I suspect that telling Repbulicans that they are corrupt at the root is a pretty good way for Pelosi to mobilize the Republican base and to confirm what many swing voters think about her and the Democrats, but to each her own.
On your broader point, that the Democrats could turn this to their advantage, I agree, particularly if it were limited to Pelosi can come out and say "When we find crooks in our ranks, we disown them, and support their prosecution. Why won't the Republicans do the same?"
2: The beauty part is that she doesn't have to say it -- the story tells itself. If she explicitly draws an equivalence between the Democrats cleaning house by disassociating themselves from Jefferson, and the Republicans' failure to do the same w/r/t DeLay, it's going to be very hard for Republican partisans not to cry "Bullshit -- you're walking away from a nobody, and you're asking us to walk away from someone at the center of our party's power structure. Oh. Whoops."
5 - No, actually I want you to comment up a storm today. If we get shut down with the low number of comments currently in the database, we know the main site/archive site plan won't work.
Considering how the Republicans have reacted so far, you'd think they want to be associated with corruption. Hastert, Frist, and Gingrich have all rallied around Jefferson on a separation of powers theory. If Pelosi et al. are willing to sell out Jefferson, they might actually make some hay out of something for a change -- "He's corrupt and you're defending him" will beat a process argument any day.
They appear to be making a stand on the principle that searching the offices of congress people with probable cause (and I assume a warrant though I haven't looked into it) destroys inter-branch comity, but repealing legislation by Presidential fiat without notice to the public or anything like a majority of Congress is indicative of a healthy relationship between the branches.
Right. Although I have to say that I have sympathy with the process argument. In the context of the generally out-of-control executive these days, though, that wouldn't be the first battle I'd pick to fight.
Given how successful the Republicans have been at defining bipartisanship as "all of us plus Miller or Lieberman," I still worry that they'll be able to paint this as a systemic problem not a Republican one. But perhaps those days are behind us?
Becks told me to comment a lot, so it's incumbent upon me to note that the only time a commentator can use the word "clutchest" with impunity is when he's describing Dirk Nowitzki.
Leaving aside whether this is good for Dems on campaigning, it's great on policy. Jefferson is about as worthless a sell-out-to-every-bad-GOP-idea Dem as you can find. He voted for the bankruptcy bill and against the estate tax. And he's got a safe seat. I mean, if this had't fallen into our laps we darn well would have wanted to invent some scandal to get rid of the guy. Divine effin providence, says I.
I've been wondering what dead man, and why pants? (I've also been visualizing TDMP as Dr. Seuss's Pale Green Pants With Nobody Inside Them, but that probably only happens to people with small children.)
I'm not sure that "Republicans are corrupt at the root" would mobilize the base. It's not Republican voters that are corrupt at the root; it's Republican politicians. Any voter who identifies with the politicians will get motivated and pissed off by that attack, but they're voting anyway; whereas, the typical base voter who's already kind of disilluisioned with the politicians, I don't see them getting angried up by someone saying "All the Republican bums are corrupt, to the top level!"
Except insofar as such voters would be motivated by the spectacle of a San Francisco Democrat saying that sort of thing, which might well happen.
This may depend on scale, of course. If three committees actually have to shut down to deal with subpoenas in the Wilkes corruption case, I think it'll be pretty easy to say "these guys are all corrupt" without alienating swing voters or driving the disaffected GOP base back to the party.
I hate how people idealize putrescence in corpses. TMK, can't you take me on my own terms, rather than subordinate my corpsehood to some Victorian concept of mystery and rot?
Perhaps we're all misreading "pants," and I'm actually the recently deceased's memory of his sexual exploits. On a related note, I'm a fan of the Othello phrase "love's quick pants."
TDMP was inspired to take his name when it was announced that the dead man was not wearing pants. Whatever he is, he should logically be something that does not exist.
This raises the question -- does Clark Kent abandon a suit in each phone booth? Or does Superman have the suit concealed somewhere on his person? And if so, where?
I certainly don't know the answer, but: IDP, that sounds like an explanation from the so-called golden or silver ages of comics, which would no longer be canonical.
Granted, the "reimagining" of comics in recent decades, starting with "Dark Knight," enormously complicates things. It means "Superman" is an undefined term. Yes, I refer to the s/m of the fifties/sixties.
"Wow. After sitting largely silent for more than five years of assaults against citizens' constitutional rights, our legislators have been moved to protect the Constitution because one of their own -- a man who meets contacts in hotel parking lots to accept briefcases full of money, and actually kept $90,000 in cash bundled in his freezer -- had his offices searched by the FBI."
More recently Superman has been written as quickly stashing his clothes in a covert spot, like the phone booth where he changes. It's the Marvel approach: Spider-Man used to make little webs for his street clothes and camera. (Marvel writers got so sick of trying to pay attention to these things that they invented the black Spider-Man costume, which could transmogrify into clothing.)
The Marvel way is the less corny solution, but it isn't elegant. There are more opportunities for someone to discover your secret identity, though I imagine that when Darkseid is destorying Metropolis with the Omega Effect, citizens don't worry themselves with the Levis in the phone booth.
Homely details made Spiderman in the Ditko days; I can imagine it growing old, though. I attribute re-imagining to that as much as anything. Greatest thing to me about Ditko's Spiderman was that he had two alternate personas. The cocky photographer who confronted Jameson and flirted with Betty was as different from Peter Parker, nerd, as Spiderman was.
To get back to William Jefferson's corruption, do any of the lawyers present want to comment on the legality of the raid on his office? (Here's one link speaking to that question.) It seems that the FBI didn't have a subpoena and that the raid breaks with commonly understood precedent. What do the lawerly think?
I think this is potentially really bad news. Before this, the GOP just had Conyers, Hastings and Rangel to play the race card on. They were going to play the race card on Charlie Rangel - I have the bias of a native New Yorker, but Charlie rocks in a way that trancsends race unless your form of racism mandates that any charm and humor are impertinent on the part of African Americans. Jefferson, in addition to being African American, appears to be a genuine criminal. And the details of the crime are too good to be true from an attack ad perspective. I can picture the reenactment.
And then there's Alan Mollohan. One is a good anecdote of cleaning house. Two is disturbing. ANd I fret that this isn't the end, because no sweetheart deal could happen in the last decade without the GOP knowing about it.
"transcends race" doesn't read right in 63. So let me add to the comments and expound. I once heard Rangel talk about being in Korea when the Chinese came over the Yalu. He said he hasn't had a bad day since. I think Rangel's a very good man.
While I agree with everything you say about Rangel -- the man is incredibly charming in an ugly, raspy-voiced, seems absolutely trustworthy and reliable kind of way -- I think you're off-base otherwise. ( I was very pleased to move into Rangel's district -- no matter how lousy the other races are, every two years I get to vote for a candidate I approve of who's guaranteed to win.)
Corruption seems like a hard issue to race-bait on, doesn't it? And Mollohan, while I don't have a clear sense of the case against him, doesn't seem to have done much more than conventional pork -- bad, and to be deprecated, but hard to use as a synedoche for a larger problem in the Democratic party.
The plan for the RNC looked initially to include a lot of John Conyer and Charlie Rangel and ALcee Hasting crap, focusing on "John Conyers is going to impeach the President (and sleep with your wife...). Kristol got this out on Colbert, I saw Delay use it on Stephanapolooza. I think that to the extent race baiting is the plan, having an actual criminal who is an African American member of congress just makes the plan easier.
I see your point. But John Kerry was a war hero. Really. He was. And the Dems are largely honest, really, they are.
Plus, dude's from Louisiana. Everyone knows how that is.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:29 AM
the Republicans are corrupt at the root.
I suspect that telling Repbulicans that they are corrupt at the root is a pretty good way for Pelosi to mobilize the Republican base and to confirm what many swing voters think about her and the Democrats, but to each her own.
On your broader point, that the Democrats could turn this to their advantage, I agree, particularly if it were limited to Pelosi can come out and say "When we find crooks in our ranks, we disown them, and support their prosecution. Why won't the Republicans do the same?"
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:38 AM
Joe is so, so right.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:38 AM
2: Is "much of recent Republican policy is corrupt at its root" better? How much better?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:39 AM
I agree with Joe and LB.
(If we comment, will we crash the site forever and ever?)
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:41 AM
2: The beauty part is that she doesn't have to say it -- the story tells itself. If she explicitly draws an equivalence between the Democrats cleaning house by disassociating themselves from Jefferson, and the Republicans' failure to do the same w/r/t DeLay, it's going to be very hard for Republican partisans not to cry "Bullshit -- you're walking away from a nobody, and you're asking us to walk away from someone at the center of our party's power structure. Oh. Whoops."
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:44 AM
JM, is that how the English for l'dor vador is usually written? or is it for ever and ever? I see it all the time but honestly don't remember.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:45 AM
re: 6 I think you are right w/r/t the part of your post with which I agree. It could be very effective.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:48 AM
5 - No, actually I want you to comment up a storm today. If we get shut down with the low number of comments currently in the database, we know the main site/archive site plan won't work.
So make many, many comments.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:51 AM
10!
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:53 AM
OT: Hook 'em Mavs woo!
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:58 AM
Kwame!
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:59 AM
Yeah, congrats. It was a fantastic series.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 10:03 AM
10 gets it exactly right.
Posted by mike d | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 10:04 AM
15 gets it totally wrong.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 10:05 AM
Considering how the Republicans have reacted so far, you'd think they want to be associated with corruption. Hastert, Frist, and Gingrich have all rallied around Jefferson on a separation of powers theory. If Pelosi et al. are willing to sell out Jefferson, they might actually make some hay out of something for a change -- "He's corrupt and you're defending him" will beat a process argument any day.
Posted by The Dead Man's Pants | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 10:08 AM
They appear to be making a stand on the principle that searching the offices of congress people with probable cause (and I assume a warrant though I haven't looked into it) destroys inter-branch comity, but repealing legislation by Presidential fiat without notice to the public or anything like a majority of Congress is indicative of a healthy relationship between the branches.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 10:18 AM
Right. Although I have to say that I have sympathy with the process argument. In the context of the generally out-of-control executive these days, though, that wouldn't be the first battle I'd pick to fight.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 10:18 AM
Given how successful the Republicans have been at defining bipartisanship as "all of us plus Miller or Lieberman," I still worry that they'll be able to paint this as a systemic problem not a Republican one. But perhaps those days are behind us?
Posted by mjh | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:02 AM
Becks told me to comment a lot, so it's incumbent upon me to note that the only time a commentator can use the word "clutchest" with impunity is when he's describing Dirk Nowitzki.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:02 AM
20: The Mavs will only go as far as Dasanga Diop carries them.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:05 AM
Jeez what an execrable coinage. I suppose they mean best performance in clutch situations? Can't be completely sure.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:09 AM
No doubt. His two big boards in the third decided that game.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:09 AM
Leaving aside whether this is good for Dems on campaigning, it's great on policy. Jefferson is about as worthless a sell-out-to-every-bad-GOP-idea Dem as you can find. He voted for the bankruptcy bill and against the estate tax. And he's got a safe seat. I mean, if this had't fallen into our laps we darn well would have wanted to invent some scandal to get rid of the guy. Divine effin providence, says I.
Posted by aretino | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:16 AM
Excellent point. And the timing is good -- we have long enough before the election to find a decent candidate.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:28 AM
16 is totally right. Even though there's something really bothersome about agreeing with the dead man's pants.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:29 AM
Don't let the Dead Man's Pants keep you down, B.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:31 AM
I've been wondering what dead man, and why pants? (I've also been visualizing TDMP as Dr. Seuss's Pale Green Pants With Nobody Inside Them, but that probably only happens to people with small children.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:34 AM
IDP, I think you're right, and it's "for ever and ever." Amen.
Becks, thanks!
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:38 AM
28: The answer is in an old comment thread. Oh, the irony.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:40 AM
29 -- the 1662 Book of Common Prayer thinks so too.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 11:40 AM
Yes. forever's great moment is as the last word of the 23rd psalm.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:05 PM
Which is the most objectionable part -- the pants, the patriarchy, or the putrescence?
Posted by The Dead Man's Pants | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:19 PM
I'm not sure that "Republicans are corrupt at the root" would mobilize the base. It's not Republican voters that are corrupt at the root; it's Republican politicians. Any voter who identifies with the politicians will get motivated and pissed off by that attack, but they're voting anyway; whereas, the typical base voter who's already kind of disilluisioned with the politicians, I don't see them getting angried up by someone saying "All the Republican bums are corrupt, to the top level!"
Except insofar as such voters would be motivated by the spectacle of a San Francisco Democrat saying that sort of thing, which might well happen.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:23 PM
Is 33 asking about yourself, or the Republican party?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:33 PM
This may depend on scale, of course. If three committees actually have to shut down to deal with subpoenas in the Wilkes corruption case, I think it'll be pretty easy to say "these guys are all corrupt" without alienating swing voters or driving the disaffected GOP base back to the party.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:33 PM
Dammit, woman, stop interrupting when I'm talking to myself.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:34 PM
Putrescence = major turn-on.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:35 PM
37: Ooh! So masculine! ::Swoon::
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:36 PM
I was asking about myself. As to the Republican Party, it's clearly the pants -- have you seen the slacks Mike Crapo wears?
Posted by The Dead Man's Pants | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:36 PM
38: Mysterious putrescence = even better.
Posted by Stanley | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:37 PM
You gotta figure Crapo wears brown pants.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:37 PM
40: W/r/t you, or any individual man, it would have to be putresence. Necrophilia is so 80s goth.
W/r/t the Republicans, I really suspect that the pants/patriarchy/putresence thing is an indivisible triad.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:38 PM
I hate how people idealize putrescence in corpses. TMK, can't you take me on my own terms, rather than subordinate my corpsehood to some Victorian concept of mystery and rot?
Posted by The Dead Man's Pants | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:40 PM
Wait a second -- you're now claiming not merely to be the pants of a dead man, but to be a corpse yourself? Who makes pants out of corpses?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:43 PM
Clothing rots too, LB. Clothing rots too.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:44 PM
Perhaps we're all misreading "pants," and I'm actually the recently deceased's memory of his sexual exploits. On a related note, I'm a fan of the Othello phrase "love's quick pants."
Posted by The Dead Man's Pants | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 12:48 PM
Or maybe you're not deceased at all, but merely impotent, and the death is metaphorical, as are the pants.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 1:20 PM
TDMP was inspired to take his name when it was announced that the dead man was not wearing pants. Whatever he is, he should logically be something that does not exist.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 1:36 PM
This raises the question -- does Clark Kent abandon a suit in each phone booth? Or does Superman have the suit concealed somewhere on his person? And if so, where?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 1:37 PM
LB, the suit is an emanation of his penumbra.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 1:41 PM
He "supercompresses" his clothes and puts them in a pocket in the inside of his cape. I know that sounds like a joke but it isn't.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 1:43 PM
I certainly don't know the answer, but: IDP, that sounds like an explanation from the so-called golden or silver ages of comics, which would no longer be canonical.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 1:44 PM
Granted, the "reimagining" of comics in recent decades, starting with "Dark Knight," enormously complicates things. It means "Superman" is an undefined term. Yes, I refer to the s/m of the fifties/sixties.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 1:49 PM
He "supercompresses" his clothes and puts them in a pocket in the inside of his cape.
That must be some laundry bill. Also, didn't The Flash keep his costume supercompressed inside his wedding ring?
On topic, Justin Rood writes:
Word.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 1:54 PM
Yeah, amen.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 1:58 PM
More recently Superman has been written as quickly stashing his clothes in a covert spot, like the phone booth where he changes. It's the Marvel approach: Spider-Man used to make little webs for his street clothes and camera. (Marvel writers got so sick of trying to pay attention to these things that they invented the black Spider-Man costume, which could transmogrify into clothing.)
The Marvel way is the less corny solution, but it isn't elegant. There are more opportunities for someone to discover your secret identity, though I imagine that when Darkseid is destorying Metropolis with the Omega Effect, citizens don't worry themselves with the Levis in the phone booth.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 2:11 PM
Sorry. Darkseid never destoried Metropolis; that task fell to the writers.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 2:12 PM
Homely details made Spiderman in the Ditko days; I can imagine it growing old, though. I attribute re-imagining to that as much as anything. Greatest thing to me about Ditko's Spiderman was that he had two alternate personas. The cocky photographer who confronted Jameson and flirted with Betty was as different from Peter Parker, nerd, as Spiderman was.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 2:26 PM
To get back to William Jefferson's corruption, do any of the lawyers present want to comment on the legality of the raid on his office? (Here's one link speaking to that question.) It seems that the FBI didn't have a subpoena and that the raid breaks with commonly understood precedent. What do the lawerly think?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 3:45 PM
Cute spin from the NRCC: "As bad as people want to say the Abramoff situation was, it didn't lead to any House offices getting raided."
The Wilkes situation led to the CIA's offices getting raided; is that close enough?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 3:49 PM
No.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 3:51 PM
I think this is potentially really bad news. Before this, the GOP just had Conyers, Hastings and Rangel to play the race card on. They were going to play the race card on Charlie Rangel - I have the bias of a native New Yorker, but Charlie rocks in a way that trancsends race unless your form of racism mandates that any charm and humor are impertinent on the part of African Americans. Jefferson, in addition to being African American, appears to be a genuine criminal. And the details of the crime are too good to be true from an attack ad perspective. I can picture the reenactment.
And then there's Alan Mollohan. One is a good anecdote of cleaning house. Two is disturbing. ANd I fret that this isn't the end, because no sweetheart deal could happen in the last decade without the GOP knowing about it.
Posted by benton | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:41 PM
"transcends race" doesn't read right in 63. So let me add to the comments and expound. I once heard Rangel talk about being in Korea when the Chinese came over the Yalu. He said he hasn't had a bad day since. I think Rangel's a very good man.
Posted by Benton | Link to this comment | 05-23-06 9:46 PM
While I agree with everything you say about Rangel -- the man is incredibly charming in an ugly, raspy-voiced, seems absolutely trustworthy and reliable kind of way -- I think you're off-base otherwise. ( I was very pleased to move into Rangel's district -- no matter how lousy the other races are, every two years I get to vote for a candidate I approve of who's guaranteed to win.)
Corruption seems like a hard issue to race-bait on, doesn't it? And Mollohan, while I don't have a clear sense of the case against him, doesn't seem to have done much more than conventional pork -- bad, and to be deprecated, but hard to use as a synedoche for a larger problem in the Democratic party.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 05-24-06 4:01 PM
The plan for the RNC looked initially to include a lot of John Conyer and Charlie Rangel and ALcee Hasting crap, focusing on "John Conyers is going to impeach the President (and sleep with your wife...). Kristol got this out on Colbert, I saw Delay use it on Stephanapolooza. I think that to the extent race baiting is the plan, having an actual criminal who is an African American member of congress just makes the plan easier.
I see your point. But John Kerry was a war hero. Really. He was. And the Dems are largely honest, really, they are.
Posted by benton | Link to this comment | 05-24-06 7:14 PM