Democracy at work, part II

Since the last couple of weeks have been the "Democrats as Spineless Curs" show, it will be interesting to see if they grow some testicles and do something about this:

Today, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gave a speech on the Senate floor condemning Rush Limbaugh for calling troops who support American withdrawal from Iraq “phony soldiers.” He urged his colleagues — both Democratic and Republican — to sign a letter of disapproval to the CEO of Clear Channel.

Instead, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) — who voted to criticize MoveOn.org — has decided to commend Limbaugh. Today at 3:16 PM, Kingston introduced a resolution “[c]ommending Rush Hudson Limbaugh III for his ongoing public support of American troops serving both here and abroad.”

What Rush has done to "Support the Troops!" exactly, beyond being a loudmouth windbag Republican with a thing for Dominican sex parties, is beyond me. Anyway, given the bold, strong leadership style of the Democratic majority, I'm sure there is no way they will cower before a known Republican drug-abusing liar.

I am so glad our leaders are spending time on important tasks like this.

Confidence!!!

"I don't think Hillary will have me."

— Former Republican presidential candidate Tommy Thompson, in response to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's question about whether he would want to serve in the next president's cabinet.

Dick Cheney as Saruman

Whenever lib'ruls like me claim the Iraq war is about oil/rich guys or whatever, we're always told that we're moonbatty conspiracy theorists no one should take seriously. It would be a lot easier to accept that attitude if Republicans weren't always acting like a secretive conservative Legion of Doom.

Via a commenter at Lawyers, Guns and Money.

UPDATE: Via Digby, I see the plot thickens. A split like this would be disaster for the Republicans in 08. Obviously this is merely a guess, but I would see this trip as an effort to convince the fundies that whoever wins will toe the Christianist line just fine. Eventually, the limitations of associating with rigid, fundamentalist religionists was bound to show itself, and now it might just finally be happening. In any case, it's fun watching the conservatives eating themselves.

An Opportunity Denied

I see that Newt Gingrich is declining to run for President. That's too bad indeed.

As a committed lefty blogger of no consequence, I am truly disappointed. A Newt Gingrich Presidential run is a Christmas gift for those on the left. For me, it combines all the personal animosity I feel for his hand in foisting the Monica Lewinski "scandal" on me with the opportunity to rip apart his colossal ideas that the media is so infatuated with. He has it all, in abundance-hypocrisy, lunacy, cliche right-wing ideas masquerading as innovation, jowls-a lefty blogger's wet dream. If he had won the nomination, and been thumped as solidly in the general election as I'm certain he would have been, it would have left a whole pile of "conservative ideas" mouldering as a dung pile for years and years to come. As soon as I heard he was publicly making a play for the nomination, I started gathering ammunition. I know I was not alone.

And now it's over. Curse you, Newt!

As for this:

Rick Tyler said Gingrich realized he couldn't run a political action committee -- his American Solutions group -- and form an exploratory committee to run for president as well.

This sounds an awful lot like horseshit to me. Newt's self-regard is boundless. If he felt that he could manage to win, he wouldn't give it up to keep a comparatively small-time position leading a political action committee.

I think it probably has more to do with this. Scroll down and check out Newt's numbers. Newt may want to kiss himself, but the rest of the country will politely decline. I think his handlers got wind of the political realities and, realizing he might outdo even Fred Thompson for a sluggish campaign, put an end to things, lest this embarrassment give Newt's ego a terminal hematoma.

9/11 Forever

So, when Rudy takes a dump, is it because of 9/11?

Democracy at Work

Could this really, actually happen? I guess so...

Faced with the prospect of losing a committee vote, Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Richard J. Durbin Wednesday backed down a bit from their opposition to a Republican nominee to the Federal Election Commission accused of stymieing minority voting power.

Feinstein of California and Durbin of Illinois had expressed serious reservations over Republican Hans von Spakovsky’s nomination to a 6-year term on the FEC. And Feinstein, chairwoman of Senate Rules Committee, seemed to be setting the stage to vote against his nomination, signaling she would take the unusual step of seeking individual votes in her committee for von Spakovsky and three other pending FEC nominations – a Republican and two Democrats.

But Feinstein and Durbin on Wednesday joined a unanimous vote to move von Spakovsky’s nomination and those of the three others to the full Senate without recommendation.

Lithwick's article lays out most of Spakovsky's crimes. Spakovsky is one of the masterminds behind the "Voter Fraud" fraud, which was used to give intellectual cachet to the idea generally that voter fraud was widespread, and that specifically voter identification laws, targeted at minorities that usually vote Democratic, was the solution:

In support of his position that voter-ID laws did not unconstitutionally suppress the votes of poor and minority voters, Hearne cited the decision of the DoJ to approve the pre-clearance of Georgia's voter-ID law, and a law review article supporting such laws, written under the pseudonym Publius. Hearne didn't reveal that the decision on Georgia was made by political appointees of the DoJ over the strong objections of career attorneys there who believed the law was indeed discriminatory. Nor did he explain that (as I discovered and blogged about a few years earlier) Publius was none other than Hans von Spakovsky, then serving as one of the political DoJ officials who approved the Georgia voter-ID law. (President Bush later gave von Spakovsky a recess appointment to the Federal Election Commission.)

There is simply no way the Democratic Senate can let this slide. Spakovsky is a walking, talking affront to democracy. The Democrats approving this would be akin to a mass neutering. Of course, after that gutsy vote to condemn MoveOn.org for their ad in the New York Times, there's no telling what decision they might make.

My tax dollar at work

There is really nothing to say about this. Well, yes there is. It's stupid. What a colossal waste of time. One of my own Senators, Herb Kohl, voted Yea on this dog, instead of walking out, laughing, as he should have.

I guess I can expect to see John Cornyn pushing legislation condemning ads that impugned the character of Vietnam Vets John Kerry and Max Cleland coming right around the corner, right? Not something I would bet on.

While the blatant hypocrisy of the Republican party is as aggravating as ever, it comes as no surprise. Intellectual and moral consistency is not a conservative hallmark. What I don't understand is why the Democrats let this come to a vote at all. The "outrage" over this ad and the way it dared to "impugn" the mighty colossus Petraeus is a sideshow. Letting it happen at all validates this nonsense. Actually voting for it gives the Republicans political cover. Do they think they're going to get some kind of political capital out of this crap? The only thing I can think of is that they were actually worried that people would see Petraeus' shiny medals and be hypnotized into supporting the war. If so, that was a grave miscalculation. Americans still hate the war. They still want to leave. Shiny generals and rants about advertisements haven't changed any of that. Even though they are the majority party and are on the right AND popular side of the issue, they still lead frightened.

These attempts at some kind of short-term political gain always come at the expense of long-term victory, which is one of the reasons why I think the Republicans can always bully Democrats into nonsense storylines. When you're trying to do something good but difficult, sometimes you have to take some early hits. Trying to defuse the usual Republican you're-all-traitors-lefties-hippies-weaklings-pussies-blah-blah-blah by voting on useless crap won't work, because they'll do it anyway and when you really need to do something useful later, you'll have no credibility and thus, no influence. The Democrats are still trying to play by Republican rules. That's a losing proposition every time.