Comments on: What’s Next

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 17:57:10 +0000

Loud, public investigations of these matters make them the issue.

While I can’t prove it, my strong suspicion is that this works only if the mainstream news media buy into it- which is why it worked for the Republicans despite the stupidity of the Clinton witchhunt. And call me crazy, but I have my doubts about whether the likes of Mark “Drudge rules my world” Halperin will give the Dems any media oxygen for their investigations. Additionally, the late Clinton years were ones in which most voters were generally fairly satisfied with how the country was going, which I believe made them more tolerant of being offered side-shows in place of legislative substance than I expect they would be in their current mood.

Don’t get me wrong- I very much want thorough top-to-bottom investigations of this gang of criminals (though I don’t believe this will happen). But I think they should be conducted fairly quietly for some months- accompanied by a much more public show of some actual law-making activity- until there are solidly documented findings of malfesasance that even the average dumbass can’t help but clearly grasp. At that point it’s time to make a big hooha that even Mark Halperin won’t be able to bury.

Just my opinion, of course, worth the $0.00 you paid for it.

By: Martin Bento

Martin Bento — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 16:51:21 +0000

The only time I’ve seen that sort of thing backfire was the Clinton impeachment, which was obviously a witchhunt over a trviality. Even that ended up helping the GOP in 2000, but largely because the Dems were too timid to hit back on it. All the investigations into Abramoff, Delay, Scooter,, Cunningham, etc. have helped us, though other than Scooter they were intricate charges of corruption of a kind perceived as common in DC anyway. Loud, public investigations of these matters make them the issue. Currently, there are secondary in the public mind because the Dems and media have permitted this.

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 14:01:56 +0000

Reversing those abuses is more urgent than assigning blame for them (as if anybody doesn’t already know where they came from.)
Once there are solid investigative findings, then by all means announce them with as much public hooha as can possibly be mustered. Yes, that will be an essential contribution towards cleaning up our political system. But to turn the process, the investigations and hearings themselves, into a media circus- I guarantee you that would be seriously counterproductive politically. The voters looking for change are looking for the war and their pocketbook issues to be addressed, and (rightly or wrongly) they will not welcome what they will perceive as diversions from that.

(All this is fantasy anyway; the Dems will cling to their narrow majorities if they’re lucky enough to achieve such today, hunker down awaiting 2008, and do- not much of anything.)

By: Martin Bento

Martin Bento — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:07:45 +0000

We need the investigations as public as possible. Their political effect is at least as important as their legal one. Our mission here, since we have no choice but to accept it, is to maximally discredit the Republican Party. This is more important than passing good legislation, as whatever good we do will be more than washed away when the Repubs come back to power unless they are mortally wounded now. Remember all the “paranoids” who spoke of a secret emergency government during the Reagan administration? Who turned chiefly to be behind it? Cheney and Rumsfeld, the exact powers behind the throne now. Had Clinton been willing to pursue Iran/Contra at the expense of his domestic agenda, everything we are seeing now could probablhy have been averted.

And what are we dealing with here? Suspension of habeas corpus and other basic legal rights that have been recognized as essential to civilized societies for centuries. Eradication of the balance of powers in favor of a dictatorial Presidency. Emergency war powers for a war designed never to end. Proposing the imposition of exit visas (in the form of affirmative-clear rather than affirmative-block travel lists, and by no means limited to air travel). What precisely on the Democratic agenda is more important than this?

By: Nancy Irving

Nancy Irving — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 03:12:48 +0000

What I fear is that Bush and Cheney will refuse to respond to subpoenas, and the Democrats will just say, “Never mind.” That our guys will just wimp out in the face of criticism from Dean Broder and the right. That they will cave to the realignment of power which places the legislative and judicial branches under the boot of the executive.

By: Peter Levine

Peter Levine — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 01:39:29 +0000

I’m 100% with Steve Labonne—thanks.

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 00:29:47 +0000

Peter Levine- that’s why I’d like to see real, in-depth, quiet investigations rather than a media circus. Investigate genuinely for the sake of getting to the bottom of what’s gone on and preventing it from recurring in the future, and not for political theater and the hope (which I agree would be delusional) of short-term electoral advantage.

But my prediction for what will actually happen remains, more or less, nothing.

By: MNPundit

MNPundit — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 21:17:43 +0000

If they want a life or death struggle, then bring it on. America is worth that kind of struggle to save it. There are a lot of people who are willing to go to the mat for this.

If they think I won’t cheer the capital police or FBI or even the fucking military dragging Cheney and Bush from the White House for under-oath questioning or in some fantasy a permanent trip to the Hague, then they are crazy.

And if as jonst says things fail and we have to have this out in the streets, then believe me I will be out in those streets even if I don’t last that long.

By: Bruce Baugh

Bruce Baugh — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 19:37:49 +0000

The failure of will with regard to investigations and trials for Nixon administration wrongdoing let a lot of careers continue without trouble, starting with Cheney’s. I don’t want to be back here in another 20-30 years doing it all over again.

By: Peter Levine

Peter Levine — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 17:52:33 +0000

All I’ll say is that I’m a strong progressive who actually wants the government to address public problems and who fears that an attempt at partisan “payback” would kill the chance to rebuild the progressive movement in America. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m not trying to “fool” anyone on behalf of the GOP.

By: Richard Bottoms

Richard Bottoms — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 17:37:23 +0000

As the Republicans say, ‘Who Cares What You Think’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9wp1e-ezOI

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 16:31:34 +0000

Slocum, it took less time for you to hurl that favorite GOP ‘advice’ that the Democrats shouldn’t be partisan, or insist on honest government, because such partisanship would hurt the feelings of the GOP.

Do you honestly think that anybody but the right-wingers is fooled by your advice, and Peter’s?

We’ve watched incredibly vile campaigns of lies and slander and slander become the GOP’s SOP. Payback is a bitch. No GOP supporter has the right to give us advice, or tell us what’s moral.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:57:57 +0000

I’m not even sure what great ‘crimes and misdemeanors’ you’d expect investigations to turn up.

I think further investigation into Hookergate could be interesting, for one.

By: Slocum

Slocum — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 13:24:39 +0000

there are, and always will be, right-wing wh*resons like slocum, who will excuse and and all crimes commited by the GOP, and declare criminal any and all attempts to deal with those crimes.

It took a few seconds to fill in the space and figure out what colorful insult was being hurled at me.

Look, I’m not even sure what great ‘crimes and misdemeanors’ you’d expect investigations to turn up. If the Republicans lose both houses of Congress, it’ll be because of how things have been going in Iraq—and that is, obviously, no great hidden secret, but rather is plain for all to see. What’s more, if Democrats do take marginal seats (with, for example, Webb in Virginia and Ford in Tennessee), those will be centrists with many rightish tendencies, and their re-election (and the Democratic majority) would be endangered by unnecessary political warfare.

Simply because of time, Bush’s lame-duck period is rapidly approaching. A Democratic majority would be far better off using its political capital to promote its legislative agenda.

By: Martin Bento

Martin Bento — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 04:40:07 +0000

This notion that investigations will tend to discredit activist government itself don’t seem well-supported by precedent. The class of 74 got in on the back of Watergate and related investigations, and was probably the most solidly liberal in the big government sense crew since the New Deal. The Iran/Contra investigations seriously hurt Reagan’s approval ratings, and probably would have continued to had the Dems’ gerbillian testes not slithered up to their throats. General attitudes about government are formed over time; the current crop is a result of decades of groundwork by the GOP.

All that said, I do think that excessive liberal trust in the government is what has made it so hard for so many to see through the Bush Admin or to see how bad it really was. Only now is it possible to speak of electoral fraud or Constitutional usurpation without ridicule, when these realities have been visible for 4 years. Most mainstream liberals found it emotionally difficult to believe about the runup to the Iraq war realities that we pretty much all now accept. Liberals need to develop an approach that does not require so much trust, as trust in authority is not necessarily merited and very dangerous when not. I think a strong argument can be made that excessive trust in authority is more dangerous than insufficient trust.

In short, I don’t think revealing more scandals will undermine faith in the government, but it should. I’m also assuming here for the sake of discussion that exposed scandals are limited to the sorts of thing CT’ers would find credible. If they go beyond that, I think the Dems would probably chicken out and slam shut the door again.