A Republican Speaks Out Against the Crazies

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is known for speaking bluntly and forcefully.  A lot of Republicans have been urging him to throw his hat in the race for president.  Wisely, he has not, because he could never be nominated while the party is so dominated by the Tea Party Crazies.  I'm glad he's not running, because I think he could pull enough Democratic and Independent votes to beat Barack Obama.  Here, he defends in the strongest terms possible, his appointment of a Muslim-American as a judge.

Bush Report: Two Grave Mistakes

Here is the final excerpt from the former Bush loyalist and chief spokesman Scott McClellan in his book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. This is from page 210:

The first grave mistake of Bush's presidency was rushing toward military confrontation with Iraq. It took his presidency off course and greatly damaged his standing with the public. His second grave mistake was his virtual blindness about his first mistake, and his unwillingness to sustain a bipartisan spirit during a time of war and change course when events demanded it.

At page 301 of the book, McClellan describes the scene when he talked to Bush in the Oval Office about the fact that he was leaving as his press spokesman. He says that tears were streaming down Bush's cheeks as they talked. I wonder if that is because he forsaw that his old friend was about to write a book about what really happened in the White House.

Bush Report: He Just Didn't Understand

Today's meditation on the mendacity of the Bush Administration, another excerpt from Scott McClellan's book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and the Washington Culture of Deception. This is from pages 145 - 146:

"When Bush was making up his mind to pursue regime change in Iraq, it is clear that his national security team did little to slow him down, to help him fully understand the tinderbox he was opening and the potential risks in doing so. I know the president pretty well. I believe that if he had been given a crystal ball in which he could have foreseen the costs of war -- more than 4,000 American troops killed, 30,000 injured and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens dead -- he would never have made the decision to invade, despite what he might say or feel he has to say publicly today.

* * *

"In the end, of course, President Bush bears ultimate responsibility for the invasion of Iraq. He made the decision to invade, and he signed off on a strategy for selling the war that was less than candid and honest. An issue as grave as war must be dealt with openly, forthrightly, and honestly. The American people, and especially our troops and their families, deserve nothing less."

Bush Report: Political Manipulation; Plain and Simple

Today's meditation on the perfidy of the Bush Administration comes from page 117 of Scott McClellan's confessions, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception:

"(N)o political operative before Rove arguably had so much influence within a White House. As senior adviser overseeing political affairs and strategy, Rove controlled an inordinately influential power center in the White House. There were other influential power centers, but none had as much impact on White House governing, policy and operations. Unlike Karen Hughes, whose goal was to help the President shape his message in ways that would appeal to ordinary Americans, particularly those in the vital center, and unlike Andy Card, the chief of staff who served as an honest broker among various political points of view, Rove was a central player who was anything but neutral in his political and ideological views.

"Rove's role was political manipulation, plain and simple, which explains the machinations within the White House and their consequences, whether beneficial or detrimental."

And this from page 125:

"In the fall of 2002, Bush and his White House were engaging in a carefully orchestrated campaign to shape and manipulate sources of public approval to our advantage. We'd done much the same on other issues -- tax cuts and education -- to great sucess. But war with Iraq was different. Beyond the irreversible human costs and the substantial financial price, the decision to go to war and the way we went about selling it would ultimately lead to increased polarization and intensified partisan warfare. Our lack of candor and honesty in making the case for war would later provoke a partisan response from our opponents, that, in its own way, further distorted and obscured a more nuanced reality. Another cycle of deception would cloud the public's ability to see larger underlying truths that are critical to understand in order to avoid the same problems in the future.

"And through it all the media would serve as complicit enablers. Their primary focus would be on covering the campaign to sell the war, rather than aggressively questioning the rationale for war or pursuing the truth behind it. The White House knew the national media would cover its arguments for war even if the underlying evidence was a little shaky. Questions might be raised, but the administration had the biggest platform, especially when something as dramatic and controversial as war was at stake. And the public is generally inclined to believe what the White House says, or at least give it the benefit of the doubt until the watchdog media proves it is unreliable.

"But in this case, the media would neglect their watchdog role."

Want more of the same? Vote McCain

Bush Report: He Just Can't Remember the Truth

Here is the latest nugget from Scott McClellan's memoir, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. McClellan is describing an incident in August, 1999, when rumors of Bush's cocaine use were surfacing again. Bush is in his hotel suite, on the phone to a supporter:

"'The media won't let go of these ridiculous cocaine rumors,' I heard Bush say. 'You know the truth is I honestly don't remember whether I tried it or not. We had some pretty wild parties back in the day, and I just don't remember.'

"The overheard comments struck me and stayed with me to this day -- not for what it revealed or concealed about the young George W. Bush, but for what it said about Bush as an older man and political leader, especially as revealed through my later experiences working for him.

"I remember thinking to myself, How can that be? How can someone simply not remember whether or not they used an illegal substance like cocaine? It didn't make a lot of sense.

"I compared Bush's memory, or lack of it to my own experience. When I was young, I had my moments of excessive drinking at parties or out on the town with friends. There was also a time or two when I was around others who smoked marijuana. But I always drew the line at illegal drugs. The closest I ever came was holding a smoldering joint in my hand at a friend's home, gazing at it for a second as if tempted -- more to tease my friends than anything else -- and then passing it along to the person next to me, saying something like, 'Thanks but no thanks.' After that happened a couple of times, my buddies knew better than to even tempt me.

"Whether or not I smoked pot isn't that important. The point is, I know what happened. And I found it hard to understand how George Bush could say he simply had no idea about what happened in his own past.

"I know Bush, and I know he genuinely believes what he says. He isn't the kind of person to flat-out lie, particularly when speaking in private to a supporter or a friend. So I think he meant what he said in that conversation about cocaine. It's the first time when I felt I was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that probably was not true and that, deep down, he knew was not true. And his reason for doing so is fairly obvious: political convenience. He is certainly not the only politician to embrace the hazy memory defense, especially in our ever-more transparent political culture where voters are exposed to more outlets for news than ever before and just about everything is considered fair game to some.

"In the years to come, as I worked closely with President Bush, I would come to believe that sometimes he convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment. It is not unlike a witness in court who does not want to implicate himself in wrongdoing, but is also concerned about perjuring himself. So he says, 'I do not recall.' The witness knows no one can get into his head and prove it is not true, so this seems like a much safer course than actually lying. Bush, similarly, has a way of falling back on the hazy memory defense to protect himself from potential political embarrassment. Bush rationalizes it as being acceptable because he is not stating unequivocally anything that could be proven false. If something later is uncovered to show what he knew, then he can deny lying in his own mind.

"In other words, being evasive is not the same as lying in Bush's mind. The former is acceptable, but the latter is not. I've seen it happen during other private moments, around people he trusted, as well as at times during press availabilities and news conferences."

So, what do you call someone who convinces himself to believe something that deep down he knows is not true? "Pathological liar" is a term I would use, although McConnell is too nice to call GWB by that name. But McConnell admits that he saw Bush repeatedly say things in private moments and news conferences that simply were not true. I think it's an astounding admission from a press secretary about a sitting president. Impeachment anyone?

Want more of the same? Vote McCain.

Bush Report: McClellan Tells What Happened

When I was a young man in my first year at Flint Community Junior College, confused about all the new things I was learning that did not jibe with my religious indoctrination, I started praying a prayer that I continued for many years. It was, "Lord, show me the truth. Even if the truth is that you don't exist and I'm just talking to myself." I realized then the paradox of praying such a prayer, although I didn't comprehend the naivete that would make me think that I could ever know "THE TRUTH." But I'm happy for the idealism that made me try and continue to try to know "THE TRUTH."

Scott McClellan, who was George W. Bush's main spokesman for three years and before that was deputy press secretary from the beginning of his administration, had a similar naive belief in the truth. I finally got my hands on McClellan's book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. A graduate of the University of Texas, McClellan says he was very familiar with the inscription carved in stone above the south entrance to the University of Texas Tower, from the Gospel of John: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."

McClellan now admits that as Bush's spokesman he didn't always tell the truth, although he claims he didn't intentionally lie. He says in the Preface, page x:

"My own story, however, is of small importance in the broad historical picture. More significant is the larger story in which I played a minor role -- the story of how the presidency of George W. Bush veered terribly off course.

"As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided. In these pages, I've tried to come to grips with some of the truths that life inside the White House bubble obscured."

He goes on to say that while he has friends and former colleagues in the Bush Administration who remain convinced that the administration was fundamentally correct in its most controversial judgments, he has become "genuinely convinced otherwise."

The universal criticism of McClellan, both from Republicans who are still drinking the kool-aid and Democrats is why is McClellan speaking out now. That doesn't worry me. At least he's doing it. Colin Powell, Bush's Secretary of State, has hinted at similar concerns, but he has let his surrogates do the talking. I think it takes particular courage for someone like McClellan, who still professes to like Bush as a person and who has deep roots in the Texas Republican Party, to speak out at any time. I wish he would have seen the light and come clean earlier, but that would not have stopped the Bush White House. When McClellan resigned, we got a new liar in chief, Tony Snow, even more glib than McClellan.

Elections count. Want more of the same? Then vote McCain.

Top McCain Advisor Won't Oppose Obama

Okay, you want politics, I'll give you politics.

I find this story so intriguing and emblematic of why I get excited about a Barack Obama candidacy. One of John McCain's top political advisors, his chief media strategist, Mark McKinnon, has said that he will resign from McCain's staff if the Democratic nominee is Barack Obama. He says he disagrees with many of Obama's positions, but he admires him so much that he does not feel comfortable opposing him. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Can you imagine such a thing? Is there any other candidate that you have ever heard of, in any political campaign, that has shown the potential Obama has for fundamentally changing the way politics is done? Think about it, not only the ability to draw Republicans and Independents who agree with his positions to support him, but to get people who disagree with his positions from fighting against him? It's unbelievable, really, but here is a portion of the transcript from an interview with The National Journal on Air for today's edition:

"Q: So you've said that you will leave the McCain campaign if Obama is the nominee. Does that still hold and why?

"McKinnon: Yeah. Well, this goes back to a memo that I wrote to the campaign when I came aboard more than a year and a half ago, and I simply let them know that I had spent time with Obama and read his book and I like the guy. I think he has strong character and a fascinating life story, and I disagree with him fundamentally on issues like Iraq and trade and a number of others. But I just flashed forward to the improbable scenario, at that time seemingly improbable, that John McCain and Barack Obama might face off against one other. And I just told them at the time that I thought that I would be uncomfortable being on the front lines -- being as aggressive as you need to be in a presidential campaign -- and not only that I would be uncomfortable, but that it would be bad for the campaign, and that if that circumstance were to come to be, that I would just take a step to the sidelines and continue to support John McCain 100 percent and be No. 1 fan and cheerleader. But just kind of take myself out of the front lines.

"Q: So you are still going to do that?

"McKinnon: I'm a man of my word.

"Q: And it's because, what, you don't want to run negative ads against Obama?

"McKinnon: Yeah.

"Q: Or is there also a concern on your part that you don't want to run ads against Obama, the first African-American candidate to have this kind of a chance? Is that a factor as well?

"McKinnon: I suppose that is in part, but it's more just that I like and admire the guy. I've come to a point in my life where I think character is important. I think he has great character. Again, I think he's really wrong on fundamental issues, but yeah, I just don't want to -- you know, I kind of want to put my guns down. It's just a matter of degrees, and like I said, I don't think I'm the best person to have in that slot for the campaign. So it would just be better for me to step to the sidelines."

You can read a transcript of the whole interview here.

Okay, enough politics. I got a card from Aunt Tillie about the prospects of her nephew's salvation which I will run tomorrow or Sunday.

Is Obama Wrong About Wright?

For those readers I have left, if I have any, which I probably do not, here are my thoughts on recent political events.

I don't get too excited about hearing a preacher "damn America". I've been hearing it from conservative evangelical Christians for the last 50 years. I grew up hearing Billy Graham on the radio predicting that any day now God would strike out at America for failing to heed his commandments.

More recently, conservative superstars like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson have built empires on blaming American decadence for such natural disasters as hurricanes in Florida and New Orleans, and the AIDS epidemic. John McCain stood by smiling as right wing preacher, John Hagee, who calls the Roman Catholic Church "the great whore," and who claimed Hurricane Katrina wiped out New Orleans because of gays, endorsed him. Although there was a minor brouhaha about McCain seeking Hagee's support, it was nothing compared to the firestorm over Obama's former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright's intemperate remarks. I don't defend Reverend Wright, any more than I defend the white preachers who get carried away with their own rhetoric. But the snippets of sermons played endlessly on the cable news networks did take some of his most inflammatory statements out of context. Anderson Cooper of CNN has an interesting article here. The long and short of it is that the "chickens coming home to roost" quote after 9/11 was a quote from an American ambassador on Fox News. If you have 6 minutes and 48 seconds, take time to listen to the more complete context of the famous "God damn America" snippet by Reverend Wright. It is probably not something I would say, but it is completely within the parameters of what has been said in pulpits many times by other ministers.

More importantly, Reverend Wright is not running for president of the United States. If he were, he wouldn't get very far, as other preachers, including Pat Robertson and Mike Huckabee discovered (interestingly, Huckabee defended both Obama and Wright, pointing out that ministers speak extemporaneously and get carried away with their words sometimes.)

No one can reasonably say that Obama hates whites -- how could he, he is as much white as he is black. About the only thing they can say is that he should have left the church. Maybe he should have, if he was concerned only about his political future, he probably would have. I'm sure Hillary was telling the truth (for once) when she said that she would not have stayed in the church; of course, she would not have because she would have been afraid of the political fall out. (The same reason she voted for the war in Iraq; she was afraid if she didn't it would affect her political future.) I realize I have long been an Obama supporter and am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I was very impressed with his speech on race in Philadelphia and his refusal to do the expedient thing and throw Wright under the bus.

So, we will see how it all plays out. I am not as confident that Obama will wind up with the nomination as many pundits apparently are. Too many things can happen and I do not believe Hillary will ever give up voluntarily. If Obama wins the nomination, I am very confident that he will win the general election.

So, way too much politics here, but at least I'm writing.

Some Further Thoughts About Politics: What Now?

I don't intend to turn this into a political blog, but I should follow up after my Obama-Gushing last post, now that New Hampshire has knocked the props out of my high hopes. I still don't understand what happened. When all of the polls, by the media, independent agencies and the candidates showed Obama winning by a minimum of four points to a high of more than 10 points, and when the exit polls, where people who have already voted are asked how they voted, and they report Obama winning, how is it possible that Obama lost?

Granted, Hillary did a good job in the debate, and the show of emotion at the diner when someone asked her how she kept herself looking so good helped her, but an overnight swing that huge? And why wouldn't the exit polls show Hillary winning?

The only explanation that makes sense to me is the Bradley Effect. That is a phenomena first observed 25 years ago, when Tom Bradley, black mayor of California, ran for govenor against a white candidate. Bradley had consistent leads in the polls, and the exit polls taken after people had voted on election day showed Bradley winning, but he lost. The same phenomena has been observed with other black candidates, such as Douglas Wilder, the black governor of Virginia, and others.

The theory is that white people are reluctant to admit prejudice or to appear prejudiced and will tell pollsters that they will vote for the black candidate, but once in the polling booth, when no one knows how they voted, they vote for the white candidate. The Bradley Effect would not have come into play in the Iowa caucuses that Obama won so handily because there are no secret ballots; everyone can see who everyone else is supporting.

The Bradley Effect does not mean a black candidate can never win a secret ballot; Obama won the Illinois Senate race handily and other black candidates have won elections. It does mean that in a very close election, the black candidate would be at a disadvantage.

My initial reaction last night to the Obama defeat is that if it was the Bradley Effect that beat him, he's done as a candidate. Democrats do not have the luxury of nominating a candidate who might lose a close election, like the last two elections have been, because of the candidate's race. In looking around the blogosphere, I see there are bloggers, like the Daily Kos, making the argument that there could not have been a Bradley Effect in New Hampshire because Obama pulled about the same percentage of actual votes as had been predicted, Clinton won because she exceeded the percentage of votes that had been predicted for her. I don't understand that argument but I'm hoping it is correct.

At this point, I'm not abandoning my support for Obama. I still think he would make the best candidate and the best president. We'll just have to see how this plays out.

Now, I will not bore you with any more political ramblings. I need to tell you about the great movie I saw last weekend, Juno, my first five-star movie of the year. But that will have to wait until later.

Later note: Here's an Op-Ed piece in Thursday's New York Times by the head of the Pew Research Center offering support for the idea that the Bradley Effect was the determining factor in the New Hampshire voting.

Some Thoughts About Politics

As veterans of this blog know, I have long been a Barack Obama fan. Not always, though. When Obama first ran for the U.S. Senate, in 2004, he was in a Democratic primary crowded with better known and better funded candidates. Son Number Two called my attention to him as someone worthy of support, but I didn't want to waste my vote on someone who had no chance. He seemed to come out of nowhere to win the Democratic primary that year, and then, when he gave the electrifying speech at the Democratic convention that year, I was convinced that this is a man destined for great things.

The knock on Obama has been that a black man cannot get enough votes from the white majority to win a presidential election. I didn't buy that argument even before the Iowa caucuses last night. Obama won white votes in the Democratic senatorial primary in Illinois, enough to defeat better funded and better known white candidates, and elections of people like Wilder, the black governor of Virginia, the capital of the old Confederacy, show that things like race are not as important as they once were. Sure there are overt racists who will not vote for Obama because of his race, but they weren't going to vote for the Democratic candidate in any event, certainly not for Hillary Clinton.

I have also long disliked Hillary Clinton. I went to hear her speak on the campus of the Big U in our town in 1992 when her husband was running for president, and came away impressed only with what a bad impression she made. Although she has my sympathy for how badly she has been treated by her husband, the media and professional Hilary Haters, like Rush Limbaugh, I do not think she has the capacity to lead. Not to say she isn't smart, but there is a difference between brain power and leadership.

As I have observed politics over all these many years, I have come to believe that a candidate's ability to reach people trumps almost everything else. The candidate has to come across as understanding the concerns of ordinary people and to be likeable, someone you'd want to have a beer with (if you were a beer drinker.) Hillary has a tin ear for how she comes across, in contrast to her husband who is almost magical in his abilities.

Hillary's campaign seems to have been built primarily on her inevitability as the Democratic candidate, the one with the money, the organization and the toughness to beat the Republicans. Lately, she has embraced "change" as a mantra, but she has a fundamental problem having to argue both that she is the most experienced candidate and she is the candidate of change. Although it is not impossible for an experienced person to also be an agent of change (think Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Act of 1964,) those two concepts are not usually associated. Bill Clinton could probably make the sale on that idea; Hillary cannot (or more precisely has not up to this point.)

Obama has that undefinable ability to reach people. As does Mike Huckabee. I noticed the banner behind the stage on which Huckabee gave his victory speech last night in Iowa read, "I Like Mike." Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidency twice with the almost identical slogan (minus one letter) "I Like Ike." Another thing I noticed, having watched both the Obama and the Huckabee victory speeches last night is that their messages were almost identical. Huckabee could have been reading from an Obama script as he proclaimed that people were tired of the bickering in Washington; that Americans were one people, that we should not be tearing each other down, etc.

I don't think Obama has the nomination wrapped up. Clinton still has a substantial lead in the opinion polls in New Hampshire. She has her husband stumping for her full time. She has money and organization. But she has lost the argument on electability and inevitability, and without those what are her assets? I do not believe she will get many votes because of her likeability. With five days to turn things around in New Hampshire, what is she going to do that she hasn't already tried?

If Obama does win New Hampshire and wins South Carolina, then I think the battle is all over and Obama will be the Democratic nominee.

Which leads me to my next subject: "Heartbreak." Time after time, I have gotten excited about a president, only to have become disillusioned. I thought Jimmy Carter really was going to make a difference. After four years of his bungling, I voted for Ronald Reagan, as a protest. I really did think Bill Clinton was going to make a difference. Actually, he did accomplish many things, including getting rid of a deficit that had been predicted to balloon indefinitely for years; getting an economy to boom nonstop for eight years; passing legislation that helped people like the Family Medical Leave Act and other things. But his inability to keep his pants zipped, eventually distracted from his many accomplishments.

Nevertheless, I haven't learned my lesson. I still have hope. Go Obama, go.