-Chief. I don't recall her hurrying to face the cameras hand-in-hand with Bill. She made no secret of her anger. The iconic image of that troubled time in their marriage was the walk across the White House lawn to a waiting helicopter. Bill was surely in the dog house with Buddy the Lab, and daughter Chelsea was literally the glue holding the couple together. Hillary is holding her head high.

Update: I stand corrected. The Washington Post has a similar piece, "Ritual of Repentance,"  accompanied by a slide show that includes Hill and Bill in the familiar scandal news statement lineup. I suspect that this was taken after the accusation and denial but before the blue dress and the shot above. I wonder if she actually believed him. (Photo: AP/Susan Walsh.)

Thoughts on last night's Clinton-Obama debate

Despite Chris Matthews' obsessive need for "knock-out punches," I don't believe last night's Democratic debate -- in all likelihood the last we'll see -- produced a clear victor.

Both Clinton and Obama had good moments and bad, although Clinton's few missteps were, I think, ultimately more damaging because they heightened the perception of a faltering candidacy flailing and grasping at straws. The gripe about getting the first question and the SNL "another pillow for Obama" jibe were gratuitous and boomeranged back at her. Her tenacity on questions of health care policy, her command of foreign policy details re Putin and Russia, and her sincerity about running in order to help the people who need it most were Clinton's high points.

Obama was cool and faintly condescending, reinforcing the perception of his being the front-runner and all-but-certain winner. So I was surprised that he was so tone-deaf as to insist that denouncing Farrakhan was the same as rejecting Farrakhan's support. Clinton almost nailed him on that, but Obama smoothly conceded the point and switched up. Result: Controversy defused. Except, of course, for people like me who won't forget it. I don't think it was racial solidarity on Obama's part to avoid rejecting Farrakhan, but instead what I dislike about Obama most of all and the basic premise of his campaign -- conciliation instead of confrontation, a "new kind of politics" that somehow seems to equate serious and profound political differences with (I hate this cliche) partisan bickering.

I felt that Tim Russert's last question about what vote or stand they'd take back if they could -- the type of mousetrap laid for job interviewees -- was a good one for Clinton. Matthews, idiot that he is, was repeatedly high-fiving Russert post-debate for "landing the marlin" that everybody has been trying to reel in, i.e., getting Hillary to admit her Iraq War vote was wrong. I don't think Hillary ever thought otherwise, no matter how she's tried to spin that vote since. So by saying she'd take that vote back did she implicitly admit that her vote was a mistake -- a phrase she's assiduously avoided? Sure she did and, for once, sounded completely candid. Hooray for Russert. Will he or anyone else ask why she'll never use the word "mistake"?

Women don't have to ask; we know why. One of the talking heads (sorry, I forget who so I'll paraphrase) said yesterday that if we'd been contemplating a woman for president twenty years ago there would have been questions about whether or not she'd be tough enough for the job, yet that question is never asked about Hillary Clinton. Everybody knows she tough enough. And therein lies the answer to why she'll never use the word "mistake".

From the time Hillary was elected to the Senate, she's been trying to build a presidential persona that would counter the Republicans' mantra about Democrats being weak on defense and unwilling to wage war. (Some day someone will analyze how that idea gained credence after FDR and WWII, Truman and the Korean War, JFK and the Cuban missile crisis,  LBJ and Vietnam.)

Bill Clinton's troubles with the military were a lesson Hillary learned. When Bill foolishly led off his first term by trying to make good on his promise to allow gays in the military, the pushback he got from Colin Powell and the Pentagon bordered on insubordination. Frankly, I think he should have cashiered a couple of generals but the die was cast. Clinton could never get past the "draft dodger" accusations and the military practically sneered at Clinton initiatives. After 9/11, we heard stories about how Clinton had desperately wanted to take out bin Laden with cruise missiles but the Pentagon kept throwing up objections to any plan. (I hope they're happy with Bush and Cheney. Heh.)

This was always the problem for any woman who would aspire to the presidency -- especially a Clinton: She would have to answer the nagging questions of whether or not she's tough enough and able to command men.

Hillary's answer to the problem was to make military and veterans' affairs a signature issue along with health care. She has made a point of building relationships with the military and can now boast "27 flag-rank military officers who have endorsed Senator Clinton to be our nation’s next Commander-in-Chief. They join more than 2,000 veterans and military retirees who are members of Senator Clinton's national and state veterans’ steering committees."

And when it came time to vote for or against war with Iraq, Hillary wouldn't risk being tarred with the Republicans' accusations of being soft on terrorists, Saddam or anyone Bush hyped as the next existential threat. She couldn't allow herself to appear weak on national defense by voting against the mob and so has been a follower rather than a leader ever since.

The irony is, of course, that by throwing her lot in with the war hawks, she's made herself weak. It's a vote that has hobbled her like nothing else, yet to admit it was a mistake would be a sign of weakness. Ultimately, her candidacy is foundering on the shoals of inauthenticity because she dare not say what she really thinks.

But all of this is well beyond the scope of what interests idiots like Chris Matthews or Tim Russert. Their superficiality is emblematic of our public political discourse. Yes, everybody's concerned about the economy, health care and Iraq. That's a given. It would have been nice, though, if one of these preening inquisitors thought to highlight issues that should generate more public concern.

Why no questions about the Bush administration's novel theories of executive power? How about asking if the candidates plan to roll back the damage to the Constitution by Bush and Cheney? Where do they stand on torture, specifically waterboarding, and the military commissions that will allow evidence obtained through torture? What do they plan to do about illegal warrantless wiretapping if elected? Would they support continued investigation and, if necessary, prosecutions for war crimes and violations of federal statutes and international treaties? (I admit I haven't seen all the debates, so if any of those questions were previously raised, I'd appreciate the links.)

Instead, we were treated to the idiotic and ultimately unimportant "gotcha" questions that Russert believes make him look like a real journalist, followed by post-debate analysis consisting of talking heads circling lazily above the Clinton campaign like vultures salivating for the death rattle. 

So now it's onward to Texas and Ohio next Tuesday. Oh, joy.

"I Did It" -- As told to Maureen Dowd

Once again, Maureen Dowd phones in a column that is the envy of every ink-stained slacker who would love her gig. Who wouldn't like to get paid the big bucks for twice-weekly columns of stupifying mediocrity?

Today's offering is just so darned clever, you'll want to slap yourself upside the head. Dowd channels Clarence Thomas for an O.J.-inspired "I Did It" confessional. Is that hilarious or what?

As MoDo tells it, Thomas is an embittered guy who's "done it" to every one from Anita Hill to Al Gore as payback for his own sense of inferiority. As far as dime-store psychology goes, that ain't bad.

Dowd, though, is projecting as usual and reveals more about herself than her narrator-target:

I used to have grave reservations about working at white institutions, subject to the whims of white superiors. But when Poppy’s whim was to crown his son — one of those privileged Yale legacy types I always resented — I had to repay The Man for putting me on the court even though I was neither qualified nor honest.

So I voted to shut down the vote-counting in Florida by A. — oh, I’ll just say it: Al — because if he’d kept going he might have won. I helped swing the court in case No. 00-949, Bush v. Gore, to narrowly achieve the Bush restoration.

I know it wasn’t what my hero Atticus Finch would have done. But having the power to carjack the presidency and control the fate of the country did give me that old X-rated tingle.

Al Gore’s true claims didn’t matter in that standoff any more than Anita Hill’s true claims did during my confirmation. That’s the beautiful thing about being a conservative. We don’t push for the truth. We push to win, praise the Lord.

It’s a relief to finally admit it: I’m proud to have hastened Al’s premature political death, hanging by hanging chads. It was, you might say, a low-tech lynching.

Wasn't it actually the cynical Dowd that helped pave the road to Al Gore's political ruin? Wasn't it Dowd's columns about earth tones and Gore "practically lactating" that ignored the truth? Talk about a "low-tech lynching." And I'll bet MoDo enjoyed "that old X-rated tingle" when Gore, with her help, was hung by those chads.