Consider it a challenge not to let this thread become about the patriarchy.
We need to keep this thread in a state of low patriarchal energy.
But the perception she won't use him, or he won't allow himself to be used, so as to overshadow her, has its own revolting dynamic, and creates the impression he'll be a wasted, unusable asset.
1. I read that article in the LA Times this am. How surprising to find out that Hollywood traffics in stereotypes.
2. To the point of the thread, I too am resigned to the Cackle as leader of the free world. Special Envoy to the Crisis of the Moment will keep Bill on the road and not wandering down to the Oval Office to meet the new interns.
Isn't there a law against appointing relatives to cabinet posts or somesuch (enacted after JFK appointed RFK AG)?
Bill will head up some sort of initiative encouraging giving to charity, with Bill Gates.
I picture him lounging on the couch in the Oval Office, kibbitzing, and occasionally being asked to leave when he gets annoying. But that's probably not a position as such.
Seriously, I bet he ends up something like a Veep on steroids -- diplomatic appearances overseas, funerals and such, but more and higher profile than a typical Veep.
Q: What Do Retired Rock Stars Do?
A: Work From Wherever.
3: Not necessarily: rare is the President, man or woman, who selects a V.P., or appoints a Secretary of State or Defense, or encourages the attention paid to a subaltern, whose charisma, sympathy and other Q-factor type qualities outshine the President's own.
He's taking a quite active role in her campaign. He still polls well.
Truth is, cabinet secretaries are a lot less important than they once were, and the White House is more important. He'll be the ultimate policy and political advisor, kind of like Karl Rove was for Bush. Except, you know, not evil.
Haven't formed a solid opinion yet on what Bill does (4.2 sounds about right), but I'll throw another question into the mix:
What role does Al Gore play, if any, in an HRC administration? Administrator of the EPA with cabinet rank? Special envoy on global warming? Would he even accept an appointment from HRC?
He'll be the ultimate policy and political advisor, kind of like Karl Rove was for Bush. Except, you know, not evil.
Fixed that for you.
What role does Al Gore play, if any, in an HRC administration?
Are you joking? There's very little love lost between the Clintons and Al Gore.
Would be kind of cool if she appointed him to the Supreme Court. But I doubt he would allow himself to undergo Senate confirmation hearings. Also, I think the VRWC got him disbarred.
Are you joking? There's very little love lost between the Clintons and Al Gore.
I am aware of that tension. But one of the proven techniques of presidential leadership is to have influential figures "inside the tent pissing out, and not outside pissing in" as LBJ colorfully put it.
The fact is that Al Gore has a loyal following, he has real expertise and credibility, and would probably be an asset to HRC. If he would deign to take such a position.
Could also see him as UN Ambassador, BTW.
I don't think he has to be a member of the bar to be on the Supreme Court.
That would be the funniest thing ever -- I wonder if he'd be any good at it.
Comment 3 has at its core, the structure of why unfogged threads are the length they are.
And the reason about the arabs seems like the only conception of arabs most americans ahve is terrist. Outside of things like 'lawrence of arabia' type movies or maybe local things for local arab populations (eg detroit) i don't know what else they oculd play. Its the same as the problem of black people, who are either stereotyped as gangbanger hoodlum rappers or the 'token black friend,' or are portraid in shows targeted to black audiences. 'Black or arab 'Average American' portrayals don't have the 'foreign' element of location movies or known stereotypes, but aren't as identifiable as white 'average American' shows. Especially if the black family on the sitcom is normally used to signal "show for black people." Since a lot of tv/movie is private lives, and those tend to be rather segregated by race/culture/class &c in real life.
10. What role does Al Gore play
I think Al is rather enjoying his role as elder statesman on all things environmental. I doubt he would want to go through the hassle of an appointment, or God forbid, run for office.
Less evil?
Less evil for who? Reagan was never able to gut the welfare state like Clinton was. And Clinton showed a healthy enthusiasm for killing foreigners for a peacetime president. If you're poor, black, or foreign, the "D" after the Clinton name isn't terribly comforting, I don't think.
Also, I think the VRWC got him disbarred.
I don't think you even need a law degree (or any credential) to sit on the Supreme Court.
And the Supreme Court isn't Bill's style, anyway.
Maybe he could be an intern or something.
17. Since a lot of tv/movie is private lives, and those tend to be rather segregated by race/culture/class &c in real life.
Which is why the Cosby Show is such an anomaly. They should have had a Latina housekeeper, just for "spice".
And Clinton showed a healthy enthusiasm for killing foreigners for a peacetime president.
We are talking several orders of magnitude of difference here. I largely agree with the points I understand you to be making, but can we keep 'evil' for the really extreme cases?
Come on, guys. Bill will be at the undisclosed location, unless Dick refuses to leave.
Supreme Court is pretty genius. Otherwise, I'm sticking with "wants to actually accomplish something."
Bill does 4.2 plus Clinton Global Initiative. Within a year, the Initiative becomes so bogged down by charges that it's just fundraising for Hillary and questions about why it needs to operate if its aims are backed by the head of the free world and he focuses on childhood obesity.
You heard it here first.
26: between "free world" and "and he focuses", insert "that he bails, rebrands it 'CGI'"
Also I thought Supreme Court was for Al.
I'm gonna go sit in the corner.
And away we go...
Someone bring up dating, quickly.
The fact is that Al Gore has a loyal following, he has real expertise and credibility, and would probably be an asset to HRC.
There are a lot of people who would be a real asset to the Clintons but I doubt will get the time of day in a Clinton White House. As VP Gore had to fight an uphill battle to defend every environmental program the Gingrich congress wanted to slash; the Clinton White House just wrote off the environment as one of Gore's weird pet issues. That attitude hasn't changed all that much among Clinton insiders; witness the Senator from New York's recent vote against raising CAFE standards.
As for whether or not it would be politically smart to make a spot for Gore: sure it would, but it also would've been politically smart for Clinton to apologize for her war vote two or three years ago. There's going to have to come a time when Dems realize that the Clintons aren't actually that smart; they're just mean.
at the undisclosed location,
2 degrees of separation word of mouth claims that it's a Brezhnev-era dump. Bad smells, hideous and decaying furnishings.
I wonder if he'd be any good at it.
The Washington Monthly (I believe) had a piece a while back on how part of the problem with the Supreme Court is that the justices are all jurists and no former office-holders. I think there is something to that.
Me, I'd like to see him on the SCOTUS for the same reason the right wants Janice Rogers Brown on the federal bench: because it would make the other side apoplectic.
We are talking several orders of magnitude of difference here.
Again, Bill's bombings took place in "peacetime," remember. We never got to see him handle a full-fledged War on Terror as president, with all the unrestrained power that came with that. We do know that both he and his wife endorsed the invasion of Iraq, though, and I seriously doubt that I hypothetical third-term Clinton presidency, surrounded by a clutch of liberal hawks, wouldn't have invaded Iraq post-9/11.
I don't think you even need a law degree (or any credential) to sit on the Supreme Court.
No minimum age, either. A 12 year old could be appointed.
30. the Clintons aren't actually that smart; they're just mean.
Most politicians aren't that smart. It is not one of the job qualifications. Good memory for names and faces, remembering friends and enemies, and being just enough of a whore to remember to smile when asking for the money are what it takes. You can hire the smart guys after you get elected. TV has transformed how they run and who we elect. I don't think the intertubes are mature enough to stem that tide, although it does seem to be ebbing.
damn, Stras, did a Clinton kill one of your kittens or something?
I don't think Gore likes politics that much. He could have had a legit shot at being President this time and passed it up. Hard to see him taking a political position like a cabinet post.
Wow. I'm still assuming it's going to be Romney. It's kind of amazing to see this acceptance of the premise.
by all accounts, the Clintons are quite smart.
by all accounts, the Clintons are quite smart.
"By all accounts," circa 2004, Karl Rove was quite smart, too. "All accounts" were wrong.
"All accounts" were wrong.
Do you seriously mean to argue that Bill isn't exceptionally smart? Because the man just is. *And* he's an exceptionally gifted politician.
9 brings up a good point. Increased consolidation of power into subordinates who are nameless and replaceable w/o senate oversight, as opposed to prime among peers minister leading. fucking unitary executive.
I don't think you even need a law degree (or any credential) to sit on the Supreme Court.
No formal prerequisite, but the ABA has traditionally weighed in with its assessment of qualification (though GWB has pointedly declined to defer to them), and it's hard to imagine a non-lawyer getting the ABA seal of approval.
We're not talking about just any non-lawyer.
Or did you mean the 12-year-old?
damn, Stras, did a Clinton kill one of your kittens or something?
No. But they did gut welfare, fuck up health care reform, pass a crime bill that dramatically increased the number of nonviolent drug offenders that ended up in prison, banned gay marriage at the federal level before George Bush made it cool, expanded the unchecked power of the executive branch, committed the Democratic Party to the grotesque travesty of "free trade," dramatically escalated ethnic cleansing in the Balkans while massacring tons of innocents by air in order to minimize casualties among the U.S. military, sent prisoners overseas to be tortured by friendly dictatorships through the CIA, and used the execution of a retarded black man as a campaign prop. Oh, yeah, and they both signed onto the worst foreign policy disaster in living memory, and neither one of them will apologize for it. That either of them could be mistaken for a "liberal" is something worse than a farce. That they would be welcomed back into the White House by a nominally liberal party is insane.
I thought the rumor was that Bill wants to be SecGen of the UN ("President of the World!"). Not that an American could ever get that job.
Do you seriously mean to argue that Bill isn't exceptionally smart? Because the man just is.
Oh, well then! I guess it was his political smarts that had him and his wife signing on to the Iraq War in 2002, then, committed her to support for the war as recently as 2006, and now has her refusing to apologize for her war vote? Because from here that looks like a fantastically stupid blunder, but I'm sure from off in the rarified world of Bill Clinton, holding to a view held by only 30% of the electorate is sheer fucking genius.
I don't care if politicians are mean. To reach the top of any field you have to either be ruthless. Almost any politician you see who appears to not be ruthless was probably born into a political family and didn't have to work for the alliances he needed (e.g. Al Gore), or moved laterally into politics after reaching the top of some other field in which he was ruthless (Bill Bradley, John Edwards). This is true in other countries as well.
Strasmangelo jones is holding out for a fairytale world.
Because from here that looks like a fantastically stupid blunder, but I'm sure from off in the rarified world of Bill Clinton, holding to a view held by only 30% of the electorate is sheer fucking genius.
Well, she does appear to be leading in the primary polls by a large margin. Perhaps the key to political success is that as Mark Schmitt says, "it's not what you say about the issues, it's what the issues say about you."
Also, the current president shares virtually no views with the majority of Americans, and he didn't when he was reelected either.
Being a successful politician has very little to do with figuring out what people want to see the government do and then doing that thing. At any level above the local retail level, that is. It's very depressing.
I don't want to get into this again, but Rove is quite smart. In 2006 he overplayed his hand , and he was bluffing right until the last minute, but he accomlished a lot of significant evil during his career.
In the book "Germs", by Judith Miller (of all people) and others, Clinton coes off as a brilliant, hard-working, versatile guy who wore out his staff.
Stras is right. I'm sorry, I'm just not writing off the people who were totally fucked over by welfare reform as acceptable casualties in the Great War To Get A Democrat In the White House. Bill Clinton--jesus, I remember being astonished by how much terrible, terrible legislation was sneaked through under the radar because he was a Democrat. Back then, it actually shocked me.
Seriously, when we--mostly white, mostly educated, mostly fancy professionals or fancy-professionals-manque--vote for, fundraise for and campaign for people like the Clintons, it looks very much as though we're saying "hey, we'll be just democrat enough to make things cozy for the richer segment of middle class white folks". That's not what people here actually think, I know, but it does end up looking that way.
Being a successful politician has very little to do with figuring out what people want to see the government do and then doing that thing
Perhaps that is because we live in a Republic. The whole point is to not let the hoi polloi run off with the treasury. That is for the professionals to do.
49: You're missing my point. The Clintons' admirers are mistaking their meanness for shrewdness, but it's really not - it's not just that the Clintons are mean, it's that they're just mean - and it's a dumb, thuggish meanness that's ultimately self-defeating in the long term. From a strategic standpoint, the work Bill Clinton and the DLC did to further marginalize unions and other Democratic interest groups in the 90s, for example, was a fantastically stupid move. Endless triangulation is not how a smart person builds a party.
Niceness isn't really the problem with the Clintons. They just take the wrong positions on a lot of issues. Since the Iraq War, past and future is one of them, I'm not at all optimistic about a Clinton Presidency. At some point the lesser-evil slippery slope slides so low that the whole game is lost.
Clinton coes off as a brilliant, hard-working, versatile guy who wore out his staff.
[smirk] wore out his staff.. [/smirk]
Stras is right about triangulation too. Bill made a success of himself by damaging the Democratic Party, the unions, and in many respects the U.S. His personal success was followed by seven years of disaster (and counting). (Actually, the disaster started almost immediately, in 1994: 13+ years of disaster.)
Di is single now, guys, and dirty-minded again after several years of marital chastity.
Just making sure everyone is periodically kept up to date...
And the Supreme Court isn't Bill's style, anyway
Endless arguments, analytical tricksiness, and a fresh crop of dewy-eyed clerks every October? It's exactly his style. And he'd probably make one hell of a Justice. There hasn't been an honest-to-God politician in there in quite a while. We're about due.
Plus it would get him out from underfoot at the White House.
We do know that both he and his wife endorsed the invasion of Iraq, though, and I seriously doubt that I hypothetical third-term Clinton presidency, surrounded by a clutch of liberal hawks, wouldn't have invaded Iraq post-9/11.
Maybe I'm just being naive, but what would they have invaded Iraq for? The current bunch of clowns did it to cover for the fundamental unpopularity of their positions -- Clinton was at least able to sell his to the electorate without hiding them under a pile of bodies.
I'm sorry, I'm just not writing off the people who were totally fucked over by welfare reform as acceptable casualties in the Great War To Get A Democrat In the White House. Bill Clinton--jesus, I remember being astonished by how much terrible, terrible legislation was sneaked through under the radar because he was a Democrat. Back then, it actually shocked me.
You know, I'm not voting for Clinton based on this sort of thing. But pre-welfare reform welfare sucked pretty hard too; we changed one lousy system to a differently lousy system. That's different than starting large scale wars for no reason at all.
Clinton coes off as a brilliant, hard-working, versatile guy who wore out his staff.
That seems to be the gist of every account I've seen from people who worked in the Clinton White House.
"Does shit I don't like" does not equal dumb. Reagan was dumb. Bush Jr. is dumb. Clinton is obviously not.
Somehow I agree with Emerson and Frowner here, but not strasmangelo.
I try to help people have the mindset that we should assume that there are no nice politicians -- and that if we identify a nice politician, we shouldn't use that as the reason to vote for him.
Here's my rankings of the Presidential candidates in terms of likeability, with their apparent niceness scores (out of 10) in parentheses.
1. Kucinich (10)
2. Huckabee (7)
3. Dodd (6)
4. Obama (4)
5. McCain (3)
6. Biden (1)
6. Richardson (1)
8. Edwards/Clinton/Romney (0 -- I can't imagine them as real people)
11. Every other Republican (negative score for being obviously complete assholes)
That they would be welcomed back into the White House by a nominally liberal party is insane.
It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world.
I don't want to get into this again, but Rove is quite smart.
I have never understood this sentiment. The story of the Bush administration is the story of a man who barely gets elected, sees his approval ratings slide steadily downward, presides over a massive terrorist attack and a subsequent rally-round-the-flag effect that boosts his numbers up to incredible levels, only to see them plummet once again. A "quite smart" political handler would've been able to do something to maintain a decent portion of that glowing praise Bush was getting in late '01/early '02; instead Rove endorsed moves that steadily drove away Bush's support. There are three sources that commonly buy into the "Rove is a genius" theory, and they tend to be (1) Democrats looking for a boogeyman to explain why they've been to fantastically impotent over the past several years, (2) Republicans tooting their own horn, (3) media who regurgitate anything they've been spoon-fed. None of these is trustworthy.
Wouldn't we tend to assume that people in positions of great political power are mostly pretty smart? It's not reliable in every case (see, e.g., W), but odds are most politicians and operatives whose names you know are going to be fairly clever.
63 should be amended to have Brownback as "not a real person" rather than "complete asshole". I forgot about him.
LB's objections in 61 granted, stras is right. Republicans can whine all they want about Clinton, but the corporate class should take take comfort in the strength of her campaign, given the alternatives.
Rove is of the philosophy that 51% = 100% in our system, and he's right. He elected a weak candidate in 2000 and a weak, damaged candidate in 2004. In 2006 his luck ran out, but it was mostly because Bush had screwed up the Iraq War, which wasn't Rove's mistake. Without the Iraq disaster, we'd be facing the likelihood of two more terms of authoritarian, militarist, anti-tax, bigoted government.
Rove wasn't just an election specialist. For him the point of getting elected was getting a chance to stirr things up, and the Bush administration took their tiny majorities and capitalized as though they had had landslides, and it worked. They have changed the playing field and they have in many respects tied the hands of whichever Democrat takes office in 2009 -- the "change reality, don't just understand it" philosophy stated by Marx in his these on Feuerbach.
An old classmate of mine is writing a series of long blog posts arguing against supporting Hillthulhu for liberal reasons, which some here might find very sympathetic, considering the comments above:
http://stephenfrug.blogspot.com/2007/09/liberal-argument-against-hillary.html
62: We're drifting away from the context in which I used the term "smart." I meant, as I thought would be obvious from context, that the Clintons aren't nearly as politically smart or shrewd as they're typically credited, the most obvious example being their ready endorsement - and failure to quickly back away from - a war that wasn't merely wrong, but has been a political disaster - and remains the biggest untargeted Achilles heel in the Clinton II campaign. I think the health of the Democratic Party under Clinton I's presidency, as well as the health of the left in general, is also indicative of bad strategic and political decisions by the Clinton/DLC camp, and reveal a stunning lack of political smarts which generally goes overlooked - like most of Bill's flaws - because of his charismatic and telegenic qualities.
If Rove's overarching goal was to have Bush leave office as a widely popular figure, you could say he failed.
But that wasn't the goal.
Rove is of the philosophy that 51% = 100% in our system, and he's right.
But... he's not. 50%+1 may be enough to get a president elected, but it's not enough to get anything done. This is why George Bush became a lame duck halfway through 2005.
I meant, as I thought would be obvious from context, that the Clintons aren't nearly as politically smart or shrewd as they're typically credited, the most obvious example being their ready endorsement - and failure to quickly back away from - a war that wasn't merely wrong, but has been a political disaster - and remains the biggest untargeted Achilles heel in the Clinton II campaign.
Untargeted? Really? Obama has been trying to make "I'm the only one who has always opposed the war" his catchphrase all year, and it hasn't worked.
You're ignoring comment 50 completely.
Clinton coes off as a brilliant, hard-working, versatile guy who wore out his staff.
It should be noted that while this is the standard take on Bill, the insider accounts (i.e., DeLong) of Hillary's management of health care reform are not positive. Her horrible views on a range of positions plus her history of clusterfuck project management does not inspire hope for the future.
If Rove's overarching goal was to have Bush leave office as a widely popular figure, you could say he failed. But that wasn't the goal.
No, Rove's overarching goal, as he said many, many times, was to build a permanent Republican majority. That's what Social Security reform and the "ownership society" were about. Really, by Rove's own standards, he's an immense failure.
the disaster started almost immediately, in 1994: 13+ years of disaster.)
OK, that's the point. 1993 was the most liberal year of the Clinton presidency, followed by crushing defeat in the midterms. The DLC types and the Clintons saw something in the mid 90s that was very real: the reactionary surge in response to the 60s had not yet played itself out, and was in fact gaining in power due to the media and organizational machine it had built. Now, thanks to the Bush administration, it does appear to be played out, and the whole country is moving a bit to the left. How the Clintons operate in this environment will be different than how they operated in the 90s. Especially if all the mad-as-hell lib types (well represented here) keep the proper pressure on the still-timid Democrats. I'd pick Edwards or (fantasy...) Gore over Clinton in the primaries, but it's nuts to draw any kind of moral equivalence between Clinton and Bush.
At some point the lesser-evil slippery slope slides so low that the whole game is lost.
Exactly Nader's argument in 2000.
I actually think that Democratic hawks and centrists would rather lose as hawks and centrists than win as doves and populists. They're sincere, then, and not dumb, but wrong on the issues and thoroughly dishonest and fraudulent. A lot makes sense if you assume that the Democratic leadership thinks of their main job as keeping the left wing of the party out of power.
So I'm not more pro-Clinton than Stras, exactly.
The U.S. has 1 1/2 war parties and 1/2 of a peace party. At times it has 1 ruling party and 1/2 of an opposition party.
I still think that the Republican endgame might be a constitutional crisis and "managed democracy", in which case Rove looks smart again.
Bob?
But... he's not. 50%+1 may be enough to get a president elected, but it's not enough to get anything done. This is why George Bush became a lame duck halfway through 2005.
Except for that Alito guy and that Roberts fellow. And the prolongation of the war against the wishes of virtually everyone, by skilfully making people think they should be afraid of what would happen if we pull out.
Untargeted? Really?
Obama hasn't named names. Until he actually points fingers - or better yet, starts airing ads - this line of attack isn't going anywhere. See Yglesias's complaint about Obama being too subtle for his own good.
76: Rove is smart and a failure. Tactically smart, strategically foolish. Like a lot of reactionary political operatives coming out of the 60s, he couldn't imagine that red meat attacks on hippies, feminists, and minorities would ever lose their power to get a majority.
A lot of critical errors in politics come from smart people who have failures of imagination.
I think the health of the Democratic Party under Clinton I's presidency, as well as the health of the left in general, is also indicative of bad strategic and political decisions by the Clinton/DLC camp, and reveal a stunning lack of political smarts which generally goes overlooked
Agreed.
50%+1 may be enough to get a president elected, but it's not enough to get anything done.
Seems to me that they've damn near passed legislation at will.
Stras, I'm every bit the Clinton hater you are -- well, seventy-five percent the Clinton-hater you are -- but Hillary's primary opponents have been throwing the war charge against her for most of a year, and it hasn't slowed her down. The war vote is a case for evil, but not a case for dumb until it actually loses her support from someone other than us.
The DLC reset of the Democratic Party under the Clintons was smart, though immoral. The failure to build up the Democratic party to live on after them may well have been dumb.
Except for that Alito guy and that Roberts fellow. And the prolongation of the war against the wishes of virtually everyone, by skilfully making people think they should be afraid of what would happen if we pull out.
But, as I noted before, Rove doesn't care about that. Once again, this is why Rove's baby was Social Security privatization: he was convinced it would break the Democratic coalition and create a new generation that valued GOP-style tax breaks for investment. Rove wanted Bush to be the next McKinley, ushering in a generation of GOP rule. He never cared about the war, and he certainly never cared about putting anti-choicers on the court.
78:Just lurking today. Not into predictions, cept 1) HRC will probably get the nomination, tho less than 50-50 chance, and 2) there will be other catastrophes, shocks, & surprises
Why under 50%? I have seen me a bunch of election seasons, and weird is the rule.
80: Yes, the "angry man" tactic worked so well for Rick Lazio.
Yeah, Marcus. And in 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996. Though he was quite patient during the beginning of that period.
If the Democrats had listened to Nader at any point during that period (for example, on media questions), they wouldn't be so badly off as they are now. They've been systematically cutting their own throats for decades. And all you morons understand is that he blew the election for Gore.
We're finding out right now that the Democrats are incapable of fighting Bush even with a Congressional majority. Nader knew that 20 years ago, and he kept trying to tell people, and they didn't listen. And now the Democrats who actually care about anything but their shitty little careers are fucked.
83 pwned by the whole village, as Hilly might say.
Rove doesn't care about the Supreme Court? Now you're trolling. If he could create a partisan Republican majority on the Supreme Court, they'll create one for the country as a whole. The Supreme Court can disenfranchise minorities, enact tort reform, outlaw affirmative action, do all kinds of things.
Oh. And watch the fucking housing markets and dollar. This is goin to turn into hell next year. Worldwide hell. Get frugal for a while. Or drunk.
83: Wrongshore, most of Clinton's supporters aren't even aware of her vote for the war. This is because most people aren't paying attention yet. Those attacks on her war vote aren't being heard yet, because (1) they're aren't overt enough, and (2) they aren't being aired in a forum where they're heard by that many people. When Obama and Edwards start running TV ads in Iowa and NH bashing Clinton's war vote, and it still doesn't put a dent in her approval ratings, then I'll agree with you.
I'm really not getting the "resigned to Hillary" thing. Doesn't even a brief look at election history reveal how fucking hard it is to predict this stuff? "Looks like the inevitable nominee" I find less than convincing this early in the game.
Triangulation really demoralized a lot of Democrats. But I don't think Bill cared. he enjoyed defeating his enemies.
84: it might be that Rove simply never had the power to stop the war, in fact from all accounts he definitely didn't. The "ownership society" agenda was not that popular on its own, but without the disastrous war the Reps might have held on to enough control to push it through. Stuff like SS "reform", while opposed by the majority when people understand what it actually is, is the kind of thing you can push through in back rooms.
93 is fair. Care to make it interesting?
I hereby note that I posted 91 but forgot to sign.
This is goin to turn into hell next year. Worldwide hell. Get frugal for a while. Or drunk.
Stockpile ammo!
And don't come crying to me about prices. I told you people to buy this stuff years ago. Metals prices are through the roof.
The DLC types and the Clintons saw something in the mid 90s that was very real: the reactionary surge in response to the 60s had not yet played itself out, and was in fact gaining in power due to the media and organizational machine it had built. Now, thanks to the Bush administration, it does appear to be played out, and the whole country is moving a bit to the left.
No help from the Clintons, and active, stubborn opposition from the DLC.
Metals prices are through the roof
With that broader meaning of "tin" I suggested, ammo might be an appropriate tenth anniversary present.
The attack on Social Security was intended to be a death blow to the Democratic Party. It amounted to erasing the greatest Democratic accomplishment of the last century. It was part of the overreach.
And again, it wasn't the mainstream establishment Democrats who beat it. They probably would have caved in on some mushy compromise without the pressure from outside the party.
Rove doesn't care about the Supreme Court?
Read what I said again: Rove doesn't care about putting anti-choicers on the court. As far as I can tell, he only ever saw the court as a way to keep the "crazy people" in the base happy. Rove didn't think he was going to bring about his permanent Republican majority by changing the court; he thought he was going to bring it about mainly by changing the law to weaken Democratic institutions and sources of cash while strengthening GOP ones.
Rove was not an ideologue. He was a paid partisan hack. One can easily imagine a world in which he ended up as a Democrat, pulling dirty tricks for some Democratic candidate, and bringing his truly deluded electoral theories to fuck up some Democratic administration.
90: Iran, war, another terrorist attack, Bill & Hillary caught with Brittany, anything could happen.
But I do give it a 50% chance of a misery index over 10, and a 25% of over 20. Under such conditions, the Democrats might draft David Lee Roth at the convention. I hear he's back...
46
"... used the execution of a retarded black man as a campaign prop ..."
As I recall Rector was not retarded but instead brain damaged as a result of shooting himself in the head in a failed attempt to avoid being taken alive.
104: Jump!
102: I've told the story of our local event that spring of 2005, with Durbin and Schakowsky saying we've got to fight and Obama equivocating and triangulating.
As I recall Rector was not retarded but instead brain damaged as a result of shooting himself in the head in a failed attempt to avoid being taken alive.
Yeah, Rector put a bullet in his own head. It's not like he was mentally incapacitated when he committed the crimes.
"The attack on Social Security was intended to be a death blow to the Democratic Party."
Social Security has been under attack since the 70s, when the composition of the CPI & Core first got changed. Measures of inflation are the topic du jour, but basically the old, poor, workers have had their Standards of Living declining for decades. They may get resentful & confused. As far as I can tell. so-called "liberal economists" are ok-fine with this slow starvation and impoverishment, as long as capital don't get hurt. Hi Brad.
Rove may have been an idiot, but Greenspan was a genius. Declining real wages are good for Republicans.
Maybe the poor would be better served if they weren't so damned surly.
103:Rove was smarter & more complicated than that. Fuck the social issues, Rove was a student of the McKinley Era and understands the SCOTUS decisions, some of which preceded FDR, even Wilson, that helped build the progressive coalition.
He put economic reactionaries on the court. Control the economy, and the social issues will take care of themselves. When there is only one tenuous job, that female executive will be sent barefoot & pregnant back to the kitchen.
The real political issue we should be discussing here is why doesn't Obama wear an American flag pin?!?!?!
Yeah, Rector put a bullet in his own head. It's not like he was mentally incapacitated when he committed the crimes.
Oh, I didn't know this. And here I thought Bill was a bad guy.
102: Your point about Rove's overreach is, I think, true. But I'm not sure your 102.2 ("probably would have caved") applies in the case of Social Security. Outside pressure from labor, campaign for america's future, TPM, & others was obviously critical to the Social Security campaign, but that's true of any political debate -- in this case it amplified what "mainstream establishment Democrats" were doing from congressional leadership on down, rather than pushed them to do something they didn't want to do...
re: 112
There is a real difference there, though. Fwiw, I don't really believe in diminished responsibility,* and I definitely don't believe in the death penalty, but if you did, you'd want to distinguish between someone who was of diminished responsibility at the time the crime was committed and someone who became a person of diminished responsibility later.
* I find something like the 'Swedish model' with respect to legal responsibility more appealing from a philosophical standpoint.
Things that won't happen but I'd love to see:
Gore to SCOTUS. I'd hate to see him out of the public eye, as would probably happen, but you know he'd like doing this and would probably be good. And he'll probably outlive Bill Clinton. (We need to think like conservatives when it comes to court appointments and get a bunch of 30 year old commies on the bench the next time we have a chance).
Bill: Press Secretary. You could hear conservative veins popping at every single press conference, and again, you know he'd love the job.
Howard Dean: A.G. I know he doesn't have a law license, but I'd love to see him do something that lets him go after people. If not this, maybe he could revive the office of Senate Master of Arms, and punch fools like Lindsay Graham in the face when they get out of line.
W and Darth Cheney: to the Hague, of course.
You know, I actually don't know what his public positioning is on single-payer health care. But getting Dean, a competent politician/doctor/thug(and I mean that as a compliment) in as Surgeon General, and then having him spearhead the Executive Branch's push for healthcare reform... it's an idea with a certain piquancy, isn't it? Clinton's not friendly with Dean, IIRC, but if someone else wins.
I don't really believe in diminished responsibility
I don't know a thing about the "Swedish model", but if someone's psychotic I'm going to call a psychiatrist, not a philosopher. Although I'm not sure that insanity as a legal defense really does much good, so if that's what you're saying, some sort of doleful comity might arise.
Yeah, there's an obvious fit for Dean as SG, which could be especially good in tandem with a healthcare reform campaign. I guess I never get excited about this because SG always seems to be such a weak position. But with support from the White House, there's no reason he couldn't turn the office into something more useful. And still punch Lindsay Graham in the face.
I do hope Dean will stay active one way or another, and hopefully in a capacity that takes advantage of his cantankerousness.
Oh, and: he's all about the single-payer. (Now, anyway. I think he had to warm up to it.)
117: The first time I ever saw Dean, he (as governor) was speaking at my sister's UVM med school graduation. The gist of his (passionate, forceful) speech was that the newly-minted doctors should use their expertise to inform public policy. I think he'd be great, even given the demonization of him last time around.
108: Actually, there are two discourses on insanity, psychiatric and legal, and the relations between them are messy. Counseling psychology is messy too.
121: I was living in NH when the civil union thing was going on, and Dean's handling of it sort of shocked me loose from some of my cynicism about politics. It was actually better, in my eyes, that he was this middle-aged straight guy, visibly squicked out by the whole idea and awkward about it with the press, than a natural ally. It made it that much more impressive when he did the right thing anyway. There has to be a way to keep politicians like that around for some good purpose.
123: I am more aware of that than I ever really wanted to be.
I was chagrined to see Dean neutered by taking the DNC post. I thought he would be more interesting than "Larry Bud" Mehlmann, but it is the same tired talking points. I don't even know who the RNC Chair is, although I get emails about the Hillary juggernaut. (Hillthulhu, I like that).
122: I think it remains to be seen how badly Spitzer stepped on his dick with his little Joe Bruno problem. He may be poison by 2009.
The FEDS! The FEDS!
have summoned me to jury service. Fuck me. IIRC, my third time, that's 30 days on call, 7-10 days waiting to be vordured. 40 dollars, enough for parking, lunch, and a new set of double lightning bolt t-shirts. Nice room with no cable and a bunch of straights chatting all day.
I love my country.
I'm not an educated critic of political tactics, but the 50 State Strategy seems to be working nicely. Who's neutered?
130. Dean is certainly less pugnacious as DNC Chair than he was as a candidate. As he should be. I just thought he would retain more of his combative nature and therefore show differently than his predecessor.
129: I think it remains to be seen how badly Spitzer stepped on his dick with his little Joe Bruno problem. He may be poison by 2009.
You know, Bruno's handled that absolutely brilliantly, or the press doesn't like Spitzer. While Spitzer acted wrongly, what he did wrong was direct an investigation at Bruno without authorization, not frame him. If I understand the reporting correctly, Spitzer did uncover genuine misconduct by Bruno, but that bit's dropped out of the story completely.
(Note: What Spitzer did was wrong; I'm just impressed that Bruno's managed to take no heat at all.)
Bill: Press Secretary. You could hear conservative veins popping at every single press conference, and again, you know he'd love the job.
I like the thought of the veins popping, but this is not a good idea. Part of the job of the press secretary is to remain studiously ignorant of certain things so that he can truthfully deny knowledge of them in front of the press. Bill doesn't voluntarily remain ignorant of anything, and he would be privy to pillow talk.
No, use him for something where the spousal privilege would come in handy if he were ever called to testify anywhere.
Spitzer is an unlikely AG candidate because the corporate donors hate him with a white hot passion. This is one case where the vulgar marxist interpretation is the safest one. Also, there will be a NY Senate seat opening up if HRC wins the Presidency.
Bruno's handled that absolutely brilliantly, or the press doesn't like Spitzer
Seems like both to me. It's not a surprise that Bruno would handle it well, given his experience and all the strings he can pull in Albany. I don't know about the press coverage broadly speaking, but it sure seems like the build-em-up-and-tear-em-down kind of story the press thrives on. Brian Lehrer was certainly drooling into his microphone for a while there.
133: Well, I *did* say "things that won't happen..."
132: There was just a really good article on the Spitzer Bruno contremps in the Voice. Here it is.
Huh, I didn't know the Voice did good articles anymore. I'll give it a read.
Dean for SG, eh? Where's he on self-pleasure?
138: It looks excellent, or at least confirms my prejudices about the situation.
140: Aren't these the same thing?
132 135
The reason this got so much traction is that a lot of Democrats like Silver and Cuomo don't like Spitzer either. Silver and Bruno united against Pataki when they thought he was infringing on their prerogatives and the last thing they wanted was a strong reformist governor. This gave them a golden opportunity to weaken Spitzer.
The Rove/Bush presidency is misunderstood here. It was never about 30 years of Republican rule, per se. It was about getting the keys to the vault, and looting it as thoroughly as possible while the clock ticked.
W said before the beginning of his first term that, unlike his father, he intended to spend his political capital. That's what he's done. It is an accident of history that he acquired so much political capital.
The Generation of Republican Dominance was like Rove's prediction of victory in the mid-terms. Whether or not he believed either thing, he was not saying it because he thought it was true.
143 is right on. A smart political strategist doesn't tell you what his real plans are (nor does he archive his email). And 50%+1 is no way to win a permanent majority. It's a good way to ensure that political consultants have a lot to do.
Besides the looting PF mentioned, I think that disrupting the international scene was a primary goal. Plus the tx cuts.
The Supreme Court may or may not be "pro-life", but it's frighteningly authoritarian. A much more important issue in the big picture.
A TX cut would be great. I'm pretty sick of TX (minus heebie, M/tch, Kraab, et. al.).
Okay, I printed out the Voice article for my subway reading and just finished it. The good news is that it reinforced the narrative I want to believe about Spitzer and Bruno (and added a bunch I didn't know about Cuomo, what a putz). The bad news is that by doing so it violated the narrative I want to believe about the Village Voice. Oh, what to do?
143: good point. They practiced a 50%+1 strategy, definitely.
Wayne Barrett knows his Albany.
Emerson, we disagree less than you think. But you seem to have more belief in the fundamentally left-wing ideals of the American people than I do. I agree that the public is to the left of the Democratic party right at the moment, but don't see that they have been consistently over the past three decades. I don't believe a Naderite Democratic party would not have won in the 80s or 90s. If a populist Democratic party does eventually win, it will be led by Jim Webbs and not Ralph Naders.
Plus, on the half a peace party -- true, but the bipartisan national security state has been growing since WWII. You think it takes just a bad war and a few speeches to reverse? Even half a peace party is an accomplishment, getting to a whole one will take a while.
Marcus, I'm just wondering whether the country is salvageable. I'm not doing election strategy.
Regarding Nader before 2000, one thing that he was trying to tell the Democrats was that if they deregulated the media, they were doomed. (Voter suppression is another such issue). This is a whole different thing than wanting a complete left platform. But the Democrats couldn't be bothered, on that or a lot of other issues, because most of them were bought off and few had any long-term goals or vision.
And it isn't the electorate. It's the funding sources. In order to keep playing, the Democrats had to suck up to big-money people, and the Democratic / liberal big money people are morons and shits who aren't terribly unhappy with what's happening. (But if the Democratic donors were to lose control of intellectual property laws, we'd see an enormous furor.)
"76: Rove is smart and a failure. Tactically smart, strategically foolish. Like a lot of reactionary political operatives coming out of the 60s, he couldn't imagine that red meat attacks on hippies, feminists, and minorities would ever lose their power to get a majority.
A lot of critical errors in politics come from smart people who have failures of imagination."
Funny, this is also a great description of Clinton
149: it has ever been thus. What is your standard of "salvageable"?
Good, good point on media regulation.
150: actually, I'm now thinking my 76 was too simplistic about Rove. You can see him also as somebody who understood the Reps would have to appeal to suburbanites through making some kind of stab at a positive vision for government -- compassionate conservatism, the Medicare drug benefit, NCLB, etc. Of course most of this was BS in various ways, but still, it's broader than just red-meat culture wars, and shows vision.
Yeah, but i don't think Rove only wanted 50.1% of the electoral votes; the squeek-through theory was for legislative votes.
143, fwiw, is half right. Looting and dominance, however, are not mutually exclusive. The idea was to open the patronage spigots; firms dependent on republican largesse have great incentive to reinvest a portion of their profits into continued republican majorities. Secondly, the Hatch Act has no teeth: a well funded republican majority could turn the federal government into a political machine: Rep. Lewis isn't exactly hurting right now. If it weren't for meddling Iraq, it would've worked, too. It still may; Blackwater is a currently prominent example of a company entirely dependent on republican largesse, and they're a reliable conduit for laundering federal contracts into campaign money. Privatization in general offers many opportunities for patronage of this sort; I'd be surprised if the Dems didn't discover this sooner rather than later.
re: 118
I don't know a thing about the "Swedish model", but if someone's psychotic I'm going to call a psychiatrist, not a philosopher. Although I'm not sure that insanity as a legal defense really does much good, so if that's what you're saying, some sort of doleful comity might arise.
If you want to determine whether a particular individual fits the currently established legal or psychiatric definition for insanity, sure, you'd call a psychiatrist. And, especially, if you wanted to treat that individual, you'd call a psychiatrist. If, on the other hand, you're looking for a clear definition of mental health (or ill-health) that delineates the conceptual divide between the two, good luck with getting that.
What's sometimes called the 'swedish model' is a model under which no-one has diminished responsibility under law. You are responsible for the crime you committed whether sober and sane or drugged up and psychotic. The differences in treatment between the mentally ill and the mentally healthy are at the sentencing level rather than at the level of guilt. What I meant was that, philosophically, that model makes more sense to me. Not that, as a philosopher, I have any opinions on particular token instances of legal defenses that invoke psychiatric medicine.
lots of retired pop stars (at the one- or two- hit wonder end of the spectrum) become real estate agents, working at the more expensive end of the spectrum. Models too, even some quite famous ones.
#143 is right, with this caveat that much of the Democratic Party is heartily in favour of the looting. As long as the Reps can be sold as eeevil and there is no alternative to the Dems, why not let Bush do the dirty work and reap the benefits, then wait for the next elections to fall into your hands without ever having to oppose anything. That's the Democratic strategy and that's why Nader wanted a genuine third party, even if he was an ass in how he went about it.
re: 156
I know only one 'retired' 'popstar'. Retired in the sense that his current musical output attracts more or less zero attention. Popstar in the sense that his music never troubled the charts but some of his songs were recorded by one of the biggest bands in the world [circa early 90s]. I don't think he really needs to work at all. Although if he wanted to live an extravagant lifestyle, he'd be fucked.
151: Go fuck yourself, Marcus. I'm wondering whether America will turn into a fascist state, and I'm wondering whether the Democrats will try to resist.
Will Clinton leave Iraq? Will she attack Iran if Bush hasn't already done so? Will she continue the multi-decade war for world domination? ("War against global terror"). Will she roll back the Patriot Act? I don't know. I have zero confidence in her.
Suppose she pursues a Republican Lite policy. Will that make her exempt from vicious attacks? No, the 30% will be enraged. Will the 30% stay within the law? I don't know.
Will the hard right find an new, attractive candidate with no baggage? Yes. Will they tweak their message slightly to fit public opinion? Yes.
Will the Democrats as a group resist effectively? No. Do they care? Probably not.
159 -- Republicans will resist. They're definitely against fascism when they're not in charge.
They'll just fight to replace Clinton with a fascist of their choosing. The 30% are authoritarian militarists.
The absolute collapse of the libertarians, the libertarian Republicans, the little-government Republicans, the constitutionalist Republicans, the moderate Republicans and the fiscally-responsible Republicans (all of whom viciously fought Bill Clinton) during the Bush administration tells us how much they're worth. (Nothing at all).
President Hillary will meet the united opposition of the authoritarian Republicans and the "intelligent conservative Republicans", and then when the new Republican President is inaugurated, the nice Republicans will cave again and the authoritarians will forge ahead.
Of course, they did kindly give Clinton welfare reform and free trade.
This thread probably dead
159:Naomi Wolf on Blackwater in America, and some history of early fascist Italy and Germany
via FDL h/t Agonist
Digby this week mentioned this week something I have been saying for years, that journalism sucks because the press is literally physically scared & intimidated. She then backed up a lot. Another difference I have with Emerson.
I am more of less pessimistic than Emerson because I think the fascists have a long while in which they can covertly and subtly gain most of their objectives without blowing their cover. They have learned a lot in 75 years, and Saudi Arabia & Egypt & China & Russia, for instance, rarely have to shoot, torture, & kill.
But I think HRC has a 10-25% chance of becoming President, and I think she knows it. Just as I think Kerry was a fraud, who knew he wasn't going to become President way before the election, no matter what the votes might look like. He wanted the nomination because Dean & Edwards would have been more annoying beards.