LiberalOasis: Archives for the Week of August 11, 2002

Saturday’s NY Times confirmed that Brent Scowcroft’s Wall Street Journal column was the vehicle for Poppy Bush to vent his deep concerns about the coming invasion.

The fact that Daddy saw the need to go quasi-public indicates that he fears his son isn’t going to listen to him.

Otherwise, he would have just sat Dubya down in Kennebunkport earlier this month and that would have been the end of it.

But the person who is really taking the Poppy-Scowcroft initiative personally may very well be Dick Cheney.

Check this excerpt from the NY Times piece:

White House advisers and administration officials who disagree with Mr. Scowcroft shrugged off his concerns, though, saying that they were part of the ongoing debate about Iraq.

"I haven't noticed people pulling their hair out," said a senior administration official who also served in the first Bush administration.

"Scowcroft didn't want to overthrow Saddam Hussein in the first Persian Gulf war. He felt from the beginning that a successor might be worse. His position just reflects the same view he had back then."

Nonetheless, the official said, Mr. Scowcroft's views clearly represented the views of the president's father.

"I think the first President Bush is telling his son, 'Be prudent, George,'" the official said. "We are being prudent."

A bit defensive, don’t you think?

Of course, LiberalOasis can’t definitively prove this is Cheney talking.

But back in April, the Washington Post proved that Cheney gives blind quotes to reporters as a “senior administration official,” as does Colin Powell.

This surely isn’t Powell talking, as the NY Times piece indicated that he agrees with Scowcroft.

And it isn’t Rumsfeld, since he wasn’t there for Bush I.

If not Cheney, the other likely candidate is Rumsfeld’s No. 2 Paul Wolfowitz, who worked under Cheney during the Gulf War and may be the most hawkish member of the team.

But LiberalOasis suspects Cheney. For all of his vaunted competence, he can also be cavalierly impolitic and blunt.

Furthermore, not many people have the moxie/chutzpah/balls to take a shot at Poppy in the pages of the NY Times.

And so the Bush family soap opera rolls on.

Will Dubya listen to his father?

Does an invasion leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocents also mean that he doesn’t really love his dad?

Is Cheney the father figure that little George never had growing up?

Tune in tomorrow for another bizarrely pathetic episode of “As the Bush Turns.”

(August 18 12:30 PM ET -- Is Maureen Dowd reading LiberalOasis?)

August 16, 2002
Throwing Rice At a Problem
(posted August 16 12:30 AM ET)

Regarding Iraq, the Bush Administration has become desperate for political support.

How do we know? Because it dispatched Condi Rice to the BBC to make the case to the British, one of our closest allies.

In political campaign parlance, this is known as “securing your base.”

The problem for Bush Inc. is that you only spend time securing your base when you don’t have your base.

To date, the attack-Iraq-pack has argued that it doesn’t matter what the European and Arab allies say publicly. Once the U.S. decides to go, everyone will fall into line.

But apparently, the Administration sensed that the weak 28% support among the British for an invasion was simply too low to ignore.

So they sent the relatively soft-spoken Rice – not a tough-talker like Rumsfeld or Cheney – to pacify the pacifist Brits.

The PR tack is likely to fall short for two reasons.

1) Rice had nothing new to say

Rice merely regurgitated the same talking points that have failed to impress our allies:

This is an evil man…He has used chemical weapons against his own people and against his neighbors, he has invaded his neighbors, he has killed thousands of his own people.

The messages haven’t changed for the last 10 years. It’s like a bad sequel, such as Meatballs 2, where they just change some of the characters but don’t bother to change the script.

2) The Bushies got blindsided by Brent Scowcroft

Scowcroft not only held Condi’s job in Poppy Bush’s Administration, but also handpicked Condi to join his team and served as her mentor.

Yet in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal (and available at Semi-Daily Journal), Scowcroft expertly explained the foolishness of attacking Iraq now.

In a particularly unfortunate coincidence for Bush Inc., the text of Condi’s interview was released on the same day as Scowcroft’s column.

That made it real easy for the Associated Press to juxtapose the two, and undercut the Bush PR move.

How powerful was Scowcroft’s argument?

All “Fox News All-Star” Fred Barnes could muster in response was that it was “shockingly bad form” for Scowcroft to oppose his former boss’s son and his protŽgŽ Rice. And so, “he should have kept quiet.”

Yet Barnes offered no reason why Scowcroft was wrong.

Apparently, in Barnes’ world, when you are worried about a plan that could lead to a massive regional conflict culminating in nuclear attack, you should shut up and not be disrespectful.

(LiberalOasis prediction: The Weekly Standard will seek to discredit Scowcroft by noting he was involved in supporting Saddam in the 1980s and arguing he was the reason Saddam remained in power after the Gulf War.)

You might think that since the White House realizes even Britain needs to be convinced, that any invasion would be delayed until support was solidified.

In a normal world, that’s what would happen.

But we are in BushWorld, where minds are made up behind closed doors, consultations are for show, and public opinion is a just a pesky nuisance.

So hold on tight.

(August 16 8:45 AM ET -- Bush Inc. will not be pleased with today's NY Times lead story and lead editorial.)

(August 16 4:45 PM ET -- How odd is this? Scowcroft was appointed by Dubya last year to head the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. [from The Nation via BusyBusyBusy via Testify.]

Just shooting from the hip, and playing off of a nugget of scuttlebutt in the previously mentioned NY Times editorial, but perchance did Poppy persaude Dubya to install an old crony of his, one not allied with Cheney's neocon pals, to keep a nervous parent's eye on his in-over-his-head boy?)

(August 17 1 AM ET -- USA Today is not helping the Bushies either.)

SIDE NOTES

Big thanks to Altercation, as well as to onegoodmove, for posting LiberalOasis’ Aug. 14 column in full.

Speaking of that column, a reader wrote in to alert LiberalOasis to an overlooked Dubya quote from that beloved Economic Forum:

The thing about the death tax, the death tax is punitive on small business owners...It's hard to be able to keep your farm and your family if you've got a big appraisal value when a loved one dies. I firmly believe the death tax is good for people from all walks of life all throughout our society.

August 15, 2002
Hey, Dubya, Leave Those Kids Alone
(posted August 15 1:30 AM ET)

Yesterday’s NY Times reported that teen girls are far less likely to go to family planning clinics for contraceptives and STD tests if their parents have to find out about it.

What the story didn’t tell you is that the Religious Right has been calling for Dubya and Congress to do just that: mandate parental notification for all federally funded family planning clinics.

Of course, you might be surprised that Bush’s White House actually funds family planning clinics since one of his favorite applause lines is “abstinence works every time.”

(LiberalOasis has to concede: it’s a good line.)

But whether they like it or not, they do. $265 million going to 4,600 clinics, serving 4.5 million people, one-third of them teenagers.

The fact that this program is still implemented at all shows how important it is to have career government employees with civil service protections. Otherwise, a new Administration’s political appointees would just haphazardly trash long-standing programs they didn’t like.

The civil service is the very concept Dubya wants to junk in the new Homeland Security Dept. (see July 30).

But we digress.

The news report does raise an interesting question: is the government stopping parents from raising kids the way they want to?

There’s two ways to answer this.

The first is, “No,” because surveys show parents want their kids to practice safe sex, and they want public institutions to show them how.

But even if a majority of parents wants that, shouldn’t the rights of the minority be respected?

That’s why the second way to answer our original question is, “Sometimes, but too bad, because the public interest is at stake.”

The spread of disease directly impacts public health. And teen pregnancy leads to more high school dropouts and welfare recipients.

The government has a responsibility to tackle these problems and serve the public good.

In turn, since contraception reduces disease and pregnancy, then we have an obligation to promote contraception.

That means funding clinics, which the feds support (but could do more), and teaching safe sex in schools, which the feds don’t support.

The right-wing argues that teaching about safe sex increases sexual activity among teens, but that’s a flat-out lie.

When comprehensive sex ed is done right, not only is use of contraception increased among the sexually active, but the kids that aren’t having sex stay virgins longer.

Whereas research done on abstinence-only programs has shown little or no promise.

Why might that be?

What the abstinence-until-marriage movement fails to grasp is that we are all biologically programmed (if not programmed by our Creator) to want sex.

Merely trotting out scolding elders to tell kids how bad sex is will never wash with savvy kids who are naturally curious.

While successful comprehensive sex ed programs use fellow teenagers to make a less-preachy pitch.

Furthermore, comprehensive sex ed programs talk about the negative consequences of sex while being candid about safe sex, enhancing the overall credibility of the messages.

Sadly and amazingly, the latest science on sex ed never gets the requisite attention.

But right-wingnut hacks are regularly allowed to peddle lies in the media.

Right now in Congress, various legislative battles on these topics continue to smolder, and following them requires a healthy tolerance for Beltway jargon.

There’s the battle over abstinence funding within welfare reform, where liberals are trying to modify the current program to give states more leeway in how they spend that money.

There’s the battle over the amount of money to be appropriated for another abstinence program funded by the Special Projects of Regional and National Significance, where liberals are simply trying to prevent a funding increase.

There’s the battle over those family planning clinics, which fall under the Title X family planning program. Senate Dems are trying to slightly hike the funding against the Administration’s wishes.

And there’s the battle over parental notification for teens using the same Title X family planning clinics.

All of these issues are mired in what the Right views as the “culture war.”

But if everyone put down their ideological axes and looked to the objective research, they’d see that the liberals are right.

SIDE NOTE

Seems like everyone spent the day trashing the President’s Economic Forum and his “strategeric” decision to block $5.1B of spending on homeland security and other crucial needs (see Tapped and TPM).

Therefore, there's not a whole lot for LiberalOasis to add. But let’s pat ourselves on the back for the Aug. 1 LiberalOasis column, following the announcement that the economy grew a tiny 1.1% last quarter. LiberalOasis predicted:

Bush will have no usable economic talking points for the next three months.

Bush Inc.’s credibility on the economy will be nil between now and October (at least), when the next quarter’s figures are released.

There will be continued talk of a double-dip recession, and Bush can only play defense against it.

August 14, 2002
Building Confidence, The Bush Way
(posted August 13 10:45 PM ET)
(edited August 13 11:30 PM ET)

Yesterday’s “President’s Economic Forum” was intended to show that Dubya cares about the economy and has a game plan for growth.

Did he pull it off? Here’s some of what was said yesterday, decide for yourself.

DUBYA: I can assure you that, even though I won't be sitting through every single moment of the seminars, nor will the Vice President, we will look at the summaries...

DUBYA: There may be some tough times here in America. But this country has gone through tough times before, and we're going to do it again.

DUBYA: You ought to take a look at -- Franklin can tell you, the government accounting system is pretty -- it's kind of hard to explain. I've been there for nearly 18 months trying to figure it out.

DUBYA: In order to make sure that we continue to grow our economy, we need to be aggressive when it comes to trade policy. [US Trade Representative Bob] Zoellick mentioned to me, he said they're all looking to me. They may be looking to me, Zoellick, I'm looking to you.

BUDGET DIRECTOR MITCH DANIELS: The question is did we hear any ideas today that might become policy. The answer is, I don't know yet.

DUBYA: It's really a fine seminar because the quality of the people are great. Wait until you see who's here when you go to lunch. It's really impressed.

COMMERCE SECRETARY DON EVANS: I thought it was an extraordinary morning. I was in the corporate responsibility section. The President did stop by. There was a lot of engagement.

DUBYA: I now believe we ought to have medical liability reform at the federal level...The trial lawyers are very politically powerful...But here in Texas we took them on and got some good medical -- medical malpractice, which evidently had a few loopholes in it.

DUBYA: Tommy [Thompson, Health and Human Services Secretary] is a good listener, and he's a pretty good actor, too.

EVANS: Well, the economy -- we continue to -- we continue to add jobs to this economy, not in large numbers, but we're adding jobs.

DUBYA: I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here.

All of the above quotes come from the transcripts provided by the fine folks at www.whitehouse.gov.

August 13, 2002
How Gore Can Get His Media Groove Back
(posted August 12 11:45 PM ET)

In the past week, we’ve seen how badly the media covers Al Gore. The question is: what can Gore do about it?

The pro-Gore cyberbacklash from MediaWhoresOnline and Daily Howler was as fierce as Gore’s NY Times op-ed that kicked off the most recent Anybody But Gore media blitz.

(Josh Marshall’s rebuttal to the Howler was fierce as well.)

ABC’s The Note sympathized that the media will always be unfair to Gore, but also praised Maureen Dowd’s and Bill Keller’s hack jobs.

And this weekend’s Reliable Sources discussion on CNN was quite telling, if not always satisfying to Gore fans.

What did we learn from all of this? The media don’t like Gore for several fuzzy reasons.

They think he’s “sanctimonious,” “calculating” and disingenuous. They think he looks down on reporters. They think he’s boring.

That probably sums up every politician in the world, but it doesn’t matter. The Anti-Gore attitude is deep-seated among the pundit class. It won’t change.

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing Gore can do about the media. Here’s three strategic tips:

1) Bold actions need follow through

Gore made a big splash with his Times piece. But he didn’t follow it up with any TV or radio interviews.

That effectively ceded the battleground before the battle was over, allowing Gore critics to take free swings all week.

And it also allowed the critics to focus more on behind-the-scenes sniping and less on the substance of the message.

Any major action from Gore needs a multi-day strategy that drills the messages home and fills up the media space as much as possible, leaving less room for punditry.

2) Take a page from McCain

Everyone knows why the media loves John McCain. Because McCain let the media on the bus, answered every question, became their pal.

After the goons of Bush Inc. did in McCain with a barrage of muck, they were smart enough to implement a modified McCain media strategy, letting Dubya chum it up with the press corps more often during the general election than in the primary.

Gore clearly prefers tighter message control, giving speeches and faxing statements, than the uncontrolled kabuki dance that is the interview.

But in today’s personality-driven media world, in the long-term that’s a recipe for bad media coverage.

The fact is, the media is pretty full of itself and it wants its collective ass kissed. And they own the ink, so you gotta kiss it.

One way to step back in the arena is to do a series of local TV and print interviews on behalf of Democratic House and Senate candidates between now and November.

The questions will likely be softball, but also more focused on issues that voters care about -- as opposed to inside-the-Beltway fodder -- which plays to Gore’s advantage.

3) Do the unexpected

Going against type is the best way to change a dynamic. It turns people’s heads and forces them to rethink their views.

So what would be the most unexpected thing for Gore to do? Do a full hour on The O’Reilly Factor.

And if you think that’s a bad idea, then you don’t have enough faith in Gore’s capabilities.

LiberalOasis suspects Gore may already have some of this in mind (probably not #3), but was biding his time until after the November elections to avoid overexposure.

The theory was good, and it takes a strong man to be as patient as he has been. (Do these Democratic party leaders really think he doesn’t want to speak out?!)

But that time may be past. If the pundits are finding the time take potshots, Gore needs to say it’s time to fight back.

(August 13, 10:15 AM ET -- We already know that Gore is way ahead in the polls among Democrats. But a recent Fox News poll indicates that Gore has even broader support.

Fox News ran matchups of Dubya versus Gore, Hillary, Daschle and Lieberman, probably the four Democrats with the highest name recognition.

And Gore did the best of them all, significantly so.

Bush -- 50%
Gore -- 37%
Spread: 13 points

Bush -- 55%
Lieberman -- 30%
Spread: 25 points

Bush -- 54%
Daschle -- 28%
Spread: 26 points

Bush -- 58%
Hillary -- 28%
Spread: 30 points

Remember, this is all before the battle is joined. Being down 13 points is certainly surmountable, you can overcome that on post-convention bounce alone.

This is not to say that no one else can beat Bush. Early poll numbers are not reliable predictors.

But based on the numbers, it is wrong to say that Gore begins at a disadvantage. If anything, he begins at the strongest starting point.

August 12, 2002
The Sunday Talkshow Breakdown
A weekly feature of LiberalOasis
(posted August 11 8:15 PM ET)

The House of Saud is reeling from the recent Administration briefing that deemed Saudi Arabia the enemy.

While the Administration offered some public disavowals, the Saudis clearly aren’t buying.

That’s why the Saudis deployed Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal to ABC’s This Week and foreign policy advisor Adel al-Jubeir to NBC’s Meet The Press and CNN’s Late Edition.

The Saudis wanted the Administration to know they weren't going to let the attack go unanswered.

For liberals, deciding who to loathe the most in this geopolitical clusterf**k is quite the challenge.

Should we hate the pro-Saudi wing of Bush Inc., headed by Poppy Bush, who parlayed his extensive Saudi connections and oil industry expertise into a lucrative gig with the investment bank The Carlyle Group.

Or the anti-Saudi wing -- led by neoconservatives like Cheney/Rumsfeld pal Richard Perle -- which reached comically disturbing heights this week when a lightweight policy analyst, Laurent Murawiec, apparently counseled the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board to overthrow the Saudi government.

Or the ruling Saudi family, who are oppressive dictators that preside over a nation with 30% unemployment while they live extravagantly.

Maybe reviewing the Saudi Sunday show performances will provide some guidance on who most deserves our disdain.

On the shows, al-Faisal and al-Jubeir had the same game plan, discredit the messenger, deny the message.

Al-Faisal (who is possibly the worst spokesperson ever, always appearing to be under heavy sedation) called Murawiec “outlandish” who is unlikely to be “taken seriously.”

Furthermore, he said “the only curious thing” was that “so high a committee” heard his presentation -- a little pushback to the Administration.

Al-Jubeir criticized Murawiec as wholly inexperienced on the Middle East, offering that “I think the closest he has ever been to Saudi Arabia was to go into a gas station to put gas in his car.” (saying a little too much about how Al-Jubeir views his own country)

Al-Faisel dodged questions about Saudi government funding of anti-American and anti-Semitic teachings, as well as payments to the families of suicide bombers, by simply stating that the Administration is not raising such charges.

While Al-Jubeir took the suicide bomber question seemingly head on, claiming that Saudi Arabia simply provides relief funds to families in need:

We do not provide money to Palestinian suicide bombers...We do not give it to their families as a response to their son or daughter blowing themselves up. We give it to every Palestinian.

But he managed to avoid answering the accusation from Andrea Mitchell, on Meet The Press, that Saudi Arabia provides funds to Hamas.

And while they both wisely argued for caution regarding an invasion of Iraq, their unspoken motivation is their market share of oil exports, since Iraq will sell more oil if Hussein is deposed (as Thomas Friedman noted recently).

So after watching the Saudis dance, who should liberals direct the bulk of their ire toward?

Let’s stick with the old stand-by: Dubya himself.

Why? Because a competent President would have laid out his own thoughtful vision on the Middle East and not be caught between two competing wings.

He would not let his vice-president stock the Administration with ideologues because he didn’t know or care enough about foreign policy to pick key staff himself.

He would not be in a position where he can be pressured by a powerful father with ulterior motives.

He would have a sincere commitment to democracy, one that would build upon the positive action recently seen in Qatar and Bahrain, bolster democratic reformers in Iran, and appeal to the Arab street.

He would not offer up phony democracy, as he has with Palestine and may very well with Iraq, where the U.S. decides if the people’s choice is up to American standards.

The fact is that Saudi Arabia, while no means laudable, is not the only morally dubious government America has to deal with. The world is full of them.

But America does not only have to choose between invading countries we hate, and cozying up to dictators that do our bidding.

We can engage dictatorships economically to create jobs and alleviate poverty, which would enhance our nation’s credibility with the disenfranchised masses, diminish support for anti-American terrorism, and help our ability to sell democracy abroad.

Of course, that’s a strategy that won’t pad the pockets of the Carlyle Group. Plus, it’s anathema to Cheney’s handpicked civilian armchair generals.

And those are two constituencies that Dubya would never cross.

(Aug. 12, 8 AM ET -- The New York Times does its own analysis of the Administration split on Saudi policy.)

The Sandbox
Humor by John Cougarstein

More Dick Armey Shockers!

Dick Armey’s surprise opposition to an invasion of Iraq is just the tip of Pamela Anderson’s silicone.

Now that Armey is retiring this year, he’s letting loose, telling America more than you ever wanted to know about the man behind the wingnut.

“When I referred to Barney Frank as Barney Fag, I was just trying to be flirty.”

“I supported what? A flat tax?! Man, this Paxil is some strong stuff! I was so out of it.”

“I couldn’t believe Clinton answered that question about boxers or briefs. What about thongs? They’re terribly comfortable.”

“I still think the Palestinians should be transferred out of the West Bank, but what was overlooked was that I also want the Jews out of my Dallas Savings Bank.”

“I was this close to getting the part of the father on Gimme A Break! But then Dolph Sweet goes off and sleeps with Nell Carter.”

“My kids love it when I dance around the house singing ‘Let meee seee that thoo-oo-oo-ng.’”

“Some Texans like steak, but nothing makes me happier than a big plate of hummus.”

“My full name is really Harry Dick Armey.”

“I actually have a Ph. D. I wasn’t making that up.”

For more Cougarstein, check out The Cougarstein Ramble and download Cougarstein songs at Iuma.com

**************

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