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February 28, 2007
Obstruction or Simple Corruption?
The suspects are GOP Senator Pete Domenici and GOP Rep. Heather Wilson -- who was in a pretty tight race at the time.
No need to say that this administration, which fired Iglesias, will invest no time or energy in examining whether these contacts with the former U.S. Attorney were merely inappropriate or potentially criminal. See 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1503 (obstruction of justice). In fact, there may be a case to be made that if the White House, or its DOJ minions, fired Iglesias in retaliation for not playing nice with the local Repubs, then the responsible decider himself, or herself, violated or conspired to violate Section 1503. (More on that in another post.)
Certainly, Congress has been rooting around in this matter.
But what seems worth asking is whether, if the Democrat[ ] Party takes the White House in '08, a grand jury investigation will be opened to look into these firings to see if obstruction, or any other criminal offense, was committed.
Obviously, firing a U.S. Attorney for not persuading a grand jury to indict someone on the eve of an election to aid his party in retaining its Congressional advantage is nothing like lying about sex with an intern. I mean, hell, we're only talking about abusing the justice system to gain a political advantage over the opposing political party -- something that hasn't happened since . . . Nixon.
But if I were the Attorney General in '09 for a Democrat[ ] president -- or even just a lowly Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, like John Yoo was on 9/11 -- I think I'd recommend to my boss that the firing of David Iglesias be investigated. Let the chips fall where they may.
Posted by shertaugh at 6:05 PM | Comments (1)
The Day The Music Died. Again.
I agree. By the time Thomas Dolby went into the ring-tone business ("Science!"), it was long since over.
UPDATE: Holy crap. I just learned that it's Thomas Dolby playing the synthesizers on Foreigner's "I've Been Waiting For A Girl Like You" and "Urgent." This is deeply unsettling.
Posted by Eric at 3:40 PM | Comments (2)
A Commitment to the Rule of Law Makes Strange Bedfellows
Perhaps Senator Hatch will wish to read Judge Sarokin's recent blog post on Philip Morris USA v. Williams, the case in which the Supreme Court overturned a $79.5 million punitive damage award against the tobacco giant. From his experience presiding over smokers' personal injury cases against tobacco companies, Judge Sarokin certainly became no big fan of Big Tobacco: he famously suggested in an opinion that "the tobacco industry may be the king of concealment and disinformation." But this doesn't stop Judge Sarokin from seeing that an Oregon trial court violated due process by permitting a civil jury to punish a tobacco company for injuries to smokers other than the plaintiff -- especially where the company stands to be punished for those same injuries in other lawsuits as well.
H. Lee Sarokin blogs, and Philip Morris smiles. A mighty strange "activism."
Posted by Eric at 9:38 AM
February 27, 2007
If they thought we were funny then . . .
" . . . the whole world was laughing at us."
What bitter irony.
If the election of Bush/Cheney in December 2000 was funny, then America's misadventures in Iraq -- with shifting explanations, alliances, and rank corruption -- must be hilarious.
Sorry I'm not laughing. Then again, I'm not -- like Rick Blaine -- a citizen of the world.
Posted by shertaugh at 4:44 PM | Comments (2)
If You're Reading This, I Guess You're In My Vortex.
1. Ann Althouse publishes an op/ed in the New York Times about, among other things, political blogging, and in it, she uses herself and her blogging as an example.
2. The piece -- as op/eds are wont to do -- makes me think. I think some about what political blogging is, and how I perceive Ann's blogging, and whether there's a line between partisan and non-partisan political blogging, and whether that line is determined chiefly by motive, effect, or some combination of the two.
3. Being a blogger, I write these musings down about Ann's op/ed piece.
4. Ann blogs a note that I've commented on her op/ed and says that it's "funny to see [me] fall into the vortex." And a click reveals that the "vortex" Ann thinks I've fallen into is a vortex of "left-wing bloggers [who] really hate Ann Althouse" and who obsessively fact-check her every word, hoping to catch her in an error.
Wow.
All that from having read her New York Times op/ed and blogged a little about the ideas in it, expressing doubt that the world of political blogging can be divided in the way Ann suggests. And having volunteered that I like her blog a lot.
Vortex indeed.
Posted by Eric at 2:55 PM | Comments (6)
Thoughts About Ann Althouse And "Partisan" Blogging
Writing as a guest-columnist in the New York Times, Ann Althouse today says this:
"When you read a political blog, you might be running into someone like me, a solo blogger who reacts casually to issues that surface on any given day, or you might be reading the work of a writer who is pursuing an intense, partisan agenda and pushing particular candidates."In Left Blogistan, where Ann is often derided and mocked as a conservative partisan, there will surely be howls today.
I like Ann Althouse's blog a lot, and admire what she does there. Sometimes it annoys me, sometimes it amuses me. My reaction to it is much like my reaction to performance art: it fascinates me and drives me crazy at the same time. I roll my eyes and then I keep on reading.
But here's the thing. It is an article of faith to Ann that she is not a partisan blogger. Yet nearly from the start, I've seen her as appealing primarily to a conservative and a Republican readership. It's not for nothing that she was a finalist in this past year's Grande Conservative Blogress Diva competition, or that she joined the Conservative Blog Advertising Network So I've always been confused by Ann's annoyance at the suggestion of partisanship.
This quote from today's New York Times helps me understand Ann's position: it's about motive. When it comes to partisanship, Ann suggests that there are two kinds of political bloggers: those who just blog spontaneously about what moves them, and those who blog to advance a particular political agenda. Bloggers in the first category, Ann appears to suggest, really can't be partisan because they're not blogging to advance preferred policies and candidates; they're blogging because the spirit so moves them. (And if the spirit moves them more often to the right or left of center, then so be it -- but that's not partisanship.) To use Ann's example from today's column, they're blogging because they think it's just interesting (in a politically neutral way) to think of Wesley Clark as 5 percent body fat, and not because they're hoping that their noting publicly that Wesley Clark claims he has no more than 5 percent body will bring unfavorable attention, or ridicule, on Wesley Clark. (This, I think, explains why Ann maintains that Glenn Reynolds is also not a partisan blogger; she sees him, I think, as just calling them as he sees them, not seeking to advance some hidden or dictated political agenda.)
And I read Ann to say that partisan bloggers, by contrast, are bloggers who are up to something. They're not blogging candidly and honestly. They're not blogging because the spirit moves them, or because the place they like to puzzle through the events in the world is at a keyboard; they're blogging because they want certain policies enacted and certain candidates elected (or defeated). And they'll choose what to write about and what to ignore, and how to write about what they choose to address, to achieve their goals.
Myself, I doubt the world of political bloggers can be so easily divided -- and I doubt, too, that a blogger's motives are an especially useful measure of his or her "partisanship." Very few bloggers with even a modest readership blog solely because the spirit moves them; they hope (or, at least in the case of bloggers (unlike me) with large readerships, they know) that their words will have an impact -- that their words and thoughts and observations will be used. Even a free-spirit performance-artist blogger like Ann must be aware that what she's writing has instrumental value for others. And once you know that about your writing, I just don't think the issue of motive can be removed.
Posted by Eric at 8:29 AM | Comments (17)
More on Slaveowners in the Family Tree
[J]ust as one example, I picked Horry County, SC (because it was the only SC county that I knew the name of) where I believe Myrtle Beach now is. That was a rice plantation area, I believe. It definitely was a part of the heart of the plantation system of agriculture/slavery.Interesting. Mark makes a strong case, but I still find myself puzzling over the question of how family trees would actually look when you laid them out over 5 or 6 generations.Because it is too much trouble to analyze the whole county, I only looked at the first parish (alphabetically) which is All Saints Parish. Here is what I found from the 1860 US Census:
In All Saints Parish in 1860, there were 841 slaves, who were owned by just 77 free people. At the time, there were 1009 free people (including children) in All Saints Parish. Granted married women would not usually separately own slaves (or anything else) and likewise children would not have owned slaves, but even so: Most folks did not own slaves in the heart of the plantation world.
The average slaveowner in my little study owned 11 slaves. Twelve people owned just one slave each. Eleven people owned twenty or more. The top slave-owner owned 91 slaves. His name was J J Wortham. He lived with his wife Martha and their 10 year old son James. One way of viewing things would be that the 3 members of the Wortham family owned these 91 slaves amongst the 3 of them. That type of analysis would expand the count of slaveowners considerably, but I think it is obvious that it would not expand the number of slaveowners from 77 to anything approaching 1009 (or even half of that).
This subject could definitely be (and surely has been) studied more rigorously, but the conclusion is obvious: Most free people in coastal South Carolina did not own slaves (and this was probably even more true in other areas of the South). And I suppose that most free people did not own slaves because they could not afford to.
All of which makes me think that Ms. Senter is probably wrong. Only the wealthiest South Carolinians had slaves and though those wealthy people have many, many descendants today, their descendants probably do not constitute the majority of "native South Carolinians."
Posted by Eric at 8:12 AM | Comments (5)
February 25, 2007
How Many of Today's South Carolinians Have Slaveowners In Their Family Tree?
Thurmond's niece, Ellen Senter, hastens to put the matter in context: "I doubt you can find many native South Carolinians today whose family, if you traced them back far enough, didn't own slaves."
I'm always skeptical of these "everyone-did-it" defenses of historical actors. They're often false. It's something I've written a bit about here.
But I do find myself wondering whether Ms. Senter's claim could possibly be true. On the one hand, it is certainly false that most white South Carolinians (or more than a few free black South Carolinians) lived in slave-owning families before the Civil War. On the other hand, given the number of generations that have lived and died since the end of slavery, and the numbers of children labeled black or mulatto who were born to slave mothers and slave-owning fathers (and the numbers of generations of their descendants), perhaps it really is the case that nearly all "native South Carolinians" today have a slaveowner somewhere in the family tree.
Thoughts?
Posted by Eric at 8:04 PM | Comments (11)
February 21, 2007
Brett Marston Looks At The Margins Of Legal History
Here, for example, Burger takes a shot at his predecessor, Earl Warren, for Warren's support of Japanese American internment in World War II.
Interesting stuff.
Posted by Eric at 8:50 AM | Comments (3)
February 20, 2007
Televising Indignity
That's what retired federal appellate judge H. Lee Sarokin says about the recent televised courtroom proceedings about where Anna Nicole Smith should be buried.
Posted by Eric at 7:44 AM | Comments (1)
Are Department of Justice Criminal Subpoenas Unconstitutional
Question: Does 18 USC 3486 violate the Fifth Amendment's Grand Jury Clause by giving the Justice Department, in its role as prosecutor, powers to obtain evidence that were intended to belong exclusively to the grand jury?
Here's what one court remarked on the subject in discussing IRS administrative subpoena authority:
The reason that broad subpoena powers were given to the administrative agency and not to the prosecutorial department lies in our Grand Jury system. Broad investigatory, inquisitory and subpoena powers were given to that body of citizens drawn from the community; like powers were not intended to be in the hands of the prosecutors of crime.
United States v. Weingarden, 473 F.2d 454, 459 n. 9 (6th Cir. 1973).
U.S. District Judge Charles Wyzanski, Jr. -- one of our greatest judges -- expressed a similar view many years earlier:
So far as this Court knows, Congress has never in criminal matters vested the executive with an unrestricted subpoena power to uncover information which might aid in the enforcement of criminal statutes and the preparation of criminal cases.... The Constitution of the United States, the statutes, the traditions of our law, the deep rooted preferences of our people speak clearly. They recognize the primary and nearly exclusive role of the Grand Jury as the agency of compulsory disclosure. That is the inquisitorial body provided by our fundamental law to subpoena documents required in advance of a criminal trial, and in preparation of an indictment or its particularization.
United States v. O'Connor, 118 F. Supp. 248, 250-51 (D. Mass. 1953).
Administrative subpoenas were the byproduct of the expansion of the regulatory state. Their original purpose was to permit agencies like the ICC to gather evidence in furtherance of their authority to make and enforce rules -- an essentially legislative authority in character because it had been delegated by Congress.
But DOJ criminal healthcare subpoenas were created for the very purpose of bypassing the grand jury and letting the criminal prosecutors share the fruits of their investigation with the DOJ's civil prosecutors. That could not be done under a grand jury subpoena because of the secrecy rules prescribed in Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e).
Similarly, Congress has empowered the FBI to issue "national security letters," which seem to function the same way as a criminal administrative subpoena, to gather evidence for espionage and terror investigations.
Should these processes be held unconstitutional because the grand jury has been cut-out -- even recognizing that it is an AUSA, not the grand jury, that actually fills in the blanks to a grand jury subpoena? At least there, the grand jury -- your neighbors and mine -- gets the information. With administrative subpoenas, the information -- and any abuse of that information -- may never see the light of day.
Posted by shertaugh at 6:10 AM
February 19, 2007
Day of Remembrance 2007
This year I'll note the day on this blog by linking to some images of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center by my friend Yosh Kuromiya, a former internee.
(Images are from the website of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.)
Posted by Eric at 7:52 AM | Comments (4)
Bush vs. Murtha for "Commander in Chief"?
Novak chides Murtha for trying to "micromanage" the war -- something we've heard a lot lately from the right. To that I say, anyone's got to be better than George Bush. [Coincidentally, in an article on Hilary Clinton, today's NYTimes reports that Richard Mellon Scaife is now her former nemisis. Scaife says the obvious: in hindsight, the Clinton presidency was pretty damned good. His point of reference is obviously the last 6 years. Read the whole article and see that, no matter how good the Clinton years were, some on the rights would rather ruin the US -- and they're doing a damn good job -- than let a Clinton run things . . . or any Dem.]
But Novak -- playing the tip to the White House's spear -- tenders the argument that Murtha and the Democrats are interfering with Bush's war powers. Who cares if Bush is inept; we must not let the Democrats succeed, regardless of the cost? David Brook's recently referred to this as an impending "constitutional crisis" on PBS's "News Hour" -- an argument that was gaining no traction, apparently. So . . . take it away, Bob.
In classic Rove fashion, Novak trots out the old stories of Murtha as unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam investigation. Murtha is "Mr. Pork." Murtha embarrassingly lost his race for House majority leader, as Speaker Pelosi's hand-picked choice.
Novak goes on. After the standard GOP hit-job on the character of the opponent du jour, Novak turns his attack on Pelosi. Noting Murtha's loss for the majority leader job, Novak says that nonetheless, Murtha is a key advisor on Iraq policy to Pelosi with California congressman George Miller -- whom, using a not-so-subtle ethnic slur, he calls Pelosi' s "consigliere," a term dropped into American culture through the movie "The Godfather." [Read: "She's not like 'us' good, red-blooded, white, southern, Christian coalition Americans. Granted, "consigliere" is a term used to describe many political advisors. But with Pelosi -- an Italian American -- it smells of Rove. I suspect she'll smartly not say a word about it.]
This is the White House's game plan -- treat the Iraq War as just another campaign, and trash the character of the opposition. Post-campaign policy and management? That's for weak-kneed Clintonites.
You can just imagine a news article, quoting Murtha, sitting on VP Cheney's desk full of hand-written notes saying: "Abscam," "pork buster," "Consigliere," "constitutional crisis" (with a line through it), "micromanage," and "commander in chief?"
One thing no one debates is Murtha's ties to the general's in the Pentagon. Not a single general -- not even Bush's handpicked toadies -- have complained that Murtha's plan to have the troops trained, equipped, and well armed is a negative . . . . Oops, I mean his "micromanaging."
Only the White House is complaining.
Oh, and did anyone notice that Al Qaeda's restored its chain of command? So not only has the Bush adminstration bogged us down in Iraq, spending 3000+ American lives plus $100s of billions in treasure. Not only has Bush alienated us from the rest of the world by opening the Middle East's Pandora Box. He's let Bin Laden restore the same level of control he had over his terror network that he had circa 9/11.
"A TRIPLE PLAY!"
God, don't you just love this White House.
Posted by shertaugh at 6:35 AM | Comments (1)
February 15, 2007
Ringside Seats to Gibbons v. Ogden
I had a pleasure of the third variety this morning.
For a paper I'm going to be writing this summer, I've recently been reading the correspondence of antebellum N.C. Supreme Court Justice Thomas Ruffin. I'm focusing on the 1820s, trying to learn about his involvement in a slave-trading partnership.
This morning I came across a letter to Ruffin dated February 12, 1824, from one Henry Seawell, a former Attorney General of the State of North Carolina. It seems that Seawell was in Washington, DC, on legal business for a few weeks, and had some time to kill. So he dropped by the Supreme Court. So impressed was he by what he saw that he colorfully described the proceedings in the letter to his friend Ruffin back in North Carolina.
It turns out that the argument that Seawell happened to drop in on was none other than Gibbons v. Ogden, one of the most important cases on the law of federal-state relations in the nation's history!
Seawell's description of the proceedings is priceless:
"The council in argument begin so low, as scarcely to be heard," Seawell writes, "and gradually swell until they fairly rave; then they gently subside into a soft whisper. Their gesticulation is menacing, both to the Court and the bystanders, and an equal portion of all they say, is distributed to every part of the hall."
In terms of style, times sure have changed. Oral arguments today are sedate, controlled, and low-toned affairs. No raving, no whispering, no playing to "every part of the hall," and definitely no menacing.
But on the substance, times haven't changed a bit. Here's Seawell complaining about burgeoning federal power:
"The Constitution of the United States appears to be acquiring in the political world what was ascribed to the philosopher’s stone in the physical regions. It is gathering by its own growth, the capacity of converting every thing, into exclusive jurisdiction of Congress."Mind you, this was 1824!
The trouble, wrote Seawell, was that "according to the construction now contended for, and what is more than probable will be supported by the
Supreme Court, the states can do nothing, which it is not in the power of Congress to regulate; and there is scarcely any change they can can act upon at all – the trade, or commerce, being helpful to the regulation of Congress, is supposed to draw after it almost all power of regulation."
Sort of puts the supposedly "new" federalism of the Rehnquist Court in context, doesn't it?
And the other thing that hasn't changed a bit, apparently, is the double entendre in the word "intercourse" as Chief Justice Marshall ended up using it (as an elaboration on the word "commerce") in the Gibbons v. Ogden opinion itself:
"According to a definition given to the word 'Commerce' by the Atto. Genl. that it means 'intercourse,' I shall soon expect to learn, that our fornication laws are unconstitutional: for the favorite doctrine now is, that all the powers which Congress possesses are exclusive – and consequently the sole power of acting upon that subject is transferred to them."
Get it? Congressional power over "intercourse" will lead to the invalidation of state laws against "fornication!"
I suppose it does not reflect well on my sense of humor that I made a joke not unlike this one in class two weeks ago while teaching Gibbons v. Ogden. Henry Seawell beat me to the punch(line) by 183 years.
UPDATE: Ingrate that I am, I neglected to include my source information for these images and quotes. Here it is: Quotes and images are from the Thomas Ruffin Papers (#641) in the Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill. For more information on the Ruffin Papers, see the online finding aid for the collection.
Posted by Eric at 11:40 PM | Comments (3)
The Sadness of Failed Rescue
The story is terribly sad, and I suspect it tugs a little harder at the hearts of anyone whose family records contain worried letters of this type.
For example, letters like this one:
This letter, reflecting the decision of a wealthy American to sponsor the immigration of my great-uncle Leopold, who was then hunkered down in the Bavarian town of Bad Kissingen, waiting for it all to "blow over," is especially bitter. For reasons unknown to me, my grandfather's rescue effort ultimately failed. About a year after this letter, Leopold was in a railroad car on the way to his death in Poland.
Posted by Eric at 12:24 PM | Comments (3)
A Bit More on Mitt Romney and Henry Ford
To the extent that Burston is suggesting that Mitt Romney's choice of the Henry Ford Museum to launch his presidential campaign reflects animus against Jews, I think he's wrong.
On the other hand, Presidential-campaign-launching moments are fraught with symbolism, and Romney's campaign sure bought themselves more symbolism than they were looking for.
Mormons, by the way, are historically among the nation's most persecuted religious minorities, and not only because of their early tolerance of polygamy. When I lived in Wyoming, I often heard people -- even, once, a law faculty colleague -- say something intensely derisive about Mormons in public. Anti-Mormonism was a socially acceptable prejudice. So I would have have expected Romney, as a Mormon, to choose a campaign launch site that repudiated religious intolerance.
(hat tip: Jerome C.)
Posted by Eric at 10:11 AM | Comments (5)
February 14, 2007
Cheney Won't Testify for Libby. Suprise! Not.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — Lawyers defending I. Lewis Libby Jr. against perjury charges surprised the courtroom on Tuesday by saying that they would rest their case this week and do so without putting on the stand either Mr. Libby or Vice President Dick Cheney.
The only people who could have been surprised by this decision were the very same media types who gave us the run-up to the Iraq War. It was clear after day-2 of the trial that putting Cheney and Libby on the stand would be disastrous.
What was Cheney to testify about? All the heady, mind-bendingly crucial issues Libby was working on in July 2003 when he was also carrying out Cheney's orders to dump on Wilson? How could Cheney remember all those many things so long ago with so much on his plate? And just exactly what was Cheney up to when he was directing Libby to lay the ground work for giving Wilson the business . . . could it be covering up the manipulation of intelligence? The points? Cheney's memory is awfully good. But his credibility isn't.
So unless Cheney didn't remember much from 2003, it seems to me that he'd be proving Fitzgerald's legal point in this case that Libby lied -- particularly given how the first couple of administration witnesses testified to how Libby was carrying Cheney's water on this issue and it was, as Fitzgerald framed the testimony, an important one.
As for Libby testifying, what was he going to say? "Gee, now I remember, what you heard on those 8 hours of grand jury tapes was wrong." Or would it be, "Yeah, I'm still pretty confused . . . ."
I guess the NYTimes reporters would say, "but Libby's defense lawyers said they'd be putting Cheney on the stand and Libby would likely testify." Go to any criminal trial in D.C. superior court, where assaults and drug dealing are prosecuted every day. You'll hear wonderful opening statements by brilliant defense lawyers who'll describe all the witness they expect to testify to their client's innocence. Then wait to see what happens. You'll be shocked to learn, NYTimes, that it rarely plays out that way.
The lede in the NYTimes story reveals more about how dangerously uninformed the media is than anything about the Libby trial.
Posted by shertaugh at 2:34 AM | Comments (1)
February 12, 2007
Mitt Romney Takes A Page Out Of Joe Biden's Campaign-Launch Playbook
It's got to be one or the other.
UPDATE:
A commenter suggests that the answer to my question is that Mitt Romney just didn't know of Henry Ford's pathological hatred of the Jews. Maybe. But if he'd asked a Jewish person, he'd have learned.
To the extent that the average American just thinks of Ford as epitomizing the American entrepreneurial spirit, well, I suspect that this says a lot more about how it is we prefer to imagine our American heroes than it does about Henry Ford.
Posted by Eric at 5:53 PM | Comments (12)
Boola Boola,
Posted by Eric at 9:41 AM
February 11, 2007
"If God's on our side/He'll Stop the Next War"
"Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, arguing that America is in desperate need of a Ronald Reagan-style optimistic vision, told California Republicans on Saturday that he wants to be a president who will 'win the world for a set of ideas ... that I believe come from God.'"
Looks like Rudy Giuliani has hired Bob Dylan as a speechwriter.
Posted by Eric at 5:23 PM | Comments (1)
What Are We Waiting For?
See. The problems in Iraq have not been the product of the administration's incompetence.
The problem is that Iran is fomenting violence to keep us from turning Iraq into a beacon of democracy.
There's only one thing to do . . . well, two things. Let's implement a draft. And let's go after the bastards. Now.
Posted by shertaugh at 5:08 PM | Comments (3)
February 9, 2007
"We will not escape the damage we have done to the people of Iraq in our prisons."
"I am desperate to get on with my life and erase my memories of my experiences in Iraq. But those memories and experiences do not belong to me. They belong to history. If we're doomed to repeat the history we forget, what will be the consequences of the history we never knew? The citizens and the leadership of this country have an obligation to revisit what took place in the interrogation booths of Iraq, unpleasant as it may be. The story of Abu Ghraib isn't over. In many ways, we have yet to open the book."
Posted by Eric at 9:37 AM
February 7, 2007
Cured!
What do you think the treatment is for?
Hint: it's not the methamphetamine.
Posted by Eric at 7:45 AM | Comments (4)
February 6, 2007
Where Are All The Ghost Dromedaries?
Animal ghosts. Please.
Somebody show me a ghost squirrel or a ghost deer or a ghost slug or a ghost grackle. Or a ghost sturgeon. Then -- and only then -- will I listen to your stories about dear old Brutus scratching at the back door long after that unfortunate incident with the mail truck.
Posted by Eric at 10:59 PM | Comments (2)
February 4, 2007
NYTimes: John McCain - Maverick. Ha!
Forget Hagel for the moment, who has voted the White House's way more than any other senator.
It's the "maverick" moniker for McCain that rankles. That description is a relic of McCain's run in the 2000 GOP presidential primary, when he was "Mr. Straight-talker."
Now? McCain is a toady for the Bush White House -- from tax cuts, to the budget deficits, to the Iraq disaster. Most especially, the Iraq disaster. McCain's mantra is "more troops, we need more troops." No one asks him how many, where they'd come from, how long they'd serve there, how much more it'll cost (Bush wants another $245 Billion just through 2008), how we'll pay for them.
Or what about Afghanistan? And Iran? And North Korea? And Darfur? . . . AND NEW ORLEANS!!!
McCain sees himself as Mr. Republican . . . the last real American Hero.
Maverick? What a joke.
If you want to hear from a real maverick, call Joe Lieberman -- who's daily sustenance comes from poking the collective eye of the Democrat[ ] party.
What a joke the media is to continue to play this line.
Posted by shertaugh at 5:07 AM | Comments (2)