The Blue State

Bush's verbal exchange with Durbin about the Truman presidency

The latest edition of Newsweek magazine reports on an exchange that took place between President Bush and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) about the Truman Administration following World War II.  It happened on December 7th, one day after the Iraq Study Group presented its findings.  Bush had invited the Democratic leadership to the White House for a photo-op.  As he routinely has, President Bush compared his presidency to that of Harry Truman.  Durbin wanted none of that:

He compared his situation to the crisis HarryTruman faced in the early days of the cold war. Then, as now, Bushsaid, the United States confronted a dangerous ideological foe. Trumanhad answered with the Truman Doctrine, a vow to protect free peopleswherever they were threatened with communist domination. Truman'spolicies had been unpopular in their time, but "history showed he wasright," said Bush, according to Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, thesecond-ranking Democrat in the Senate.

TheTruman comparison didn't seem quite right to Durbin. When the presidentwent to him for comment, Durbin voiced his doubts. "Harry Truman hadallies," Durbin pointed out. The Truman administration had helpedcreate the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to contain communism.After Britain withdraws its troops later this year, Durbin says he toldBush, "we will be virtually alone in what we are trying to accomplishthere." Durbin says that Bush did not become angry, but he did seemirritated and "insisted that this was an ideological struggle, whichwasn't my point at all," says Durbin. "He was very defensive."

It's called denial.  Bush has every emotional incentive to draw such comparisons.  It makes him feel better about himself.  So how might he go about this?  His denial is a seven-step process:

1. Step One: Identify why people don't like you.
2. Step Two: Identify every single president throughout history that faced public scrutiny.
3. Step Three: Identify the president from the list that is the most popular today.
4. Step Four: Identify every comparison you can.
5. Step Five: Put up his painting in your office, and randomly hand out his famous quotes to all your staffers.
6. Step Six: Insert references to that president in your speeches.
7. Step Seven: Actually believe you are him.

Feel better now?

Once the fighting begins, Iran policy is out of Bush's hands

When tensions with an adversary mount while cabinet officials disagree about how to go forward, it is easier for the more hawkish members of the cabinet to ultimately get their way.  Why?  Four words: the rules of engagement.

The movie Thirteen Days chronicled the feud that took place within the Kennedy Administration during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  The president, his attorney general brother, the secretary of defense, the UN ambassador and a few advisers to the president were among the administration officials that favored a naval blockade of Cuba.  The more hawkish cabinet members, on the other hand, wanted to provoke a wider war with the Soviets, for whatever reason, and were determined to make that happen by forcing the President Kennedy to carry out the rules of engagement on their grounds.

To make a long summary short, yes, the commander-in-chief does manage war policy -- but only to a certain point.  If soldiers get shot at and killed, the situation becomes harder for each side to control.  At that point, both sides find themselves more path-dependent on a war footing, and the war-mongering elements of each cabinet have a greater influence over policy.

With this Iran situation, a few things are unique.  First off, there might not be a disagreement among Bush's cabinet about attacking Iran.  For all we know, maybe it is Bush's goal to start a war.  Secondly, five U.S. soldiers were recently killed in Iraq by insurgents that may have been trained by Iranians.  Third, Bush has never engaged in any diplomacy with Iran at all.  Conclusion: unless the President or Congress dispatch an emergency envoy to the region, tensions with Iran could boil over to a point where neither Bush nor Ahmadinejad can out-flank Cheney's office and the Iranian Mullahs, both of which seem to want war.

The international body, without diplomacy, is an anarchic system.  Dialogue between countries reduces the chance that governments misinterpret the actions of one another.  Most wars are intentional.  But some wars are unintended, and occur because one side incorrectly reads the other, and then after the shooting begins it is too late.

Hopefully it is not too late to avert war with Iran.

The lamest of lame ducks

In the end, Cheney's career-long effort to increase executive power has ended with a Democratic Party revolution.

The Halloween Massacre was one of the most foreshadowing moments in American politics over the last half-century.  It was a cabinet shake-up that happened on November 4, 1975, in which President Gerald Ford named Dick Cheney as White House Chief of Staff and Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.  As one of Ford's advocates, Cheney spent his entire experience as Chief of Staff battling to restore the executive power that had been minimized in reaction to the Watergate scandal.  The political mess that forced Nixon to resign left the next administration powerless.

Cheney brought that same obsession about executive power back to the White House two decades later when he became Vice President under George W. Bush.  Measures such as the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act were at the heart of what Cheney had been trying to do all these years: restore executive privilege over Congress and the courts.

But as a result of the Administration's failed Iraq war, endless Congressional investigations and the overthrow of the Republican majority two months ago, Cheney's dream of a unitary government has been turned on its head.  President Bush is one of the weakest lame duck presidents in modern history.

Craig Crawford of Congressional Quarterly puts it best:

There was something almost sad about Bush putting his own name on anop-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal that laid out his legislativeagenda on the eve of the formal Democratic takeover of Capitol Hill.Clearly gone are the days when Vice President

Dick Cheney

could use a private meeting with Republican lawmakers to set thecongressional priorities list. Now, it seems, the president ispositioning himself as just another spectator on the outskirts of power— firing off letters to the editor. Perhaps he should start his ownblog.

This Administration is ailing.  If they think that they can overcome two years worth of investigations without a scratch, then they are in for a reality check.  Cheney's obsessive desire to increase executive power has resulted in $400,000,000,000 spent in Iraq, more than 3,000 dead soldiers, a CIA leak scandal and an angry citizenry.  For the Vice President's executive power goals over the last three decades, it has been anything but 'mission accomplished.'

The Blue State Person of the Year

Most Corrupt Politicians of 2006

None of these names require a huge explanation, since I have been writing about these crooks all year long:

1. Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) - Jailed!
2. Former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) - Sick!
3. Former Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) - Free golf outings and other perks.
4. Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) - $90,000 of lobbyist money in the freezer.
5. Former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) - Lost his Majority Leader post, resigned then became a lobbyist.
6. Former Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) - It literally paid to know Abramoff.
7. Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) - Covering up the Foley scandal.
8. Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-NY) - Covering up the Foley scandal.
9. Governor Bob Taft (R-OH) - Coingate
10. Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) - One of six federal judges to be removed by impeachment.

Top Political Moments of 2006

Here are the top-10 political moments of the year, starting from ten and counting down to one.

10) Katherine Harris' campaign ends before it even got off the tracks.  It was a disaster from the beginning.  Harris went on Hannity & Colmes and tried to flirt with them.  From then on, it was down hill.  (And no, I did not make this video.  It was the only one I could find of her appearance on Hannity & Colmes.)

9) David Gregory's battles with Scott McClellan and Tony Snow.  After lying down and playing dead in the run-up to the Iraq war, NBC White House Correspondent David Gregory began asking the tough questions that view dared to ask.

To Scott McClellan

To Tony Snow

8) Tom DeLay resigns.  CNN's John Cafferty on the resignation of the former House Majority Leader for allegedly taking bribes from lobbyists.

7) Rush Limbaugh makes fun of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease.  This is just sad -- but it cost Republicans the Missouri Senate race, and therefore majority in the Senate.

6) Keith Olbermann on Habeas Corpus.  Keith Olbermann responds to the signing of the Military Commissions Act, which suspends habeas corpus for anyone, including U.S. citizens, that the government lists as an "enemy combatant."

5) Mark Foley.  This is a montage of all the late-night comedians (Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jay Leno, etc.) reacting to the Mark Foley sex scandal.  Some of the language is graphic.

4) Macaca.  George Allen's racial remark towards a member of the Webb Campaign helped turn the tide, helping Webb beat Allen by a razor-thin margin, and allow the Democrats to take control of the Senate.

3) Bill Clinton on Fox News.  Simply putting it, Clinton had enough.  ABC News' movie Path to 9/11 brought this to a boiling point.  Conservatives have accused Clinton over the years of ignoring terrorism -- even though during the 90s they blamed him for being too "obsessed" with Osama bin Laden.  On Fox News Sunday in September, Bill Clinton responded to criticisms from the right-wing network known as Fox News, and made Chris Wallace look like a fool.  It also gave progressives some extra motivation to fight hard for the remaining two months of the campaign.

2) Brian Williams interview with Brian Williams.  I am completely convinced that this was the most disastrous interview of the Bush presidency.  It happened in late-August from New Orleans.  Bush has an "ecelectic reading list," and his goal is to "keep expectations low."

1) Democrats Celebrated Victory in November.  After a long and intense campaign, the Democrats grabbed a majority in both chambers of Congress, ending the days of endless Republican rubber stamps for the Bush Administration.

Feel free to comment.

Biggest Winners and Losers of 2006

A look at the individuals in politics that won and lost the most in 2006.

Biggest Winners:

1. Al Gore - The former Vice President was by far the biggest winner in 2006.  His film, An Inconvenient Truth, put the issue of energy dependence back on the front-burner, and humanized a man who in 2000 many thought as robotic and out of touch.  The movie increased Gore's overall appeal, especially within the Democratic base.  He has not ruled out a run for president in 2008, and many progressives are hoping that he will.
2. Stephen Colbert - At the end of the Bush presidency, people will look back and agree that no individual made more of fool out of the President than Mr. Colbert.  His speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner was one for the ages.  Unfortunately for the President, he had to sit through it.  The kind of satire that Stephen Colbert uses on his show, The Colbert Report, exposes the logical fallacies of those in power unlike any other, and warns Americans about the difference between truth and truthiness.  His show more politically populist than just about any in television history.
3. Keith Olbermann - His special comment on the death of habeas corpus (via the Military Commissions Act) propelled him to the spot as the most famous progressive voice on cable news.  While his ratings have gone up, Bill O'Reilly's ratings have declined.
4. Howard Dean - The brains behind the Democrats' 50-state strategy in 2006.  He refused to give into the demands of Rahm Emanuel, Chuck Schumer and James Carville, who called for DNC to stop funding Democrats in many red states and instead concentrate money on just a few Senate and House candidates.  In the end, Dean got his way, and it paid off.  Not only did the Democrats win the U.S. House and Senate, but they won a majority of governorships and took over control in a majority of the nation's state legislatures.  Building the party beyond its northern political bubble can work, as Dean proved.
   
5. Arnold Schwarzenegger - After suffering from an approval rating in the 30's just one year earlier, the actor-turned-governor of California pulled a 180-degree turn and decided to work in a bipartisan manner to enact historic environmental legislation.  He won reelection in a landslide.
6. Barack Obama - His popularity refused to die down following his 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention.  And when speculation amounted that he might run for president, he became a rock star within the Democratic base.  His September visit to Iowa during the annual Tom Harkin Steak Fry was what ultimately drove him to think about running for president.  He was mobbed my the crowd, gaining an Elvis-like status.  His stock is definitely on the rise.
7. Michael J. Fox - Was successful in making stem cell research a campaign issue in states like Missouri, Virginia and Pennsylvania.  Had it not been for Fox, as well as the stem cell initiatives that he helped put on the ballot in those states, the Democrats might not have won majority in the Senate.
8. George H.W. Bush - The Iraq Study Group report may have been George H.W. Bush's way of separating his realist view of the world with the idealist view that is championed by his son's Administration.  The elder Bush got his guy, James Baker, to head the commission, whose findings the current Bush chose to ignore.  This was Bush Sr.'s way of saying, "Son, here is my advice on the Middle East.  If you choose to ignore it, then it is your problem, not mine."
9. Bob Woodward - The title of his book, State of Denial, gave independent voters every reason to vote for a new direction in November -- which they did.  "State of Denial" was more than a book, it was a campaign slogan that explained why we needed to throw the bums out.
10. Nevada - In politics, no state in the country had a better year than Nevada.  As we get ready to bring in the new year, it will be home of the new Senate Majority Leader.  Most important of all, it landed a spot as one of the early states to vote for the Democratic presidential nominee -- translating into more money and support for local Nevada politicians.

Biggest Losers:

1. Donald Rumsfeld: The firing of Donald Rumsfeld on the day after the Democrats' sweeping election victory was a poor strategic move by the White House, which could have impacted the election results had it been done a few days prior.  Nonetheless, it still helped make Donald Rumsfeld the scapegoat for the poor war strategy.  History will always remember him in that way, as it can be assumed that Rumsfeld will never find another Executive Branch job again.
2. Fox News: The Chris Wallace interview with Bill Clinton (part 1, part 2, part 3) in September underscored the rocky road for Fox News throughout 2006.  Clinton's exposing of the network for its unbalanced journalism was only the icing on the cake for what most media critics had been writing about the network for years.  Ratings-wise, the O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes suffered a hit, while shows such as MSNBC's Countdown and CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 gained ground.
3. George Allen - Two things here: Macaca and moderate Northern Virginia.
4. Rush Limbaugh - The radio host's insensitive moment in which he made fun of Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease may have cost Republican Jim Talent his Senate seat.  And then, on the morning after the election, Limbaugh admitted that all along he had lied to his listeners by pretending to support President Bush
5. Conrad Burns - His connections with jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff were exposed, resulting in the loss of his U.S. Senate seat to Jon Tester.  The point of no return came during a debate with Tester, in which Burns said Bush did indeed have a plan for Iraq, but was "not going to tell" what the plan was.
6. John Kerry - If you don't know how to make a joke sound funny, then you probably should not try running for president.
7. Jeb Bush - His political future was impacted more than just about any other as a result of Bush's Iraq war policy.
8. Tom DeLay - Proved why K-Street is ruining American democracy, and as a result he is out of office.  Ironically, his new job is as a lobbyist.  Who could have predicted that?
9. Joe Lieberman - Although the 51-49 Senate landscape forces the Democrats to accept Lieberman back into their party, he still is out on his own with little power other than his position as the Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
10. Herold Ford - None of this was his doing.  Ford just happened to come from a state that still is struggling to make it beyond the pre-1954 political mindset, vindicated by the fact that the RNC's racist ad against him actually worked.

I am sure that you all disagree with these choices to some extent.  I would like to hear your opinions.

Audio excerpts of Woodward's interview with Gerald Ford

In 2004, Washington Post editor Bob Woodward interviewed former President Gerald Ford.  As it was revealed today, Ford said he "very strongly" opposed the war, and called Dick Cheney's behavior as Vice President "pugnacious."

The Washington Post has agreed to release audio excerpts of Woodward's four-hour interview with Ford.  Here they are.

My favorite quote:

"I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globefreeing people, unless it is directly related to our own nationalsecurity."

Precisely!

Gerald Ford slammed Bush Administration before death

Not too long ago, the 38th president voiced disapproval of George W. Bush's foreign policy.

In July of 2004, Washington Post columnist Bob Woodward conducted an interview with former president Gerald Ford.  The specifics of this interview were never released until this morning.  According to an article written Bob Woodward for Thursday's Washington Post, the columnist quoted Ford saying that he "very strongly" opposed the Iraq war, and that his former chief of staff Dick Cheney has "become much more pugnacious" as Bush's vice president:

"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake injustifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weaponsof mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said Ithought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an errorin how they should justify what they were going to do."

In aconversation that veered between the current realities of a war in theMiddle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitterend he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion ofthe United States entering a conflict in service of the idea ofspreading democracy.

"Well, I can understand the theory ofwanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion thatthe United States has a "duty to free people." But the former presidentsaid he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligationnumber one, of what's in our national interest." He added: "And I justdon't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeingpeople, unless it is directly related to our own national security."

TheFord interview -- and a subsequent lengthy conversation in 2005 -- tookplace for a future book project, though he said his comments could bepublished at any time after his death. In the sessions, Ford fondlyrecalled his close working relationship with key Bush advisers Cheneyand Rumsfeld while expressing concern about the policies they pursuedin more recent years.

"He was an excellent chief of staff. Firstclass," Ford said. "But I think Cheney has become much more pugnacious"as vice president. He said he agreed with former secretary of stateColin L. Powell's assertion that Cheney developed a "fever" about thethreat of terrorism and Iraq. "I think that's probably true."

Describinghis own preferred policy toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Ford said hewould not have gone to war, based on the publicly available informationat the time, and would have worked harder to find an alternative. "Idon't think, if I had been president, on the basis of the facts as Isaw them publicly," he said, "I don't think I would have ordered theIraq war. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, throughrestrictions, whatever, to find another answer."

Some consider Gerald Ford as the last moderate Republican president.  Yesterday, I wrote a column about just that.

(Video) Tribute to Gerald Ford

One last tribute to Gerald Ford, via video.

As many students my age, I learned about President Gerald Ford without having lived during that time.  With that said, I am far from a primary source.  But when I look back on his presidency from an academic perspective, I think of that era as a time of transition for the Republican Party.  In today's political context, Ford probably represented the last of the old school moderate Republicans, who refused to use social issues like gay marriage, guns and God as wedge issues to divide people.  Ford was an internationalist, a far cry from the neoconservatives that were behind the current war in Iraq. 

On the other hand, Ford helped mentor a new group of conservatives that years later would go on to change the Republican Party.  Some of those individuals include White House Chief of Staff Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George H.W. Bush, and Secretary of State Brent Scowcroft.  They were all appointed on what can be remembered as the "Halloween Massacre", where Ford fired Henry Kissinger and many other veteran statesmen.  The new generation went on to lead, and ultimately dominate the style of policy decisions we see today in the Republican Party.

R.I.P. Gerald Ford.