Friday’s Mini-Report

October 12, 2007

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The right has responded to Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize with the kind of class and dignity we’ve come to expect from conservatives. Here’s the National Review: “Who Else Should Al Gore Share the Prize With? How about that well known peace campaigner Osama Bin Laden, who implicitly endorsed Gore’s stance — and that of the Nobel committee — in his September rant from the cave.”

* Josh Marshall: “You know, with Al Gore winning the Nobel Prize for his environmental activism, it really makes the Nader voters look prescient, doesn’t it?”

* Despite multiple criminal charges pending against his former police commissioner, Rudy Giuliani said today that Bernie Kerik did a good job, just so long as you overlook all of his alleged misdeeds. How very odd.

* Remember, it’s not the heat, but the humidity that will get you. (thanks R.K.)

* The netroots has targeted five conservative Dems to reverse course and vote to override Bush’s S-CHIP veto. Yesterday, we got one. Rep. Baron Hill of Indiana said he doesn’t care for the bill, but concluded, “I will vote to override the President’s veto in an effort to again show my support for the program and desire to move towards a fairer bill.

* TP: “Former Justice Department employees allege that Voting Rights Section chief John Tanner used ‘the force of the Department to further Republican aims.’ In particular, the former attorneys say that Tanner’s half-hearted investigation of alleged African-American voter suppression in Ohio in 2004 was an effort to ‘poison the well’ for ‘outside groups attempting litigation on the issue.'” Said one former attorney with the Voting Rights Section, “Tanner bent over backwards to rule that black voters did not have a right to the same number of machines as white registered voters, and then went out of his way to make that ruling public.”

* Fox News’ John Gibson, who has a history of making bizarre comments about race, responded to this week’s school shooting in Cleveland by saying he “could tell right away” that the shooter was white: “He killed himself. Hip-hoppers do not kill themselves. They walk away. Now, I didn’t need to hear the kid was white with blond hair. Once he’d shot himself in the head, no hip-hopper…. And I could tell right away ’cause he killed himself. Black shooters don’t do that; they shoot and move on.”

* Republican strategist Cheri Jacobus was invited onto CNN today, to argue that the Nobel Prize committee only gave Gore today’s award to get “publicity.” She did not appear to be kidding.

* You haven’t seen the Washington Post get ripped into you’ve seen Scott Horton take the paper to task.

* Madonna Constantine, a professor at Columbia University, who is African American, found a 4-foot-long twine noose hanging from her office door this week. Police are now seeking a court order for footage from security cameras to identify who was responsible. Wednesday, Constantine told hundreds of faculty and students at a rally that the incident was a “blatant act of racism” that “reeks of cowardice and fear.”

* McCullagh’s Law of Politics: “As the certainty that legislation violates the U.S. Constitution increases, so does the probability of predictions that severe harm or death will come to Americans if the proposal is not swiftly enacted.” (thanks to G.B.)

* A few traditional news outlets picked up on the John Edwards rumor, but most ignored it and the gossip seemed to dissipate today. Good.

* Imagine losing your home to Hurricane Katrina. Then imagine, after rebuilding, someone burning your renovated home down.

* AP: “Republican state Rep. Debbie Stafford of Aurora is switching parties, becoming the 40th Democrat in the [Colorado] House of Representatives.” Kos has a helpful list of party switchers from the last few years. Not surprisingly, a majority are moving from the GOP to the Dems.

* The fine folks at The Democratic Daily have a new URL and a redesigned homepage.

* The Encyclopedia Britannica has been hosting an interesting online forum about a possible confrontation with Iran all week. It’s worth checking out.

* What to expect from the Fox Business Network. (Here’s a hint: nothing good.)

* Larry King suggested to Stephen Colbert last night that he’s publishing a book as part of a presidential campaign. Colbert agreed, but said he’s seeking the nomination of both parties. This afternoon, ETV, South Carolina’s Public Television Network, invited Colbert (a South Carolina native) to formally launch his bid on the statewide media outlet, which includes 11 television and eight radio stations. No word on whether Colbert will accept.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

A bunch of Young Republicans, finding the new WHO stats on abortion and birth control “stoopid” decided to play Ultimate Frisbee to show their staunch protestation.

  • While I love a GOP convert as much as the next Dem, State Rep. Stafford is not someone we should be welcoming into the party. This is a pol who said exempting children from a bill to deprive all illegal immigrants of non-critical governmental services was “helping create the next generation of terrorists.” Even in a pretty bad year for anti-immigrant hysteria, her comments stood out as particularly hateful and ugly.

  • I’m beginning to enjoy each and every asinine comment from the right. Why? Because they are showing real desperation. Sorry, but the desperation cheers me up — they deserve every bad moment they’re going to experience on their ride into the political sunset.

  • When Bernie Kerik gets indicted, will that represent the first time in recorded history that a corrupt crony gets taken to court before a candidate even takes office?

    Not that Guiliani has a snowball’s chance, but still….

  • The Republicans these days are alternating between sex scandals and exhibitions of petty mean-spiritedness. Another few months of this and it will be easy to spot Republican voters: they’ll be the ones wearing flasher-type trench coats as they skulk into the voting booth.

  • I encourage Colbert to run as a Republican in South Carolina. If nothing else, his presence in the presidential debates will force the audience to wake up and listen.

  • Nader voters complained Gore looked just like Bush and that maybe a few Republican years would make the Democrats more responsive to the base.

    Prescient?
    Maybe Marshall was ironically attempting to be facetious and accidentally spoke the simple truth.

    What the heck did Gore do for environmentalism until he lost in 2000?
    Supposedly he was on the circuit with his Earth in the Balance talks, but it was all very much on the QT as long as Clinton was trying to triangulate his way into big businesses’ hearts.

    As long as Democrats have the good sense to nominate someone progressives/liberals can support, we need not re-enact 2000. We got 7 out of 8 choices who will fill the bill.

    Will Dems be fooled once again by the lure of massive campaign donations by lawyers, health care and big pharma? C’mon Iowa. You slapped the front runner down in 2004, let’s see you do it again for a good reason this go-around. If we’re going to bring back the Nader voters, you must.

  • The right has responded to Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize with the kind of class and dignity we’ve come to expect from conservatives. Here’s the National Review: “Who Else Should Al Gore Share the Prize With? How about that well known peace campaigner Osama Bin Laden, who implicitly endorsed Gore’s stance — and that of the Nobel committee — in his September rant from the cave.”

    I find it rather astonishing that the National Review would fall into Bin Laden’s trap like this. Bin Laden knows exactly what he’s doing when he ties himself to others — he knows that such associations give fuel to Republican rhetoric. That he is able to manipulate the Republicans so deftly would be amusing if he weren’t so dangerous.

  • It’s really a shame that NR feels the need to make their disparaging remarks about Osama—given that a mere nine years ago, they were all atwitter about ObL and his mujihadeen kicking butt and taking names on Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan. So—maybe they’d like to paraphrase RooDee by saying something like “Osama bin Laden did a good job, just so long as you overlook his alleged misdeeds.”

    Oh—and “a standing-O and a tip-o-the-hat” to President Gore on his Nobel victory!

  • For the sake of all of us, I sure hope global warming and peak oil somehow turn out to be the minor irritants that the pundits grudgingly pause to acknowledge before blathering on about the horse race for the presidency.

    I was really shocked by the reaction to Al Gore’s triumph. A big yawn from the left, vitriol and contempt from the right. And they all would have ignored it entirely if the horse race issue hadn’t been tangentially involved. The leftists were eager to dismiss Al because he’s not establishment anymore, and the righties were eager to smear him preemptively, just in case.

    I don’t know what it’s going to take to wake the world up. Or why we won’t seize upon the crisis as an opportunity to develop renewable, clean, alternative and plentiful sources of energy, like solar power in all its vastness, to make the world a far better place for ourselves and all the living things upon it.

    I just don’t get it. Where the hell are the people with vision today?

  • hark wrote:

    For the sake of all of us, I sure hope global warming and peak oil somehow turn out to be the minor irritants that the pundits grudgingly pause to acknowledge before blathering on about the horse race for the presidency.

    We could always power our vehicles on stupid-power. We’ve got no shortage of stupid.

  • We could always power our vehicles on stupid-power. We’ve got no shortage of stupid.

    I mean, as soon as we find a way to make vehicles run on stupid. Maybe it’s like on the Flintstones, and you just hook Bush and Rudy up to a yoke; I don’t know.

  • Yes, I’d never heard of this “Nobel Prize” until they gave it to Al Gore.

    Have the Republicans been in-breeding for the past few decades? There’s no other explanation for how mind-numbingly, mouth-breathing stupid they’ve become. It’s like watching “Idiocracy” on fast forward.

  • Hope Josh Marshall wore his asbestos underpants today. Naderites just hate it when people point out things like that.

  • I am disgusted with America. Any other nation would applaud Al Gore’s recognition. American trashes it. America spews rumors about John Edwards which concern his PRIVATE life. America is ignorant and ugly.

    If I were Al Gore I would enter the race. I would enter it “naked” — shed of all those “experts” and “pundits” who “advised” him last time. I would blow the whistle, tell the truth … about all other politicians, the political process, religion in American politics, corporations, so-called journalism today, everything. I would promise that my first act, after honoring Bill Clinton’s promise to integrate the military (as his first act), would be to issue an executive order restricting the ownership of television stations to one station per owner. This is the modern equivalent of Jefferson’s yeoman farmer. My next act would be to reverse the judicial decision (which isn’t even a decision) saying that corporations are people.

    Gore is the last best chance for this democracy. If he isn’t our next president, it’s not worth worrying about. Corporations will have won.

  • comment # 8
    That he (Osama Bin Laden) is able to manipulate the Republicans so deftly would be amusing if he weren’t so dangerous.

    Did you mean IF Republicans weren’t so dangerous to our country? That sounds more like it… The Republicans have done more damage to our country than Osama could have wished for in his wildest dreams.

  • If I were Al Gore I would enter the race.

    Oh dear gods I wouldn’t.

    If I were Al Gore I’d go on Jon Stewart’s show and give the speech that Homer Simpson’s opponent for Sanitation Commissioner Ray Patterson gave when the people of Springfield foolishly followed Homer’s outrageous promises instead of listening to Patterson:

    Ray Patterson: Oh gosh. You know, I’m not much on speeches, but, it’s so gratifying to leave you wallowing in the mess you’ve made. You’re screwed, thank you, bye.

    But Al Gore is a better man than I, so he’d probably be nicer about it.

    (Also – “publicity” for the Nobel Prize Award? Seriously? There are people making that argument? We really are a country full of provincial buffoons, aren’t we?)

  • I remember a few years ago, the KKK stood in front of the state capitol in Austin, Texas to support a ballot initiative in that state banning same-sex marriage; by the National Review writer’s reasoning, anyone who opposes two people of the same gender being allowed to marry each other is exactly like a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

  • What williamjacobs at #7 said, bigtime.

    Additionally, Marshall was an early and enthusiast supporter of the neocon argument for invading Iraq (to his credit, he regained his senses sooner than most). Had Bush been right and things gone as initially planned in Iraq, would Marshall now be thanking Nader and his supporters for insuring Bush’s victory in 2000?

    I thought PhDs were supposed to be smart.

  • I thought PhDs were supposed to be smart.

    Spoken like someone who must not know very many PhDs. PhDs. are highly-educated – that’s NOT the same thing as smart, clever OR insightful. It just means that they have a lot of education down a particularly narrowly focused track of training and are (probably) very good at writing about things related to their narrowly focused track of training. PhD intellect, like that of anyone else, should be judged by actions and deeds, not by credentials.

    Also – I disagree with williamjacobs. The Dems haven’t moved towards the base because of anything Nader did. The progressive caucus in Congress has been strengthened because of fund-raising efforts of progressives on the Internet, but the majority of the Democratic Party is as unresponsive to progressives as ever. What has changed is that Republicans are seen as TERRIBLE LEADERS. If the GOP had managed to keep a check on the corruption and fought the Iraq War successfully, Nader would have been proven utterly WRONG. The Dems would have had to move rightward, not leftward, to keep themselves viable.

    In other words, the Dems are doing better now mostly because the Republicans suck so badly not because the Dems have moved substantively in any direction. So even there Nader’s strategy was wrong. He would have been better off building a faction inside the Democratic Party and using it to leverage support for progressive issues. This is how the progressive caucus is getting built in Congress right now – but then, it’s being supported by people who are actually willing to work with the political system that we have to change things, and not folks who think that you can change the world with one quixotic presidential run.

    (Also – completely unfair to knock Gore for “not doing anything” before 2000. Gore had done a TON to raise awareness on the issue before 2000 and was using the tool he knew best – government – to try to get things done. Post-2000 he became more effective for two reasons: one, the issue has become more and more self-evident to scientists and even lay people all over the world – there’s more evidence now and that makes his advocacy easier. two, he hasn’t had to spend time working the political processes to get things done. He’s basically a spokesman and a cheerleader now rather than a cog in the machine. This means his advocacy is more effective and since he’s not a politician anymore it makes it easier for some folks to take his advocacy as something other than partisan politics. The worst thing Gore could do for his advocacy is to throw his hat in the presidential ring, where everything will again become partisan politics. That’s why I don’t think he’ll do it.)

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