WaxWorks
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Wednesday, October 12, 2005
If You Believe This, I've Got a Bridge to Sell You
A la Clarence Thomas in 1991 claiming he never discussed Roe v. Wade with anyone in law school in 1973, James Dobson fantastically claims Rove and he never discussed Roe v. Wade when Rove called him to get support for Miers:
We did not discuss Roe v. Wade in any context or any other pending issue that
will be considered by the Court. I did not ask that question. You know, to be
honest, I would have loved to have known how Harriet Miers views Roe v. Wade.
But even if Karl had known the answer to that and I’m certain that he didn’t,
because the President himself said he didn’t know, Karl would not have told me
that. That’s the most incendiary information that’s out there and it was never
part of our discussion.
"Did not discuss Roe v. Wade in any context." Riighht. So what did he and Rove discuss? Dobson makes a nice cover story about what Rove said to him:
What did Karl Rove say to me that I knew on Monday that I couldn’t reveal?
Well, it’s what we all know now, that Harriet Miers is an Evangelical Christian,
that she is from a very conservative church, which is almost universally
pro-life, that she had taken on the American Bar Association on the issue of
abortion and fought for a policy that would not be supportive of abortion, that
she had been a member of the Texas Right to Life. In other words, there is a
characterization of her that was given to me before the President had actually
made this decision. I could not talk about that on Monday. I couldn’t talk about
it on Tuesday. In fact, Brit Hume said, “What church does she go to?” And I
said, “I don’t think it’s up to me to reveal that.” Do you remember my saying
that?
John: I do, yes.
JCD: What I meant was, I couldn’t get into this. But by Wednesday and
Thursday and Friday, all this information began to come out and it was no longer
sensitive. I didn’t have the right to be the one that revealed it and that’s
what I was referring to.
So Dobson wants us to believe that they discussed whether or not Miers was pro-life but the subject of Roe v. Wade did not come up in any context? But more importantly, contrary to his cover-story here, Dobson was still saying that he knew stuff about Miers that wasn't public long after stories had come out about her church and her ABA activity. (In fact, here's a New York Times story about Miers' ABA abortion activity on Tuesday, the day after the nomination.) Someone's pants are on fire.
UPDATE:
Someone else in the blogosphere has shown how bad a liar Dobson is too. Precisely what he said he learned from Rove he told Brit Hume in another portion of the same interview he references above.
Big Time
Some stories need no comment, like this one from the Huffington Post:
The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg are working on stories that point to Vice
President Dick Cheney as the target of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's
investigation into the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Moving in the Right Direction for 2006
Using the Republican's model from 1994, we've got the corruption and abuse of power theme down pat, from DeLay to Frist, and now it looks like we're going to run on a positive agenda as well, per Political Wire:
"Seeing an opening to reach voters while Republicans are beset by turmoil,
House Democrats are privately planning to accelerate the timing of the release
of their platform and the major policies they will promote on the campaign trail
next year," Roll Call reports.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other House leaders "are putting
the finishing touches on what arguably will be Democrats most detailed
'positive' election-year agenda since the party lost power more than a decade
ago... An early draft of the agenda outlines the specific initiatives House
Democrats will pledge to enact if given control of the House. Leaders have been
working on the document for months, and have already started encouraging Members to unify around it and stick to its themes."
Combined with strong candidate recruitment, we're positioning ourselves for a good result in '06.
Not That It Does Max Cleland Much Good Now
Remember back in 2002, when Democrats like Senator Lieberman proposed legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security, and Bush opposed the legislation, saying it would create a needless bureaucracy? And then Enron and other scandals hit, followed by the Minneapolis FBI whistle-blower, Colleen Rowley, and Bush began to take a hit in the polls? So, on the very day Rowley was scheduled to testify before Congress, Bush did a, dare we say?, flip-flop and announced that he was for the Homeland Security Department that he had been against.
But there was a catch, designed by Karl Rove to snare unsuspecting Democrats. A poison pill was placed in the legislation, preventing Homeland Security employees from having the same organizing protections as other employees, in the name of "national security" and "flexibility." Many Senate Democrats, who supported a Homeland Security Department from the beginning, refused to support this Republican version because they felt that it destroyed the federally protected rights of these employees to organize and they were clobbered in the 2002 elections. (The infamous Max Cleland ad in Georgia was based upon this issue).
So I was intrigued by this little-commented upon nugget in the news:
A federal judge has ruled against the Department of Homeland Security for a
second time in a case brought by unions that contend that proposed workplace
rules would gut their collective bargaining rights.
U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer blocked the rules in August,
saying the department's plan failed to provide for binding contracts. The
department asked the judge to modify the injunction and let it move ahead with
implementation of a new labor-management system.
Collyer ruled last week that
the department's proposed remedy fell short because it would still allow the
department to disavow or ignore negotiated contracts by claiming that they would
interfere with the agency's mission.
The judge faulted the department for invoking "the familiar mantra that
this degree of 'flexibility' is needed to protect homeland security and combat
terrorism." Congress endorsed more flexible rules at the department, she said,
"but not at the expense of ensuring that employees could engage in collective
bargaining."
Colleen M. Kelley , president of the National Treasury Employees Union,
called the judge's opinion "a very significant win for all Homeland Security
employees." NTEU lawyer Elaine Kaplan said the ruling showed that "there is no
inconsistency between ensuring collective bargaining rights and protecting
homeland security."
Larry Orluskie , a department spokesman, said the administration will study
the decision and "consider next steps." The government has 60 days to file an
appeal.
So it looks like Democrats like Cleland were right on principle but wrong on the politics. It's not a reason to compare someone who gave up three limbs for his country to Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.
The Winner of the Unfortunate Choice of Words Award Goes To...
New Orleans Saints wide-receiver Joe Horn.
Commenting on his status for this upcoming Sunday's game against Atlanta, Horn said, "I'll come back next Sunday, come hell or high water."
Monday, October 10, 2005
Trust Me
Tim Russert says it all, per Political Wire:
“Twenty years ago, she was a Roman Catholic and she was a Democrat. She’s
now an evangelical Christian and a Republican.”
-- Tim Russert, on Meet the Press, questioning President Bush's conviction that Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers would not change her views once confirmed.
I would think that should be enough to give gastric distress to any number of conservatives.
Might Be Worth Watching
Sure looks like James Dobson is gonna get a subpoena to tell the Senate Judiciary Commitee what Karl Rove told him about Harriet Miers that made Dobson so enthusiastic about her nomination.
I wonder if Dobson will invoke the same "perjury exception" (i.e. investigate like crazy Democrats who lie under oath but ignore clear perjured testimony given to the Judiciary Committee by Republicans) that Ted Olson, Clarence Thomas, John Ashcroft and Ken Starr have put to good use after their respective testimony.
I'm pretty sure, however, that lying under oath would be covered by the Ten Commandments. We'll have to consult Roy Moore.
