Day: September 12, 2007

Richard Viguerie Is Kind of Right About Who Bush Should Choose for AG, But for the Wrong Reasons

Buck Banks

My favorite right-wing punching bag Richard Viguerie has an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times today in which he proves once again why he’s not in George W, Bush’s cabinet. His free advice to Bush on who he should choose to replace disgraced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has some elements that I actually agree with — but for reasons different from Viguerie’s.

Nominate someone with a record of toughness on law-and-order issues who
will not shy away from investigating government corruption.

Well, I don’t agree with everything the Goldwater conservative says:

Liberal commentators and, I’m sure, spineless Republican consultants are advising the president to attempt to make peace with such critics as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) by naming a nonpartisan, inoffensive
fellow like Edward Levi, whom President Ford picked as AG in the wake of Watergate and of the 1974 election of a left-wing majority in Congress. Of course, Levi’s appointment did nothing to appease the liberal Democrats and deprived Ford of a legitimate political weapon against Democratic corruption. Levi wasn’t even the “moderate” he was advertised to be; he pushed Ford into appointing to the U.S. Supreme Court the radical John Paul Stevens, who remains there today.

Viguerie says the Democrats cannot be appeased, and he’s probably right, and I do agree with his next suggestion to Bush:

… nominate someone with a record of toughness on law-and-order issues who will not shy away from investigating government corruption (including vote fraud), and who will push for the nomination of highly qualified judges who faithfully follow the law rather than making it up as they go along.

That’s good, sound advice that Bush won’t take because a true law-and-order AG would have to be willing to investigate the party in power and oh, say Dick Cheney and his gang, which ain’t going to happen. But it’s still the description of the kind of AG who should always be sought out, instead of a party-line stoolie.

But then Viguerie goes off the rails back onto his familiar complaint that the Democrats want an activist judiciary — as if the Republicans don’t:

If the Democrats block the confirmation, expose them for their partisanship, for their refusal to be tough on law enforcement out of fear that they will upset their own base, and for their efforts to use the unelected judiciary to create policies that would never be enacted through a democratic process. 

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Selective Enforcement: Dean Seems O.K. with Rich, White New Hampshire Changing Primary Date

Trish

Another state is vowing to move its primary forward so it can be at the head of the line in determining the next presidential candidates. You know what that means: lots of blustering from DNC Chair Howard Dean about taking away their delegates and refusing to count their votes at the national nominating convention.

New Englander Howard Dean has no righteous indignation over New Hampshire moving up its primary date in violation of DNC rules

Except the state in question is New Hampshire and New Englander Howard Dean is strangely silent on the matter. The lack of righteous indignation has drawn its own attention from Democratic Senators Bill Nelson (Fla.), Carl Levin (Mich.) and Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), who have lodged a protest.

New Hampshire is talking about moving its Jan. 22 primary to stay ahead of Michigan’s Jan. 15 primary and South Carolina Republicans’ January 19 primary and the DNC is saying nothing, the letter said…

Democratic Party rules say states cannot hold their 2008 primary contests before Feb. 5, except for Iowa on Jan. 14, Nevada on Jan. 19, New Hampshire on Jan. 22 and South Carolina on Jan. 29.

Why is New Hampshire, the 41st most populous of the 50 states, so important to the primary process? It’s certainly not because of the diversity of its residents, nor their reflection of the country as a whole, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

New Hampshire Florida America
Population 1,314,895 18,089,888 299,398,484
Whites 96.1% 80.4% 80.2%
Blacks 1.0% 15.7% 12.8%
Hispanic/Latino* 2.2% 19.5% 14.4%
Asians 1.7% 2.1% 4.3%
Median HH Income $53,377 $40,900 $44,334

* Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race, so also are included in applicable race categories.

It makes me wonder if all that sputtering about respecting the process is really about protecting somebody’s idea about rich white folks needing to go first. How very undemocratic of the DNC.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Historical consciousness is in no way separate from self-consciousness. The way in which we think of ourselves has everything to do with how our world sees us and how we can see ourselves successfully acknowledged by that world.

— Arlene Raven (1944-2006) art historian, author, writer, editor, critic, lecturer, art curator, feminist

A New Online Compendium of Republican Sleaze

Jon Ponder

A Review:Tommy Korioth at Basket of Puppies deserves kudos for the hard slogging he did in putting together the Republican Culture of Corruption – An Extended List.

During divorce proceedings, one Focus on the Family physician and Bush FDA appointee was accused of anally raping his wife for eight years. When asked about it, he said, “I missed.”

There are around 200 entries categorized by high profile crimes (espionage, corruption and bribery and perjury), sex-related offenses (child rape, child pornography, rape, sexual harassment, lewd conduct and prostitution) and lesser offenses including drugs and DUI.

The list also looks at specific cases, including those of Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay, the Merit System Scandal in Kentucky and the incredibly under-reported White House gay prostitution ring in the George H.W. Bush administration.

Talk show hosts get their own break-out as do Republican serial killers. There were at least two: Dennis Rader, the BTK killer, and Ted Bundy.

As extensive as the list is, there is so much Republican sleaze out there that no one person could list them all. A couple of notable omissions here include the DUI of George W. Bush at age 30, and Dick Cheney’s two arrests in the 1960s.

(Korioth’s list also does not cover adultery, per se, however for a review of the most egregious cases, we put together The Real Threat to Marriage: Top 10 GOP Adulterers last year.)

A few notable from the Republican Culture of Corruption that were news to me or that I’d forgotten:
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