The Toxic Administration

Ken Mehlman is worried.

For those of you who are not C-SPAN junkies, Mehlman is the Chairman of the Republican National Committee (the Howard Dean of the GOP, in other words). He's not happy with all this talk about censure and impeachment. He's not happy at all.

In fact, he sent out an e-mail to all his little minions out there in Limbaughland decrying the Dems and their terrible, horrible, unpatriotic plans to unseat the president of this great land.

This is what he said:

"The word is out. Their position is clear. Last week, Sen. Russ Feingold floated a reckless plan to censure the President, and some Democrat leaders have ecstatically jumped on Feingold's bandwagon.

And, if they gain even more power in November, they won't stop there.

Feingold says that censure actually represents "moderation" and calls the terrorist surveillance program an impeachable offense. Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, fails to rule out impeachment if Democrats retake Congress. Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin is talking "high crimes and misdemeanors." And 31 House Democrats are calling for a committee to look into impeachment. Their leader? John Conyers, who would become House Judiciary Committee chairman under Democrat control.

The Democrats' plan for 2006? Take the House and Senate, and impeach the President. With our nation at war, is this the kind of Congress you want?"

You can practically see him pulling bricks out of his pants, can't you?

Is censure "reckless"? Frankly it strikes me as too little, too late.

The fact is that this administration, and the Republican Party in general, is falling apart faster than a house of cards in a hurricane -- and Ken Mehlman gets the dubious privlege of presiding over the devastation. So naturally he's inclined to bitch and moan about it. Wouldn't you?

But the funny thing is that Democrats -- the elected kind, that is -- are not all that crazy to talk about impeachment either. That will change after the midterm elections, provided they win back control of Congress, but for right now they're being cautious. They don't want to get ahead of themselves.

My feeling is that the country as a whole is way ahead of the elected officials when it comes to impeachment. They know what's been happening in this country for the past three years, and they're genuinely upset about it. They have seen this administration open up concentration camps and torture prisoners. They've seen them act as the aggressor in attacking a nation that posed no imminent threat to them, for the most puerile of reasons (to unseat the man "that tried to kill my dad"). They've seen them take the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and stuff them into a paper shredder. And they want the men responsible for that out of office as quickly as possible.

This administration is toxic, and it's only a matter of time before those who are responsible are held to account.

So if I was Ken Mehlman, I'd stock up on the Xanax and the Depends and polish up my resume.

Tom Moran

(Thanks to Deanna Zandt of AlterNet for the Mehlman quote.)

Kristol on Feingold on Censure

This quote comes from Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday yesterday on Senator Russ Feingold's move to censure President Bush over his warrantless wiretapping:

"I honestly believe that, in fact, he's winning this debate right now. ... The reason Feingold's move is very smart for him personally as a Democratic presidential candidate -- that is smart for the Democratic Party -- is he's going at a strength of President Bush. You don't get in politics only to play at issues where you already have public opinion on your side. He's trying to change public opinion. I disagree with him. I hope he doesn't succeed in changing public opinion. But so far he's making the case that it's illegal. He's going to have editorial pages backing him up. And the Republicans are just whining that ooh, he's trying to censure the president. They're not making a substantive defense in defense of the program."

The Republicans are whining because whining seems to be all that they can do right now.

They've had total control of the government for years now -- they've controlled the House for more than a decade and the White House for more than five years -- and they've totally fucked it up. This government has the Midas Touch in reverse -- everything they touch turns to shit.

So what else can they do while they're waiting to be thrown out of office but whine?

Tom Moran

Abandon Ship!

Can you hear it?

Can you hear the scuttling of tiny feet on the hardwood of the deck?

Know what that sound is?

It’s the sound of conservative rats leaving the sinking ship that is the Bush Administration.

It’s a lovely sound, you must admit.

Does your heart good to realize that these people – some of whom have written more gushingly about Bush in the past than Ronald Martin about Monica Crowley – are now coming to their senses, a little belatedly.

Here’s Peggy Noonan:

“If I'd thought he was a big-spending Rockefeller Republican--that is, if I'd thought he was a man who could not imagine and had never absorbed the damage big spending does--I wouldn't have voted for him.”

And it took her how long to figure that out?

Noonan again:

“I believe it is fair to say most Republicans did not think George W. Bush was motivated to run for the presidency for the primary reason of cutting or controlling spending. But it is also fair to say that they did not think he was Lyndon B. Johnson. And that's what he's turned into.”

With, she doesn’t bother to say (but then does she really have to?) his own personal Vietnam.

CNBC’s Larry Kudlow (of “Kudlow & Co.”) doesn’t even think Republicans should continue to control Congress:

“[Senate Budget Chairman Judd] Gregg has thrown in the towel on mandatory spending cuts because he says he doesn't have the votes. Well then, I don't think that the American people should "have the votes" to keep the Republicans in charge of the Senate--or the House for that matter.

This is a pathetic state of affairs.”

I couldn’t agree more, Larry.

Doug Bandow, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute (who, to his credit, made a principled case for why conservatives shouldn’t vote for Bush in 2004), is even more sweeping:

“ ... the neocons have led the Republican Party and larger conservative movement to disaster. The administration's crusade for democracy is consuming precious lives and prodigious amounts of money while empowering forces hostile to both the U.S. and Western political ideals.

The debacle in Iraq has further unsettled (amazing but true) the Mideast. America is more hated and has less credibility around the globe. Spending has exploded, both on pork and on social programs. Washington has gained even more authority, creating a handy tool for the left when it eventually regains power.

No surprise, then, the GOP fears the results of the mid-term elections, just eight months away. The Republicans might even lose control of Congress.”

Even William F. Buckley, the doyen of American conservatism, stands athwart the Bush Administration yelling “Halt!”:

“One can't doubt,” he writes, “that the American objective in Iraq has failed.”

Keep in mind that none of these people are liberals. With the exception of Bandow, they have all supported Bush in the past – and even they admit that his administration is in shambles.

With friends like these...

Tom Moran

Dubya Who?

The issue of Newsweek magazine that hits the newsstands tomorrow has an interesting piece on the current state of the Republican party. It was written by Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey:

"Fearful of defeat in November, GOP candidates are uncertain how to pull themselves together in the eight months left before the elections. The toughest question: whether to run, as they have in the past, as W Republicans, or to airbrush the president out of their campaigns. "What I've tried to tell people is that a political tsunami is gathering, and if we don't do something to stop it, we'll be in the minority a year from now," says Rep. Ray LaHood from Illinois. "But some people still don't get it.""

The fact is that this has become a toxic presidency -- and the Republicans running for office this year are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Again from Newsweek:

"In strategy memos circulated on the Hill, Republican National Committee pollsters argue that disunity will only discourage the base from turning out to vote. But even the party's analysts concede that standing shoulder to shoulder with Bush may not always be the best way to win. In one RNC memo, pollster Dave Sackett argues that incumbents need to demonstrate their "independence" and disagreements with party leaders, but still present "an overall unified front.""

In other words:

Support the president... except when you don't.

Stand close to the leader of the free world... but not too close.

Bush has become the equivalent of the mistress you don't want to be seen in public with.

Again from Newsweek:

"Some candidates are happy to stand beside Bush, as long as nobody actually sees them together. Locked in a tight race for re-election, Sen. Mike DeWine chose not to accompany Bush on one trip to his home state of Ohio last month. A week later he attended a private fund-raiser with the president in Cincinnati—out of sight of photographers and reporters."

They're smart not to want to be seen with him. This is from a Matthew Cooper piece on Time magazine's website. The Pew Research Center has done polls on words associated with presidents:

"Three years ago, positive descriptions of Bush far outnumbered negative ones. In the past two years, the positive-negative ratio has been more nearly equal. This time, 48% of those polled used a negative word to describe Bush; just 28% picked a positive term; 10% chose neutral language. Six respondents chose a word that everyone could agree on: "President.""

Again from Time:

"Until this month, the word most associated with President Bush had always been "honest." Now the leading answer is "incompetent" (given by 29 people), followed by "good," "idiot" and "liar." "Honest" has slipped to 5th, tied with "Christian.""

Frankly, I'm surprised "asshole" wasn't a lot higher up on the list.

Tom Moran

Wagging the Iranian Dog

If there's one thing we know about the junta currently occupying the White House, it's that they will do anything to win. Anything. This is a sociopathic administration. They have no shame, and there's absolutely nothing that they won't say or do to realize their goals.

That's why I think that this government is going to invade Iran later this year.

Look at it this way. Bush's approval ratings are in freefall. The Congress looks very much like it could fall into the hands of the Democrats this fall -- and if that happens, impeachment is a very real possibility.

So what's a right-wing junta to do? They have to do something. If they do nothing the Democrats will take over the Congress and begin impeachment proceedings -- and that could end up with Bush being impeached, convicted and removed from office.

Therefore, a little distraction might be in order. A distraction such as invading Iran to take people's minds off what else is going on in the country.

Why do I think this?

Look at the headline of yesterday's Wall Street Journal, for one thing. It reads: WHITE HOUSE PUTS IRAN AT TOP OF LIST OF THREATS TO U.S.. The subhead states: Strategy Report Also Affirms Policy of Pre-Emptive Action; Al Qaeda Danger Evolves.

The White House released its National Security Strategy yesterday. If you read between the lines, you can see the White House already starting to make the case for invading Iran. The rationale? An Iran with nuclear weapons is a threat to the entire region, including Israel, and we can't alllow that to happen -- therefore, we are going to act preemptively to prevent them from acquiring and activating nuclear weapons.

Sounds far-fetched? Listen to the language of the report itself (the quotes come from USA Today):

"We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran. For almost 20 years, the Iranian regime hid many of its key nuclear efforts from the international community, yet the regime continues to claim that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons.''

"The United States has joined with our European Union partners and Russia to pressure Iran to meet its international obligations and provide objective guarantees that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. This diplomatic effort must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided.''

Now combine that with this quote:

"There are few greater threats than a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act pre-emptively in exercising our inherent right of self-defense. The United States will not resort to force in all cases to pre-empt emerging threats. Our preference is that nonmilitary actions succeed. And no country should ever use pre-emptions as a pretext for aggression.''

You can almost hear the talking points already. We will not permit Iran to let loose a nuclear holocaust over our fair country. Therefore we had to act -- and act we did. Our cause is just and righteous, and if we stay the course we will prevail with the help of almighty God. Pay no attention to those neocons behind the curtain.

Willl it work? If Bush invades Iran by, let's say, late August or early September, it might give him enough time to squeak out a win in the mid-term election and keep control of Congress, thereby avoiding impeachment.

And if this all sounds far-fetched to you, consider the following dialogue between psychologist Gustave Gilbert and former Nazi bigshot Hermann Goering, who was awaiting trial at Nuremberg at the time this interview took place:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Keep this in mind if we go to war with Iran later this year.

Tom Moran

Happy Birthday to My Blog!

Today marks the first anniversary of CelticProgressive as a blog on the Internet, and this post marks the 70th post on this blog.

It's been quite a year.

It seems to me that people are finally catching on to this administration. The past year really marked a turning point, and the event that really opened people's eyes was Hurricane Katrina.

It took a hurricane to make some people see what the rest of us have known from Day One -- that this is the worst administration in American history; that they are both arrogant and inept; and that they hold the American people in complete contempt.

The year coming up will see even more challenges, both to our country in general and to this blog in particular. I'm looking forward to expanding it a little, writing about different subject matter and possibly in engaging in more dialogue with my faithful readers. Of course, dialogue depends on hearing from both sides, so if there's something you'd like to hear me talk about, feel free to e-mail me and make some suggestions.

I'd like to move into other areas of American life besides politics (I've done some of that already, obviously, but I'd like to do more). Politics, however, is going to be an engrossing subject this year, both with the crucial midterm elections and the beginning of the 2008 presidential race -- both of which are going to determine whether this country gets back a little of its self-respect, or we come even closer to becoming the police state that the Bushies are trying to turn this country into.

There's going to be a lot to talk about, and I hope you'll stop by this blog in the weeks and months to come so that you can hear me mouth off about it.

Tom Moran

Republican Star Power

I don't know if you know this, but if you make a campaign contribution on the federal level, it's a matter of public record. Anyone can go to the right source and find out exactly how much money you gave, and to which candidates.

In fact, if you're curious you can find out not only which celebrities gave money to political candidates, but how much they gave -- to the dollar. So I decided to look around and see which famous people had given money to political candidates and special interest groups.

In the process, I discovered that some celebrities had given 100% of their money to Republicans, and I thought it might be instructive to make a list of them and post it here.

They say that you can tell a lot about a person by who they hang out with -- how much can you tell about the current Republican party by the people on this list? First, to make this list you had to have given 100% of your money to the GOP. If you gave as little as 1% to any Democrat or to any special interest group whatsoever, you don't qualify.

The first thing you'll notice is that, with only a couple of exceptions, this is a pretty lame bunch. Only a handful of them have any real talent -- the rest are a bunch of second-rate hacks, schlockmeisters and has-beens.

Here is the celebrity face of the Republican Party (and what a face it is!):

1) Roy Acuff
2) Bob Barker
3) David Blaine
4) Julie Bowen
5) Candace Bushnell
6) Drew Carey
7) Tom Clancy
8) Shannen Doherty
9) Robert Duvall
10) Joe Eszterhas
11) Jose Feliciano
12) Jeff Foxworthy
13) Eva Gabor
14) Kathie Lee Gifford
15) Sammy Hagar
16) Merle Haggard
17) Tippi Hedren
18) Charlton Heston
19) Arianna Huffington
20) Toby Keith
21) Dean Koontz
22) Swoosie Kurtz
23) David Limbaugh
24) Art Linklater
25) Heather Locklear
26) Traci Lords
27) Wink Martindale
28) Ted McGinley
29) Dr. Phil McGraw
30) Vince McMahon
31) Ricardo Montalban
32) Jim Nabors
33) Chuck Norris
34) Maury Povich
35) Prince
36) Cesar Romero
37) Jeri Ryan
38) Rick Schroder
39) Traci Scoggins
40) Paul Shaffer
41) Jaclyn Smith
42) Kevin Sorbo
43) Robert Stack
44) George Strait
45) Dr. Herman Tarnower
50) Rip Torn
51) Randy Travis
52) Alex Trebek
53) James Woods
54) Tammy Wynette
55) Dwight Yoakam

Boy -- what star power!

Tom Moran

Reaping the Whirlwind

The GOP is pissing in their collective pants right about now.

70 percent of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. Bush's approval ratings are at an all-time low. Dick Cheney's approval rating is lower than Satan's.

(Okay, I made that last one up, but don't be surprised if I turn out to be ahead of the curve -- after all, I did predict that "Crash" would win Best Picture.)

Even hardcore Republican supporters, according to the AP, are getting disturbed over the way things are going. They quote Margaret Campanelli, a Connecticut retiree who says she votes Republican, as saying “I’m particularly not happy with Iraq, not happy with how things worked with Hurricane Katrina.”

That's a polite, retiree way of saying that her party is run by a bunch of fuck-ups. They lied us into a war they had no way of winning -- and now that 2,000 Americans and 30,000 Iraqis are dead because of their lies, they have no way out of the mess they created except a bloody civil war that will escalate the death toll immeasurably. And all they have to tell us in response to all of this bloodshed is that we have to "stay the course." What fucking course? you want to ask them, but you know better than to ask questions of these people, because this administration lies about as often as it breathes.

This has all the makings of a perfect political storm -- one that could blow the GOP away in the midterm elections and bring the Democrats back into control of both houses of Congress.

Bush is even losing support among his base -- stupid white men. His approval rating among Republicans dropped eight points in a month, and among white males without a college education he is losing support as well. Bush's approval rating is now at 37 percent -- Reagan and Clinton at the same time in their second terms had approval ratings in the 60s, according to the AP.

This does not bode well for Bush, because if the Democrats take over Congress this year, you can bet your ass that they will start impeachment hearings. Already 30 members of the House have signed on as sponsors or co-sponsors of H. Res 635, which would start the impeachment bandwagon rolling. If the Democrats take back Congress in November, expect that number to increase exponentially.

This midterm election is a referendum on President Bush and the nightmarish way he has run this country for the past six years. And it looks like election night 2006 may well be a very long, uncomfortable one for Republicans. To quote Bush's favorite book, "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind" (Hosea 8:7).

Which is why, if I was a Republican congressman, I'd be stocking up on Depends right about now.

Tom Moran

Indy, Hang Up Your Whip

It's been 17 years since the last Indiana Jones movie, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," was released, and there has been talk for years of Harrison Ford coming back to don the hat and leather jacket and bullwhip that are the trademarks of one of the more memorable characters in contemporary film, in an "Indiana Jones 4." A script has already been written and there's talk of filming "Indy 4" as early as next year.

I only have one piece of advice for you, Harrison.

Don't do it. Don't make "Indiana Jones 4."

You want to know why? Look at the last three "Star Wars" films. Don't they do nothing but tarnish the legacy of the fun, unpretentious films you made in the late 70s and early 80s? Do you want to do that to another franchise?

Or let's take another tack. Remember "The Road to Hong Kong," with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby vainly trying to recreate the fun they had in their 40s films made twenty years earlier? Remember how embarrassing it was to watch? Rent it sometime and check it out if you don't believe me.

Now keep this in mind: next year you will be six years older than Bob Hope was when he made "The Road to Hong Kong."

When Sean Connery played your father in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" he was 59 years old. In 2007 you will be 65 years old.

I know it sucks to admit it, but we all get older, and as we do there are some parts that we are no longer suited to play. Sean Connery doesn't try to be James Bond anymore, because he knows it would do nothing but tarnish the memory of the films he made during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Matthew Broderick doesn't keep playing Ferris Bueller. Soleil Moon Frye doesn't try to be Punky Brewster any more.

But there is one person who keeps trying to hold onto an image that he should have given up long ago, and that's Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson, Harrison. Think about that.

"Raiders of the Lost Ark" was a really entertaining, fun piece of filmmaking, but that was many years ago, and the parade's gone by. Muhammad Ali doesn't try to get back into the ring. Sandy Koufax knows enough not to get back onto the mound. So hang up your whip, Indiana Jones, and stick to playing roles that are more age-appropriate.

And it's really not that bad, when you think about it. It could be a lot worse.

After all, you could be a 40-year-old actress in Los Angeles.

Tom Moran

Was Pat Tillman Fragged?

Was Pat Tillman, the former football player who left the NFL after 9/11 to join the Army and serve in Afghanistan, a real-life version of Doug Neidermeyer from "National Lampoon's Animal House"?

When Tillman was killed in April of 2004, the Army put it out that he was killed by enemy fire and awarded him a Silver Star posthumously for bravery under fire. America badly needed a hero at that moment and Tillman fit the bill -- a high-earning football star who put his lucrative NFL career aside to serve his country and who died bravely in the service of that country. His memorial service was televised live, as if to point up the fact that America still had heroes.

Now, in a way that is symbolic of this entire war, the story of Pat Tillman's death put out by the military turns out to have been a lie. Worse than that -- it was a deliberate lie. An official report has said, according to the L.A. Times, that "Army officers told soldiers to remain quiet about the circumstances of Tillman's death for fear of negative news coverage."

Tillman's death is now the subject of a criminal inquiry. Apparently the Army is now considering the possibility that Tillman was not just the victim of "friendly fire," as they put out once their first story fell apart, but the victim of, at the very least, a negligent homicide.

But when you think about it, why should we believe that story either? Again according to the L.A. Times story, the Army has admitted "that soldiers destroyed evidence — Tillman's uniform and flak vest — after the shooting," in a way that sounds like a deliberate cover-up of criminal activity.

Was Tillman, like the fictional Doug Neidermeyer in Vietnam, deliberately killed -- fragged -- by his own troops? The facts are not in yet (and given how the Army has botched this story I'm not sure their "facts" are ever going to be believable anyway), but the circumstantial evidence is looking as if that might be a very real possibility.

Tom Moran