Month: February 2004

I’m beginning to worry that the Republicans might be behind this smear-job on Kerry. So does a reader:

“Well, this may be it. As a life-long Republican, I have defended my party and its leaders through thick and thin over the years, but I don’t know if I can do it any longer. I voted for Reagan in 1984 (my first Presidential election), despite my misgivings about the rising influence of the Religious Right and my displeasure at the ludicrous budget deficits, because of his moral clarity on the issue of Communism. I voted for Bush Sr. in ’88 and ’92, and for Dole in ’96. Both were serious men, deserving of respect. Nevertheless, I was disgusted by the conduct of my party in the 1990s, vis-a-vis the Clinton scandals. That man has no moral compass, in my opinion, but the debased and lurid tone of the Republican attacks was reprehensible. The further intrusion of the Religious Right into the private lives of the American people, including the President, was not what I signed on for when I joined the Republican party.

When 2000 rolled around, and the “Clinton Wars” finally seemed to be behind us, I breathed an enormous sigh of relief. I was not overly impressed with George W. Bush (I voted for McCain in the primaries), but I was confident that the “grown ups” in the party would steer a responsible course for the ship of state. That has obviously not happened. The budget deficits are nigh unforgivable, and though I agree entirely with the vision of the President’s foreign policy, the diplomatic execution has been, shall we say, somewhat less impressive than his father’s. Further, the proposal to reverse the course of history and once again enshrine discrimination in our Constitution via the Gay Marriage Amendment, about which you have spoken quite eloquently, almost makes me embarassed to admit I’m a Republican. This is what the party of Lincoln has come to?

Now, after all this, it appears that the conservative/Republican diaspora is preparing yet another round of peeping-tom character assassination rather than a substantive debate on the very important issues our country actually faces, using Drudge as its point-man. I just can’t take it anymore. I realize the feelings of one person are irrelevant in political calculations at this level, but if the Republicans really do take us back down the Lewinsky path, this is one vote they will most assuredly be losing in November.”

I agree. If the Republicans are behind this, they deserve to be trashed. This is absolutely not something that deserves to be a factor in our current debate.

An old Boston Herald story has been unearthed by Mickey.

On the alleged Kerry scandal. Hat tip: Glenn. I guess I should say two things: I do not give a damn about Kerry’s private life and do not believe that it should be a part of this campaign. But the deeper point is that the internet has ended any semblance of a barrier between respectable news and gossip. Once Drudge has posted, the story is public. This is an awful development, but it is real. I should also say: I know of no hard evidence that this rumor is even faintly true. But true or not, if the Republicans planted it, they should be excoriated. If a rival Democratic candidate did, ditto.

“It’s never too early to change the world — women interns are our future!” I got this from Taranto – which means the Kerry intern story has now been aired by the Wall Street Journal. It took a few hours to go from Drudge to the WSJ Online.

The “mainstream” stories are here. From the Brits. And from the meta-press.

The most fascinating aspect of the current breathless atmosphere in Washington around the Kerry intern sex story is a meta one. How is this filtering through the media? A friend IMed me this morning after seeing the Drudge story and asked, “When is this going mainstream?” I’m like: “Drudge is the mainstream.” In terms of readership and meta-media clout, Drudge is more important on the web than the New York Times. Now we have the Congressional Quarterly email Drudge has purloined and posted, which adds further credence to the story, and Lehane seems to be behind it. But if Lehane is behind it, and if Clark voiced the rumor “off the record” (ha!) to reporters earlier this week, why is Clark endorsing an “imploding” candidate? Weirder and weirder. Meanwhile, the campaign blogs are all achatter, and this blog and others are unafraid to write about it. If Lewinsky took days to go mainstream after Drudge, this story might take mere hours. If there’s something to it, of course.

PARANOID AFTER-THOUGHT: I was always a little suspicious about Terry McAuliffe’s raising of the Bush National Guard AWOL issue. I wondered: why are they doing this now, rather than wait till later? Now I wonder if it wasn’t a pre-emptive strike. Was it an attempt to ensure that Bush and his aides had decried “gutter politics” in the week that the Kerry story was going to break? I don’t know. But the timing is suspicious. Hyper-paranoid thought: were the dreaded Clintons behind this? It certainly makes the Kerry candidacy less secure, raises the likelihood of a brokered convention, etc etc… Take it away, Dick Morris! Here comes Rodham?

Goes wobbly on Bush. Check out Venomous Kate.

Please, please, not another one.

The news of yesterday’s latest suicide bombing is grim indeed. The strategy is so obvious it barely rewards repeating. Al Qaeda and Qaeda-like Islamists target innocent Iraqis involved in the rebuilding of their country’s security and infrastructure. They kill dozens. Then they infiltrate and help spread rumors that it was actually some kind of bizarre plot by the Americans to kill people they need to win over. The aim is to keep the reconstruction off-kilter, fuel anti-coalition feeling and destabilize the place enough for it to be used as a base for Islamofascist revolt. Then you have this chorus, as reported in the Washington Post:

“There is no God but Allah. America is the enemy of God,” the protesters chanted. “Hell to the Americans. Hell to the Jews.”

The Jews? How did they get involved? Ah, yes. Of course they are involved. For fascists, it’s always the Jews. If anyone thinks this war is over, they need to get real. We need more resources in Iraq, not fewer. We need to think of July as the beginning of our new engagement, not the end of a war and occupation. And yet while this country is at war, some are trying to make the issue of the president’s National Guard service decades ago a real issue; others want to split the country in two with a constitutional amendment to bar gay couples from any civil rights or benefits. We have lost sight of the central issue of our time. We owe it to the dead to remember again, to keep our focus – and press on.

Jon Rauch is, in my view, the most honest thinker of his generation. Here’s his latest on the Iraq war – fearless, and right. Money quote:

A policeman shoots a robber who has killed in the past and who brandishes what seems to be a gun. The gun turns out to be a cellphone. The policeman expects a thorough investigation (and ought to cooperate). In the end, if he is exonerated, it is not because he made no mistake but because his mistake was justified. Reasonable people, facing uncertainty, would have thought they saw a gun.
George W. Bush and the CIA thought they saw a gun. So did French President Jacques Chirac, who last February warned of Iraq’s “probable possession of weapons of mass destruction.” So did Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, a former Vermont governor, who last February said, “My personal belief is that Saddam may well possess anthrax and chemical weapons. That being the case, he must be disarmed.”

And now he is. But I’d add something else: WMDs were not the only rationale given for this war before the war. The human rights issue, the immorality of continued sanctions, the necessity of finding a way to facilitate change in the region as a whole – these were all arguments made in advance (on this blog and elsewhere). The war was a justified mistake in one respect. We overstated the WMD angle. But we under-estimated the horrors of what was going on in that country. Shouldn’t that also count in the balance?

POWELL FIGHTS BACK: Tart exchange defending the president in Congress. Tim Perry noticed. Not many did.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I know the pain of being less than equal and I cannot and will not impose that status on anyone else. I was but one generation removed from an existence in slavery. I could not in good conscience ever vote to send anyone to that place from which my family fled.” – African-American state senator in Massachusetts, Diane Wilkerson, on why she supports equal marriage rights for all citizens.