iowa underground blog

From the transcript:

BILL MOYERS: But if reform has to come from the people who are benefiting from the system, are we going to get reform?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: We’re going to get reform if and when they believe that the public will have the tar cooking and the feathers waiting if they don’t do reform. We’re not there yet, Bill.

THOMAS FRANK: Can I say two things about this question? First of all, the people who are in charge now have a vested interest in increasing our cynicism. They are the party of cynicism against government. And when they do these things, that’s just an added benefit that they’ve managed to get the cynicism numbers up where they have. That’s good for the Republican Party, the party that tells you that what? Remember what President Reagan used to say about government, you know? It was a joke, the idea that they were here to help you, all that stuff.

The second point I want to make is go back to the 19th century, the sort of parallel experience to what we’re going through now. You had a series of reformers come up in the 19th century. And every single one of them from, you know, Horace Greeley all up to the 1890s failed miserably, you know, were rejected in huge sweep. I mean, the corruptionists just whipped these guys. It was a piece of cake. It was easy. The only thing that—what really changed it is when reform became a broader thing, when it became Progressivism. And when it became, you know, look at society as a whole. We’re going to change the entire direction that we’re moving in. When—I’m talking about here people like Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. That’s when this stuff started to abate. Not before that.

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: You know, one problem we have here is what we really need is politicians. Politicians understand the nature of politics and the importance of the institutions. How to do give and take and compromises in an effective fashion. What’s happening now is where this flame of cynicism in the public, somebody pops up and says, “I’m not a politician.” And we say, “Okay, great. We’ll elect you.” And what we get are people who are on an ideological crusade, people who have a contempt for politics and believe that it is all sleaze, everybody does it. So bribery is a way of life.

BILL MOYERS: Is there hope when money trumps everything else today?

THOMAS FRANK: You don’t want to ask me that. I’m, you know, I’m a very pessimistic guy. And I don’t think there is because, you know, earlier we were talking about the Democrats and their reaction to all this, and I think their reaction has been lukewarm to feeble. No, they want that money, too. You know, they want to turn this around—-

BILL MOYERS: I saw the other day a very powerful House member, Democrat, saying, you know, “We’re going after some uncharted sources of money in the financial community. And we’re telling them that the next majority leader might be a Democrat.”

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: Yeah. You know, we’ve had a telecommunications bill that’s been up and pending in Congress for a long time, and they’re going to keep it pending for a long time. And every once in a while they say, “It’s going to pass, going to pass.” So then each side keeps throwing more money into it. Some of this stuff is difficult to deal with. It’s an ages-old problem. We have to constantly be at it to keep the money system from careening out of control.

In the short run, we’ve got a big problem here. We have a sharply polarized political system. We called the book The Broken Branch because Congress is thoroughly dysfunctional. It isn’t going to change overnight. We need new leadership, including a presidential campaign that may bring it. But we’ve got a process that’s going to take us years to reconstruct. I have long-term hope. We’ve always done it before. But short term, I’m very pessimistic.

BILL MOYERS: Does history, Mr. Historian, give us any reason for hope?

THOMAS FRANK: Sure. Absolutely. But in the very long term, I’m sorry to say.

BILL MOYERS: George Bush came to office in 2000, vowing to clean up Washington. And I just looked at one of his speeches this morning. “We’re going to clean up Washington,” he said. What happened?

NORMAN ORNSTEIN: They cleaned up in Washington.

More discussion on the forums.

• sousy

S-L-E-E-P-I-N-G

Plundering foreign countries is hard work for chickenhawks…

More here.

• pdx

There once was a president who made a decision
That was met with almost universal derision
“I may not be a law-abider
But, by God, I am the decider
And I want Rummy to keep fucking up this mission!”

• loquacious

If, in some bizarre parallel universe, you happen to find yourself in a situation where Bush is saying you’re doing a ‘fine job’...run, do not walk, the other way.

koo-koo ka-choo

From The Huffington Post. Related metafilter thread here.

• pdx

One of Iowa’s own has done us proud.

She begins thusly…

Bruce Bartlett, The Cato Institute, Andrew Sullivan, George Packer, William F. Buckley, Sandra Day O’Connor, Republican voters in Indiana and all the rest of you newly-minted dissenters from Bush’s faith-based reality seem, right now, to be glorying in your outrage, which is always a pleasure and feels, at the time, as if it is having an effect, but those of us who have been anti-Bush from day 1 (defined as the day after the stolen 2000 election) have a few pointers for you that should make your transition more realistic.

and continues her evisceration of the conservative culture of corruption and hypocrisy in her blog entry at The Huffington Post here.

Another quickie excerpt:

President Bush is your creation. When the US Supreme Court humiliated itself in 2000 by handing the presidency to Bush even though two of the justices (Scalia and Thomas) had open conflicts of interest, you did not object. When the Bush administration adopted an “Anything but Clinton” policy that resulted in ignoring and dismissing all warnings of possible terrorist attacks on US soil, you went along with and made excuses for Bush. When the Bush administration allowed the corrupt Enron corporation to swindle California ratepayers and taxpayers in a last ditch effort to balance their books in 2001, you laughed at the Californians and ignored the links between Enron and the administration. When it was evident that the evidence for the war in Iraq was cooked and that State Department experts on the Middle East were not behind the war and so it was going to be run as an exercise in incompetence, you continued to attack those who were against the war in vicious terms and to defend policies that simply could not work. On intelligent design, global warming, doctoring of scientific results to reflect ideology, corporate tax giveaways, the K Street project, the illegal redistricting of Texas, torture at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, the Terry Schiavo fiasco, and the cronyism that led to the destruction of New Orleans you have failed to speak out with integrity or honesty, preferring power to truth at every turn. Bush does what he wants because you have let him.

• tristero

I know there has been plenty of attention given to Dick Cheney’s hunting accident, which will probably be repeated in the comments section again.

Something noted today in the Charlotte Observer: this is pretty much what to expect when “hunting” takes a secondary role to “shooting”.

Aspects of Vice President Dick Cheney’s quail hunt make ethical hunters and hunter safety instructors cringe.

From reports, we know that this hunting party consisted of three hunters and, thus, three guns. This is highly unusual and generally seen as unsafe. Nearly every hunting preserve I know of here in the Southeast restricts upland bird hunt parties to two guns, for obvious reasons: one hunter takes the left side, one the right side. There is generally a dog and a guide (the dog handler), who is very careful to stay behind the guns after the dogs go on point.

Three-gun bird hunts do happen, but should be avoided. If there are three guns, the hunters have to be especially well aware of each other at all times, which clearly didn’t happen when Cheney shot his hunting partner.

As with nearly everything in American culture, the “image” has become far more prevalent than the reality. In this case, it seems that Cheney – ever promoting the rough-and-tumble “Western” image didn’t follow what most people in the area consider to be safe (or ethical) hunting practices. Instead, a group of three “elites” were driving around the countryside, hopped out of the car and started shooting at low birds without paying attention to where the rest of the hunting party is.

Incidents like this are giving responsible hunters a bad name – anyone living in rural Iowa can probably tell you stories about guys like this wanting to hunt on thier land – and guys like this also being the reason that land owners are more and more willing to restrict access to “hunting” parties because of irresponsibility.

Addendum: Remember that all Iowans born after 1967 need to pass a Hunter Education course before obtaining a valid Iowa hunting license. Hunting is most definitely a valid (and in the days of deer overpopulation – needed) sport – as long as hunters are respectful of property rights and practice safe hunting techniques.

More discussion here.

• Sousy

Top 12 media myths and falsehoods
on the Bush administration’s spying scandal

Summary: Media Matters presents the top 12 myths and falsehoods promoted by the media on President Bush’s spying scandal stemming from the recent revelation in The New York Times that he authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on domestic communications without the required approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court.

Now with more audio clip, which you won’t hear on cable or network news outside the possible exception of Keith Olbermann:

• tristero

The Beelzebub Edition:

What remains a little known fact about the Bush clan is that this guy was
one in a long line of high priests of the dark arts that spent many a year
doggedly training them in the finer nuances of pure, abject evil.

Sly like a fox, this guy. And there we are, back at the henhouse.

• tristero

With the Alito hearings at the fore this week, Bush has seized on the opportunity to rally the GOP faithful…still licking their wounds after the Abramoff and DeLay casualities.

Okay, so he didn’t go to hell. Just another staged rally/town-meeting, this time in Kentucky – featuring Gannon-Guckert style softballs lobbed up for Dear Leader to mangle as only he can anyway. Close enough to hell though, right?

• tristero

Media Matters: Top Alito myths and falsehoods

Center For American Progress: The Alito Myths

Balkinization: The Basic Case Against Alito

And this should send shivers up your spine and down the other side…

Christian conservatives rally for Judge Alito:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Christian conservative leader Rev. Jerry Falwell said on Sunday that confirming Federal Appeals Court judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court would be the biggest victory for his constituency in three decades.

“What we’ve worked on for 30 years, to mobilize people of faith and value in this country, what we’ve done through these years is coming to culmination right now,” Falwell said at a rally on the eve of Alito’s confirmation hearing.

“Now we’re looking at what we really started on 30 years ago, reconstruction of a court system gone awry,” Falwell said at a rally at a Baptist church in Philadelphia and broadcast on Christian radio and television.

“There could be a reconstruction of the U.S. Supreme Court in our immediate lifetime,” said Falwell.

Help prevent theocratic dictatorships: It’s time to call your senator, folks.

Live video of the hearings available via C-SPAN here.

SCOTUSblog is liveblogging the hearings here.

See also this metafilter thread.

• tristero

Bush was against unauthorized and illegal wiretaps…
before he was for them.

Actually that quote isn’t quite accurate. Bush was never against illegal and unauthorized wiretaps. He just wanted the American public to believe he was. Kind of like he wanted the American public to believe the Iraq occupation and invasion had something to do with WMD’s. All of which makes Bush little more than a shameless liar. But then we already knew that.

Except, you know…..it’s not funny.

• tristero

for your end of the year enjoyment and consideration.

See also: Wiki-PNAC and PNAC homepage.

• tristero

Bush was against unauthorized and illegal wiretaps before he was for them. Thank god the New York Times, Liberal flagship ‘paper of record’, sat on this story for over a year while ‘flip-flopper’ charges were hurled at the hapless John Kerry. I mean, the less the American citizenry knows what a thieving, lying cabal of jackbooted thugs BushCo. is the better, right?

Via crooks and liars

White House:

...there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires—a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

(Canofun has a little more.)

• tristero