Would that it were so...

Glenn Greenwald writes about a Genuine Political Sea Change:

Taken together, these two seemingly unconnected incidents reveal: (a) just how radical, extremist and dishonest are the people who have been running this country for the last six years, the whole Bush-led neoconservative Republican edifice loyally supported by most of the "conservative" movement, and (b) outside of the hard-core Bush followers and the stuck-in-2002 Beltway media establishment, there is a rapidly growing recognition of (a) in this country, which is beginning to engender a very potent sea change in political opinion and political power.

And most critically of all, the joint forces of the Beltway media and the right-wing machine have been almost completely impotent in trying to stem the tide. No matter what they do, public anger with the president, his party and the war just continues to grow.

[...]

This is the sea change America needs so profoundly, and there are many signs that it is emerging and growing in strength. The 2006 election -- a truly crushing defeat for the President's political movement -- was but a glimpse of it, and the amount of wrongdoing and sleaze that has been revealed in just three months of real Congressional oversight is but a small sampling of what is to come.

Most of what has occurred in this country under the Bush presidency has been effectively concealed -- mostly due to a broken, corrupt media and a malfeasant Congress -- but all of it is beginning to emerge, and the consequences will likely be as extreme as the corruption and deceit itself have been.

Because Media Matters

Jamison Foser at Media Matters hits the nail on the head with this one.

Washington Post reporter and columnist David Broder is widely known as the "dean" of political journalists. He is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, has been named "Best Newspaper Political Reporter" by the Washington Journalism Review, and ranked as "Washington's most highly regarded columnist" by editorial page editors and by members of Congress in a Washingtonian magazine survey.

According to his Washington Week biography, Broder "has been called 'the high priest of political journalism' by author Timothy Crouse, 'the unchallenged "dean" of what many political reporters like to think is their "priesthood" ' by U.S. News, and 'probably the most respected and influential political journalist in the country' by columnist Richard Reeves. Esquire said Broder 'has few challengers as the most influential political journalist in the country,' and media critic Ron Powers on CBS-TV said 'Broder is not famous like Peter Jennings, he's not glamorous like Tom Brokaw, but underneath that brown suit there is a superman.'"

The accolades for Broder have shown no sign of slowing down in recent years: his colleagues routinely speak of him in the hushed, awed tone they typically reserve for John McCain and Joe Lieberman. NBC's Tim Russert -- himself often described as the nation's most influential journalist -- calls Broder "the most objective and respected reporter I know in this town." In 2005, Russert praised Broder's "superb" analysis and noted that he had appeared more often on Meet the Press than any other guest -- nearly 400 times in all. Just this week, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza placed Broder alongside the late David Halberstam as "titans of journalism." Conservative pundit Bill Kristol says things like "I disagree with David Broder on this, which means I'm probably wrong..." While still working at The Washington Post, Politico executive editor Jim VandeHei wrote "Broder is the best of the best. His columns are fair and illuminating."

It is clear what political journalists say about Broder. But what does Broder's exalted position atop the media food chain say about the state of political journalism?

***

Broder's assault this week on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid touched off a new round of criticism of Broder's work. Twice this week, Broder lashed out at Reid over Reid's comments about the Iraq war. On Monday, Broder suggested that Senate Democrats might dump Reid as their leader, telling XM Radio listeners that "the Democrats are gonna have to have a little caucus and decide how much further they want to carry Harry Reid," accusing Reid of a "bumbling performance," and saying Reid is an embarrassment to the party. Broder went on to claim that "every six weeks or so there's another episode where he has to apologize for the way in which he has bungled the Democratic case."

As Think Progress noted, "It's apparently irrelevant [to Broder] that Reid's views are shared by President Bush's regular military adviser Henry Kissinger, or senior U.S. military officials, or the majority of the American people."

And Greg Sargent reported, "[I]t looks as if Broder completely butchered his facts in asserting that Reid has had to apologize 'every six weeks.' I just checked with Reid's office, and they told me in no uncertain terms that Reid has not apologized for any of his remarks during his first four months or so as majority leader. He certainly hasn't apologized for the 'war is lost' comment."

But Broder was just getting started. In his April 26 Post column, Broder compared Reid to embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, claiming that Reid, like Gonzales, is "a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance" and asserting that there is a "long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end."

But Broder didn't name a single senator of either party to support his contention. Indeed, the entire Senate Democratic Caucus responded by sending a letter to the Post in which they praised Reid as an "extraordinary leader who has effectively guided the new Democratic majority through these first few months with skill and aplomb."

In claiming that Reid is as much an embarrassment as Gonzales, Broder cheated a bit: He not only distorted Reid's comments, he glossed over Gonzales' failings -- a complete description of which would have made the comparison laughable. Broder made only passing mention of Gonzales, downplaying his involvement in the scandal surrounding the Bush administration's purge of federal prosecutors, and omitting any mention of other Gonzales controversies.

In fact, Broder has written nearly nothing about Gonzales since he became attorney general, despite his involvement in several high-profile controversies. In his March 29 column, Broder wrote that Gonzales "has given his president plenty of reasons to fire him," noting "the Justice Department ... has been reduced in stature and has lost the trust of both the public and its career employees under Gonzales." But Broder didn't bother to explain what Gonzales has done to reduce the DOJ's stature and erode public trust in the Department. Instead, he took a stroll down memory lane, devoting the bulk of the column to Ronald Reagan's decision not to fire his budget director.

And that was the first column Broder had written that so much as mentioned Gonzales in more than a year.

This "dean" of the Washington Press corps, this "titan[] of journalism," this "superb" analyst, this "most influential political journalist in the country," this "superman" thinks that the attorney general of the United States should be fired; that he has reduced the Justice Department in stature and caused both the public and career DOJ employees to lose trust in the Department.

But this superman won't tell you why. He believes the attorney general -- one of the most important public officials in the nation -- has violated the public trust and should be fired. But he won't use his influence and credibility to explain his case. He won't tell his readers what one of their most powerful government officials is doing wrong. Not even a hint.

***

On October 7, 1969, The Washington Post published a lament by David Broder that the nasty anti-war activists were out to "break" an unfairly maligned president named Nixon:

The likelihood is great that they will succeed again, for breaking a President is, like most feats, easier to accomplish the second time around. Once learned, the techniques can readily be applied as often as desired - even when the circumstances seem less than propitious. No matter that this President is pulling troops out of Vietnam, while the last one was sending them in; no matter that in 1969 the casualties and violence are declining, while in 1968 they were on the rise. Men have learned to break a President, and, like any discovery that imparts power to its possessors, the mere availability of this knowledge guarantees that it will be used.

It may seem unfair to take advantage of the benefit of hindsight to note the absurdity of defending Richard Nixon from unfair attacks. But that probably wasn't the first time Broder displayed highly questionable judgment, and it certainly wasn't the last.

One of the most revealing statements Broder -- or, perhaps, any political journalist -- has ever made came in 1998. In November 1998, after nearly a year of public opinion polls showing, basically, that people liked Bill Clinton and wanted the Lewinsky investigation to just go away, and of the Washington journalist/pundit crowd vehemently disagreeing, the Post published an article by Sally Quinn attempting to explain the disconnect (which lives on to this day).

Quinn famously quoted Broder explaining why the "Washington Establishment" -- which under anybody's definition includes both Broder and Quinn -- was so angry at Clinton: "He came in here and he trashed the place ... and it's not his place."

Broder's implication -- that Washington was his place, not the president's -- is arrogant enough. But Broder's other comment speaks volumes: "The judgment is harsher in Washington. We don't like being lied to."

Try to imagine what would happen if, say, John Kerry made a comment like that. Just try. Try to imagine what the nation's pundit class and political reporters would say about John Kerry if he said that, unlike those immoral rubes out in the rest of the country, Washingtonians don't like being lied to. He would be relentlessly flayed as an arrogant elitist. And Broder would likely lead the charge, declaring that Kerry's "arrogance rankled Midwesterners such as myself."

But John Kerry didn't say it. David Broder did. That's what Broder thinks: He and his Beltway buddies, unlike the rest of you chumps, don't like being lied to. Keep that in mind the next time Broder criticizes a politician for being "arrogant" or "elitist."

You won't have to wait long. Broder can't seem to resist portraying progressives as arrogant elitists. Last year, for example, he described anti-war Democrats as "elitist" -- despite a majority of Americans agreeing with the stance. Being against a war that a majority of your fellow citizens also oppose isn't "elitist." Suggesting that you and your Beltway pals are uniquely offended by lying -- that's elitist.

***

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Broder used his perch at The Washington Post to heckle Al Gore for telling the American people, in detail, what he would do as president. No, we are not making this up. Broder described Gore's convention speech as "a request to step inside a seminar room, listen closely and take notes," adding, "Never has a candidate provided more detailed information on his autobiography and the program initiatives he plans. One more paragraph and he would have been onto the budget of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. ... [M]y, how he went on about what he wants to do as president. ... For all his Washington experience, Gore does not seem to have grasped Bush's point that a chief executive is smart to focus on a few key reforms, rather than dissipating his leadership on a crammed agenda. Or perhaps Gore just felt it necessary to throw a bone to every one of the constituency groups in the Democratic Party."

Broder did write of his "hunch" that Gore's "approach was highly effective -- for what Gore wanted to do." (Indeed, as Bob Somerby has noted, the speech was a success, and Gore's standing in the polls improved afterward.) But Broder also made clear his lack of interest in Gore's details and plans: "I have to confess, my attention wandered as he went on through page after page of other swell ideas, and somewhere between hate crimes legislation and a crime victim's constitutional amendment, I almost nodded off." Even the headline on Broder's column -- "Gore tells all" -- seemed to be a shot at the vice president.

By contrast, Broder had nothing but praise for George W. Bush's 2000 convention speech:

Lifted by an acceptance speech of exceptional eloquence and powered by a party enjoying unusual unity, Texas Gov. George W. Bush embarks on the final stage of his quest for the White House with prospects that almost measure up to his brimming self-confidence.

[...]

[T]he acceptance speech he delivered Thursday night was a success.

It contained almost everything good political rhetoric can provide -- humor, personal warmth, effective jibes at the opposition and glimpses of what his father, the former president, used to call "the vision thing." And Bush had rehearsed it enough to make it his own.

Reading Broder's reaction to Bush's speech, you wouldn't have known whether Bush made mention of a single policy, proposal, or issue in his speech. You would, however, have learned that "Bush is seen by the public as a stronger leader -- and, by almost any measure, a man more likely to help cure the poisonous partisanship of the capital city."

With a superman like David Broder leading the fight for less substance and fewer details, nobody should have been surprised by Thursday night's Democratic debate, in which moderator Brian Williams asked candidates about haircuts and horse-race polls, and repeatedly dumbed down the debate with questions instructing the candidates to raise their hands in response, or to "say a name or to pass." No details, please -- our titans of journalism might nod off. Just raise your hand and move on.

For those (progressives, at least) who do dare offer details and facts, Broder is quick to deride them as know-it-alls. "Gore tells all," Broder mocked in 2000. Then, in 2006, he wrote, "Bush was elected twice, over Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry, whose know-it-all arrogance rankled Midwesterners such as myself." That same year, he similarly took Hillary Clinton to task:

For those who remember the former first lady's effort at comprehensive health-care reform in 1993-94, the scope of her energy initiative is a throwback to those days. She called for the creation of a Strategic Energy Fund, financed in part by taxes on oil company profits, and a National Institute of Energy, with a multibillion-dollar bankroll for financing innovative conservation and efficiency plans.

She offered her proposal with the same self-assurance that she had brought to the health-care debate -- a tone that suggested that "if you just listen carefully to all the things I can tell you on the basis of the study I have given this subject, you will know exactly what to do."

Well, at least Broder is consistent: he doesn't like "know-it-alls"; too many details, and he's bound to fall asleep.

Well, maybe "consistent" isn't the word. Earlier this month, he wrote:

Obama's soaring rhetoric has left some of his audiences hungry for more substance from the senator. That was the case at a March 24 health-care forum in Las Vegas, where Obama promised to achieve universal coverage as president but had to admit that -- unlike former senator John Edwards of North Carolina -- he had not yet formulated a plan for getting there. And it was the case again Wednesday, when he was one of seven candidates addressing several thousand members of the Building and Construction Trades, AFL-CIO, at their convention in Washington.

Got that? Al Gore, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton? Know-it-alls. Barack Obama? Light on substance. George Bush? Just right.

***

Like Brian Williams, we're running short on time, so we'll move to the lightning round:

• In 1998, Broder suggested President Clinton should resign, apparently because he "he may well have lied to a federal grand jury." Read that again: Broder wasn't even sure if he thought Clinton lied to a federal grand jury, but thought he should resign. Because maybe he lied. About an affair.

But in 2006, Broder wrote that President Bush "has proved to be lawless and reckless. He started a war he cannot finish, drove the government into debt and repeatedly defied the Constitution." Did he think this "lawless and reckless" president who "repeatedly defied the Constitution" should resign? If he thought so, he did not tell us. Broder believes his president is a lawless man who repeatedly defies the Constitution -- yet this superman, this titan, this great and influential man will not say it is time for the president to step down. Now, if Bush "may well have lied" about sex ... then, perhaps this titan would be stirred to speak out a little more boldly.

• Broder has repeatedly and disingenuously defended his window-peering coverage of the Clintons' marriage, despite having previously denounced such journalism. He hasn't entirely abandoned his earlier stance, though: when asked if he would write a similar article about Republican candidates, Broder replied: "Why would I write such an article? I know of no occasion for that." He is, however, "the most objective and respected reporter" Tim Russert knows.
• In 2002, when Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, a prominent leader in the Republican Party, was forced to step down from his leadership position after suggesting the country would have been better off had we elected a segregationist president in 1948, David Broder explained that the "losers" in the matter were ... Democrats, because four years earlier, they hadn't impeached President Clinton.
• In 2005, Broder blamed Democrats -- who were in the minority in both the House and the Senate -- for Congress' failure to conduct oversight hearings. Which, of course, they didn't have the power to do, being in the minority and all. Then, in March 2007 -- just two months into Democratic control of Congress -- Broder complained that the House had "slowed to a crawl," doing little other than "filling time with investigations." Later that month, Broder claimed "Democrats find it easier to investigate than to legislate. ... Accountability is certainly important, but Democrats must know that people were really voting for action on Iraq, health care, immigration, energy and a few other problems. Investigations are useful, but only legislation on big issues changes lives." In yet another March column, Broder warned, "It seems doubtful that Democrats can help themselves ... with more investigations ... At some point, Democrats have to give people something to vote for. People already know what they're against -- the Republicans."

So, when Democrats didn't control Congress, David Broder thought that oversight hearings were good, and blamed Democrats -- who lacked the authority to conduct such hearings -- for their absence. Now that Democrats control Congress, Broder warns Democrats not to conduct oversight investigations.

• In 2005, Broder actually touted President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina. 'Nuff said.
• In December 2006, Broder praised Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld as "stalwarts of economic and national security policy." No, really.
• In 2006, he called on journalists to apologize to Karl Rove for suggesting he was part of the campaign to out Valerie Plame, despite the fact that ... Karl Rove was part of the campaign to out Valerie Plame.
• In August 2006, Broder warned that if Joe Lieberman was defeated in the Connecticut Senate primary, it would portend general election disaster for the Democrats. Lieberman lost that primary, and yet the Democrats thoroughly trounced the GOP in the fall.
• In June 2006, Broder criticized Hillary Clinton for her "shortsightedness" after she had criticized the media for kowtowing to the Bush administration. In arguing that Clinton was off-base, Broder noted a "front-page story" in that morning's Post about the Downing Street Memos, concluding, "Who does she think is doing this work if not investigative reporters? Give us a break." Broder's invocation of a Washington Post article about the Downing Street Memos as evidence that the Post has aggressively reported stories that are bad for Bush seems disingenuous given that even Post Ombudsman Michael Getler and reporters Howard Kurtz and Jefferson Morley acknowledged that the paper was slow to cover the Memo story.
• Last September, Broder wrote a column ostensibly about the "moral scale" of the debate over torture that somehow managed to avoid his own newspaper's report, three days earlier, that the U.S. had "secretly whisked" an innocent Canadian citizen to Syria, where he was beaten, forced to make a false confession, and "kept in a coffin-size dungeon for 10 months." Instead, as we explained at the time, "while paying lip service to the 'moral scale,' Broder suggested to the reader that he is kept awake at night by the 'loud' and 'vituperative' statements of bloggers and Democratic congressmen -- rather than by the thought that the Bush administration's pro-torture stance not only results in inhumane treatment of those we torture, but increases the risk of our own troops facing similar treatment from foreign regimes." In that column, as he so often does, Broder expressed confidence that the likes of Joe Lieberman and John McCain -- "these are not ordinary men," Broder stressed -- would step in and put an end to U.S. torture.
• Earlier this year, Broder claimed that The New York Times is "not normally solicitous of Republicans' feelings." Broder's attack on the Times was not only a pitch-perfect rendition of a common GOP talking point, it was also clearly false: The Times actually has a "conservative beat" ... but no "progressive beat." That's small change, however, compared to Broder's recent slur that Democrats have little "sympathy for" the military. If this whole "dean of political reporters" thing doesn't work out, Broder can always start a new career as a speechwriter for Vice President Dick Cheney.
• Earlier this month, the Post was criticized for running an op-ed by Mary Cheney in which she echoed attacks on Nancy Pelosi made by her father, the vice president, without disclosing the relationship between the two. Despite the fact that the lack of disclosure was apparently a violation of Post policy, Broder declared that it would have been "gratuitous" to include such a disclosure.
• In mid-February, Broder predicted a political comeback by President Bush, declaring "he is demonstrating political smarts that even his critics have to acknowledge." Instead, Bush's poll ratings (28 percent approval in the latest Harris poll) remain so dismal that conservative columnists have taken to arguing that the fact that Bush has spent a year in the mid-30s is a good thing, as it demonstrates consistency. No, really. On March 30, Broder was asked about that prediction during an online discussion:

Seattle: Remember your column about President Bush being on the verge of regaining his political footing? Isn't it about time you revisited that tidbit of political prognostication?

washingtonpost.com: Bush Regains His Footing (Post, Feb. 16)

David S. Broder: I remember that column well. It is time to revisit and revise. Stay tuned.

Bush remains as popular as a kick in the head, but rather than revising his absurd prediction, as promised, Broder declares Harry Reid a political incompetent.

Think about where the Democrats were when Harry Reid became their leader in the Senate. Think about where they are now. Think about David Broder's recent prediction of a Bush comeback; his touting of Bush's response to Katrina; his praise for Cheney and Rumsfeld; his claims that journalists should apologize to Karl Rove for saying he did something he did; his call for fewer details and less discussion of policy from candidates; his defense of Richard Nixon; his prediction that if Joe Lieberman lost his primary, Democrats would perform poorly in the general election; his double standards in his coverage of candidates personal lives; his suggestion that Bill Clinton should have resigned because he "may well have lied" about sex; his unwillingness to say that a "lawless" president who "repeatedly defied the Constitution" should step down; his elitist and arrogant statement that he and his pals care more about being lied to than you do; his hypocritical statement that Kerry's and Gore's "arrogance rankled Midwesterners such as myself."

Think about all that, and ask yourself: If you were David Broder, wouldn't you -- just maybe -- think twice before accusing someone else of "bumbling" and "ineptitude"?

Truth

It was going to take a lot to get me to post something again... and it did. Read what Glenn has to say and watch Bill Moyer's documentary and learn the truth about BushCo corruption and media complicity.

Glenn:

If you didn't watch Bill Moyers' documentary last night regarding the joint, coordinated behavior of our government and its media in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, I can't recommend it highly enough. You can watch it here.

For those who have been following these issues, there was no single, specific blockbuster revelation that was not previously known, although Moyers' focus on the superb (and largely ignored) pre-war work of Real Journalists at Knight-Ridder (now at McClatchy) does cast a new light on the profound malfeasance of our most influential media outlets. Most of all, the documentary very powerfully compiles some of the most incriminating facts, and it unapologetically identifies many of the guiltiest and most destructive wrongdoers in our government and in the press.

For that reason, the documentary is -- in one sense -- a very valuable historical account of the corrupt behavior by our dominant political and media institutions which deceived the country into the invasion of Iraq. But on another, more significant level, it illustrates the corruption that continues to propel our political and media culture.

One of the most important points came at the end. The institutional decay which Moyers chronicles is not merely a matter of historical interest. Instead, it continues to shape our mainstream political dialogue every bit as much as it did back in 2002 and 2003. The people who committed the journalistic crimes Moyers so potently documents do not think they are guilty of anything -- ask them and they will tell you -- and as a result, they have not changed their behavior in the slightest.

Just consider that, as Moyers notes, there has been no examination by any television news network of the role played by the American media in enabling the Bush administration and its warmonger propagandists to disseminate pure falsehoods to the American public. People like Eric Boehlert have written books about it, and Moyers has now produced a comprehensive PBS program documenting it. But the national media outlets themselves have virtually ignored this entire story -- arguably the most significant political story of the last decade -- because they do not think there is any story here at all.

The fraud that was manufactured by our government officials and endorsed by our media establishment is one of the great political crimes of the last many decades. Yet those who are responsible for it have not been held accountable in the slightest. Quite the contrary, their media prominence -- as Moyers demonstrates -- has only increased, as culpable propagandists and warmongers such as Charles Krauthammer (now of Time and The Washington Post), Bill Kristol (now of Time), Jonah Goldberg (now of The Los Angeles Times, Peter Beinert (now of Time and The Washington Post), and Tom Friedman (revered by media stars everywhere) have all seen their profiles enhanced greatly in our national media.

And while Judy Miller became the scapegoat for the media's failures, most of the media stars responsible for the worst journalistic abuses -- from Michael Gordon to Tim Russert to Fred Hiatt to most of The Washington Post, to say nothing of the Fox stars and cogs of the right-wing noise machine -- continue merrily along as before, with virtually no recognition of fault and no reduction in their platforms.

Moyers did a superb job of questioning both Tim Russert and Peter Beinart, and both were -- appropriately and enjoyably -- extremely defensive about their behavior. Beinart, along with his good friend and mirror image Jonah Goldberg, participated in one of the most vile -- though not all that unusual -- smear campaigns against a war opponent, Scott Ritter. The smear campaign was necessary precisely because Ritter was one of the very few individuals in this country who (completely unlike Goldberg, Beinart and all of the other faux warrior-experts parading across television screens loyally reciting the Bush line) actually knew what he was talking about when it came to the Iraqi weapons program and its "relationship" to Al Qaeda, and continuously warned (to little effect) about all of the warmongers' false claims about those topics.

But credit is at least due to both Russert and Beinart for appearing on Moyers' program and facing his appropriately confrontational questions. Their willingness to account for their conduct stands in stark contrast to the long list of cowards who still constantly strut around self-lovingly touting their own courage, resolve, Churchillian backbone, and all of their other little self-glorifying platitudes, yet were too afraid to face questioning from a real journalist about all of the fact-free, false propaganda they spewed for years (and continue to spew).

That disgraceful, dishonorable roster of Great Warriors hiding under their beds from Bill Moyers includes Fox's Krauthammer, Fox's Kristol, Fox's Roger Ailes, Bill Safire and Judith Miller. As The Washington Post's own Tom Shales put it:

Among those who declined -- and thus became a part of the story more than they already were -- are Judith Miller of the New York Times, a reporter who became a relentless drumbeater for war; Times pundit William Safire, who'd predicted that Iraqis would welcome Americans as liberators when they marched into Baghdad; columnist Charles Krauthammer, another hawkish columnist who's usually anything but camera-shy; and Fox boss Roger Ailes.

William Kristol, a conservative columnist who, Moyers says, "led the march to Baghdad behind a battery of Washington microphones . . . has not responded to any of our requests for an interview, but he still shows up on TV as an expert, most often on Fox News."

People like Bill Kristol and Krauthammer will only go and sit with the likes of Brit Hume and speak only to Fox audiences, so they are never reminded of the literally countless falsehoods they churned out not only to justify the invasion but to profoundly mislead Americans for years about the ongoing occupation. And they both continue to issue one-way decrees from the pages of Time and The Washington Post, where they are never held to account for what they have done.

Moyers' documentary is a superb piece of journalism and makes inescapably clear how profoundly corrupt our dominant political and media institutions were prior to the invasion. But most national "journalists" will simply ignore the whole program (as Digby notes, The New York Times, one of the principal culprits, did not even review it).

They will almost certainly dismiss Moyers as a liberal partisan, not a real journalist, and continue to insist that they are doing a superb and even-handed job. They will continue to revere the most guilty parties responsible for the deceit and destruction of the last six years.

And, worst of all, the sicknesses documented so potently by Moyers will continue to pervade our dominant media and political institutions. Comparing 2002 and now, however, there is a significant difference: as Moyers' documentary illustrates, as does the emergence of political blogs, more and more people are increasingly recognizing how pervasive those deficiencies are, and consequently, are developing multiple alternatives to the rancid governing Beltway system.

UPDATE: Tom Tomorrow is one of those radical, unserious, untrustworthy extremist commentators who saw exactly what was going on back in 2002 and was right about virtually everything. As a result, Fred Hiatt and Richard Stengel will never invite him onto the Op-Ed pages of The Washington Post or Time alongside our Brilliant Foreign Policy Luminaries like Charles Kruathammer, Joe Lieberman and Robert Kagan, but -- to celebrate the four-year anniversary of our Glorious War -- he does have a small though rich sampling over at the Huffington Post of the great wisdom showered on us by Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and many of their other media and neoconservative friends.

UPDATE II: CBS White House Correspondent Mark Knoller watched Moyers' documentary and he is absolutely befuddled that anyone could possibly suggest that our White House Press Corps was insufficiently skeptical of the White House's pre-war claims or that they were too deferential to the Leader:

To hear Bill Moyers tell it last evening on his PBS program "Buying The War," the White House press corps was a willing participant in its own deception about the President's case for war in Iraq.

He portrays us as easily-manipulated stooges on bended-knee to the President and his top aides.

Now, I'm the first to concede there are plenty of good reasons to criticize the White House Press. We're an irascible and unlikable bunch. I'm one of us and I don't like us very much. But the point made by Bill Moyers at the start of his program last night is just off base. . . . Now, I can understand if Moyers didn't like the President's answers. Fair enough. But to portray reporters as mindless conduits of White House policies is unfounded.

Really, what can one even say about this? Like most of his colleagues, he is drowning in total self-delusion. Note how he pretends to criticize White House journalists for being "irrascible and unlikable" -- the implication being that they are a really tough, ornery and contentious bunch of hard-core reporters who may not be likable or agreeable, but boy, they sure are feisty.

After describing (though understandably not quoting) several of the oh-so-super-tough questions he claims were asked at the pre-war Press Conference -- the one where reporters pretended to raise their hands in the hopes of being called upon, even though they knew Bush had a pre-scripted list of which reporters would be allowed to ask questions and they were only doing that to create a false perception of a free-wheeling press conference -- Knoller ends with these paragraphs:

Did we report what the President said about his case for war? Of course we did. That's our job. Did we also report that his views were challenged or disputed by others? Absolutely. Were questions raised about the veracity of the president's arguments? Certainly.

Did reporters stop the U.S. from going to war in Iraq? No. Could reporters have done a better job? Always.

But to charge that the White House press was "compliant" and cheered the President's arguments for war plainly misrepresents the facts.

I wonder if Knoller is aware that seven out of 10 Americans believed even six months after the invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein personally planned the 9/11 attacks. But Knoller just cannot believe that anyone would suggest that the national press corps was too compliant.

This is the point I have realized only recently which I cannot stress enough. They really do not think they did anything wrong. They think that their pre-war "journalism" (which, they will admit with great humility, could "of course" -- like everything in the world -- have been better) was perfectly excellent journalism, and anyone who suggests otherwise simply does not understand the elevated role of journalists, and is probably just a lowly partisan hysteric.

That's how they think. Just go read Knoller's response to the Moyers' documentary. Our government deceived the entire country into a war based on a whole set of blatantly false claims -- all of which were shoveled into the public's minds by our nation's media outlets -- and they continue to say what a great job they did.

God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut (1922-2007)

"And so it goes..."

I have loved Kurt Vonnegut's writing since I first "discovered" him in the late 60's and I think I have read all his books. This fall, I bought, what turns out to have been, his last book -- A Man Without a Country. I loved his gentle, worldly-wise tone that was both bleak and full of love. He had a twinkle in his eye for us like a favorite uncle would and he wrote poems like this.

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!

Andrew Leonard in Salon:

Kurt Vonnegut was a good man, a kind man, a mensch. Our world is a shallower, drearier place without him. But anyone who has enjoyed any of his work, or been lucky enough to bask in his twinkle, can still rejoice, because we will always have him, in all his idiosyncratic twisted-chess perversity. The world is less without him, but it will always be more because of him.

Steven D at the Booman Tribune:

An atheist, his books were nonetheless filled with discussions of war, poverty and injustice that reflected his progressive beliefs. Some might say he was a pessimist, even a nihilist, but they would be wrong. What he was was a modern day version of the prophet Jeremiah ranting at the America which he loved, but whose failures he did not deny or overlook. Failures he constantly decried in his books, failures of vision, compassion, justice and the everyday betrayal of our highest ideals in the service of our collective greed and lust for power as a nation. He was the antithesis of everything for which George W. Bush stands. We did not deserve him.

Please forgive me Kurt, but God bless you Mr. Vonnegut, and thank you for your service to your country.

Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country:

If I should die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC.

Kurt again:

Dan, that was my bad uncle, who said a man can't be a man unless he'd gone to war.

But I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father's kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

All roads lead to Rove

Josh Marshall makes it clear what the real story is that underlies the U.S. Attorney purge story and the deleted e-mail. It's Karl Rove's evil plan for one party rule and the laws be damned. One of the key elements of this plan was the so-called "voter fraud" issue...

But tomorrow's Times has another story that will probably generate less heat but is closer to the core of what the Purge story is about. Since President Bush came into office, the Justice Department has made 'voter fraud' prosecutions a high priority. Yet, not for lack of effort, they've barely been able to find any examples of it. The grand effort has boiled down to a program to send a few handfuls of folks -- mainly black -- to jail for what are in almost every case notional or unintentional voting infractions.

As those of you who follow this issue know, the vast number of the claims about 'voter fraud' are based on poorly kept voter rolls. Joe Smith is registered to vote in New Jersey and New York! The small print is that he lived in New Jersey but then moved to New York. The election board in New Jersey just hasn't taken him off the rolls yet. It may sound like I'm joking. But most of the scare stories about 'voter fraud' are just as stupid as that example.

At TPMmuckraker at the moment, we're giving a very close look to the 'voter fraud' claims in Wisconsin that Karl Rove was so interested in. GOP activists were incredibly disappointed and angry when the US Attorney in Milwaukee brought only a tiny handful of prosecutions, after the activists had charged a massive conspiracy to steal the 2004 elections from Republicans. But the government actually lost a stunningly high percentage of even those cases because they were so weak.

Cynthia C. Alicea, 25, was indicted for double-voting. The evidence was that election officials found she'd registered to vote twice. She was acquited because it turned out election officials told her to fill out another card because the first one had been filled out wrong. Pretty lurid stuff. There was no evidence she'd ever voted twice. The other three people indicted in Milwaukee for double voting were acquited too.

Out of the tiny number of bona fide voter fraud cases, the great majority fall into two categories. The first are cases where workers hired in voter registration drives appear to sign up non-existent people to get paid more money from the sponsors of the drive. The actual examples of this are exceedingly rare. But since the people don't exist, no one ever shows up to vote in their name.

The second are felons or parolees who either register to vote or actually vote, in most cases not knowing they're not eligible to vote.

Here's one great example from the Times article is the case of 43 year old grandmother Kimberly Prude ...

Ms. Prude’s path to jail began after she attended a Democratic rally in Milwaukee featuring the Rev. Al Sharpton in late 2004. Along with hundreds of others, she marched to City Hall and registered to vote. Soon after, she sent in an absentee ballot.

Four years earlier, though, Ms. Prude had been convicted of trying to cash a counterfeit county government check worth $1,254. She was placed on six years’ probation.

Ms. Prude said she believed that she was permitted to vote because she was not in jail or on parole, she testified in court. Told by her probation officer that she could not vote, she said she immediately called City Hall to rescind her vote, a step she was told was not necessary.

“I made a big mistake, like I said, and I truly apologize for it,” Ms. Prude said during her trial in 2005. That vote, though, resulted in a felony conviction and sent her to jail for violating probation.

The whole thing really does pretty much come down to a thankfully not very successful effort to send a bunch of poor blacks to prison for unintentional voting violations.

Past Justice Department policy was not to indict in cases where there was no clear intent to tamper with an election. But the Bush administration did away with that policy leading to serious time for hardened vote criminals like Ms. Prude.

Another example is that of Pakistani immigrant Usman Ali. He'd been in the US for ten years and owned a jewelry store. He was in line one day at the DMV when a clerk put a registration form in front of him along with other forms. Ali hastily filled it out. He never made any attempt to vote. But the mistake got him deported back to Pakistan where he's now trying to rebuild his life with his US citizen wife and daughter.

We're certainly lucky to be rid of Mr. Ali and his efforts to undermine our democracy.

Most of the examples, like these, are genuinely disgusting -- non-malicious errors for which people get serious punishment because federal prosecutors are under immense pressure to find someone to indict for voter fraud. But it's also easy to get lost in or distracted by the individual stories. The bigger picture is what you need to focus on. And the picture looks like this.

Republican party officials and elected officials use bogus claims of vote fraud to do three things: 1) to stymie voter registration drives and get-out-the-vote efforts in poor and minority neighborhoods, 2) purge voter rolls of legitimate voters and 3) institute voter ID laws aimed at making it harder for low-income and minority voters to vote.

This sounds like hyperbole but it is simply the truth. (A great example of this in microcosm was the 2002 senate election in South Dakota -- Johnson v. Thune -- in which Republicans spent the entire election ranting about a massive voter fraud conspiracy on the state's Indian reservations, charges which turned out to be completely bogus but had the aim of keeping voting down on the reservations. You can find much more on this in the TPM archives. Go to the search feature and type in some combinatin of 'fraud south dakota' etc. I'll try to write more recapping the story soon.)

The tie-in with the US Attorney story is that the White House and the Republican National Committee have used the power of the Department of Justice to accomplish those three goals that I outlined above. Only most of the relatively non-partisan and professional US Attorneys simply didn't find any actual fraud. Choosing not to indict people on bogus charges got at least two of the US Attorneys (Iglesias and McKay) fired. And we are seeing evidence that others may have been nudged out less directly for the same reasons. In turn they've been replaced by a new crop of highly-political party operative prosecutors who, in the gentle wording of the Times, "may not be so reticent" about issuing indictments against people who have committed technical voting infractions with no intent to cast a fraudulent ballot. Along the way, the fever to find someone, anyone guilty of committing even a technical infraction has landed folks like Ms. Prude in the slammer. They are what you might call the prosecutorial road kill in the Rove Republican party's effort to ride roughshod over American citizens' voting rights to entrench the GOP as the country's permanent electoral majority.

Who's running all this? Who's put it all in motion. Look at the documents that have already been released. It's been run out of Karl Rove's office at the White House.

Reality is lamer than fiction

From the "Can't-we-get-anyone-to-do-my-job" department we get this pathetic travesty.

TPM Reader JP wrote in, so on the mark, saying this article in the Post reads like a joke piece ...

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

The article's not the problem, mind you, but the subject matter. This is truly DC-czarism, 'we can't figure out what the hell we're doing so let's appoint a new bubble on the flowchart' run amok. Instead of 'czar' maybe we can just call the person 'training wheels'? Someone to oversee wars, the Pentagon, the State Department and everything else? Don't we elect that person every four years?

JP says it reminds him of this November 2005 piece from The Onion ...

In response to increasing criticism of his handling of the war in Iraq and the disaster in the Gulf Coast, as well as other issues, such as Social Security reform, the national deficit, and rising gas prices, President Bush is expected to appoint someone to run the U.S. as soon as Friday.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a better sign -- though wrapped in a humorous package -- of why this president really can't be trusted to be in charge of anything and why the Republic is genuinely in peril as long as this pitiful goof remains in office. Bush wants to find a general to do his job for him. But he can't get anyone to agree to do it.

Blinded by their own lies

Sometimes I wonder what the warmongers really think. Do they know that they are lying? or do they really believe what they tell people? i.e. do they drink their own Kool-Aid? Profoundly ignorant people are often willfully ignorant. They believe things based on ideology (faith) and actively resist evidence and reason. I have written before about right-wingers' lack of empathy and wonder about the correlation between this lack of empathy and blindness to the plights of others. Do they know that others are suffering and not care, or are they really blind (and therefore indifferent) to the suffering?

Glenn Greenwald has written a piece about Rep. Mike Pence, who accompanied John McCain on his Freedom Stroll in the Baghdad market. Pence is (in)famous (Glenn quotes many of his most egregious pronouncements in his article) for his war boosterism including having claimed that WMDs have been found in Iraq. He recently expounded on how safe Baghdad was, declaring that it was "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime." He also gushed about his happy rug vendor:

The merchant almost refused to take my money. He kept touching his heart and shaking his head no. His eyes, like so many others, radiated with affection and appreciation. He wanted to give me the rugs. I insisted that he accept my ten dollars and, happily, he relented.

This was the story that made me write this post. How could anyone believe this, knowing what we know about the Iraqi invasion and occupation, the years of horribly violent chaos and then the security sweep in the market immediately before, and massive security during, the photo-op. How could anyone possibly believe what Pence said? Could Pence himself have really believed this? In his own distorted way, did Pence really see "affection and appreciation"? In other words, is he suffering from Kool-Aid induced blindness or is he just a brazen liar? I really don't know but, either way, there is little doubt that what Pence said was completely wrong.

From NPR's report -- audio here:

Across town is Shorja market, where a U.S. Congressional delegation, led by U.S. Sen. John McCain, visited on Sunday under extremely heavy security. People were blocked from entering the market while the lawmakers were there. Helicopters whirled overhead, and there were at least 100 soldiers accompanying the delegation.

Rep. Mike Pence was so impressed by the visit, though, he compared Shorja to a summer market in his home state of Indiaina: "One gentleman tried to refuse our money when we were purchasing rugs - he kept touching his heart - said thank you, no, no - I was deeply moved."

NPR went to Baghdad's Shorja market after the visit, and spoke with the carpet seller, Ahmed al Krudi: "I didn't accept the money. I said to myself, they must be guests, so I must give them a good impression of Iraqis. After all, we are occuped by these Americans, and they are accompanied by a lot of U.S. security."

Al Krudi says he is angry at the insurgents who bombed the market in February, killing dozens, but he doesn't like the American presence here either:

We are not against the resistance. We are with them. However, the resistance must fight the occupiers, not the Iraqi people. A huge number of U.S. forces came yesterday. Why didn't they shoot at them, instead of harming us?

Truly, blinded by lies...

It keeps getting worse at DOJ

Paul Kiel says that the cover story for the inappropriate firings are perhaps worse that what they covering for.

It's almost too perfect.

When Justice Department official William Moschella was asked why the Department had fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, he told Congress that “Iglesias had delegated to his first assistant the overall running of the office. And, quite frankly, U.S. attorneys are hired to run the office.” Internal documents from the time show officials planning to accuse Iglesias of being an "absentee landlord" to justify his firing.

Iglesias did, in fact, leave the office for 45 days each year. But that's because he's a a captain in the Navy Reserve -- something that was no secret to his superiors.

So now the Office of Special Counsel is investigating whether Iglesias was wrongfully terminated due to his reserve duty, Newsweek reports. It is against the law for employers to discriminate against members of the U.S. military.

Now, as Kyle Sampson admitted last week, there was no real performance reason to fire Iglesias. And in fact, it's indisputable at this point that Iglesias was actually fired because he didn't indict enough Democrats.* So the "absentee landlord" line was just a cover story -- but one that seems to have gotten them into some trouble now.

It's not the first time that one of the phony justifications has backfired for the Justice Department. When Karl Rove's former aide Tim Griffin replaced Bud Cummins as the U.S. attorney in eastern Arkansas, a Justice Department spokesman told the press and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) that Griffin had been installed as the U.S. attorney instead of Cummins' first assistant because she was on maternity leave at the time.

Of course, Justice Department officials had been scheming for almost six months to install Griffin when he was finally appointed last December, so the maternity excuse was a lie. But as Pryor later pointed out, it's against the law for employers to discriminate against women on the basis of a pregnancy -- something well known at the Justice Department, of course.

*Update: To answer the reader question below as to whether this claim goes too far.... The only reason Kyle Sampson could offer in his testimony last week for Iglesias' firing was a complaint from Karl Rove about Iglesias' performance on voter fraud cases. Since Iglesias was lauded by the department for his voter fraud task force, there can be no doubt that his office vigorously investigated the issue. What his office didn't do, however, was indict Democrats -- much to the chagrin of several prominent New Mexico Republicans, who subsequently complained to the White House about Iglesias' failure to deliver.

Now, prominent Republicans (like Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM)) were also upset about Iglesias' failure to indict a state Democrat on corruption charges. But whether that was the reason for Iglesias' firing or it was the voter fraud issue, or both -- it all amounts to the same thing: he was fired for not indicting Democrats.

GWB anxious to veto funding for troops

As Digby tells us, citing a report in the Chicago Tribune, that "President Pissypants" is complaining that Congress is being irresponsible for debating a war-spending bill.

Counting the 57th day since he delivered his bid for additional war-spending to Congress, the president said during an impromptu Rose Garden press conference that congressional leaders should rush their bill to his desk so that he can promptly veto it and get on with a new spending bill.

"In a time of war, it's irresponsible for the Democrat leadership in... Congress to delay for months on end while our troops in combat are waiting for the funds,'' Bush said.

It appears that Harry Reid is having none of it:

Washington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, released the following statement today after comments made by President Bush at the White House:

The President today asked the American people to trust him as he continues to follow the same failed strategy that has drawn our troops further into an intractable civil war. The President's policies have failed and his escalation endangers our troops and hurts our national security. Neither our troops nor the American people can afford this strategy any longer.

Democrats will send President Bush a bill that gives our troops the resources they need and a strategy in Iraq worthy of their sacrifices. If the President vetoes this bill he will have delayed funding for troops and kept in place his strategy for failure.

Digby concludes:

Meanwhile, we find out that the "57 day delay" that Junior was squealing about is actually happening at warp speed compared to the last congress which was so busy counting its ill gotten gains, covering up for child predators and trying to stay out of jail that they could hardly take the time to pass a supplemental at all:

During the reign of the Do-Nothing 109th Congress, Bush submitted two major supplemental spending requests. Each request experienced a delay far more than 57 days with hardly a peep of anger from the Commander-In-Chief. Details below:

February 14, 2005: Bush submits $82 billion supplemental bill
May 11, 2005: Bush signs the supplemental
Total time elapsed: 86 days

February 16, 2006: Bush submits $72 billion supplemental bill
June 15, 2006: Bush signs the supplemental
Total time elapsed: 119 days

After the 119 day delay, Bush did not say an “irresponsible” Congress had “undercut the troops” or that military families had “paid the price of failure.” Instead, Bush told the conservative-led Congress, “I applaud those Members of Congress who came together in a fiscally responsible way to provide much-needed funds for the War on Terror.”

Josh Marshall refers us to a comment from Reader JC:

I would say that any democrate is a fool who doesn't start every comment on the story with, "The president is vetoing the bill to provide money for soldiers -- readiness, health care, armaments, etc and a timeline to get out of Iraq."

Bigger than the US Attorney scandal

Digby has written a good article about the extraordinary extent to which BushCo has "populated the Justice Department with dirty tricksters in extremely sensitive jobs". As I alluded in my last post, there really are no ethical limits to what BushCo is willing do in serving its own corrupt goals.

Digby:

Many of us were told to pipe down when we complained that the Justice Department and the NSA had been involved in spying on Americans with no oversight. But now that we know that Barbara Comstock, Monica Goodling and Tim Griffin, Karl Rove's personal smear artists, were promoted to the highest reaches of the federal police agencies with access to records on their political opponents and every other American, then it's clear that we weren't suspicious enough. At this point, I think we have to assume that with these people in charge and having the use of all the new powers of the Patriot Act, there have been no limits at all on the partisan, political use of the government's investigative powers.

I am no longer confused about why Monica Goodling took the fifth. I have little doubt that there are many crimes that took place and she's not taking any chances. This is bigger than the US Attorney scandal.

The WaPo reports:

No other administration in contemporary times has had such a clear pattern of filling chief prosecutors' jobs with its own staff members, said experts on U.S. attorney's offices. Those experts said the emphasis in appointments traditionally has been on local roots and deference to home-state senators, whose support has been crucial to win confirmation of the nominees.

The pattern from Bush's second term suggests that the dismissals were half of a two-pronged approach: While getting rid of prosecutors who did not adhere closely to administration priorities, such as rigorous pursuit of immigration violations and GOP allegations of voter fraud, White House and Justice officials have seeded federal prosecutors' offices with people on whom they can depend to carry out the administration's agenda.

[...]

"If we have eight U.S. attorneys dismissed because they were not 'loyal Bushies,' then how many of the remaining U.S. attorneys are?" asked Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), borrowing a phrase that Gonzales's former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, used in an internal e-mail to describe criteria by which prosecutors were chosen to be fired.

April's Fool

My Mum taught me that you should play the game as hard as you can to find out who the better team (or player) is. You do your best and then you find out how good it was. It was perfectly clear that there was never an occasion when cheating would have been justifiable. You could lose honorably but you could never win with honor if you cheated. She would boo anyone, no matter on which team, if they cheated and she would applaud good plays, no matter who made them. There was no doubt which team she was backing but, as it is with most good athletes, she respected worthy opponents. People who have never played sports often don't understand how two competitors can battle each other to exhaustion and then hug each other at the end. But it's not a war, after all -- it's just a competition to see who will win.

While winning the game is better than losing, winning by cheating is worse than losing the game. You can always come back from a loss, but what you lose by cheating is gone forever. However, my Mum and I may not be part of the majority in thinking this way. I remember, in my youth, after stumbling across a kick-back scheme, saying that I would rather go out of business than stay in business by cheating. My boss looked at me and said: Well, Bill, you've got a lot to learn. I'm proud to say that I still haven't learned it. I am still convinced that one does not have to cheat to succeed nor do I believe that one cannot be honest and succeed in politics. There are times when "it's none of your business" or "I can't tell you that" are appropriate answers and that is not being dishonest.

I think if politicians respected the public more, they would be more honest with them. Saying things like: I understand why you feel that way, but I hope you can understand why I can't do what you want. I think that political leaders need to tell the truth more and, in so doing, educate the public about the difficult choices that must be made when managing a group. People need to be convinced not to be so selfish, not to think only of themselves. As JFK said: Ask not for what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Our self-centered culture tends to praise and reward people's natural selfishness and right-wing politics has rightly been called the politics of selfishness and greed.

As the Rolling Stones sang: "You can't always get what you want" and it's time more people were told that truth instead of being patronized with: sure, whatever you want. Just because a decision was bad for you doesn't make it a bad decision. It's not only about you. You are part of a group and the goal is about what is good for the group and, as much as possible, for its individual members but, invariably, this will involve compromises. People need to learn that compromising is necessary and good. It's all about finding a way to make it work for all of us or, as we should have learned in kindergarten, it's about learning to get along.

I have been struck by the willingness of not just BushCo itself, but of virtually ever Republican, to defend any crime if it was done by a Republican in aid of BushCo's goals, no matter how corrupt. This has been blatantly obvious for the six years that the Republicans controlled Congress and refused to perform any oversight on the increasingly corrupt and incompetent Bush administration. Instead, they acted as enablers of some of the most egregious constitutional violations in American history including ceding to the President the right to imprison Americans without due process or the right of a trial.

Since the Democrats took control of Congress and started to perform some oversight and doing a little investigation, it has become clear just how extensive the corruption was. There is scandal at every turn. It seems that ever single member of BushCo was willing lie, cheat and break the law to benefit "the team". Where are the examples of people who have said: No, this is wrong? Where are the people who have taken a principled stand, at some personal risk, to do the right thing? The closest we find are those who express some doubt about the rightness of what they participated in only after they have left the team -- when it's too late for them to do anything about it.

For more examples of this disgraceful behavior, see Glenn Greenwald's latest post "Your modern-day Republican Party". Greenwald asks: "What kind of American isn't just instinctively repulsed by the notion that the President has the power to imprison Americans with no charges?" Not surprisingly, the answer is "two of the three leading Republican candidates for President". Small wonder when, as Greenwald says:

the hero and icon of the Republican Party over the last six years has, in fact, imprisoned U.S. citizens and insisted that he has the power to throw Americans into black holes indefinitely with no charges or review of any kind.

That is the modern Republican Party. Its base, its ruling factions, simply do not believe in our most basic Constitutional guarantees. For anyone who wants to dispute that, how is it possible to reconcile the above with any claim to the contrary?

And I doubt any Republican candidate could simply stand up and emphatically oppose this grotesque idea without creating real problems for himself among Republican primary voters -- not even so much because executive, due-process-less imprisonment is important to the Republican base, but rather, because it has become a symbol of the Bush presidency, and one shows loyalty to the Movement by defending it (and the worst sin -- disloyalty -- by opposing it).