Monday, October 30, 2006

Republican GOTV: your tax dollars hard at work

Whether or not he is on his farewell tour, wouldn’t it be nice if the establishment media stopped treating Karl Rove like a rock star? I mean, it is now four years since the 2002 midterm election, and folks on both sides of the aisle have weighed in about the “genius” of “energizing the base” by spreading negative bile through whispering campaigns and “advocacy” ads, while paying more audible lip service to hot-button issues. (I know this will come as news to Mark Halperin and John Harris, who act like they’ve just discovered this in their new book.) Many trumpet this victorious strategy, and even look for ways to mimic it, but few seem to assess the collateral damage—a polarized and cynical electorate—or take into account that for all his “brilliance,” Rove and his Bush-wacky Republicans wouldn’t have won much at all without cheating.

And no, I’m not talking about Florida or Ohio, at least not this time.

I remember (for it was less than a decade ago) when it was considered a scandal of the highest order that then Vice President Al Gore didn’t step outside to telephone possible donors to the DNC. Countless column inches and broadcast minutes were spent on what turned out to be Gore’s use of a Clinton-Gore ’96 calling card from a White House phone. Now, this was worthy of a look—because it is illegal to do political fundraising on government property—but contrast this with the ongoing reaction of the establishment media (and Congress and the courts, for that matter) to the partisan politicking coordinated by Rove from a desk that is spitting distance from the Oval Office.

You don’t have to dig. Look no further than Sunday’s Los Angeles Times’ article once again breathlessly describing what the “maestro” Rove is up to (apology in advance for the very long excerpt):

. . . the most significant element of Rove's effort to help four-term Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds keep his job may have occurred behind closed doors, when the White House strategist met with a federal disaster relief official contemplating how to respond to the storm. Four days later, Reynolds announced that President Bush would authorize millions of dollars in federal disaster aid for the area.

The timing was perfect: Reynolds broke the news hours after testifying before the House Ethics Committee about his role in the Mark Foley sex scandal — knocking reports on the scandal out of the spotlight.

. . . .

Rove is giving a virtuoso performance designed to prevent the Democrats from taking control of the House and Senate or, if that is no longer possible, to hold down the size of the Democratic victory to make it easier for the GOP to come back in 2008. His plan is three-pronged: to reenergize any conservatives who may be flagging; to make sure the GOP's carefully constructed campaign apparatus is functioning at peak efficiency; and to put the resources of the federal government to use for political gain.

. . . .

On Tuesday, Rove used the White House itself to fire up the base, setting up a tent on the lawn for Cabinet secretaries and other officials to deliver the GOP's hard-edged message on the dangers of a Democratic triumph to 42 generally sympathetic radio talk show hosts who could pass the message on to millions of conservative listeners.

. . . .

They will oversee a mobilization of political employees from Cabinet agencies, Capitol Hill and lobbying firms — many of them skilled campaign veterans — to more than a dozen battleground states. Many will act as "marshals," supervising the "72-hour plan" developed by Rove in 2001 with Ken Mehlman, the former White House political director who now heads the Republican National Committee.

. . . .

But the success of the get-out-the-vote effort depends on putting a reliable army of volunteers into the field, and some worry about the sour mood among Republicans this year. Rove and Mehlman have tried to ensure quality control by recruiting experienced operatives to supervise key state operations.

In the summer, they invited hundreds of political appointees from Cabinet agencies, along with other GOP activists and Hill staffers, to attend a pep rally in Washington. The event featured appeals to politically experienced federal appointees to volunteer for campaign work in battleground races in the final two weeks of the campaign.

In a twist that resembled an Amway sales meeting more than a political strategy session, they offered those who signed up on the spot a chance to win an iPod and other prizes.

As the political landscape shifted in September and October, Rove's office suggested new destinations for some of these volunteers, pointing them toward races that had become more critical.

But to senior-level political appointees, such conversations with the White House would not be anything new: Nearly all have had regular contact with Rove and his political deputies to a degree previous generations of appointees did not.

For example, Interior Department employees describe regular visits from Rove's staff during Bush's first term. On one occasion, Rove visited a retreat for the 50 top Interior Department managers. The lights dimmed in an agency conference room as Rove went through a PowerPoint presentation showing battleground races in the 2002 midterm election, and occasionally made oblique but clearly understood references to Interior Department decisions that could affect these races.

By stopping short of explicitly calling on the Interior Department officials to take action, Rove stayed within the rules against exerting improper political influence.

This year, Rove's deputy, Sara Taylor, has delivered similar presentations to nearly every Cabinet agency — providing managers with a look at polls showing presidential approval ratings and the latest data on House and Senate races.

In addition to Taylor's visits to Cabinet agencies, Mary Matalin, the Republican consultant and former advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, spoke to agencies this fall describing the stakes in November.

"These visits are a reminder of what's important," said one agency manager who attended one of the sessions. "They didn't need to say anything explicitly. We already knew what to do." The official insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the sessions.

As the White House official considered closest to the president, Rove — along with his staff — not only influences government decisions and the travel schedules of GOP officeholders, but organizes leaders of private-sector groups who are investing heavily in the election.


No, there is nothing in the article that talks about using a calling card and a White House phone to raise $50, 000 for the RNC, but it does talk about redirecting millions in government aid to politically sensitive districts, coordinating federal employees to do partisan political work, consulting potential campaign contributors on policy initiatives, and using the grounds of the White House for a Republican get-out-the-vote rally! And LAT writers Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten report on all of this without so much as a raised eyebrow!

Now, it’s late, and I don’t have a copy of the Federal Code handy, but it would seem to me, at least from an everyman definition, that if the things Gore did were hinky, the things Rove and his White House are doing are almost certainly against the law, or, at a minimum, a betrayal of the public trust and a misuse of public funds.

Maybe Karl Rove got George Bush elected Texas Governor by chatting up evangelicals and muttering under his breath that Governor Richards was a lesbian, and maybe Rove got his boy into the White House with a similar “strategy” (and when we say strategy, we of course mean tactics), but let’s be clear, Rove and the Republicans have clung to power in large part because they have organized the Federal Government to do their partisan bidding in a way that far outstrips all that have come before.

Maybe that makes Rove as audacious as a rock star, but does that make him a genius?

I’m not sure, but I know this: it makes him a criminal.


(A version of this has been cross-posted over at Daily Kos)


Update: Well, surprise, surprise. Thanks to JamesB3, I now know that writers Hamburger and Wallsten don’t raise an eyebrow while fawning over Karl because they have a bit of an interest in maintaining the myth of the “maestro’s” magic:


Mr. Hamburger and Mr. Wallsten have no qualms in hyping Mr. Rove, obviously. Per Hotline:

This piece does not mention that the authors of this piece also have a book titled "One Party Country The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century."


This sounds like quite a fair and balanced read:

In 2004, Republicans won a clean sweep of the national elections -- 232 House seats, 55 Senate seats, 28 governorships and, of course, the presidency, expanding on gains from 2000 and 2002. It's the kind of electoral dominance that could lead a pair of White House reporters to wonder: "[I]s the United States becoming a one-party country?"

Such is the provocative contention of Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten's behind-the-curtains exegesis of the Republican plan for perpetual political power -- and why it just might be crazy enough to work. "Republicans," they write, "are the New York Yankees of American politics -- the team that, at the start of every season, has the tools in place to win it all."


Is this what the media is reduced to? The LA Times running this journalistic pom pom wave for SuperKarl?


Well, James, in the case of the LA Times, recently forced by the parent Tribune Company to drastically cut news staff, um, yes.


Friday, October 27, 2006

Almost Beneath Contempt

Readers of guy2k and capitoilette know that I have been decrying the precipitous decline of ABC News—mostly through my distaste for the infotaining of Nightline—for most of the year. But, in recent weeks, as the approaching midterm elections cross storylines with the release of The Way to Win, a book co-authored by ABC political director Mark Halperin, it seems the alphabet gang has redoubled its effort to out-FOX FOX.

Don’t believe me? Well, don’t take my word for it, here’s Halperin himself, appearing earlier this week on The O’Reilly Factor:

O’REILLY: “Factor follow-up” segment tonight, a somewhat surprising ABC News Internet posting. It’s entitled “How the Liberal Old Media Plans to Cover the Last Two Weeks of the Election.”

The article was written by Mark Halperin, the political director of ABC News, and also the co-author of a brand new book called “The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008.” Mr. Halperin joins us from New York.

This is a very tough piece of analysis that you wrote. I’m surprised. I’m not stunned, because you are a gutsy guy. You have done this before. But let’s walk through it. Who is the liberal old media?

MARK HALPERIN, POLITICAL DIRECTOR, ABC NEWS: Well, Bill, as you know in this country, we’ve got these old news organizations. The major networks, ABC, where you used to work, The New York Times, The Washington Post.

These organizations have been around a long time. And for 40 years, conservatives have looked with suspicion at them. I think we’ve got a chance in these last two weeks to prove to conservatives that we understand their grievances. We’re going to try to do better, but these organizations still have incredible sway. And conservatives are certain that we’re going to be out to get them. We’ve got to fix that.

O’REILLY: All right, so you’re actually admitting, you the political director of ABC News, that CBS News, maybe your own network tilts left?

HALPERIN: We write in the way to win (INAUDIBLE) that over the years, there a lot of examples. What CBS News did in the 2004 election with the president’s National Guard record. Lots of examples.

If I were a conservative, I understand why I would feel suspicious that I was not going to get a fair break at the end of an election. We’ve got to make sure we do better, so conservatives don’t have to be concerned about that. It’s just - it’s not fair.


To make good on his word, Halperin and his ABC buddies have broadcast a slew of stories that cause the jaw to drop and the mind to boggle in way we used to reserve for the claptrap seen on Fox News. There is a great list over at Media Matters, but let me just give you a few headlines:

To back up claims of a "liberal media," ABC's Halperin said liberal 527s "spent millions" attacking Bush, but falsely suggested there were no similar groups on the right

On Good Morning America, Hannity offered a host of misinformation to attack Michael J. Fox

ABC's Nightline reported that "both sides" are airing "mudslinging" campaign ads, yet Nightline could not point to a single Democratic example

ABC pre-emptively criticized Democrats for negative campaign ads that have not yet been produced

ABC's Roberts and Stephanopoulos juxtaposed Michael J. Fox's stem cell ad in MO Senate race with RNC's fearmongering bin Laden ad


I saw the two pieces on campaign ads (and you can watch the clips if you follow the Media Matters link above), and, along with being noticeably right of center, they were remarkably crappy pieces of journalism—kind of ET for ugly people. And, even if you subscribe (foolishly) to the notion that because the pieces imply both sides engage in mudslinging, it makes the piece “unbiased,” ABC is still doing the RNC’s bidding. By implying that politics is a cesspool, and everybody is dirty, potential voters become disenchanted: they’re all crooks, so why bother?

Such a mood suppresses the vote, and suppressing the vote has been part of the Republican game plan for decades. Whether it’s carping about voter “fraud,” opposing innovations like motor voter, “cleansing” voter roles, or advocating for fewer polling places, you find a Republican on the side of making it harder for people to vote.

That’s not news. Well, not to me—and apparently not to Halperin, either, since you won’t find a story about Republican voter suppression on ABC. . . or on any other establishment network, for that matter.

But it’s one thing to fail to report on voter suppression—it’s another to be an agent of it. Halperin has been in this business long enough to know that. Hell, he wrote the book on it.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Goon Squad

Take a look at these goons—Bush, Cheney, Hayden, Gonzales, Warner, Rumsfeld (partially obscured by big Dick)—some of them are sociopaths, some are racists, some actually enjoy hurting others. Some just want to continue to fill their pockets with war profits, some just lust for naked and total power—all are scum, and the law they gathered here to celebrate is testament to their craven natures.

These are the cowardly bastards that assembled in Washington yesterday to endorse the secret abduction and torture of human beings around the globe, a law the President claims will make Americans safer, a law we all know will do just the opposite, all in the name of cheap political stunt designed to keep Republicans in power.

Or so they openly hope.

This law was passed over two weeks ago—why is Bush just signing it now?

With the midterm elections three weeks away, Mr. Bush hoped to use the bill signing to turn the political debate back to the war on terrorism, a [FORMERLY] winning issue for Republicans, and away from scandals like the Mark Foley case, which have dominated the news in recent weeks.

[mine]



How simple it would seem to use the lives of a few hundred nameless brown-skinned people to divert attention from the scandalous behavior of Bush’s rubberstamp Republican enablers. It’s just a shame the enablers didn’t get the memo. On a day when the Torturer in Chief was hoping to steal the headlines from his corrupt cohorts, we are greeted this morning by this:

Lawyer: We'll name priest who molested Foley

A lawyer for Mark Foley said he will give the Archdiocese of Miami the name of the priest who allegedly molested the disgraced former congressman in high school.


In another odd turn in the Mark Foley Internet messaging scandal, the attorney for the recently resigned congressman held a news conference Tuesday to say Foley would name the priest who allegedly molested him as a youth.


And this:

Report Spells Out Abuses by Former Congressman

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — Former Representative Randy Cunningham pressured and intimidated staff members of the House Intelligence Committee to help steer more than $70 million in classified federal business to favored military contractors, according to a Congressional investigation made public on Tuesday.


And then, of course, there is always—alwaysthis:

Violence in Iraq Kills 10 U.S. Soldiers

BAGHDAD, Oct. 18-Ten U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq on Tuesday, one of the bloodiest days of the war for American forces outside of major combat operations.

. . . .

October is on track to become one of the deadliest of the conflict for U.S. soldiers, with at least 60 soldiers killed so far this month. More than 2,700 American troops and Defense Department employees have died since the war began 3 1/2 years ago.

Deaths of Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians also have been hitting new highs since mid-summer.


Still, in the face of it all, Bush is resolute—he needs to torture people. But he’s not doing it just for himself, no.

The president said he was signing the measure “in memory of the victims of September the 11th.”


How dare Bush desecrate the graves of those who died as a result of the attacks on 9/11/01 by declaring that he now tortures in their name. And how dare he use their memory, yet again, to cynically try to manipulate the electorate in order maintain his near-totalitarian grip on power.

And, how dare the Republicans continue to desecrate our country with all of their scandals, and influence peddling, and war profiteering, and fear mongering, and killing. . . .

In less than three weeks, on November 7th, each and every voter has a chance to cast a vote that says: not in my name.


(photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times)