The July 20 edition of Newsweek ran a cover story, “Independent’s Day,” on Eric Holder, the new Attorney General. It was a fascinating portrait of this easy-going, plain-spoken guy. You have to like the guy.
The article included the following, which describes the precarious role of the Attorney General:
Alone among cabinet officers, attorneys general are partisan appointees expected to rise above partisanship. All struggle to find a happy medium between loyalty and independence. Few succeed. At one extreme looms Alberto Gonzales, who allowed the Justice Department to be run like Tammany Hall. At the other is Janet Reno, whose righteousness and folksy eccentricities marginalized her within the Clinton administration. Lean too far one way and you corrupt the office, too far the other way and you render yourself impotent.
Mindful of history, Holder is trying to get the balance right. “You have the responsibility of enforcing the nation’s laws, and you have to be seen as neutral, detached, and nonpartisan in that effort,” Holder says. “But the reality of being A.G. is that I’m also part of the president’s team. I want the president to succeed; I campaigned for him. I share his world view and values.”
Holder appears to be a man of conscience who is trying hard to walk that fine line–but more importantly, to do the right thing. He served in the Justice Department during the Clinton Administration, and was involved in authorizing the independent prosecutor to investigate Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. As the article notes, he kicks himself every day for permitting the Marc Rich pardon.
Now, Holder is considering authorizing an independent prosecutor to look into the torture abuses of the Bush administration. The Obama administration opposes this–they have nothing to gain, it’ll galvanize the Republican base, and it’ll distract from Obama’s domestic agenda. But after reading–twice–the CIA inspector general’s classified report, he didn’t see how he could not take action, as the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
So we’ll see–probably soon-what he decided to do, or not do.
Fox News darlings Ann Coulter and Michele Malkin insist that Obama planted the question about Henry Gates at last weeks’ news conference. Coulter even said on Fox, “I do have proof.” And Malkin says she “absolutely” believes it was planted.
Lynn Sweet, who asked the question, begs to differ in an article on Politics Daily. “If they had, my story would have been about their effort to plant a question,” says Sweet who, unlike Coulter and Malkin, is a real journalist with truth standards.
Sweet writes about how she came up with the question, and says Obama had no idea what she would ask. And why would they plant a question like that? It took them off-message (from healthcare), and caused Obama to speak stupidly. I saw the tail end of that press conference, and was astounded when Obama addressed it the way he did. Totally inappropriate.
Speaking of nutty conspiracies: Joe Klein weighs in about Lou Dobbs and the silly birth certificate controversy.
While with my parents recently, the subject of sex scandals came up. There had been three involving Republicans right in a row–Mark Sanford, John Ensign, and Charles Pickering. It does sometimes seem that more sex scandals involve Republicans.
But I said I suspected that, if you go back over time, it all evens out. Sex scandals are a human issue, not a political issue. While Republicans seemed to be having a bad run, I figured Democrats had just as many scandals in their, uh, closet.
Today I came across an article on “Politics Daily” by Emily Miller, in which she argues convincingly that Democrats have the immoral edge. “Summer 2009 may go down as the season of Republican sex scandals. But if you look at the long history of political sex scandals, I think Democrats win both in quantity and (low) quality.” Then she starts naming names: the Kennedys, Clinton, Spitzer, Edwards, McGreevey, Condit, Hart, FDR.
Having worked in Congress, she talks about the overall sexual environment, but concludes that it’s not much different from anywhere else she has worked. She concludes:
“The worst sex scandals, in my view, involved Democrats. But, that said, all sex scandals taint our country and negatively affect our culture, so we lose every time another allegation surfaces.”
Listened to Larry King’s full-hour interview with Colin Powell tonite (half of it on the way home from the table tennis club). Though Powell (like me) voted for Obama (and for pretty much the same reasons as I did, as he explained it), he still calls himself a Republican. He says he’s economically conservative and socially moderate. That’s how I would describe myself.
Powell touched on a number of issues, and I agreed with him right down the line.
Rush Limbaugh continually criticizes Powell, and wants him out of the Republican Party, along with John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter (got his wish there), and anyone else who doesn’t meet his definition of a Republican. So Rush obviously has no room for the likes of me in the GOP. I would just as soon not have an irreligious, drug-addicted, obese, intolerant, multiple divorcé calling the shots in the Republican Party. But hey, he’s got a bully pulpit which gives him a stranglehold on ideological purity. If anyone raises a contrary voice, he can lambast them for several hours every day. So Republicans suck up to him, wanting his favor. Woe unto the moderate who disagrees with Rush.
And so, to the Republican far-right base, Powell is a turncoat liberal. Which is a travesty. Powell is an amazingly gifted American, a man we should all look up to and admire. And not too long ago, we did. He was the darling in the GOP. But moderates like him are being chased out of the party. And to me, that spells doom.
If they don’t enlarge the tent, there is no future for the Republican Party. Not in a country which is increasingly ethnic in complexion and moderate-to-liberal in outlook. Rush, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Fred Barnes, Bill Kristol–they are killing the Republican Party.
I was amazed at the way Fox & Friends repeatedly showed still photos from the Erin Andrews peephole video. While expressing their shock and outrage that anyone would secretly film Andrews in that way, the F&F anchors–whom I refer to as Gomer, Legs, and Squirrelly–kept showing a number of photos with lacy ribbon barely covering strategic parts of her body, leaving little to the imagination. I can’t imagine Ms. Andrews was happy about being exploited in this additional way.
This self-righteous indignation was incredibly hypocritical of those Fox & Friends lightweights, whose main schtick is to repeat the talking points which come down from Fox Central Command. It must have especially been a stretch for Legs, who sits right there in the middle, camera pulled back for a full view, legs crossed, wearing an extremely short skirt which I can’t imagine she chose. The same attire is worn by every blonde who fills the Legs spot, whether it’s the weekday or weekend edition. Can their motives be any more obvious? While expressing outrage at the objectification of Erin Andrews, they objectify their female anchor for several hours every morning.
You have to remember where Fox News comes from: Rupert Murdoch, who grew his fortune through tabloid sensationalism. Fox just specializes in a different kind of sensationalism.
CBS also ran those photos. Other networks didn’t. Good for them. They have some standards.
I love this quote from Barack Obama, which shows a fundamental difference between him and the Bush administration:
A great power does not show strength by dominating or demonizing other countries.
Last night, while on the eliptical at the YMCA, I watched Sean Hannity’s program. Actually, I kept switching back and forth between Hannity and Larry King (on CNN), but King’s show was about Michael Jackson, and I’m a bit tired of that.
Anyway, twice before going to a break Hannity said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” Obviously taken from John 14:1. I wondered, What’s with that? Because the rest of the verse says, “You believe in God. Believe also in me.” So…is this what he was saying?
“Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me, Sean Hannity.”
Whatever he was trying to say, I wish he’d stop. It’s a biblical reference out of context.
He’s already using Martina McBride’s “Independence Day” totally out of context. That song is really about a woman’s battle with domestic abuse and how she eventually escaped from it–her independence day. It has nothing to do with patriotism, as Hannity’s usage implies.
I downloaded the speech Obama gave in Russia to that graduating class and read it during lunch today. I was really impressed. I’m sure some right-wingers think Obama should have made strong statements about human rights to put the Russians in their place, but that would have been totally inappropriate. Instead, he presented to the students a very healthy worldview which showed how Russia’s interests line up with those of the United States. It was very well done.
Then tonight, I caught the tail end of Sean Hannity. He was taking individual lines out of the speech, twisting them around, and finding fault. It takes no intellect to do that, which is why Hannity can manage it so well. The typical grade schooler can take a line out of context and criticize it. That’s child’s play. I’m sure I could do it with the Sermon on the Mount.
You must take speeches of this nature in their entirety. Likewise with the Cairo speech, which I heard live and thought was magnificent. But I’m sure Hannity picked it apart that night. It’s a petty, intellectually dishonest game. (Olberman does the same thing to things Republicans say.)
Hannity ended by making a comment like this: “It’s my view that you don’t negotiate with evil. You defeat it.”
Now THAT’S scary. That’s the Dick Cheney doctrine. So instead of talking to Russia–and North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, China, etc.–the United States should DEFEAT them? Like, go to war? And people listen to this crap and go “Amen! Tell it, Sean!”??????
More importantly, is this the way a “one nation under God” settles disagreements with other countries? Does Jesus advocate aggression, military or otherwise, as the primary way to deal with your enemies? As Christians, we have a responsibility to discern the mind of God when it comes to citizenship. Rush and Sean give me zero insights into that.
Sometime last year, I remember when Shepherd Smith, Frank Luntz (the guy who does the focus groups), and some political consultant were the guests on a Fox News show. They were talking about Guantanamo Bay. Smith and Luntz both spoke very strongly against keeping people imprisoned indefinitely at Gitmo. Smith said it was a violation of the US Constitution.
Well, that really surprised me.
Now there’s a video in which Shepherd Smith talks about the email he receives from Fox viewers. He describes it as really scary stuff.
Shepherd Smith better watch himself. He’ll get himself fired.
There’s another video on Youtube in which Chris Wallace really goes after those three brainless anchors on Fox & Friends, whom I affectionately refer to as Gomer, Legs, and Squirrelly. He criticizes them for what he describes as two hours of Obama-bashing over something he felt they were taking out of context. Wallace, fortunately, has stature and credibility to spare, and could easily land somewhere else. I’m not so sure about Shep.
We’ve launched another game of “Assassinate the Supreme Court Nominee’s Character.”
Nobody plays this game better than the Democrats. Just think back to Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. They went after Samuel Alito pretty hard and unjustly, too, though nothing stuck.
But what Republicans are doing right now is way over the top, in my book. It disgusts me, in fact. They’re not attacking Sonia Sotomayor’s decisions, but her basic character.
Sotomayor is no racist. Republicans are taking one quote out of its context. If you read the whole text of what she said, it’s exactly what you would want someone in her position to say. But the right-wing pundits lack intellectual integrity. They aren’t interested in helping viewers get a true picture of this woman. They just want to destroy her reputation. And for no good reason. Because in the end, she WILL be confirmed. Yet both parties always feel duty-bound to destroy a nominees character and distort his/her record.
I wish we could just stop it.
None of the justices are bad people. They rose through the ranks because of their brilliance and competence (with or without help from political connections). They’ve distinguished themselves. All of them have issued rulings that angered people on the right and on the left.
Sonia Sotomayor is not a conservative, certainly. But I’m not afraid of her, either (like Rush et al want me to be). I’m not afraid of any of The Nine. When you’re one of nine, any radical leanings get averaged out. I want diversity on the court. I would be afraid of having nine conservative justices, or nine liberals, or nine moderates. That wouldn’t be good for America. We’re a diverse country. The Court needs to reflect that diversity–not only in politics, but in gender and race.
The Democrats won the election. One of the spoils is the privilege of nominating Supreme Court nominees. The lunatic left fringe of the Democratic Party wants a flaming liberal on the court. Instead, we’re getting a moderate liberal. I think Republicans should be content with that (and privately, they probably are).
And yet, we still go through this character assassination charade. Most Supreme Court nominees emerge relatively unscathed. Ginsburg, Breyer, Kennedy, Alito–they all endured fierce attacks from the opposition party, but who, now, can even remember what the charges were? I can’t.
It would be nice if the Republicans could just say, “We’re okay with Sotomayor. She’s not who we would have picked, but it’s not our choice, because you won the election. Thanks for not choosing a radical liberal. We can live with this pick.”
But that’ll never happen. Instead, Sotomayor will endure months of unfair criticism from Republicans, who will make her sound like the absolute Worst Person in the World. But in the end, she’ll WILL become a Supreme Court justice, and she will serve my country well for many years. She won’t represent my views all of the time, but she will represent the views of many other Americans in this richly diverse country.
But for now–she’s evil and must be destroyed. And when Republicans regain power and nominate someone, Democrats will do the same thing.
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Copyright © 2013 Steve Dennie | All rights reserved
