You're lucky this isn't in iambic pentameter

I've gotten quite busy with what I should have been doing all along-- working with the Austin Shakespeare Festival. For more on what happened to ASF in the past few years, read Richard III, it's the same story. But now I'm back with ASF, teaching and learning, and consequently I've been too busy to write.

And it would seem that despite the endless string of scandal and horrifying acts on the part of this Administration (The Current Occupant, as Garrison Keillor calls Bush), most news cycles have coalesced to two stories: the Next Occupant, and the economy. We don't hardly even talk about the wars anymore, except to repeat mindlessly that "the surge is working"-- even though no one can agree what that means and how it's even true.

I confess I don't know anything about the economy. I will say that we bought a lovely house in a new subdivision in the bedroom county just south of Austin-- and the extra 7 minutes down the highway seemed like nothing-- until gas went up. I paid $3.06 a gallon yesterday, and I got lucky. Suddenly all this driving "up to town" and back (a tank a week for the full-time employee in our family) is eating all our money. We thank the good lord every day that we got a regular fixed mortgage we could afford and that none of that mess involves us directly. I know my story isn't unique, and harder times have hit others, but my story is all I have, not being an economist.

And I've avoided talking too much about the election because I wholeheartedly and with great joy chosen a candidate-- and while I wasn't sure it was appropriate to say so here, I also knew I couldn't write about this topic at all without revealing it. So, here goes: I have a crush on Obama, too. We've just voted here in Texas, and don't let anybody spin you-- Obama GOT MORE DELEGATES in the primary and will get more in the caucuses when they're finished being counted. We love him here.

But you know what my main concern has always been, and remains to this day: the Unitary Executive, the power grab of the presidency, and how this idea that "if the President does it, it's not illegal" leads inevitably to other shocking behavior, including tampering with the vote, so that we can't even "throw the bums out" because they've gerrymandered and lied and cheated and stolen votes so that they will retain power forever.

We all rest easy knowing that there are checks and balances and in the end, if it's really that bad, we can impeach and remove. Only if they have succeeded in tipping the balance and removing the checks, and have tampered with the vote, then none of us can rest easy.

And it's not enough to get rid of this bunch of crooks, because crookery knows no philosophy other than the search for power. It's not "just Republicans"-- it's Republicans today. Tomorrow, it could be anyone.

Perhaps I misspoke-- it's not that crookery has no philosophy, it's that it can co-exist with any other philosophy. Why, take a look at the latest crooked televangelist or high-powered Christian leader embroiled in scandal (there's always a new one)-- his crookery* is hiding behind the Christian philosophy of "love your neighbor". So yes, a Democrat may be running on Democratic values (and may intend to enact those values), and a Republican on a different platform-- but they could both be actually seeking a Unitary Executive, power-grabbing, undemocratic (even unrepublican, since in small "r" republics we're supposed to be able to legitimately elect our representatives in government), unchecked office. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I don't care if you're for universal health care or trickle-down economics, if you're wiretapping your opponents and keeping me from electing someone else next time.

*yes, I KNOW that's not a word, but I like it and I can't find the right word so deal with it!

So while the News these days is the election ("Obama vs. Clinton in the Thrilla in Manilla!") and the economy ("Giving Up Starbucks for Gas Money!") or even that Governor Spitzer likes to pay for it (unless that headline means he's a pimp)-- news for me comes down to two things:

1. What are the candidates views and what are their telling actions regarding the Unitary Executive? Will you be another Bush, pushing out of your branch and controlling rather than being checked by other voices? Will you tamper with elections? Will you restore the Justice Department or continue to pimp it out for your own gains? Will you allow scientists at the NIH, CDC, and EPA to give their honest opinion, or distort their findings with your own spin? Will you wiretap me and then forgive those who conspire to transgress with you? Who are you, really?
2. What are we doing right now to check and punish those who have colored far outside the lines in the current administration? Where are the hearings?

Since I led into point #1 with detail, allow me to close with an overview of point #2.

I believe that it is critical to punish those who have acted inappropriately in the past (or what will soon be the past once the elections are over) because it is far too easy for future generations (or even the next President) to build upon what has happened to justify his or her own corrupt behavior.

Incredible as it may seem, it doesn't take many years for crimes to be softened in memory into precedent-- precedent like we use in court cases, to build upon for future use, "In Blah v. Blah, the courts upheld that..." The difference is, those precedents are decided on by a judge and are subject to appeal. In this case, what is "upheld" or "allowed" is whatever was not prosecuted and died out in the minds of the public. If the public ignores it, or "moves on", then it is considered precedent, even though we never actually decided it was OK to do such-and-such, we just got distracted by something shiny and never got back to it. And yet, just as Bush uses what Nixon did to justify his own actions, someone else will inevitably say, "Just as Bush did the right thing by [fill in crime here], and history has accepted that, so must I do [fill in futuristic crime here]."

Silence = acquiescence. Only investigations, hearings, and ultimately punishment will keep this from happening again.

And yes, we might only get the lower-down lackeys and not Cheney and his man-sized safe. But as long as we prosecute the crime, for history's sake I don't know that it's as critical we get the right person for it. I could be wrong, and tell me if you think I am, but as long as we've clearly stated, "It is NOT OK to ignore FISA and wiretap Americans," I don't think it matters as much if some poor middle-management type is the one who goes down for coming up with the end-run around FISA in the first place. Sucks for him, but for history, I think what's most important is that it gets said.

So... what to do? Well, first, I have to give it up for Congressman Henry Waxman, who has something like 20 open investigations. Go, Henry, Go! If you'd like to follow the check and balance part of the show, follow the Wax Man. I hope to do the same thing here at LMP, give you updates on how it's going. Today's headline, for example, was "Democrat requests Blackwater inquiry" and it didn't surprise me at all that it was Waxman. Maybe if time is on my side, I'll work up some kind of chart or list of all the things he's working on. Also, Congressman John Conyers is another important player in this fight.

Second, start taking a look at our slate of candidates with a careful eye to their views on the Unitary Executive and their overall temperament. I hope to walk you through what I've learned so far in the near future, but in the meantime take a look at an older but still relevant Boston Globe article from 2007. I've referenced this article before but it's even easier to read now that there's only three candidates left. (You could look at the questions and how everyone answered them, or look by candidate at how they answered all the questions.)
Hillary Clinton Q & A
Barack Obama Q & A
John McCain Q & A
What I remember from reading it before is that only Romney was crazy enough to admit he was crazy in the survey. You will no doubt find carefully parsed language here, but I encourage you to take a critical look at their opinions.

I often run across little news tidbits that are generally overlooked that pertain to this issue-- now that I've caught you up on what my focus is going to be, for the most part, I hope to drop you those links and show you the picture I'm getting.

Punish the past and hold the future to a higher standard, that's all I ask. Oh, and civility, and kudos to Obama and McCain for their efforts remain dignified. (Ahem, Mrs. Clinton.) Then we can all get back to a nice rousing discussion of mundane things like how the government can address the problems of our citizens without fearing for the life of our nation.

Watch the skies...

Unitary Executive links:
SourceWatch, Wikipedia, UE & the FY2009 Budget, TomPaine.com, DailyKos

What time is it? Subpoena Time!!!

Subpoenas!

Subpoenas!

Subpoenas!

Whoo-hoo!!!

Tim Griffin and the Caging List Scandal, or How I Learned To Start Worrying And Fear The GOP

Tim Griffin, aide to Karl Rove, had caging lists developed for swing states of voters who were thought to vote Democrat so that, in removing them, the GOP change the outcome of the election.

He emailed the actual caging lists to Karl on the RNC email server. ["missing email scandal"]

The caging lists were apparently brought to the Civil Rights Division, which had been packed with GOPbots who would not question them, and thousands of names were removed from voter rolls in swing states. What happened in this stage of the game will surely be uncovered as the investigation continues. ["political hiring scandal"]

To avoid being caught, the Attorney General removed 8 to 10 US Attorneys (in the swing states where caging lists were being used) who had demonstrated an unwillingness to "play ball" politcally and might get wind of these caging lists and prosecute. ["US Attorney Firings Scandal"]

One of their replacements was Tim Griffin. He did not have to go through Senate confirmation, and so could not be questioned under oath and have his caging list crime uncovered. He was then a US Attorney, the prosecution, and the only one who could prosecute him would be the Attorney General, who was certainly part of this conspiracy at the level of firing the USAs, if not in other areas as well. ["change to the Patriot Act Scandal"]

Greg Palast wrote about this in his book. Senator John Conyers has caught wind of the story and is openly investigating. When that news broke, Tim Griffin resigned and is in the wind.

This is a crime committed to change the outcome of an election and establish a permanent GOP majority, and a conspiracy to cover up that crime. It is also the best example of how all these disparate stories (which smelled bad on their own but didn't seem to go anywhere) added up to a system in which this conspiracy, and possibly others, were permitted to occur.

Missing Email Scandal

This is another vague, amorphous "scandal"... ish. But it has shocking ties right into the caging list scandal.

White House staff (and who knows who else) used the Republican National Committee email server to communicate about political machinations.

This is against the Hatch Act, which governs the political vs. public aspects of the White House. The more familiar aspect of the Act is to say that politicians aren't supposed to use their office, their official vehicle, or any other resources of the White House to do political business. For example, if Karl Rove wanted to find out the polling numbers for the GOP in Iowa, he couldn't use his WH email account for that. This keeps those in the administration from wasting government resources on their own re-elections.

But the other side of the Act also dictates that official business can't be done outside the office. While the flip side is about preserving resources, this side is about preserving all documentation about an Administration. Rove can't use his RNC account to discuss amendments to a bill, for example. Doing so would not only violate the Hatch Act, but also allow him to hide presidential records from the National Archives.

Hiding records by using an outside email account goes against the Presidential Records Act, which regulates how all the "paperwork" (in quotes because now it's virtual too, of course) generated by the Administration will be handled. Under the PRA, everything has to be saved until the National Archives says it's OK to throw it out (usually done during the sorting process for the Presidential Library, I suspect).

Which brings us to the next part of this story. When the Congressional committees who were holding hearings on various political machinations of the Administration, they found that when they subpoenaed all the records and emails, many, many were missing. Inquiries revealed that the WH officials and staff had been using the RNC server for both political and policy matters.

Yes, it is true that times have changed. Yes, it's true that not so long ago, no one had ever heard of email. Yes, it's true that those of us with multiple email accounts get confused too. However, emails that have been recovered show this was intentional:

Susan Ralston, who was Karl Rove’s executive assistant, invited two lobbyists working for Jack Abramoff to use her RNC e-mail account to avoid “security issues” with the White House e-mail system, writing: “I now have an RNC blackbeny which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH email.” [ThinkProgress]

However, when Congress attempted to subpoena the emails from the RNC, they had been deleted. Four years worth of emails, approximately 5 million, were missing from the RNC servers. This is yet another assault on the PRA; had the emails been carefully preserved, the WH might have only gotten in trouble over the Hatch Act ("What were the emails doing on the RNC server in the first place?") but in this case, they have effectively destroyed administration records.

Or, are all the emails missing? At least 500 of these emails were victims of yet another mistake, this one for real: the sender typed in "rnc.com" instead of "rnc.org". (In fact much of what we know comes from similar mistakes in addressing.) Fortunately for history, "rnc.com" was a parody site that was owned by a friend of BBC reporter David Palast. As Palast describes in his book, Armed Madhouse, some of the incriminating emails Congress was looking for were in these 500, including the smoking gun of caging lists. Senator John Conyers is now investigating these emails.

UPDATE: While we can't get the MSM to pick up on this story, at least CNN today is finally mentioning that some emails are missing (altho it's buried in their politics page)...

Voter Fraud, or It's Not Us, It's You

In order to maintain a permanent majority, the GOP has been attempting to manipulate the system by crying "voter fraud". They first scare the public by claiming there is rampant polling place voter fraud. (It has been proven there isn't, but I can't find the link right now, sorry. Will update.) Then they put measures in place that have the effect of disenfranchising voters under the name of fighting fraud.

For example, they might claim that there are "so many" people trying to sneak in to vote without proper ID that we should have a "tamper-proof voter ID card". This card costs the voter $40. And now we effectively have a PRICETAG ON VOTING. There are many poor people who would have trouble coming up with $40, especially if it's between feeding their families and voting. Getting people to vote is hard enough, make it harder and many won't bother. So even though the GOP has skirted the law and not done anything illegal, in fact talked us into creating a law for them, they have in effect gotten the poor people to stop voting (read: stop voting Democrat).

They have also been packing the Civil Rights Division with rabidly political GOPbots. The Civil Rights Division has a Voter Fraud department.

There are TWO IMPORTANT things to remember:

The GOP's "War on Voter Fraud" is like the "Clean Skies Initiative". It means the exact opposite of what it sounds like.

They are whipping the people who are paying attention into a frenzy (even implying that ILLEGALS might try to vote, gasp!), and to those who only follow half of what's going on, they sound like they're addressing voter fraud instead of committing it. It's all a red herring, though. In this case, as in so many others with the GOP, look at what they're accusing the other side of, and you'll find their own faults there.

The office in charge of rooting out and prosecuting people for voter fraud is the US Attorney.

And this bunch, along with the Civil Rights Division has been packed with GOPbots just for this purpose.

Update: I found another interesting article in Salon about how this scandal relates to the firing of US Attorneys.

Why it's all so hard

Usually I get an idea for a topic and if I let it germinate, phrases begin to pop into my head, ways of explaining what I'm thinking. Get enough of those and I hit "New Post". Today I confess I'm still germinating, but I'm giving it a stab anyway.

Watching the Congress wrangle back and forth, you start to wonder what is wrong with us. Why can't we move forward on important issues that matter? Why is everything so hard?

First of all, I will point out that since 1994 we have watched a Congress who was controlled by one party, and since 2000 with a neat little Executive Branch to match. So you didn't see wrangling, compromise, politics. Granted, you saw nothing at all except the poor Shiavo family being torn apart by Frist (oh, if my parents didn't read this, what a name I usually call him!) and Delay (who has enough stupid names already). But specifically you didn't see the kind of back-and-forth, I'll-block-you until-you-say you'll-vote-for my-thing, icky-sausage-making that usually constitutes politics. So I'd say we're just not used to this. Also, those of us in the wilderness (that is, not GOP, whatever you are) found voices and politicians that we liked and who said the right things, but they were in the wilderness with us, not in the sausage factory, to mix a metaphor. Like a candidate with no experience, it's easy to rally behind people until they get down to the real work of politics. As soon as they walk into that sausage factory we call a government, we don't like what we see as much.

But more than that, it's been especially hard to watch the wrangling this time, and this time, the wrangling itself seems harder. I think it's because the politics go as politics go-- you don't have enough votes to pass something, you stick something on it to sweeten it, like a minium wage increase-- but the issues are suddenly so dire.

Let's say for example that all this wrangling and vetoes and everything we've seen regarding the Iraq supplemental was instead about No Child Left Behind. I don't like NCLB, but if the GOP said, wait until September, let's see if our surge (let's say in this case, of teachers or money) has any results, I'd be OK with that. Or let's say he needs to reauthorize the money for NCLB, but the opposition doesn't want to. They pass a bill that gives him the money but says that each school must show a 10% improvement by next spring. He vetoes it. They come back with another version, this time without the timelines, and he passes it, all the while saying, just give me until September, let's see how summer school went, let's see if the kids' test scores are up by the fall.

Well, you know what, I'd be fine with that. Politically speaking, to compromise and say, "OK, we won't shove this down your throat, we'll give you three more months to try to make it work, because we all want it to work, we all want what's best, we can compromise on that," is perfectly reasonable, and probably wise. Let his surge of teachers fail, as it will because that isn't the problem, and then we can move on.

The only problem is, when we took off on Monday to honor our war dead, eight more soldiers were added to that list. I don't know how you calculate averages on such a thing, but at that rate, 720 more American men and women would DIE before we "check in" in September to "see how it's going", and an untold number of Iraqis as well.

There's nothing really wrong with the way politicians are going about this, because like in our NCLB example, compromise and allowing other ideas to be tried is what politics are all about. And for those like Ted Kennedy or Orrin Hatch, politicians who have been around for a long time, this is how they are used to operating. I don't think blame should be assigned for that.

The real reason it's so hard is that we don't have another system set up to deal with the dire realities. This one is fine for arguing about education or immigration, but not so good for war. Congress, particularly the Senate, is meant to be slow and deliberative. Slow and deliberative are killing us, literally, in this context. We need an Express Lane for Congress. Oh, wait, we had one, it was called "one party rule". Things went by fast, but they also suffered from groupthink and Bush-worship, and the decisions made were awful. So maybe slow and deliberative is good, even in war?

Perhaps. But it's hard to look into the eyes of the parents and families of soldiers and say that.

I gotta run, I hope I did this topic some service. Please feel free to comment!

Another one for the chart

Have you heard the tale about Alberto Gonzales and former WH Chief of Staff Andy Card going to the hospital room of then-AG John Ashcroft, struggling to survive a tough go with pancreantitis, to get him to sign off on the NSA wiretapping even though he and the entire Justice Department had rejected the plan before the AG took ill? The showdown between Mrs. Ashcroft, Justice Deputies, security details, and a steaming mad Gonzales? Honey, it's better than Desperate Housewives!

This tale was told yesterday in gripping detail by then-Deputy AG James Comey to the Senate Judiciary Committee. I can't say anything that wasn't more eloquently said in a Salon War Room post, and they have also posted a partial transcript of the hearing.

Not to trumpet Salon all day, but their Glenn Greenwald is also following this closely and has analysis on his blog on Salon. Mr. Greenwald is even more long-winded than I am, but he thoroughly and intelligently dissects the whole thing, and that's worth a read.

GOP Scandal Chart

Ooh, I've been wanting to do one of these for ages, but it requires more resources than I have: it's a full-on chart of everything the GOP is in trouble for currently!!!

Follow this link to the Wayne Madsen Report's GOP Scandal Scorecard.

This is arranged by state, to better organize the scandals and to include not just the national scandals but those of governors, representatives, and even members of the state party.

And what a party it is, too-- this chart is a whimsical romp through the twisted jungle of the GOP (un)ethical landscape.

You can go to your state and learn that, for example, Texas has 12 scandals listed ranging from Tom Delay to a "candidate for the Texas house", Sam Walls! Or you can do a search using your browser's search feature to learn that former lobbyist Jack Abramoff is mentioned no less than 111 times, not including his own listing! Why, the fun never ends with this new toy!!!

So, study it and then write us about it. Like TMZ Muckraker before us, let's each read it and let each other know what we learn, or perhaps give us more background on a scandal you know more about.

They do have nice suits.

I'm a Liberal. This is well known. But I have always respected the conservative movement.

First, I am also a Libra, which if you believe any of that stuff means I'm keen to see both sides of everything. I believe that if you're someone who loves this country and are interested in developing policies to help it, then we have more in common than not. And I can respect a well-thought-out line of reasoning even if I still disagree with it in the end because I believe in different goals. (The fact that you and I are interested in discussing "the role of government in the modern age and the meaning of its social contract with its citizens" has already set us apart from the masses, who are more interested in who's running for American Idol than American President.)

Second, I once worked for the Republican Party, as an open Democrat. Some of them were indeed crazy. But I worked for two men and one woman who were kind, smart, decent, and conservative, and they enjoyed talking to me. (Again, we had more in common simply because we wanted to talk about it.) They patiently explained their point of view without slandering the left, and I learned a lot. I came to really respect the point of view of fiscal conservatives. I kept my own beliefs about the nature of the relationship between government and its people, but I have no trouble seeing the other side.

Third, my high school friend's dad was a conservative state senator in Florida, and he went to our church. I know that a lot of people have a pretty low opinion of politicians, and many on my side would dock points for him being on the right, but he was a nice and honest man, and this formed many of my feelings about politicians at a young age.

All of this is to say, after 8 years of "my President" (I think everyone has one, the first one they felt passionate about) and with a pretty bland candidate in Gore, I was willing to let the other side have a shot for a while. I confess I never liked Bush. He reminded me of men I knew, men I knew to stay away from. In fact, he reminded me a lot of a man who came up to me at closing time at the bar I worked-- drunk, vomit on his shirt, knees under his frat-boy cargo shorts skinned and freely bleeding-- who hit on me. Ick. So yes, Bush has always made me queasy.

But the country seemed to be humming along so well, I didn't think anything too bad could happen. And Clinton had championed some fiscally conservative causes, like Welfare Reform and NAFTA, so the parties didn't seem all that different. I thought we'd see a continuing paring down of government services, which can be painful but not necessarily bad. (Like I said, I can see why they would want smaller government, I can see how they could logically justify and execute it, even though I respectfully disagree on many points.)

I knew that they wanted to "bring the grownups back into the White House". I knew that Clinton's administration was seen as an overgrown dorm party. Keep in mind, this was the 1990s, when all over the business community, a radical "youth movement" was changing the face of the workplace. Dress codes went from suits to jeans, foozball tables went into break rooms, and bean bag chairs went into amorphous "team work areas". At the same time, this young band of pols moved into the White House with their backpacks instead of briefcases (an icon of which was on Josh's shoulder through all 8 years of The West Wing), meetings over open pizza boxes in the Oval Office, and a First Lady who dared to actually get involved in policy. The Old Guard, the "suits", were incensed. It didn't help that at the end of a long investigation there was found to be sex too. And so one of the promises of the Bush II Administration was to bring back the suits, literally and figuratively. Surely all of this casual behavior wasn't good for the country, they thought. I think it drove them crazy that despite all of this, the Clinton Administration was actually effective. So they promised, and I don't blame people for wanting this after the scandal, to "restore dignity", or "bring the grownups back". And I was interested to see what the "grownups" would do with it.

I knew they valued secrecy, but with the Freedom of Information Act, I didn't think they could hide that much from us.

I knew that they were oil men, I just thought these energy men would want to be in on the ground floor of the next phase of energy development.

I knew they had co-opted (or were allowing themselves to be co-opted by) the extreme religious right (ERR), but I thought honestly that the joke would be on the ERR (which it's turning out to be).

I knew there were neocons sharpening their knives in think tanks, but I didn't think they'd get the chance to remake the world they way they wanted. Think tanks are not real life, and it's often easier to imagine how you would do something in politics than to actually do it, when you have opposing ideas pressing back against you, and a planet of real nations to deal with.

I knew they were hawks, but I thought that since we had developed and cherished the Powell Doctrine, if we were forced into a war it would be swift and with a clear mission and exit strategy. And they installed Powell himself as the Secretary of State, so I thought that would keep us in check.

And I knew that they desperately wanted to go back into Iraq. For 8 years they listened to their base complain that the one failing of the Bush I years was that they "didn't finish the job" in Iraq by taking out Hussein. (Remember, I worked for them in the first few Clinton years, and I listened to them complain about this.) I knew that they wanted to "right" that "wrong", but I didn't really think they'd get the chance. I mean, the only way they could justify going back was if Hussein attacked someone else (for which he didn't have the capability) or, you know, something crazy like Arabs attacking the US. Oops.

What I'm trying to say is that I was willing to give them a shot, to see what their policies would do. I was even willing to see them get the Congress too-- for decades there had been gridlock blamed on having an Executive of one party and a Legislature of another, what would happen if they got it all and could really show us what kind of country their policies, unhindered, would bring us? What if they could remake the country for the better? That's all I want for my beloved country.

So while part of me, the part that cringed while Clinton slipped the noose around his own neck for his lynching, the part of me that wants to throw rotten tomatoes at the gerry-mandering hack Tom DeLay, is happy to be dancing on the grave of the GOP, there is a much bigger part of me that weeps for the destruction of our country and the collapse of the promise of a new vision.

Sydney Blumenthal has a new article in Salon ("The GOP Begins to Implode") in which he delineates all the factions that are splintering apart, and how the immigration issue is adding to the quake. The GOP is finding out what it means to have a big tent-- all the circus animals eventually start to eat each other. Here are some of his salient points:

• The nativist Republican base is at the throat of the business community.

• The Republican House of Representatives, in the grip of the far right, is at war with the Republican Senate.

• The evangelical religious right is paralyzed while the Roman Catholic Church has emerged as a mobilizing force behind the mass demonstrations of millions of Hispanic immigrants.

• Bush's neoconservative foreign policy has been discredited, a virulent form of isolationist nationalism, always lurking beneath the surface, has filled the vacuum.

• Fear of the Other is being displaced onto the traditional nativist target: immigrants.

The "grownups" have been terrible stewards of this country. It turns out that the alternative to being young and idealistic is being old and corrupt. They have lied, leaked, evaded, spied on us, and put dangerously under-qualified cronies in critical positions in the government. They have very nice suits, but they won't roll up their sleeves. In this culture of lawlessness, which included the "K Street Project" (forcing all lobbying firms to hire only Republicans), some of them took bribes in cash and goods.

They insisted that conservation was against the national interest (QUE???) and that drilling in Alaska and "buying" our own "gas station" in Iraq would solve our oil problems-- until it didn't, and now they are singing a false note in trying to take back everything they've ever said without sounding like liars.

They even lied to the ERR, making such hay out of the "threat" of gay marriage (rumor has it, this election cycle it will be the spectre of "gay adoption" that looms), taking their "free milk" of votes and walking away without buying the cow. (Ironic, isn't it, since abstinence is their sole sex ed, that they didn't see that one coming?)

Turns out that neoconservativism regarding domestic issues is actually for big government and domestic spending. (Well, duh, it has to financially support its militaristic foreign policy somehow.) I think this was a shock to many fiscal conservatives that didn't know some of their best friends were working to cross purposes. George Will still hasn't gotten that look of shock off his face. Wikipedia in its definition says, neocons "sympathized with a non-traditional foreign policy agenda that was less deferential to traditional conceptions of diplomacy and international law and less inclined to compromise principles even if that meant unilateral action." Turns out, that means pissing everyone off. I would go farther to say that it specifically involved remaking the entire Middle East into "people we could deal with"-- without noticing that the people who lived there didn't want to be remade and would virulently hate us for meddling in the wrong places while not meddling enough in the Palestian/Israeli conflict, making them even more impossible to deal with. (Now even the more rational states can't be seen with us for fear of attracting that hate.)

Making Colin Powell the Secretary of State, it turns out, was an effort to marginalize him. Under a plan in which one is "less deferential to traditional concepts of diplomacy and international law", the Secretary of State is a joke. The real power in a neocon administration is the Secretary of Defense, in which position they installed the neo-est, hawkest member of their cabal, Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld is one of those smarmy, arrogant people that make you feel like they are the only ones with the answers, and you're an idiot. (Not just the kind who think you are an idiot, but the kind that really makes you feel like you must be.) And when he's working in the vacuum of not being in power, I'm sure he convinced everyone (and apparently still has the President convinced) that he really did have the answers and they were idiots (because this kind of guy is really persuasive). But reality has borne out that he's just a blowhard. His arrogant, dismissive speaking has devolved into defensive whining, which oddly matches the President's defensive whining ("This is haa-ard!") Cheney has a similar intimidating veneer-- he's the quintessential stoic father, the leader of the "grownups", who makes you feel like he's the adult who understands better than you do but, it turns out, he's just feeling his way through life like anyone else.

Lastly, it's surprising to learn that the hawks are terrible at war! It's like having a group on the school fundraising committee insist on a dance-off with the rival school-- but it turns out they can't dance. We all assumed, including the right, that these men (and women, Ms. Rice) who were planning for years to go back into Iraq, who were planning for years to remake the Middle East without "traditional diplomacy" and with "unilateral [military] action" were good military strategists. It turns out the good military strategists (the best kind being the kind that try to keep us out of military action, and then only with a clear mission and exit strategy) were in the State Department being ignored. So while it's possible that the neocon vision of remaking the Middle East might (and I stress might) have worked with good military planning, we will never know because they bungled it from start to finish.

I should point out that I am referring only to the civilian military planners. The military strategists within the military are quite good at their jobs and have done an amazing job on the day-to-day planning (the small picture) while being hobbled by civilian idiots on major planning (the big picture).

You might notice that I haven't mentioned the bungling of the Katrina disaster. While this is the most blatant example of incompetence on the most basic governmental level (we might argue about health care or public education, but this is the kind of thing we all expect a government to handle for us), and it stems directly from failures in the Administration-- namely cronyism and the dismantling of Clinton's shiny revamped FEMA into a shell of its former glory, just in time for the worst disaster in 50 years or more)-- I never dreamed this could happen. The point of this essay is to say, "I was willing to give them a shot, but it turns out their ideas and the execution of those ideas were really, really bad." But I never in my life gave one thought to an organization like FEMA as a political football, or even a topic of reasoned debate. I thought that at least, our government would protect and serve in the time of a natural disaster. Turns out I was wrong.

I was wrong about a lot of things. I was a young adult not that much younger than most of the Clinton Administration. While the pizza boxes in the Oval Office didn't bother me, the sex scandal did. While I wanted another Democrat administration, I was willing to let the "grownups" back in, because if the "kids" could do this well, maybe the "grownups" could do even better. I was wrong. We all were.

One thing you can say about them, though, they do have very nice suits.

Tolerance vs. Conformity

The inherent difference between the two parties is that the conservatives embrace conformity while the liberals embrace tolerance. This is the root cause of their two different approaches to the political realm.

While the conservatives might have many (as you* said, "messy") points of view, they are trained to conform, or appear to conform, and as Craig234 [another letter-writer on Salon.com*] wrote, attach to brand loyalty. They also connect one brand-loyalty (for example, their church affiliation) with another (their party). ("I'm a good Baptist so I must be a good Republican.") If they disagree, they are discouraged from showing it, and if they must show it, they must still hate Dems and vote Republican.

The liberals, on the other hand, embrace tolerance for many points of view. They not only freely disagree with each other while appreciating the other's point of view, but they even embrace the right's right to their point of view. While Craig234 suggests that they should "have as their 'unity' message that they are the party which broadly repesents the most Americans' interests" (which is true, they do and they should), by virtue of saying "We support you and your right to your opinion," the message is already split.

The right are a lot like a trail of ants, all marching along in a line (some wandering off occasionally, but for the most part, all going the same way). Corralling the left is more like herding cats. I don't know if there is an answer to the "unified message problem" when its roots are so deeply ingrained into who we are as people.

(*originally published by me as a letter on Salon.com-- chosen as an Editor's Choice!)