Right wing watch

Watching Fox News today, as I often do, I noticed that they were focusing on several of Howard Dean's recent gaffes. His major offenses:
1. His campaign claimed to have come up with a joke that James Carville actually came up with.
2. He said that America should be even handed when dealing with Israel and the PLO.
3. He said that he is courageous for speaking to white audiences about racial problems.

If this is the best that the right wingers and their research teams (headed by John Kerry and Joe Lieberman) can do, then I'd say Dean's in great shape. Personally I think that lying about Saddam's weapons programs in the state of the union address is much worse, and I'm sure most of America does too.

As for Dean - realistically he's going to make these mistakes, but that's because he says whatever he wants to. Sometimes it's going to look like he's flip flopping on issues and sometimes he's going to make semi-contraversial statements. He's also going to the fawning media coverage that John McCain received. It's the gift and the curse of being a straight talker.

Joe Conason said today what I've been saying for the past week - that Wesley Clark's candidacy undermines John Kerry's. John Kerry's obvious strength is his military experience and the way it neutralizes Republicans electoral strength on national security. However, without that issue, what else does Kerry have? He has alot of experience as a Senator, true. He has his supposed "aloofness", and he has a reputation as a panderer and a calculated politician (Al Gore part II). Basically, I can't see how Kerry can hope to win with Clark in the race.

Speaking of Zogby, Bush's approval ratings are down to 46% in that poll and 52% in the CNN/Gallup Poll. The key number in the Gallup poll is that a majority of Americans do not believe that Bush has a clear plan for post war Iraq. I would have to agree. There isn't a clear plan. It's ad-hoc war planning. How can one claim that they have a clear plan with they completely trash the UN, then come crawling back to them several months later. It's hugely unknown how much help we'll get from the UN.

John Zogby has a good soundbite on the mini-controversy over Dean's supposed gaff on the Middle East peace process. Dean recently said that the US should use an even handed neutral approach to negotiating. This seems to go against the US policy of pandering to Israel during the last few decades. However, as Zogby points out, Americans typically support Dean's statement.

Scanning the Headlines
It looks like Arafat is going to be out shortly in Palestine, and by out, I mean expelled, imprisoned, or worse. According to today's New York Times, Sharon has announced a new policy of removing Arafat physically from Palestine. Will this make a martyr of him? Probably. Sharon has done quite a bit in the last two years to morph Arafat from an irrelevant leader whom Palestinians were getting tired of into the rallying point of the Palestinian cause. There really isn't much good news coming from the Middle East these days...

Howard Dean - Losing my effections
Well, Wesley Clark is getting a bit grumpy about Dean's ploy to keep him out of the race yesterday, according to Dan Balz of the Washington post. Apparently Dean is legitimately worried about Clark's entry into the race. It's interesting - Clark wouldn't appear to have much of a chance at capturing the nomination. True, there is SOME positive buzz surrounding him, and Bill Clinton recently called him "One of the two stars of the Democratic Party" (the other one being his wife...right). Clark catching fire in New Hampshire doesn't sound that far out, however. He a strong internet following that has dozens of workers already laying the foundation on the ground in the Granite State. And despite the way that Dean belittled him yesterday, any press is good press at this point for Clark. He has to build name recognition if he ever hopes to crack double digits and make himself a force in this race.

An update the Dean-Clark story. It looks like that was much ado about nothing, as ABC's The Note pointed out today. It may just be posturing on the part of the Dean campaign to release this tid bit of information, in order to make his campaign look invincible at this point. It was highly effective, I'd say. Dean and Clark have been discussed on CNN all day (according to Talking Points Memo...I've been in class).

Check out this interesting article from the Washington Post Dean, Clark Talk Alliance - It looks like Dean and Clark might be running together. That would be quite interesting, especially this early in the nomination process. If Dean actually were to offer Clark the Vice Presidency, it would be a coup that would solidify him as the front runner to stay. It would also probably force several other candidates out of the race. Speaking of which - Lieberman has got to go. His sancrimonious whining about the Dean's misstatement about the Middle East peace process is quite annoying. Take a hike, Joe.

Democrats soft on terror?

Much has been made of Bush's tremendous leadership after 9-11. David Broder compared him to Winston Churchhill. Conservatives compared him to Jesus. But, in the words of Bill Maher, "How hard was it to point at Afghanistan on a map and say, 'Destroy that country!'" Remember, all Democrats in the House and Senate supported the war against the Taliban. Does Bush get credit for executing the obvious? Of course. Is he Churchill? No. Democrats supported Bush every step of the way NOT because they are cowards, but because what he was doing was prudent and obviously in our best interest.

But even while Democrats gave bypartisan support for Bush's war plans, Bush did not relent in persuing his conservative agenda. In fact, 9-11 only strengthened his resolve to appease his base. Democrats could only look on in awe as Bush pushed a capital gains tax cut and actually brought an Artic Drilling bill to the floor shortly after 9-11. Neoconservatives began immediately to press Bush to attack Iraq, despite the fact that no evidence has turned up to implicate them in the hijacking.

To be continued tomorrow...

Does it seem strange to anyone besides me that Chalabi (this month's rotating chair of the Iraqi Governing Council) would send a Kurd to represent Iraq in the Arab League? It seems like sort of a slap in the face for a council that is made up of Arabs. Chalabi is a thug and Bush business crony that has no business taking part in Iraqi governence. Fortunately, the Arab League looked beyond this and admitted Hoshyar Zebari (the aforementioned Kurd) to represent Iraq on the council. This is good news for the process of democratization of Iraq. The council had previously balked at Iraq's Governing Council because they were "not representative of the wishes of the Iraqi people". This of course was coming from an organization that is represented by 22 monarchies and dictatorships. Hopefully a democratic Iraq will be a big player in the the council in the future, and beholden to neither American oil interests or pressures from Shiite Iran, but truly representative of Iraq.

Donald Rumsfeld has finally said it - those who criticize the administration's policies in Iraq are helping the terrorists by encouraging them to believe that America will pull out of Iraq. This is utter rubbish. Terrorists aren't emboldened by liberals criticizing the war effort at home - they are emboldened by the lack security that America is providing in post-war Iraq. We are seriously understaffed there. When Rumsfeld admit that this war was planned on the cheap? Conservative columnists George Will and William Kristol have already called for more troops. It's time for Bush to wake up and realize that Ad-Hoc war planning has been an utter failure and turn this thing over to the UN or NATO, two organizations that have had experience rebuilding nations.

David Brooks was added as a NY Times Editorialist today. It still remains to be seen whether he will be a pragmatic liberal like Friedman or a partisan like Krugman. I haven't read any of his stuff at the Weekly Standard, so I'm not sure what to expect. While I'm on this subject, I think Kristof just about splits the difference between Friedman and Krugman.

I watched Bush's speech again...it's striking how many times he implicitly tries to blame 9-11 on Saddam Hussein's former regime. When will this lie stop? A recent poll shows that more than 2/3 of America believes that Saddam was involved in 9-11. I truly hope that most of these 2/3 are non-voters, or Democrats could be in trouble.

Here are some political websites that I frequent -


The New Republic ETC Political Blog
Joe Conason's Journal - Subscription Required
Talking Points Memo

You can get some good stuff if you read these everyday, as well as the Times and Post editorials. I also try to check out
Slate as well.

Well it's late night, 2am to be exact. I just finished a day rehashing some of my political views. First of all, I realized the other day that I am still for the war on Iraq, despite the lack of evidence towards WMD and Al Queda connections. I would have voted to authorize force, if offered the chance, in 2002. Therefore, it's hard for me to endorse Howard Dean for president (endorse?? this blog has already made me pretentious.)

Right now, I'd have to say my list of presidential candidates goes as follows -
1. Wesley Clark (if he runs)
2. Howard Dean
3. John Kerry
4. John Edwards

I would enthusiastically support either of these four candidates for president. Here is my reasoning -

1. Wesley Clark is the dream candidate for Democrats. He's a Rhodes Scholar, a General, and former high commander of NATO. He would virtually wash away the Republicans' advantage on foreign policy. From what I've heard of his positions, he's quite pragmatic and intelligent on the issues. He would rescind only part of the Bush tax cut, which I like. He's also from the deep south - a definite plus for Democrats.

2. Howard Dean is the front runner right now, so mainstream/centrist democrats like myself had better start lining up behind him and trying to influence his candidacy. His liberal social positions are not a problem - a slim majority of the country, at least I think, is socially liberal (although most prefer to be called socially moderate). Dean is shifting his position on taxes towards a partial repeal of the Bush tax cuts that would only include the richest effected tax payers. This is only the beginning, hopefully, of Dean's move to the center. He MUST move OBVIOUSLY to the center. He must do it before everyone's eyes, and he must take at least one key stand that, on the surface, alienates his key liberal supporters. He won't suffer much damage for this, because 1. he's already won over most liberal voters, and 2. because of the way he's won them over. As the New Republic has reported on its politics blog, Dean has won over liberal voters not by the substance of his policies, but rather, by the style of his rhetoric. So as long as Dean screams at Bush and refuses to relent, he can move to the center without alienating too many supporters.

3. John Kerry is turning out to be the Al Gore of this contest, in that a perceived character issue, aloofness and calculation, is keeping him from "catching fire" as the Washington Post recently put it. Kerry is the victim of the media's obsession with candidates personality glitches (especially his native Boston Globe). Kerry must try to overcome this, but he'll have a tough time. Right now, with Wesley Clark poised to enter the race, Kerry is going to lose his status as the Democrat's lone candidate with serious national security credibility. I believe that Clark is going to cut directly into Kerry's support and thwart Kerry from gaining any traction on Dean. The key for Kerry is becoming the Anti-Dean candidate. As the nomination season gets closer, the DLC will be clamoring for a candidate to "stop" Dean from leading the party to supposed ruin. They will probably push and shove a few candidates out of the race (namely Bob Graham and Joe Lieberman) and throw their support behind one "Anti-Dean" canididate. Kerry wants to become that candidate, but he'll be competing with Clark, and to a lesser extent, Edwards.

4. Edwards has framed his campaign beautifully and impressed many political pundits, including this one. He has framed his critique against the Bush administration as a populist fight between the little guy who loves America and capitalism against the big guy who abuses capitalism. However, he has yet to gain much support with this rhetoric. Some good news - in a recent poll of South Carolina voters, Edwards was tied for the lead. Edwards must have a respectible showing in both Iowa and New Hampshire to hope to play in South Carolina. If Dean sweeps both of these states, that momentum will likely carry him South Carolina as well. How can Edwards catch on with voters? Well, for starters, this whole, "My father was a mill worker" thing is getting tiresome. Honestly, who cares? Edwards needs to keep up the populist pitch, however. Despite what most pundits think, it was exactly that populist pitch that kept Gore's perceived personality issues from losing the 2000 election in a landslide. Americans, especially Reagon/Clinton Union Democrats, love a guy who is perceived to be fighting for the underdog. Edwards would be wise to continue his populist push.

That's all for now, I'll weigh in on Vice Presidential issues soon.