When George W. Bush leaves office in January, he’s likely to join other past presidents and write a memoir. However, publishers aren’t that interested in producing something from history’s most unpopular president at this point and are suggesting that he “take [his] time.” Even Marji Ross of the conservative Regnery Publishing said, “Certainly the longer he waits, the better.” President Clinton received $15 million for his autobiography, “My Life,” although few expect Bush will command the same sum.
The sad truth is that if Bush were to write an honest memoir–and not a dishonest self-hagiography–I’d be much more interested in reading it than I would be in reading Bill Clinton’s [book].
Trooper Wooten ended up at a desk job after his life was threatened. If I were him, I’d get a book contract and tell some truths about his former sister-in-law. He was the trooper who didn’t bark in this election.
The problem with strategic communications is that the White House that lives by it slowly becomes incapable of dealing with reality. When bad news comes, the impulse is to deny it, and that impulse turns into a mental habit. Eventually, those in power are the last to figure out the truth (in this sense, Katrina was a direct result of the kind of mentality that had already led to disaster in Iraq). The Administration can’t answer the arguments of its critics because it has long since stopped listening to them. It finds itself increasingly isolated, not just from potential supporters, but from the truth.
While researching my piece on the new liberalism in next week’s issue, I read H. W. Brands’s new biography of Roosevelt, “Traitor to His Class.” There’s a section that describes F.D.R.’s press conferences: twice weekly, beginning in the first week of his Presidency, with dozens of reporters crowded into the Oval Office and ground rules that allowed for a surprising degree of candor (though Roosevelt was a masterful manipulator of the press, in part because they were grateful for the access).
President Obama won’t go that far—no modern President would. But I hope he’ll live up to his Election Night promise to listen especially well to his critics, including in the press. He should make himself and his aides more, not less, available to reporters than they’ve been. Not just because I belong to that particular interest group and it would be the democratic thing to do. It’s because I want him to succeed.
Palin tells us there is no truth whatever in the massive clothing expenditure stories, and no truth in the stories being leaked by the McCain people about her temper tantrums, no truth to the RNC inventory story, no truth to the NAFTA story and on and on. We know about Palin’s relationship with the truth from long experience. And there will surely be, over time, substantiation of all these charges – "silk boxer shorts"! "I’m pregnant!" – or not. Just know that while the Dish is not staffed by investigative reporters, we sure do keep an eye on what they find. But don’t relent! This is not about some kind of vendetta against a human being. It is holding the McCain camp accountable for nearly foisting this farcical candidate on the entire world.
Oh, and Madam governor, love from a real stinker in unreal America.
While there continue to be many blogs, including a lot of very good ones, it seems to me that one would be hard pressed to make the case that there’s still a "blogosphere." That vast, free-wheeling, and surprisingly intimate forum where individual writers shared their observations, thoughts, and arguments outside the bounds of the traditional media is gone. Almost all of the popular blogs today are commercial ventures with teams of writers, aggressive ad-sales operations, bloated sites, and strategies of self-linking. Some are good, some are boring, but to argue that they’re part of a "blogosphere" that is distinguishable from the "mainstream media" seems more and more like an act of nostalgia, if not self-delusion.
As chairman of this committee for the last two years, Lieberman decided not to pursue any accusations of wrongdoing against the Bush administration. Lieberman’s House counterpart — Rep. Henry Waxman’s Oversight Committee — was a vigilant watchdog, holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching multiple investigations. Lieberman preferred to let his committee do no real work at all. It was arguably the most pathetic display of this Congress.
And yet, now Lieberman acts as if keeping this chairmanship is the single most important part of his public life. Why would he be so desperate to keep the gavel of a committee he hasn’t used? I’ll let you in on a secret: he wants to start using the power of this committee against Obama.I don’t think that’s quite right. Rather, Lieberman wants to keep his committee as a hedge against retribution.
I’m still embarrassed by the fact that 70 percent of those who did vote, voted yes. It means we have serious work to do. But I’m seeing a makings of a disreputable trend to turn a problem into a black problem. We use disproportion as a crutch–what’s important is that blacks are disproportionately poor, not that there are large numbers of white poor people. Ditto for homophobia. What’s important isn’t the large minority of whites, and the influential majority (barely) of Latinos who passed Prop 8, but the roughly 5 percent of the California electorate who voted for it.
Something is very very wrong with that. The anger is justified, expected, and human. But it’s not how we’re going to fix this.
There is a difference between blaming African Americans and recognizing that the black community needs to be engaged more energetically on this issue. Pam Spaulding says it best:
For those of us who are black and gay, a group too often marginalized within a marginalized community, I see this as a clear signal to the LGBT advocacy community. There hasn’t been enough outreach to those groups who voted against us. We haven’t reached them; there hasn’t been enough effort expended.
I’ve been blogging for years about the need to discuss race in regards to LGBT issues. I hope that this is now the wakeup call for our "professional gays" out there who represent us to come out of their comfort zones and help bridge this concrete education gap. The belief that white=gay is big part of the problem, and as long as black LGBTs are invisible in their own communities and there is a dearth of color in the public face of LGBT leadership, the socially conservative black community can remain in denial that I exist as a black lesbian.
I totally understand the anger, hurt and pain now roiling the gay community and our families, especially in California. But it’s important to keep our heads. I’ve been in the middle of this fight for two decades. It’s important to remember that we have never had this level of public support for marriage equality before. In eight years in California alone, the majority in favor of banning marriage equality has gone from 61 to 52 percent. Meanwhile, California’s legislature has voted for it, 18,000 couples are legally married in California, and legally comparable (if still unequal) domestic partnerships are available. Very soon, thousands of gay couples will be able to marry in Connecticut. The one state with a history of marriage equality, Massachusetts, is showing how good and positive a reform it is. New York recognizes Massachusetts’ civil marriages.
Calm down. We are not experiencing a massive, permanent backlash.
The next generation overwhelmingly backs the right to marry, and there is no sign of cultural reversal, even if we have suffered some electoral set-backs. If Obama has taught us anything, it is to keep our eyes on the prize, and not always to react impulsively to hatred, bigotry or simple ignorance by exaggerating its power over us. We are winning. We lost this one, by an excruciatingly small margin. But the whole point of this movement is education in support of toleration. Even though we lost, we persuaded many of something they barely thought about a short time ago. I am immensely touched by the support of straight readers and all of you, gay and straight, who donated time and money to the No On 8 campaign. We need to remember this as well. And the sight of a small minority having basic equality stripped from them by a religiously-funded majority is itself educational. It has already changed minds. One thing we need to remember is dignity in defeat. That’s how it becomes victory.
And we need patience and relentlessness in explaining our lives. And how human they are. It’s not fair; we should have it all already. But we don’t. And in a democracy, that means persuasion, not fiat.
A reader draws my attention to this piece from November 2001. It’s a categorical rejection of all forms of torture, as one would expect from an Englishman by birth. But I am unaware of his protesting the Bush administration’s use of torture. Did I miss something?
The Dish 