Month: July 2006

TheDemocratic Leadership Council met in Denver over the weekend. The Hotline was there:

There are two common features to every gathering of the Democratic Leadership Council. One is the canonization of Bill Clinton, the DLC’s biggest status symbol. The second is –- a hopper full of new ways to get Democrats elected outside the Northeast.

But this year, there’s a third task at hand– how to justify their place in a large Democratic coalition when the party’s populists and liberals are ascendant, energized, vengeful, and apt to see them as the enemy.

Here’s what weird about that: for all the bloviating about the DLC’s corporate funding, the mushy, tasteless centrism that occasionally defines their policy suggestions, the liberals and the DLCers – call them Democratic progressives – agree on something.

In order to win elections, Democrats need to somehow regain the trust of the American Middle Class.

We definitely need to reel in the middle class but we should also work on getting back the working class. You remember them? Formerly known as the Democrats’ “base.” Wage earners have been tilting the vote toward Republicans for two decades, especially in the South, despite the fact that when they vote for the GOP they vote against their own economic best interests.

Notables on the scene from our party’s rightwing included Andrew Romanoff — remember that name — the 39 year old speaker of the Colorado House, who brokered a deal with the state’s Republican governor over immigration; Hillary Clinton staffers Tamara Luzzatto and Laurie Rubiner; DLC chief Al From, of course; New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who is “back in the good graces of the DLC;” and Joe Klein, “dean of the DLC press corps.”

If I were a real conspiracy nut, it might occur to me that Israel’s attack on Lebanon was timed just so we wouldn’t be talking about this:

Murray Waas: “It’s surprising the story hasn’t gotten greater play. It’s unprecedented for the President of the United States to himself stymie a Justice Department investigation. And it’s obscure for a president to make a decision about who should get security clearances.

“When FBI agents and Justice prosecutors needed security clearances to investigate The New York Times and those who leaked the NSA story to its reporters, the clearances were granted almost immediately. The head of OPR pointed that out in a memo to the deputy attorney general.

“The OPR head pointed out that private citizens sitting on a presidential commission were also granted those clearances. They are a far greater security risk than career DoJ officials, he said.

“Historians will tell you that it’s unprecedented for a president of the United States to make the personal decision to halt an investigation of his own attorney general and his own attorneys, based on his personal decision. Earlier, the president played no role in approving clearances for the other people who were familiar with the program. It seems like this is a major story.”

It’s too much to believe that Israel would set the Middle East on fire just to pull media focus from Pres. Bush’s malfeasance. Instead, let’s just chalk this up as an example of the fortunate circumstances that have allowed George Bush to fail ever upward.

Pam Spaulding, who lives in North Carolina, refers to Sen. Elizabeth Dole as “the empy wig,” and here is one reason why:

[Going] into the most fiercely competitive Congressional election in 12 years, some Republicans say Mrs. Dole is faltering in her latest job, as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which raises money, recruits candidates, plots strategy and shapes the party’s message.

She has been lapped in fund-raising by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The latest filing, on Thursday, showed Democrats with $37.7 million on hand, compared with $19.9 million for Republicans. If Senate Republicans are unable to close the gap, it will force the Republican National Committee to step in with financial support in tight Senate races — it had $45 million on hand as of Thursday — creating tensions with House Republicans who want that money used to help them.

For all her star power, Mrs. Dole, who turns 70 next Saturday, has not had much of a public profile this year, leaving her party at a disadvantage in parrying attacks from her notoriously assertive Democratic counterpart, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York.

She failed to find strong candidates to run against vulnerable Senate Democrats in at least four states, a shortcoming that could also be partly attributed to the White House, which has often played a crucial role in candidate recruitment.

Back in the 1970’s, when the Middle East erupted and threatened world peace, Sec. of State Henry Kissinger went to the region and shuttled back and forth between Israel and her neighbors, attempting to broker a peaceful resolution.

Who could have ever predicted we’d one day have an secretary of state who would make Kissinger look appealing?

That person, Sec. Condoleeza Rice, is on television right now answering critics of Pres. Bush’s do-nothing approach to the current crisis. Her reason for dithering while Haifa and Beirut burn?

Hezbollah is bad.

We’ve heard a lot about the end of Bush’s “cowboy diplomacy.” Apparently, their new approach is “stupid cowboy diplomacy.”

But the president’s recent misbehavior abroad could bring these numbers down:

President Bush’s job-approval ratings have changed little from June, according to a recent Harris Interactive poll.

Of 1,002 U.S. adults surveyed in a telephone poll, 34 percent said Mr. Bush is doing an “excellent or pretty good” job as president, up a tick from 33 percent in June. By comparison, 65 percent of Americans said Mr. Bush is doing an “only fair or poor” job, down from 67 percent last month.

It’s just a matter of time.

Visualize what you want, says the self-improvement lore, and speak it over your life. What you center on will come to pass, so make sure to focus on what you want, not on what you don’t. If only Bush and the neocons possessed a little new age wisdom.

Talk about an axis of evil. This is bad.

One or more Iranians witnessed North Korea’s recent missile tests [according to] Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator with Pyongyang…[I]t is “absolutely correct” that the relationship is worrisome…

“Our understanding is that North Korea has had a number of commercial relations in the Middle East with respect to missiles,” Hill said.

North Korea-Iran ties are of even more concern now as the militant Islamic group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, is trading rocket fire with Israel…

Is it me, or is it starting to look like we are in deep doo-doo with this idiot at the wheel?