December 5th, 2006
Steve Clemons has been following the Bolton UN nomination, confirmation and, now, resignation very closely. Accordingly to Clemons here’s what the Bolton resignation means:
1. John Bolton’s resignation reflects a loss of ground by Jesse Helms’ inspired ‘pugnacious nationalists’. It is also a clear loss for Vice President Cheney and his loyal followers. Jim Lobe captures this quite well in a piece he has written tonight on Bolton.
2. Bolton’s resignation also hurts Condoleezza Rice in the short term because while she had to "manage" him more frequently than she liked — often sending Undersecretary for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns to manage the most fragile diplomatic agendas — Rice now has NO Deputy Secretary of State, and will soon face in January NO Counselor and NO Ambassador to the United Nations.
Losing Robert Zoellick, Philip Zelikow and John Bolton is an awful lot to lose without having clear successsors in place and ready to go. The already stretched thin Secretary of State will be stretched even thinner with Bolton’s departure.
3. On the good side, if the White House and State Department get their mutual acts together, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is ‘likely’ to expedite at lightning speed reasonable, even partly controversial, nominees to both Bolton’s UN position and to the Deputy Secretary position. This Bolton Battle won’t be replayed soon. I think the incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden will bend over backwards to help Rice get a full team back in place at State as fast as possible.
4. This has not been picked up by the press, but I believe that the theatrical dimensions of the Bolton resignation were designed to make it look like the President was giving up something he really, really wanted in order to encourage Dems to ‘de-complexify’ the confirmation process of Defense Secretary nominee Robert Gates. Watch for Dems who previously opposed Gates or had serious concerns about his Iran Contra involvement to ratchet down their concerns.
The President’s dropping of Bolton may very well be designed to facilitate a fast confirmation process for Gates.
5. Who will succeed Bolton is unclear. I have written about Jim Leach in the past — as well as many others including Paula Dobriansky and Zalmay Khalilzad.
I think Dobriansky has a strong chance of getting the job as she is respected around DC, is acceptable to both Rice and Cheney, and is not a complete rejection of John Bolton’s views. She is neocon-friendly if not a true neoconservative, and she manages diplomacy and achieving America’s diplomatic objectives well.
Jim Leach could also be extraordinary — and Khalilzad could be an important asset there too as a Muslim envoy from America to an institution representing the nations of the world. He is also a well-experienced strategist and diplomat.
There are other choices I won’t list here tonight as I think that these three are all qualified and realistic choices given the fact that George W. Bush is going to make the appointment.
6. Finally, it is important to remember that the Bolton Battle was not a true partisan struggle. It was one in which many Republicans covertly supported leading Democrats in the process — and on the other side, some Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Ben Nelson openly advocated Bolton’s confirmation.
Bolton did not get confirmed because of the failure of the White House to either unite the Republican caucus behind Bolton or to select a candidate that was easier for the whole Republican caucus in the Senate to accept. Republicans with a conscience stopped Bolton’s confirmation process, with support from the Democrats who were in the minority.
October 9th, 2006
Can someone please explain to me what high level Democratic party operatives working with the 2004 Sen. Kerry presidential campaign were doing passing on insider information to the Bush-Cheney ticket?
According to Bob Woodward’s STATE OF DENIAL, James Carville and Mike McCurry passed on information to the Bush-Cheney camp at a sensitive time when Sen. Kerry was deciding whether to challenge the Ohio vote.
I came across this disheartening and eye-opening bit of information via MyDD.com, where Matt Stoller writes:
Like Carville, McCurry owes an explanation to his fellow Democrats.
Here’s what Matt was reacting to:
After 1 a.m., Card called Cahill.
Cahill said the Kerry campaign felt confident.
Card was caught off guard. … –Is there going to be a phone call?"
"We won’t be calling you," Cahill replied. She seemed to be half asking whether Bush would be calling Kerry to concede.
(snip)
Matalin is married to James Carville, a Democrat who had been chief political strategist for Bill Clinton in 1992. … …
"Look, I know this is hard for you," she told him sympathetically.
Carville told her he had some inside news. The Kerry campaign was going to challenge the provisional ballots in Ohio–perhaps up to 250,000 of them. "I don’t agree with it," Carville said. "I’m just telling you that’s what they’re talking about."
Matalin went to report to Cheney.
What? the vice president asked. …
"You’d better tell the president," Cheney told her. …
"They’re going to contest it," Matalin said.
"What does that mean?" the president asked. He had his note cards with talking points in hand, ready to go over to the Reagan Building to declare victory.
Matalin said somebody in authority needed to get in touch with J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Republican secretary of state in Ohio, who would be in charge of any challenge to the provisional votes.
(snip) skip forward to page 347…
"I’m the president of the United States," Bush said fuming, "waiting on a secretary of state who is a nut." … …
Reports came in that the networks wanted to go off the air without calling the race for either candidate.
Rove shouted, "They can’t go off the air!"
At 3:36 a.m., a very sensitive communication from the Kerry camp was relayed to Rove and Bartlett at the White House. Mike McCurry, Clinton’s former White House press secretary and a last-minute addition to the Kerry campaign, had e-mailed Nicole Devenish, the Bush campaign communications director, an off-the-record congratulations, advising that the Bush team should not try to force a resolution now. Don’t pressure Kerry, McCurry said. In the end, he believed Kerry would do the right thing.
Bartlett and others told Bush about the e-mail, summarizing the message as "We’ll do the right thing at the right time." They could trust that McCurry would be in a position to know what the Kerry campaign was thinking, Bartlett said, but they had to be careful not to put too much stock in it. At least we know there are people in the Kerry camp giving rational advice, Bartlett said. … …
Card said they should declare victory. … … …
STATE OF DENIAL, by Bob Woodward (pgs. 344-347)
Taylor Marsh, who first reported on this, reacts to the Woodward revelation:
One important point, however, is that people have started talking about the Carville - Matalin angle, but everyone stops there. If you read a bit further Mike McCurry comes into the picture. It seals the deal.
Here’s a story not in the Woodward book. According to one person I talked to today, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Joe Lockhart, in the middle of a heated presidential campaign, started making new business calls out of the Kerry war room giving out confidential campaign information while he was at it. Obviously trying to hedge his bets, he’d call out, give poll data and other info to people, while trying to drum up business for himself. Class act.
Frankly, it reminds me of what McCurry did on the Net Neutrality stuff.
For DC Democrats it’s all about keeping your candidates close, but your business associates and their interests closer.
As for what’s said in the Woodward book, one Kerry camp insider I talked to today certainly wasn’t surprised by the revelations.
[...]
It’s clear Carville and McCurry had their eyes on something else entirely. With Democrats like Carville and McCurry helping us out on election night we hardly need Karl Rove.
These two gentlemen owe the Democratic party base an explanation. While there were thousands of volunteers all across the nation sweating and canvassing for Sen. Kerry, here were two insiders working against the party’s interests at a crucial time.
And, yet again, we see an example of how establishment operatives have gutted the soul of the Democratic party, and have put their own personal interests and connections before the interests of the men and women that toil for the Democratic candidates that these operatives are supposed to work hard for. After we win these mid-term elections, we need to continue cleaning house and expel the establishment’s high priests from the people’s temple — and make sure that the Democratic party in fact represents our interests, and not the narrow interests of a few well connected operatives and lobbyists.
September 30th, 2006
Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent, wonders out loud, Just what does it mean to be a Republican nowadays? And questions those that still, with a straight face, claim to be part of the GOP. Larry Johnson writes:
I once considered myself a Republican. In light of the record of the Bush Administration and the Republican controlled congress, I can no longer claim to be a Republican. Now we have George “AWOL” Bush and his sidekick, Dick “Five-Deferment” Cheney calling Democrats who question their failed Iraq strategy, “cut and runners”.
[...]
If you start a war in Iraq while lying to the American people that Saddam was tied to Osama Bin Laden, you might be a Republican.
If you failed to complete your own National Guard service and your Vice President received five deferments to avoid service in Vietnam, but accuse political opponents who challenge your failed foreign policy in Iraq of being cowards, you might be a Republican.
If you call dark skinned people Macacas and Niggers, you might be a Republican.
If you ignore intelligence community warnings that Bin Laden is determined to strike inside the United States, you might be a Republican.
If you follow policies that squander a budget surplus and create an $8.5 trillion dollar budget deficit, you might be a Republican.
If you expose the identity of an undercover CIA officer in charge of tracking down Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, you might be a Republican.
If you believe the President should be entitled to jail, without recourse to Habeus Corpus, anyone he decides is a threat, you might be a Republican.
Oh, and given recent reports that Republican representative Mark Foley has stepped down from his congressional seat, after revelations of repeated attempts to seduce teenage boys, Larry Jonhson wonders:
If you enjoy soliciting teenagers and children for sex over the internet, you might be a Republican:
Congressman Mark Foley. Republican Rep. Mark Foley resigned yesterday after the exposure of several sexually suggestive messages he sent to underage boys. Mr. Foley, a Florida Republican and chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus, led efforts to overhaul sex-offender laws, apologized in a brief statement that did not mention the electronic correspondence with the former congressional pages.
(http://washingtontimes.com/national/
20060930-010821-5764r.htm)
Randall Casseday. Metropolitan Police today charged the director of human resources at The Washington Times with one count of attempting to entice a minor on the Internet. Randall Casseday, 53, was arrested at 9:45 p.m. yesterday in the 1300 block of Brentwood Road NE, where police said he had arranged to meet who he thought was a 13-year-old girl. He had actually exchanged Internet messages and photographs with a male police officer posing as a girl.
(http://washingtontimes.com/metro/
20060927-054303-9103r.htm)
Brian J. Doyle. The deputy press secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was arrested Tuesday for using the Internet to seduce what he thought was a teenage girl, authorities said. Brian J. Doyle, 55, was arrested in Maryland where he lives on charges of use of a computer to seduce a child and transmission of harmful material to a minor. The charges were issued out of Polk County Fla.
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/04/05/
department-of-homeland-se_n_18517.html)
So, who are those people that still call themselves Republicans without shame?
