Author: Buck Banks

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

There are two secrets of life that nobody tells you: screwing and dying. What they tell you about is love and the hereafter. But it is screwing and dying that you have to deal with.

— Walker Percy (1916-1990) American Southern writer

Cheney, the Prodigal Veep, Returns to the Exec Branch

Buck Banks

Home again: The Politico is reporting that Vice President Dick Cheney has dropped his novel — and weird — argument that his office is not subject to an executive order regarding classified documents and is, after all, part of the executive branch of our fine government. Want to know why the sudden change of mind?

The decision follows a threat by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the No. 3 House Democrat, to try to cut off the office’s $4.8 million in executive-branch funding.

Man, you gotta love Rahm. First he engineers the Dems’ take-back of Congress and then he figures out a way to get Cheney to slither home from Mordor to the executive branch — threaten to turn off the bling-bling faucet. But what’s still not clear is, well, everything:

David S. Addington, Cheney’s chief of staff and counsel, wrote in a three-paragraph letter to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Tuesday that the executive order on classified national security information does not give the archivists authority over the president or vice president. Addington said that therefore it “is not necessary in these circumstances to address the subject of any alternative reasoning.”

That amounted to throwing in the towel, according to administration officials speaking on condition of anonymity. The White House has no plans to reassert the argument there is any vice presidential distinction from the executive branch, the officials said.

Two senior Republican officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the rationale had been the view of the vice president’s lawyers, not Cheney himself.

White House spokespeople have been struggling to answer questions about the argument without repeating, amplifying or embracing it. Blogs, comics and pundits feasted on the neither-fish-nor-fowl argument, with Jon Stewart joking on “The Daily Show” Tuesday night that the vice president may be “half she-wolf.”

Emanuel has scheduled a vote on the veep office’s funding schedule for tomorrow and says the vote will still be held, despite the capitulation by Cheney’s evil minions.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

When you don’t have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it’s sex. When you have both, it’s health. If everything is simply jake, then you’re frightened of death.

— J.P. Donleavy (1926- ), Irish American writer

Does the U.N. Still Matter?

Buck Banks

Parade magazine, that venerable arbiter of objectivity and fairness, is running an on-line poll this week about the United Nations. It’s a simple question: Does the U.N. still matter? That’s a fair question — would that it had been asked in the context of a fair and objective article.

But it’s not. The article is long on criticism of the U.N. and short on criticism of the Bush administration, which has done much to harm the effectiveness and standing of the United Nations. The administration’s only act more crass than thumbing its nose at the world body on the eve of the invasion of Iraq was to send John Bolton — a stolid critic of the organization — there as U.S. ambassador.

Granted, the U.N. has never been that cool, collective, Esperanto-speaking, august body of the world’s best and brightest solving the world’s problems to make a better world. But it’s all we’ve got as a super-national entity. There’s not going to be any 20-foot tall robot named Gort to come down and make the nations of the Earth stop fighting like in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Closest we have is U.N. Attorney General Ban Ki-moon.

So go to the Parade poll and vote that the U.N. still does matter.

Poll: Dems On a Roll — Kind of

Buck Banks

Catch the aura: Seems the Democratic Party is on the rise, with a majority of Americans polled expressing support for a “generic” Democratic candidate for prez. Problem is, there are no “generic” Dem candidates — they’ve all got liabilities and personalities and other stuff that makes them somewhat acceptable but not as the iconic Democratic uber candidate that would be the polar opposite of the current resident fo 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

National Journal’s PollWatch was sratching its number-crunching noggin over the fact that Democrats seem to be more satisfied — enthusiastic even — about their primary choices than Republicans, who will probably not be jazzed even after former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson enters the race (Thanks, Mr. President!). Other poll findings:

In a recent Newsweek survey, the three top Democrats — Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama — led in every combination of matchups against the top four Republicans — Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson. It is crucial, however, to note that the poll was [composed] of 40 percent Democrats, 29 percent Republicans and 27 percent independents.

All three Democrats had double-digit leads over Thompson and Romney.

For Democrats, the most precarious matchup may be Edwards versus Giuliani, as 48 percent said they would vote for the former North Carolina senator if the former New York City mayor was his opponent. Giuliani received 46 percent in that scenario. But Edwards stacked up best against Romney at 57 percent to 36 percent; the 21-point gap was the largest margin of all 12 heats tested.

Clinton was strongest of the three against Giuliani with her seven-point lead, and Obama was the biggest threat to McCain with his 10-point advantage. All three Democrats had double-digit leads over Thompson and Romney.

Newsweek pollsters also threw New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) into matchups including Clinton, Giuliani, McCain, Obama and Thompson. Although there has been much speculation over which party Bloomberg might hurt more should he jump into the race, both Clinton’s and Obama’s margins of victory increased in their head-to-head matchups against the GOP front-runners with Bloomberg in the field. (His support was just north of 10 percent in all six cases.)

Also of note in the survey were the primary fields, because while Obama trails Clinton by 16 points, 27 percent still supported him — that’s the same percentage of support as the top candidate in the Republican field, Giuliani. Of course, the Republican Party has the disadvantage of an unpopular president in office now. In a new American Research Group poll, President Bush’s approval rating rests at a dismal 27 percent.

Lowering the Bloom — On the GOP

Buck Banks

Political analyst Craig Crawford says that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s noisy exit from the Republican Party and foray into the ranks of political independence helps the Democrats and harms the Repugs:

Even though he was once a Democrat and despite his liberal social views, Bloomberg more naturally appeals to those Republicans who are iffy on social matters but who tend to admire a wealthy businessmen who runs government like a CEO (which he also once was).

What little polling data exists right now suggests a break toward Democrats. For instance, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York nets an across-the-board gain of three percentage points in a 3-way matchup against Bloomberg and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani done this month by SurveyUSA in battleground states. A Bloomberg candidacy boosts Clinton’s net margin in 10 of the 15 states surveyed, while giving Giuliani a bump in only three and producing no change in two.

The Bloomberg assist to Clinton is most evident in Southern and border states. Missouri actually flips from a Giuliani lead to a Clinton lead if Bloomberg is in the mix. And in Kentucky – one of the few Southern states that the Clinton campaign intends to target – the Bloomberg factor tightens a Giuliani lead to a dead heat between he and Clinton.

While a slew of new polls will surely test other matchups, expect the Bloomberg spoiler effect to narrowly benefit Democrats.

Bloomberg had better run for something and win because he’s quickly running out of potential party affiliations. Forget the Greens, maybe the Libertarians and there’s always the World Socialist Party of the United States or the National Nihilist Party, if he gets really desperate.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

To maintain that Slavery is in itself sinful, in the face of all that is said and written in the Bible upon the subject, with so many sanctions of the relation by the Deity himself, does not seem to me to be little short of blasphemous! It is a direct imputation upon the wisdom and justice, as well as the declared ordinances, of God, as they are written in the inspired oracles, to say nothing of their manifestations in the universe around us.

— Alexander H. Stephens (1812-1883), Vice President, Confederate States of America