EFFin' Unsound

Finally! The Republicans have a candidate who isn’t really a prosecutor from New York, but plays one on TV. It’s kind of like Reagan being the more manly candidate in 1980 because he played someone who’d been to war as opposed to Bush I who was an honest to God war hero (not that it absolves any of the crap that happened during his presidency).

In case you somehow missed it, Fred Thompson is likely in the Presidential race. Given the local Fred Thompson fans that seem so energetic in past comment threads, there’s some more to discuss.

I suspect he’ll make a better theoretical candidate than an actual one. And he wasn’t that good of a theoretical candidate. But it is further than I thought he would take it.

The immediate question on many a politicos mind is how exactly Thompson affects the race for the Republican nomination. Charlie Cook says he hurts Rudy Giuliani, specifically that support for Thompson:

I think you’ll find that “politicos” should be possessive. Although, I’m not sure how many Republican politicos are in possession of a mind.

doesn’t come at the expense of any one candidate but might come from front-runner Giuliani more than the others. This might be an affirmation of the view of many analysts that Giuliani’s lead is inflated by his 9/11 performance and is less durable than the support of other candidates in the race.

Could be. But I’m not so sure that he won’t have reached his high water mark when people find out what his actual positions are.

The Fix says Mitt Romney probably suffers more. Jonathan Martin has a good explanation for how Thompson may take a little bit away from each of the Big Three in unique ways.

The point is that we should hear another two years of how Democrats are divided.

Like many, I’m curious to see how Thompson actually plays on the campaign trail. Chuck Todd wonders about the Wesley Clark factor:

And is he attracting GOPers’ attention because who he isn’t — rather than who he is? What, in short, makes him any different than Wes Clark was in 2003-4, sans the military medals?

Clark would have made a great president. He inspired a draft movement that had much more substance than the silly stuff around any of the non- Al Gore candidates this time. And maybe even more than what’s happening with Gore.

Thompson may well be attracting support because of the idea of his candidacy, as opposed to the actual candidacy that may unfold…though it seems unlikely even a poor run by Thompson would match Clark’s terrible showing.

I mean compare Clark‘s ideas with Thompson’s and tell me you’d rather have the later? Who needs a real general when you can have a pretend admiral? Hey, I wonder if he got to keep his wardrobe from Red October, because then that would save the taxpayers some money when he prances around a carrier!

Jonathan Martin also lays out the many challenges Thompson faces, which are not to be taken lightly. Here’s one good observation:

Thompson is in some ways a mere vessel right now for Republicans dissatisfied with the current crop of candidates. Despite his fame, his non-acting background, record and policy views aren’t well known. He’ll need to make certain who he is, what he believes and why he’s running while his public image is still as favorable as it is and before others muddy the waters.

Well I agree with the first observation. But the truth is that people are going to get to know more about him and like him less as a result regardless of what positions he decides to have.

As part of that question of defining one’s candidacy before others do it for you is how Thompson campaigns in the early states. Martin says:

Exploiting all that New Media has to offer via blogging and posting videos is smart and effective. But it’s not good enough for people in places like Iowa and New Hampshire who demand a personal touch. The modest town of Le Mars, Iowa, for example, will draw two of the top three Republican candidates back to back this week. They’ll expect to see their party’s latest hopeful live and in person, not just on their computers or on their TV sets when “Law and Order” re-runs air.

He’s got the better part of a year to put in some face time in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other states.

Excellent point. Beyond the retail politics, how does Thompson the candidate play outside the South? Richard Baehr thinks maybe not very well:

I don’t know, he make believe won an election to an office that has gone consistently Democratic since the New Deal. That’s got to count for something.

I think Thompson is by far the least likely of the 4 major GOP candidates to be elected if nominated, assuming he decides to run. This is due to one principal factor; his Southern roots. This is also one of several reasons why Newt Gingrich is almost certainly unelectable were he to be nominated.This may not be fair, but it is the reality of the 2008 race. The Democrats have had success in their multiyear campaign to identify the GOP as largely a Southern regional party, and a bigoted one at that. You may not like it, but pretending that the problem doesn’t exist is foolish.

If you don’t like the Democrats calling y’all Southern racists, maybe you should stop courting Southern racists. And then, Eric Earling, stop making apologies for them. Democrats were rightly considered the party of Southern racists for most of our history. Then we kicked them to the curb in an effort going at least from FDR in the mid 30′s through Truman desegregating the army to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and beyond to the present. We made the effort to rid our party of the racists and your party invited them in. Nixon’s Southern strategy. Reagan opening his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi! Making sure Bob Jones is a stop on the campaign trail! Genuflecting to the Confederate flag. Attempts to end affirmative action legislatively and through the courts. Christ on the cross, if you don’t want to be seen as the party of racists do something about the racists in your party.

It will be interesting to see if that’s true. Current polling in the three most-watched early states supports Baehr’s thesis, at least anecdotally. In South Carolina Thompson runs a comfortable third. In Iowa and New Hampshire he holds only a distant fourth by comparison.

If he can’t do shit in Iowa or New Hampshire, he’s not going to be running well in South Carolina. And what the hell is a comfortable third?

All this raises a couple questions I haven’t seen raised so I’ll pose them here. It is quite conceivable Thompson has trouble catching up in Iowa and New Hampshire, where organization and retail politics still play huge factors. Does he then become a Giuliani-like candidate, looking past the earliest states, hoping to survive the media rush of those first contests with eyes on bigger prizes like Florida on January 29th and the de facto national primary on February 5th? Can two major candidates hope to pull that strategy off while two others pay more serious attention to Iowa and New Hampshire? The potential permutations of various candidates winning and losing assorted states – and how that all affects the race – are mind boggling.

There’s no way you come in 4th, come in 4th, and then win big. Especially as a late entrant without much more to provide. People aren’t going to line up with a loser.

So, Thompson fans and other interested readers, what say you to all this?

I say they are all losers, so nominate whoever you want.

There’s not much for snarking on today, so an honest answer to what I think is an honest question. Maybe if I hadn’t spent a couple hours at the beach instead of at the blog, I’d have some more time to find something crazy.

Question

OK

Many people think George Bush extremely foolish for refusing to talk to leaders whose policies he doesn’t like. Syria is an example. And I agree with that view: Bush has got it all wrong.. As the Godfather said, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” It seems to me that one should especially talk to people you detest (and btw I think you can simultaneously be in physical conflict with them at the same time.)

But some people condemn Dennis Kucinich because is willing to appear on the FOX network . (Kucinich and FOX come down on different sides of almost every issue.) I don’t get the distinction. Talking with an adversary, especially talking to their followers (e.g. the FOX audience), seems like a particularly important thing to do.

Why not talk? It doesn’t mean that you like them or respect them or support them. All you are doing is acknowledging that they exist, which is incontrovertible.

Well we can’t make Iran or Syria go away and not talking with them has made the situation worse. I don’t mind the candidates going on Fox, and in fact think it’s a good idea for the most part. Because as when Bill Clinton was on, you have a chance to confront the propaganda in a way that you don’t when it’s sound bites and 8 candidates. To stretch the metaphor at the beginning of the post to the point where it’ll probably break, talks with enemy countries or propaganda outlets are fine but there have to be some ground rules.

So Eric Earling seems surprised that liberals don’t like to eat shit sandwiches.

Re: The Netroots Are Angry

The righties are thrilled that the war is continuing. And that’s really the problem. They view the war not in terms of the dead or the maimed and injured. They sure as hell don’t care abut the Iraqi dead or the Iraqi living. They don’t even see the war in terms of the supposed goals (as evidenced by how often those goals change). They view the war in terms of politics. Hey if Democrats are upset, it must be a good thing. Well I’m about as partisan as they come, but if Bush wants credit for ending the war, he can have it, if he can end it.

Here’s a couple links in follow-up to this post on the rage of the netroots in the wake of Democrats in Congress bowing to reality on the Iraq spending bill:

I think that’s been our mistake. I think instead of complaining about how awful this shit sandwich they made us eat tastes, we should make sure that the next funding bill tastes as shitty to Republicans as this one tastes to us: Attach tax increases to pay for the war at a greater rate than they were at when he took office at least for the highest income bracket. Price controls on gas and other things that are needed by the troops in the field. A maximum amount on what contractors can make and an end to no-bid contracts. Harsh punishments for war profiteering. Strengthen USERRA. This is the cost for 3 more months of war, that’s what you get until the end of January. This war is a necessity? Fine, let’s do it right.

Will at Horse’s Ass has some thoughts. He’s not happy. Nor is the liberal Girl Next Door.

Of course they aren’t happy. They just watched their party vote to continue a horribly immoral war for another few months. Imagine how unhappy you would be if President Bush signed single payer health care into law.

And speaking of that, that’s the attachment to the funding until April. You think this war is necessary? Well that’s the cost of war. And it should be a hell of a lot less than 3468 dead as of today, and probably about 4000 by the time time that extension comes around. Don’t like it? End the war or that’s the shit you have to eat! Hell, there’s another 2 or 3 more big ticket items we can also force Bush to sign. I’m thinking real gun control that includes a much stricter definition of assault weapon and how about hand guns? Don’t like it? Well we don’t like our occupation of Iraq. That’s your yummy shit sandwich to go with the one you’re serving us!

Jonathan Alter – who for my money is one of the more reliably anti-conservative shills in the pundit class – also weighs in with a critique of the netroots similar to my original post:

The first thing to understand is that Democrats may have won the midterms but they lack the votes to end the war in Iraq. Some liberals don’t seem to get this elemental fact.

Well, that is important to understand. It’s also important to try to figure out how to get that many votes as soon as possible.

Darn civics.

And damn this war.

None of the usual snark. But here’s a few things worth a read:

* Shaun at Upper Left quotes Eric Bogle’s lyrics in a reminder of the futility of another war.

* mcjoan reminds us of the fallen journalists in this war and how many road blocks the administration is putting up just to do the basics of reporting over in Iraq.

* The General has some words from Steny and the Blue Dogs for next year’s Memorial Day.

Oh Radio Equalizer. This kind of crazy may be why you aren’t on the air anymore.

One of the more interesting conspiracy theories to emerge from yesterday’s Rosie O’Donnell implosion is the idea that conservative talkers have used her to avoid talking about Iraq.

Well, I read the thing you’re about to link to and they didn’t say there was a conspiracy. They said Fox choses to cover the trivial and the mundane rather than actual news. That they prefer celebrity gossip and chatting with crazy people who want to beat people up with a bat to covering Iraq and the U.S. Attorney thing.

Think we’re joking? From the anti- FOX News Channel News Hounds site, here it is:

I mean on dictionary.com they define conspiracy with 4 definitions that don’t make sense to the situation and, “5.any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.” So given that the result is that they did talk about her instead of Iraq, I guess a stretch could be made that this was a conspiracy. But I’m still caught up on the use of the word.

(more…)

So Goldy has a post up about Rob McKenna appointing Tim Ford to that position.

So forgive me for not cheering at the news that WA Attorney General Rob McKenna has named Tim Ford, a former BIAW attorney and Sound Politics contributor as his new “Open Government Ombudsman.” Yeah… nothing instills confidence in the AG’s open government initiative like having it overseen by a ruthlessly partisan Republican.

I guess a look back at some of his posts might be in order. First, here on the only ruling of significance that went the Republicans’ way in the election contest:

But that didn’t stop the Democrat party from trying to dismiss the election contest. They claimed that the Legislature is the proper venue.

Not only was this motion based on questionable legal arguments, but now there will be a “perception” that momentum has shifted to Dino Rossi. The newspapers will report on the Democrats’ loss, and the story will gain fresh interest. Keeping the story alive in the media is necessary to fight voter apathy, and the Democrats are helping the Republicans with questionable lawyering based only on the transparent desire to throw the election contest to a partisan tribunal in the Legislature. While the Democrats motion to dismiss doesn’t sink to the frivolous, public opinion will continue to favor Rossi because of bad lawyering by the Democrats.

First, it’s called the Democratic Party, and you sound like an asshole.

But to the substance, lawyering by the Democrats won the case. Ultimately the lawyering was just so bad that Dino Rossi decided not to press ahead and appeal his bullshit case. So good call. And momentum? Really? It’s bad enough when sports commentators do it, but hiring someone who believes that lawyers should take it into consideration is kind of a demonstration of failing up ain’t it?

But maybe his judgment is more sound in other areas. Here’s a post called, “YELLING FIRE IN A CROWDED THEATRE??” where from what I can tell olde timey spelling and the extra question mark aren’t ironic, just stupid. Anyway, he concludes it thusly:

If Newsweek is not responsible for the deaths of innocent people in Afghanistan, it (and other MSM outlets like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) is most definitely responsible for killing the integrity of the press with its liberal bias.

Well, I’ll help you out. No. They aren’t really a liberal mag. The Nation is a liberal mag. Harpers is sometimes embarrassing but is a liberal mag. Hell, even the Joe Lieberman Weekly is a liberal mag when it isn’t war mongering. Newsweek and the PI are middle of the road. And there is a time when it’s not only OK to yell fire in a crowded theatre (sigh), but an affirmative duty of decent citizenship: I’m referring to when you have a reasonable belief that the theatre (double sigh) is on fire.

But moving along, what are Ford’s thoughts on a bizarre and make believe nexus of education and criminal justice? I’m glad you asked:

Those opposed to the death penalty apparently want juries to “count every murder.” In King County, anyone with fewer than 48 murders should not get the death penalty.

Fuzzy math is a product of our liberal education system. But liberals aren’t happy with just breaking the education system, now they want to break the justice system, and King County may not be able to ever seek another death penalty again. In fact, King County claims that the case has cost about a $1,000,000 so far and they didn’t even get to trial. However, the degree to which political correctness has become a consideration is amplified in King County where prosecutors might now be more “touchy-feely” than “hard-nosed.” Norm Maleng argues it was more a matter of time and unwilling witnesses that finalized the decision to dismiss the capital charges.

“Champion”-ing the Death Penalty has become a game in Washington State, and the courts and legal system are most easily manipulated in liberal King County, where only five people have been sentenced to death in the last 25 years and none have yet been executed. The decision to seek the death penalty is too political to be entrusted only to elected County prosecutors. It is time for legislative reform allowing the State Attorney General to seek the death penalty. The state has greater resources, and is more likely to apply a uniform standard when seeking the death penalty, that is less subject to forces of political correctness in liberal counties like King.

What the fuck? County Attorneys are political creatures but the AG’s office (where he’ll be working now) isn’t political? That Norm Maleng (God rest his soul) was somehow more political than Rob motherfucking McKenna! And that this has to do with education somehow. But maybe he’ll clarify in a comment:

“Fuzzy math” or “new-new” was a curricular proposed by the National Council of Teacher of Mathematics(NCTM) and has been adopted nationwide as a philosophy of math education. The philosophy views correct answers as less important than the thinking “processes” exhibited by the children.

The connection between the education system and the justice system is not really a stretch. The focus is always on the “process” rather than the result. When it comes to capital punishment cases, justice can be delayed by attacking the process. Multiple appeals can tie up a county’s resources. For defense attorneys in capital punishment cases, the game is not necessarily about winning the trial, but rather tying up the county and courts so that the death sentence is rarely exercised. The effect is that counties are discouraged through economics from pursuing the death penalty. So while it remains a legal option to seek the death penalty, counties don’t view it as a practical option.

So the process doesn’t matter as long as we kill the right people? That’s a hell of a philosophy for someone charged with government oversight. Seriously.

But still, maybe knowing this he can still be fair? Well here’s a post where he says that the state should keep funding the BIAW while he’s an employee of the BIAW. He does disclose the conflict of interest, but says that the state should over fund the partisan organization that signs his paychecks:

Fromhold’s partisan bill attempts to cut the funding of the Building Industry Association of Washington (“BIAW”), a political foe as discussed in an earlier post. While Fromhold is unable to admit that he is the water-boy for Labor, at least Senator Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines and Labor Council’s Communications Director, gives a straight answer: “Our plan is to cut their (BIAW’s) funding out from under them.”

I’m always amazed to find out what’s struck a conservative chord. Although I guess anything with Hillary Clinton sends them into a tizzy of hate.

Deafeat Communism is 2008!

Deafeat? Is 2008? Really. Off to a rollicking start.

Right Here, Right Now (Jesus Jones)

I’ll spare you the lyrics, but you can click through if you really want a 1990′s flash back.

This has always been one of my favorite songs from the early 90’s.  It’s a song inspired by the liberation of Eastern Europe from Communism and Oppression.

I’m a bigger fan of the fall of Communism than of the song.

It has even more power if you can see the original video for the song (which I am still searching for – YouTube has mysteriously removed it).

And yet they keep this. Really, it must be a conspiracy for non-lame rock (your mileage may vary).

The idea that Hilary Clinton, a left wing politician if there ever was one, would consider this song for her campaign theme song is disrespectful to those that fought, and died, for freedom from her political brothers and sisters.

The worst thing about Communism was that people could see a damn doctor. It wasn’t the political oppression. It wasn’t the purges. It wasn’t jailing dissidents and artists. It wasn’t the empire. Nope. Health care.

Todd Seavey at NRO Online has a much more eloquent take on this:

The “O” stands for “Online” so you didn’t need to write it out.

There is no shortage of left-wing bands Hillary could have picked. Why not the Clash, who may be the cleverest musical propagandists of all time? Why not Bob Dylan or Tracy Chapman, who are both mentioned disparagingly in the Jesus Jones song (Dylan by name, Chapman as that “woman on the radio [who] talked about revolution when it’s already passed her by”). How about the covertly Marxist yet thoroughly fluffy Top 40 band Scritti Politti, who sang “[I’ve got a] Perfect Way” — and who probably do think that one perfect, centralized health care plan is exactly the way to go? Why not use that pro-wealth-distribution song “Hunger Strike” that Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder sang back in the ’90s?

Hunger Strike is a better song, but seriously, I’m not sure it’s pro-wealth distribution beyond stealing bread. While The Clash are great, I don’t think a London band would sell well on the campaign trail. I mean shit, why not Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her or Manic Street Preachers (and yes, I’m totally a nerd). Tracy Chapman and Bob Dylan would also be fine choices. My guess is that it’s something in Chelsea’s record collection or that of some staffer who are probably the age that that song was on the radio all the damn time when they were growing up.

The Left has so many rock’n’ roll songs to choose from, it’s a crime to take one of the few that belongs to the Right — to the extent that it is not simply the treasured inheritance of free people everywhere.

Hillary is running in America, the last time I checked we’re free people somewhere. Although, in fairness, we do like to torture people and eavesdrop on our own citizenry.