Bipartisanship Follies


Every week brings a new benchmark in bipartisanship.

For the new START Treaty, there have been at least two. Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal reported

The Senate's No. 2 Republican said Tuesday that he opposed a vote this year on President Barack Obama's signature arms control treaty, dealing a blow to a top White House foreign policy priority and possibly to U.S.-Russian relations.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona said there wasn't time to deal with his concerns over a treaty that would cut U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons deployments by about one third and restore weapons inspections that were halted nearly a year ago. Treaty ratification requires 67 votes in the Senate. Mr. Kyl's decision likely pushes a vote to next year, when the Senate Democratic majority shrinks to 53 from 58.

Mr. Kyl's announcement took the White House by surprise. A White House official said that just last Friday, officials from the Defense Department, the National Nuclear Security Administration and the U.S. Strategic Command briefed the senator and offered an additional $4.1 billion over the next five years that he had demanded to modernize the remaining nuclear arsenal.

Kyl (allegedly) didn't like the deal, demanded a concession (more money for nuclear weapons), and got it. Now those goalposts are being moved again for, according to The Washington Post

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has reserved judgment on how she will vote until the resolution comes to the floor, said it could make a difference if Obama could get George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, both former presidents, to appear with him in support of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START.

Neither Bush has taken a public position on the pact, which would continue trends they established with the original START agreement signed in 1991 by the elder Bush and the Moscow Treaty approved by the younger Bush in 2002.

The New START treaty continues most verification procedures established in the 1991 agreement that ended last December while adding new ones; it also lowers slightly to 1,550 the deployed warheads allowed under the 2002 pact, which were 1,700 to 2,200.

Ratification of the agreement has been endorsed by several individuals who have served a Republican administration, each of whom probably knows more about national defense and nuclear proliferation than the oil industry executives, the profession of the 41st and 42rd presidents. Consider: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Dick Lugar; former Bush-41 National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft; former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; former Secretary of State James Baker; former Secretary of State George Schultz; Reagan Chief of Staff Kenneth Duberstein; Reagan Chief of Staff Howard Baker; and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

They all may be wrong, of course, but they all are Republicans which, in normal times, would be considered bipartisan support. This apparently is insufficient for Collins, who says "It would be wonderful if President [George H.W.] Bush would come out for the treaty. That would be so powerful and definitely help."

Nor, apparently, is it enough for David Broder, who maintains Senate Minority Whip Jon

Kyl and Obama have been negotiating through intermediaries and have satisfied each other on most but not all points.

The Republicans could ask Obama to sit down directly with Kyl and see if they can compromise on the rest. That would be a fair first test of Obama's sincerity.

Polls generally show most Americans opposing repeal of health care reform and extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. Yet following the recent election which will result in his elevation to Speaker of the House, Ohio's John Boehner warned "I think it is important for us to lay the groundwork before we begin to repeal this monstrosity" of health care reform. The returning Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, meanwhile offered "if there's some tweaking we need to do with the healthcare bill, I'm ready for some tweaking" and "if we need to work something out with the people who are really rich (on tax cuts), I'll have to look at that."

For his part, the President, who acknowledged a "shellacking" in November and promised "to do a better job," has said also "what I've tried to suggest is that this is one of those times where we've got to put that kind of (partisan) behavior aside, because the American people can't afford it." In February, 2009, as he began his presidency, with big majorities in both chambers of Congress.

It is a strange and wondrous bipartisanship that has Democrats reaching out to the GOP while some Republicans are defiant and media-anointed "moderates" such as Susan Collins are willing to consider supporting a treaty only if an ex-President of her own party gives his blessing. This won't, unfortunately, stop David Broder and others in the media from complaining, after Barack Obama caves, that liberals won't allow the President to compromise.

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Non-Partisan Hysteria

We interrupt our regularly scheduled discourse to bring you this special message from Planet Broder:

But nonetheless, suppose that he is serious when he says, over and over, as he did on Thanksgiving Day, that if we want to "accelerate this recovery" and attack the backlog of lost jobs, "we won't do it as any one political party. We've got to do it as one people...."

Suppose there is a chance that he is serious - that after two years of trying to govern through one party, a party that held commanding majorities in the House and Senate but now has lost them, two years with landmark accomplishments but ultimate frustration of his hopes to change Washington, he has reverted to his original philosophy of governing.

No supposing about it- after two years of negotiating- nay, pleading- with a party which fought to create a Waterloo for what it termed "Obamacare," opposed a modest, conservative stimulus program designed to reverse a near-Depression, dutifully opposed tepid Wall Street reform, and voted even against a small business program, the President remains serious about bipartisanship. Naive and foolish, but conciliatory and bi-partisan.

Broder is only arguably the most famous and oldest of the Washington insiders who (apparently) believe that if only both parties compromised, the heavens will open and there will be eternal bliss.

We've always assumed these guys and gals were selling a load of nonsense- but maybe they're victims as much as perpetrators.

And so it is with syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, one half of CNN's still-fairly new Parker-Spitzer. She lauds the new group "No Labels" which, the Wall Street Journal reports

has drawn support from supporters and advisers of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the country's most powerful independent politician (and) is led by Democratic fund-raiser Nancy Jacobson and Republican strategist Mark McKinnon, who were introduced to each other by Kevin Sheekey, Mr. Bloomberg's political adviser....

The group has raised more than $1 million to seed its effort against what it calls "hyper-partisanship."

Parker argues "Democrats and moderate Republicans alike have been banished," even "purged," and have joined the No Labels movement. She notes that Jun Choi, the Democratic mayor of Edison, N.J., "told The Wall Street Journal he lost because he wasn't extreme enough. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire state senator, thinks she lost for being too moderate." According to the WSJ, at the group's recent gathering in Portsmouth, N.H., Mayor Choi volunteered "Hi, I'm Jun Choi, and I lost because I wasn't extreme enough." He was followed by Hassan, the state senator, who, evidently mistaking the gathering for an A.A. meeting, added ""Hi, I'm Maggie Hassan, and was defeated because I was too moderate."

Choi's Edison, N.J., a large, moderately affluent suburb, had been ruled since prehistoric times by a Democratic machine which, a few years ago, Choi challenged successfully in a Democratic primary. His recent primary defeat, therefore, may be disheartening- but it doesn't appear to have been related to Persian Gulf policy, extension of Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy, Wall Street reform, or even education policy. According to NJ.com

Two-term Councilwoman Antonia Ricigliano, who had the backing of the township's Democratic Committee as well as the local police union, snatched the party's nomination for mayor away from incumbent Jun Choi tonight in an upset primary election victory....

Ricigliano's win is the culmination of a stinging, dramatic campaign that saw nasty allegations, protests outside town hall and hordes of finger-pointing fliers passed around Edison, making it the most heated primary in Middlesex County.

And then, given the politics of the area, came the key comment:

She also received the backing of the Edison police and fire unions, who viciously opposed Choi.

It may have served Choi well to have appeared at a No Labels convention to claim that he was the victim of liberalism run amok, and it sent a tingle up Parker's leg. But it doesn't square with reality and whatever virtue the victorious opponent may lack, her victory, spurred by the support of the representatives of police officers and firefighters, does not reek of a party consumed by leftist elitist intellectuals out of touch with the enlightened middle.

But facts may not matter. If President Obama has not been able to reverse the economic downturn, end partisan sniping in Washington, and prevent his party from experiencing a "shellacking" from voters dismayed by his leadership, it must be because he has been too liberal and has failed to reach out to Republicans. Taylor Marsh, however, notes

Since Barack Obama came into office he has unilaterally disarmed in the name of bipartisanship and “accomplishments,” without taking the time to make the Democratic case for policy prescriptions that matter in people’s lives and has been the foundation of the Democratic Party since Roosevelt. There can be only one reason for this and that is he doesn’t believe in them strongly enough. Pres. Obama even went so far as to voluntarily form a Debt Commission through Executive Order, which he wouldn’t do on DADT, to take on entitlements when they’re not the problem, while also sending signals that he’d protect the upper 2% Bush tax cuts even as Warren Buffet and other wealthy Americans served up protestations to the President’s ridiculous ode to the super rich.

Compromise does not consist of one side staking out an extreme position and the other side doing whatever it can to accomodate it. A recent Gallup poll found that most Democrats want office holders to compromise while most Republicans want those officials to stick to their beliefs. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal found three prominent politicians planning to attend the upcoming launch of No Labels: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and United States senators Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. You will not be surprised that they are all Democrats- like President Obama, exhorting, imploring, beseeching Republicans and others to be reasonable, pretty please.

Broder, Parker, and other Washington Wise Men are impressed. Voters, unable to detect a commitment to principle but sensing weakness, are far less so.

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Only A Foreshadowing

In the category of It's Going To Be A Long Two Years (till the next congressional election), we have Rush Limbaugh today claiming

I don't know about Chris Coons' voters being harassed, but I do know the New Black Panther Party is out in force in Philadelphia again.

A little detail, from TPM Muckraker

A member of the New Black Panther Party was spotted by a local Fox station today at the same polling location at which he was videotaped two years ago. His presence at that facility in 2008, along with a nightstick-wielding colleague, led to a controversial voter intimidation case that has dogged the Obama administration for over a year and a half.

Fox provided a photo of the individual and reported that he was seen outside the polling place "wearing a pin that indicated his party affiliation, along with a black hat, sunglasses and leather coat." The polling location, Guild House West, is located in a majority African-American neighborhood in northern Philadelphia.

The individual appears to be Jerry Jackson, who had a poll-watching certificate back in 2008 and was originally named in the civil voter intimidation case bought in the waning days of the Bush administration. The Obama administration did not pursue the case against Jackson or the national party, but did obtain an injunction against fellow NBPP member King Samir Shabazz, who carried a nightstick.

Charles Mirarchi of the City of Philadelphia confirmed to TPMMuckraker on Tuesday that Jackson holds a poll-watching certificate for 2010. <

Late update: Fred Voigt, a deputy city commissioner in Philadelphia, told TPMMuckraker that the District Attorney went out to the polling location and found nothing illegal. "There was one guy there, doing nothing. The DA was out there, the judge of elections," Voigt said. "There wasn't anything last time by the way, other than the film clip by the two performers. There wasn't even anything like that this time, there was a guy standing there doing nothing."

A man, a black hat, a poll watching certificate, and "The New Black Panther Party is out in force." Democratic victories will be fewer than Republican victories today but that won't stop leading Republicans from doing what they can to delegitimize the Democrats who do withstand the tide. Much of the activist right agrees "the people who support Obama have a vastly different view of this country, its past, its present, and its future, than the vast majority of the people of the country. We're being ruled and governed by a minority of people who have an active, ongoing, and increasing dislike for this country." Tea Party sympathizers or not, they will not be satiated by their gains in this election and their vitriol will only increase.

This should, however, satisfy such bold opinion leaders like David Broder or Jon Stewart, who will be glad to tell us that partisans on both sides are equally to blame.

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David Broder, Disappointed

David Broder has been writing a column for The Washington Post for decades and with the benefit of hindsight, apparently believes that all would be well, members of Congress would hold hands and sing "we are the world" if only Democrats would be a little more congenial. In Sunday's column, he wrote

If the margins of control shrink in January, as I think they will, it might well be time to negotiate a truce.

I'd like to see Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leaders take Boehner up on the challenge he has raised, not try to demean it. He said, for example, that rather than stifling debate through the manipulation of rules, "we should open things up and let the battle of ideas help break down the scar tissue between the parties. . . . Let's let legislators legislate again."

It would be great if the leaders could engage each other seriously at the start of the next Congress on rules and procedures for doing the nation's business. There's no excuse for the House failing to pass a budget resolution, as happened for the first time this year. As Boehner said, it boggles the mind that spending bills for major government departments are lumped together in an indigestible mass.

When large majorities of the nation's voters voice disdain and distrust for a Congress that is supposed to represent them in writing the laws, it is not just a problem for one party or the other. It is a threat to our system of government.

Boehner was a serious legislator for five years at the start of this decade as chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, before he became a floor leader for his party. His diagnosis of the problems in Congress offers a starting point for a cure. Let's hope the Democrats respond.

Digby notesWe are actually supposed to believe that the people who called for "Obama's Waterloo", filibustered more than any congress in history and obstructed the majority in every possible way are acting in good faith when they say they want to "end gridlock."

And those were, or were led by, grizzled old veterans who remembered consensus building and compromise and did not consider themselves in a death match with the opposition. While reporting on Nevada's GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate, the Mesquite Local News observed
When asked how she could repeal Obamacare while Obama holds the veto pen, Angle said the first step was to defeat Harry Reid and stop his policies. She went on to say that the shockwaves that would come with a dramatic swing from a Democratic majority in the House and Senate to a Republican majority in both houses would convince people that it was the right thing to do.

"They can either get on board the train or get run over by it," Angle said.

No one, evidently, asked Mrs. Angle whether she was speaking rhetorically or literally. She is, after all, the candidate who has called for applying those "Second Amendment remedies" to "take out" her Democratic opponent.

Sunday night, CNN correspondent Mark Preston reported that GOP Senator Jon Thune of South Dakota has said that if Republicans assume control of the House and the Senate and don't quickly move to enact much of the Tea Party agenda, his party would rapidly be confronted with the formation of a third party. And it would not escape notice of Republican leaders that the GOP will have ascended to majority status in Congress only with the election of the likes of Angle, Rand Paul, Joe Miller, Ken Buck, and Ron Johnson.

That would lead Congress further to the right than it already is and marching down the path of extremism. But at least David Broder and those of like mind in the mainstream media wouldn't have to cry about the "cycle of gridlock" anymore.

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GOP Won't Cooperate With Broder

The King of The Village and steadfast champion of bipartisanship, Washington Post syndicated columnist David Broder, acknowledges “Obama's definition of what would constitute wise, farsighted Republican policy may bear no resemblance to what John Boehner or Mitch McConnell, the GOP leaders in Congress, have in mind.”

But Broder is eager for the GOP and the President to collaborate on the pending free-trade agreement with South Korea, extension of the basic elementary and secondary education bill, “budgetary discipline,” energy and climate legislation, and job creation in the private sector. Broder, who foresaw GOP support for health care reform if only President Obama would “demonstrate his flexibility on a government-run option,” is (as Digby put it) “positively giddy” at the prospect of the President working with the Republican opposition in the next Congress.

But why wait? Surely Republicans at least would support a bill intended to lessen the recession while cutting taxes.

Not exactly:

Senate Republicans on Thursday rejected a bill to aid small businesses with expanded loan programs and tax breaks, in a procedural blockade that underscored how fiercely determined the party’s leaders are to deny Democrats any further legislative accomplishments ahead of November’s midterm elections.

The measure, championed by Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, had the backing of some of the Republican Party’s most reliable business allies, including the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business. Several Republican lawmakers also helped write it.

The bill would create a $30 billion lending program within the Treasury Department, to be administered through local banks. It would also provide more than $12 billion in tax breaks, and would expand or enhance existing lending programs.

Every Republican- every Republican, including co-sponsor Olympia Snowe of Maine- voted against invoking cloture on a bill which included three GOP-sponsored amendments and tax breaks for small businesses.

The Republicans cried Procedure!- just as the House GOP did with the bill which would have provided health benefits to family members of individuals killed on 9/11/01. Yet again, they wanted to gum up the works with unrelated amendments, including their obsession, extending the Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthy, which are slated to expire at the end of 2010 pursuant to legislation passed by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed by a Republican president.

Here is today’s bipartisanship: Democrats propose moderate or centrist legislation to encourage GOP support. Republicans vote in lockstep to deny cloture to major Democratic initiatives. Mainstream media decries partisanship, insisting that “the system” is broken. And Republicans campaign against Democratic “partisanship” and attack the failure of the President to implement fundamental change.

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Bipartisanship, One Way


David Broder, who has been overrated for almost as long as Betty White has been alive, was half right yesterday. He used his syndicated column praising the recently-deceased Robert Byrd (who should be praised) as a cudgel to promote his favorite cause, bipartisanship. He wrote

Today, unfortunately, on the big issues that ought to be beyond partisanship, action in the national interest has almost vanished because the party leaders, unlike Byrd and Baker when they led their parties in the Senate, do not display that consciousness or evoke it in others.

On financial industry reform as in health care and stimulus legislation: haven't we seen this movie before? The Associated Press reports that Massachusetts Senator Scott

Brown scored an exemption for home-state interests like Fidelity Investments and the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. from some new restrictions on trading. He also persuaded congressional negotiators to let banks invest up to 3 percent of their capital in private equity funds and hedge funds, a change that would help such banks as Boston-based State Street Corp.

Then this week, Democrats bowed to a more philosophical demand that knowledgeable officials say was choreographed by

Republican leader Mitch McConnell. On Tuesday, Democratic negotiators agreed to remove a $19 billion tax on large banks and hedge funds after Brown threatened to vote "no" because of it.

Brown wouldn't say whether the concession was enough to win his vote. And he made clear that he wouldn't make that decision in time to pass the bill and deliver it to President Barack Obama by Independence Day.

"Over the July recess, I will continue to review this important bill," Brown said in a statement.

This is yet another episode of one-way bipartisanship from the Obama Production Company. One party compromises, compromises, and compromises some more- including on its principles (we must, after all, praise The Dean of Washington Journalists). The other party responds "thanks, but I'm not so sure. Maybe next time."

Senate Democratic leadership cannot be held blameless, of course. It seems only sensible- or prudent, as Bush 41 would have put it- to have elicited assurance from the Senate's newest Republican that he would vote in favor of the legislation before giving him a sweetheart deal for local insurance interests. Burned once, leadership should have received a promise from Brown before agreeing to change the funding mechanism, one which was programatically and politically wise. It's another round of fool me once, shame on you- fool me twice, shame on me.

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Bipartisan, To A Fault

Talk show host Laura Ingraham says so, Rush Limbaugh says so, Time Magazine's Mark Halperin says so, even David 'The Legend' Broder says so. Therefore, must it not be true?

According to Media Matters, on 10/27/09 Ingraham claimed on GOP TV's Fox & Friends:

This crowd is the most partisan crowd I have ever seen in Washington. They said Bush was partisan?.... You're about to have your entire health care system changed by one party that's wildly unpopular right now. Unbelievable.

The same day, Halperin contended on MSNBC's Morning Joe:

I agree with what you have been saying for months, which is they made a mistake not making this bipartisan, once they made the decision to do it with Democratic votes.

On December 16 Limbaugh blustered:

It is not simple-minded. It is not simplistic to say, "I oppose that, it's liberal. I oppose that candidate," or, "I oppose that president, because it's liberal." In fact, it is highly wise. It's very smart to cite liberalism as the primary reason you oppose any liberal or any Democrat. It's the smartest thing you can do is to stop liberalism at every chance you've got. Not work with it, not compromise with them, not try to prove to them that you're a nice guy. Just beat 'em. Just stop 'em. Especially now. We have never faced a more radically left leadership in this country than now, and there's no compromising with them.

And now, on Christmas Eve, Broder imagines

But even those Republicans who were initially inclined to do that (i.e., "offer a sustained working partnership)-- and there were at least a handful of them -- were turned away by the White House and the Senate Democratic leaders, who never lifted their sights much beyond the Democratic ranks....

It would help a lot if he (President Obama)reached out personally to those few Republicans who might still want to improve the bill rather than sink it. And it would help even more if he shamed the Democrats into rescinding some of the crasser bargains they made to buy votes along the way.

The country would welcome even a few signs that this legislation has bipartisan support.

On October 13, in the opening statement (html) he gave to the "markup" of the bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee he chairs, Senator Max Baucus explained:

Over the last two years, we held 20 hearings on health care. Last June, we held a health care summit at the Library of Congress. We held three roundtable discussions with experts on each of the three major areas of reform:

health care delivery, coverage, and how to pay for it. In connection with each roundtable, we put out detailed option papers. And then we held three walk‐throughs to hash out those options. Six Members of the Committee — three Republicans and three Democrats — held 31 meetings to try to come to a consensus. We held exhaustive meetings. We met for more than 61 hours. We went the extra mile.

Who are these "bipartisan" Republicans?

Arizona Senator Jon Kyl on an August 18 conference call with reporters, referring to GOP senators, stated

I think it’s safe to say that there are a huge number of big issues that people have. There is no way that Republicans are going to support a trillion-dollar-plus bill.

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint on a conference call on July 17 boasted

If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.

Iowa's Senator Grassley, himself a member of the Gang Of Six which crafted the bill in the Finance Committee, on August 17 that he wouldn't vote for any bill which would not get the support of most Republicans.

In his remarks, Senator Baucus explained "Senators offered and the Committee considered 135 amendments. We conducted 79 roll‐call votes. And we adopted 41 amendments." On December 20, the Salt Lake City Tribune reported on one of these amendments:

A number of studies have cast some serious doubt about the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education and as a result, congressional Democrats -- who have bristled at the program for years -- cut off all federal funding.

But then Hatch stepped in. During a committee health reform debate, he cited his own supportive studies and proposed an amendment restoring $50 million for the controversial program for the next five years. It passed with the help of two Democrats -- Sens. Blanche Lincoln, from Arkansas, and Kent Conrad, from North Dakota -- much to the chagrin of Senate liberals.

"I sure do not want the abstinence education to be short-changed," Hatch said during the hearing.

The committee passed a second amendment supported by the Democratic chairman that created a separate $50 million program for comprehensive sex-ed, which combines information about abstinence, sexually transmitted diseases and contraceptives.

Aside from whether abstinence-only education generally works (it doesn't) or whether the Utah Senator (or Lincoln, Conrad, and the others) will continue to pose as a "fiscal conservative" (he shouldn't, but will), this was an amendment proposed by a Republican, approved by a Democratic-dominated committee and Senate, and which probably will appear in the combined House/Senate bill- even though most congressional Democrats don't agree with it.

In the mainstream media and, to a lesser extent, among the public, where "bipartisanship" is next to godliness, it's political gold for the GOP to pretend that the Democratic Party shut it out in advancing health care reform. But as at least Repub partisans like Ingraham and Limbaugh understand (but never would admit), it is bogus.

President Emanuel Obama and congressional leaders have strenuously attempted to get any Republican on board with health care reform. Any Republican. At almost any cost. But they have faced a party bound and determined to oppose all initiatives the Democratic Party has to offer on this issue. And they have held firm- with only one Republican vote (cast only after the necessary majority for approval had been attained)in favor of reform in the House and none in the Senate. And they have gotten their way- even if they have chosen, for strategic reasons, to claim otherwise- in persuading Democrats to promote legislation far more pleasing to health insurers and drug companies than to consumers.



-------------------Merry Christmas---------------------------------

The Republican Media- No. 23

David Broder was once a good political columnist, and the Beltway insiders blogger Digby refers to as "the Villagers" still respect him, for some reason. As a columnist, he's entitled to his biases. But what's The New York Times' excuse?

Broder wrote yesterday about the gubernatorial race in New Jersey between incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine and Repub challenger Christopher J. Christie. Not about the issues of taxes, education, or health care, but instead

As the Times pointed out, a television ad for Corzine, "about as subtle as a playground taunt," shows Christie "stepping out of an SUV in extreme slow motion, his extra girth moving, just as slowly, in several different directions at once. In case viewers missed the point, a narrator snidely intones" that Christie, the former U.S. attorney for New Jersey, "threw his weight around" to avoid several traffic tickets.

As if that were not enough, Corzine, who is 62 and conspicuously fit, has been running weekend five- and 10-kilometer races in cities around the state to demonstrate that he has kept himself in much better shape than Christie despite the 15-year difference in their ages.

I have no rooting interest in the New Jersey race, but the ad hoc Committee of Journalistic Ethics Enforcers has authorized me to condemn this advertising tactic. I very much fear that if Corzine pulls out a victory next month after trailing Christie for months in the polls, the precedent will be set for a really distasteful tactic -- the "fat boy" ploy.

If you believe, as I do, that the beautiful people already have enough of an advantage in this age of television politics and cable trivia, then the last thing we need is a wave of ads highlighting the fact that others are really ugly.

There are several things wrong with these claims:

- The ad (video below) does not suggest, infer, or imply that Chris Christie is "really ugly." "Fat," if that is what is insinuated here, is not "ugly." The latter refers to something that generally is considered to be overwhelmingly a matter of heredity, and largely beyond one's ability to correct. "Fat" is, well, something else.

- It's not unusual for a candidate to get himself photographed running or engaging in some active exercise- think Reagan riding a horse, GW Bush cutting brush, Obama playing basketball (golf, once the Democratic primaries ended).

- Broder has "no rooting interest in the New Jersey race?" That's arguable, given the parallel he draws between Corzine's ad and Representative Joe Wilson's shout of "you lie" to the President of the United States during a joint session of Congress- and between Chris Christie and Abe Lincoln.

For its part, The Times, in what remarkably was not labeled an "editorial" or "analysis," said:

But the unflattering depictions of Mr. Christie, a Republican who has long struggled with his size, have been the talk of the political world in New Jersey, with Democrats snickering and Christie supporters privately complaining. The governor’s latest ad, which featured the “threw his weight around” line and was expected to be seen by some viewers as many as 10 times, brought sharp reaction, even from those who like Mr. Corzine.

“There’s no subtlety there,” said Bill Baroni, a Republican state senator from Hamilton who lost 130 pounds starting 15 years ago. “That’s not a randomly chosen phrase. It’s purposeful. And it’s offensive.”

Of course, we're not supposed to note that the quote "from those who like Mr. Corzine" came instead from a GOP state legislator, possessing a keen interest in the election of his fellow Republican to the Statehouse. But neither the "old grey lady" nor Broder (no crack here about "grey" in light of David's age) recalled

In 2005, Christie was pulled over for speeding in Lambertville, New Jersey, and was cited for speeding and for driving in an unregistered, uninsured vehicle. The car belonged to Christie's wife, but the registration had expired about two months before.

Lambertville police director Bruce Coccuzza told the radio station that Christie's position as a U.S. attorney was discussed: "He identified himself." Christie's campaign says the candidate does not recall how it came up.

In the car with Christie, according to his campaign and the local police director, were his wife, children, and Michele Brown -- the friend and then-subordinate of Christie's in the U.S. Attorney's office, who has recently resigned because of an undisclosed $46,000 loan that Christie extended to her in 2007. The group was on its way to a football game that night at Christie's alma mater, the University of Delaware.

Normally, it is a strict policy in New Jersey to tow an unregistered car -- and in fact, a tow truck did arrive at the scene, according to the campaign. However, Christie was ultimately allowed to drive home. Coccuzza told the radio station: "From what I recollect I think she (the officer) even said at the time, 'If wasn't for the fact that you had a car full of children this car would be towed.'"

The tickets were marked "NO DEAL," which is traditionally used by police when they feel a driver behaved badly, and that the judge should not go easy in the case. Christie eventually paid a $250 fine, and the registration ticket was dismissed after he produced proper documentation -- though again, Christie's campaign has conceded that the car's registration was expired at the time.

Phone calls to the Coccuzza for further clarification were not returned, and we were later told he was not taking any more calls for the day.

A lot of people are bad drivers. But Christie, who apparently "identified himself" as a U.S. attorney to police who found himself somewhat uncooperative, is used to "throwing his weight around." As in this incident, posted in a blog written by New Jersey Network News reporter Zachary Fink:

On July 26, 2002 Christie was driving a leased BMW in the city of Elizabeth.

He was on his way to a swearing in ceremony for the Union County Prosecutor. But Christie apparently got a little lost. When he got to the intersection of Murray street and Clinton, he edged out and made a partial right turn the wrong way on a one way street.

Enter Andre Mendonca. The motorcyclist was riding down Clinton street (the right way ) and when he saw Christie in the intersection, the bike fell on its side and slid into Christie’s car, according to the accident report filed by the officer on the scene.

Mendonca was injured and taken by ambulance to the hospital. Not nearby Trinitas, but UMDNJ in Newark which has a trauma center. Reached by telephone this morning, Mendonca said he had no idea his collision was with the man who is now the Republican candidate for Governor. When I started to ask him questions about the accident, he said he “shouldn’t be talking about it.” Mendonca did say that Christie seemed very concerned for his well being and blamed bad signage at the intersection for what happened. Then he hung up on me.

Christie identified himself as the US Attorney to the officer who did not issue Christie a ticket. One Elizabeth official said that the officer then drove Christie to the swearing in ceremony.

News of this accident comes on the heels of an earlier story about Christie being pulled over for speeding in Lambertville ( see earlier posts).

We asked Christie about the accident in Atlantic City Friday and he was very curt with his answers. NJN South Jersey Bureau Chief Kent St. John asked if there was a lawsuit. Christie said “no” then “nope.”

But actually there was. According to the Superior Court Record Center in Trenton, Mendonca filed suit in 2004. The complaint filed in Essex County was later dismissed, indicating ( according to the Clerk ) an out of court settlement.

So Christie "identified himself as the US Attorney to the officer who did not issue Christie a ticket." Sounds a little like "throwing his weight around." (And claiming there was no lawsuit when one was settled out of court- apparently it depends on what the meaning of "lawsuit" is.)

Describing the more recent lying motor vehicle incident, the Philadelphia Inquirer noted

Some of his comments yesterday contradicted earlier accounts. Lambertville Police Director Bruce Cocuzza had reported that Christie got loud during the stop, but Christie described his demeanor only as "affirmative."

He's a former United States Attorney, with little else to qualify him to run one of the largest states in the nation. Not only does he- yes- throw his weight around, Chris Christie challenges the description given by a law enforcement official of a motor vehicle stop, implying that he was far more forthcoming than did the Police Director. That would seem to be cause for concern for New Jersey residents. And perhaps that's why an esteemed columnist, claiming objectivity, and the country's foremost newspaper don't want to look too closely at the incidents the Jon Corzine campaign has highlighted.

Why A Member?

David Broder, who has been a Washington Post columnist longer than perhaps most Americans have been alive, has a valuable insight every couple of years. The most recent came during today's (3/16/08) episode of NBC's Meet The Press, when Broder stated: "What was it about Reverend Wright that attracted Obama when he had, as a newcomer to Chicago, choice of any of the number of churches or pastors to go to?"

I don't get around as much as some people do, but it seems to me this question hasn't been asked a whole lot. Was Mr. Obama attracted by the: denomination? theological stance of this congregation (which, as a member of the United Church of Christ, whose polity is "congregational," is self-governing)? friendliness of the parishioners? size of the congregation? geographic proximity to his home? inspirational nature of Pastor Wright's sermons? content of Pastor Wright's sermons? beauty of the church building? church's outreach to the black community and interest in fostering African-American consciousness? preference of his wife for this church?

It's a question that needs to be asked but, with the squeamishness of the media in dealing with theological matters, might never be- which would be a critical omission.