Standard Of Decency

Republicans seem to be trying to set a new low on decency- or perhaps a new high in honesty, as reflected in a tweet from the 2008 Repub presidential nominee:

Wow, Dana strikes a nerve “@SenJohnMcCain : Dem mouthpiece Dana Milbank sinks to disgraceful & false attack on @SenJonKyl - a decent man.

What triggered Arizona Senator McCain's of- to be generous- dishonest sense of outrage was this column by Dana Milbank in which the Washington Post columnist called out Arizona Senator Kyl for his "cold and ruthless" and, apparently successful, effort to thwart whatever effort the GOP contingent on the debt commission may have made to reach a compromise.

Kyl, Milbank noted, also walked out in June on budget talks with Vice-President Biden. It is not surprising, then, to learn that the Arizonan is one of a number of Repub members of Congress bought and paid for by an infamous, single-minded, anti-tax extremist. Grover

Norquist, who worked to defeat a compromise, brags about his control over Kyl. When Kyl made remarks in May that appeared to leave open the possibility of tax increases, Norquist called Kyl and adopted “the tone of a teacher scolding a second grader as he recalled the conversation,” Politico reported. Norquist boasted to the publication that, after he upbraided Kyl, the senator “went down on the floor and he gave a colloquy about how we’re against any tax increases of any sort. Boom!”

Milbank, further demonstrating Kyl's obstructionism and lack of common decency, unintentionally illustrates the Republican's impressive honesty. He notes

“Walking napalm” is how one Democratic aide involved in the supercommittee described Kyl this week. And if the senator makes some mistakes as he burns down the village — well, that’s just a cost of doing business. Earlier this year, when Kyl was leading an effort to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, he claimed on the Senate floor that abortion is “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.” The actual number is 3 percent. An aide to Kyl explained: “His remark was not intended to be a factual statement.”

We know about the right's ongoing effort against birth control and the places which provide it. But the combination of honesty and arrogance displayed by the Arizona senator during the debate over funding of Planned Parenthood was stunning: his "remark was not intended to be a factual statement." Perhaps it was a low in both honesty and indecency.

Or perhaps not, because this past week we got another extraordinary example, this from the camp of Mitt Romney. The likely GOP presidential nominee recently released an anti-Obama ad (video below) in which, Dave Weigel explains,

The offending moment comes when Obama says "if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." That was a quote from a way-too-honest McCain adviser that Obama loved to repeat on the trail. By evening, the ad had been attacked, derided, parodied, and ruled "pants on fire" worthy by Politifact. The Romney campaign could have cared less.

"We want to engage the president," explained Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom in the spin room. "We look at him as our rival. It's all deliberate; it was all very intentional."

A Romney operative said the ad "worked" and, admittedly, it is dramatic and engaging, bothin sight and sound. Whether putting words in someone's mouth or boasting that a claim is "not intended to be factual," there is no admission of regret, of error, or even of serendipity. No, there is no subtlety here- just an in-your-face brazenness characteristic of the GOP's modus operandi, circa 2011.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

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Benign Motives Secondary

There may be a legitimate reason for Republicans to oppose the new START treaty, which modernizes the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty negotiated by the Reagan and Bush 41 Administrations with the former Soviet Union. But not according to Richard Burt, chief negotiator during the latter administration.

On the PBS NewsHour (transcript here) on November 17, Mr. Burt contended

Well, again, I don't think it's because of problems with the treaty. Jim talks about ballistic missile defense.

The -- there are no constraints on this administration or any future administration's options for developing ballistic missile defense. The language in the treaty which is in the preamble is exactly the same as in the language in the treaty I negotiated and previous administrations negotiated.

Why is it getting so politicized? Well, first of all -- and, here, I can say this as a Republican -- this is the first time a Democratic administration has sought to get ratification for a strategic arms treaty. And I think that is a -- it makes -- creates a difficult dilemma for Republicans.

It's hard for Republicans to oppose a Republican administration's treaty, particularly in the current hyper-partisan and polarized atmosphere in Washington. I think it's much easier for Republicans to oppose this administration.

In a panel discussion (transcript here) sponsored by the Arms Control Association on November 8, Burt explained in greater detail this line of reasoning, as well as its potential repercussions for national security:

.... as people describe it to me, Kyl is part of a number of Republican members of the Senate that are more worried about Obama, and this almost kind of reminds you of some of the rhetoric you’ve heard over the last two years, and the argument is this: that yes, the treaty has some problems but they’re not big problems and under normal circumstances we could support it. But you know this guy Obama has talked about eliminating all nuclear weapons, and I don’t know if we could support a treaty when Barack Obama is president because we don’t know where he’s going in the long term on nuclear arms control.

That’s a tough one, it seems to me, because what you’re really saying there is you’re not so much interested in the details of the treaty, what it constrains, it doesn’t constrain. You don’t trust the commander-in-chief, and that’s sort of the augment you’re beginning to hear, and what I’m worried about is that if that argument gets traction, particularly if the treaty isn’t ratified in a lame-duck session, I think some of the new Republicans who are coming into the Senate could buy into that argument that it’s not the treaty, it’s the president, and that I think would be very dangerous and very corrosive.

By the way, it was an argument that I remember when I was a young reporter for The New York Times covering the SALT II debate because Republicans in the 1970s made a similar argument about Jimmy Carter. They said, you know, we just don’t know with this guy and it makes it hard for us to vote for the SALT II Treaty.

Burt did note, however

an old tactic that’s usually done in these arms control debates. People want money for their favorite programs and projects, and of course they dress it up as saying that this is necessary, this spending is necessary to keep the country strong under this arms control regime. As I understand it, most of the money is for basically the nuclear weapons themselves, the warheads and keeping them secure, keeping them reliable and ready....

While Republican Senators Inhofe of Oklahoma and tea party heavyweight DeMint of Tennessee (and incoming tea party favorite Rand Paul of Kentucky) oppose the treaty on ideological grounds, Arizonan Jon Kyl (as Minority Whip, in a powerful position) seems to be fronting for the nuclear-industrial complex. Having already squeezed from the President $10 billion (deficit hawks, doncha know) for nuclear weapons modernization atop the $80 billion already planned, Kyl is negotiating for more and more. Burt observes that administration officials

have clearly walked the extra mile to deal with Senator Kyl's concerns. They are talking about spending $80 billion on the infrastructure that actually makes nuclear weapons, not the missiles or bombers or so-called delivery vehicles, but the weapons themselves, that -- that ensures that they continue to be reliable and effective.

And they're talking about $80 billion over 10 years, and adding another $4 billion in the coming year to ensure that the nuclear weapons labs and the country's infrastructure is capable of maintaining our nuclear stockpile.

And I have to say that, again, not speaking for the administration, but this is a much larger amount of money than was spent by the previous administration on the nuclear weapons complex.

Digby contends that on MSNBC on November 19, host Andrea Mitchell

.... said, "I haven't seen Richard Lugar that fired up about this issue in quite a long time, and it's because, on the face of it, what is the explanation? When you read this treaty, the preamble to the treaty, what is the explanation for saying that this is bad for U.S. interests? He replied, and I kid you not, that he thinks Republicans only want nuclear treaties to be signed under GOP administrations.

Mitchell largely ignored the comment, and a transcript of the exchange seems to be unavailable except by subscription.

There is ideological opposition from a few Republicans and an appeal to Senator Kyl of increased campaign contributions from corporations poised to benefit from increased nuclear weapons appropriations. Nevertheless, there is GOP opposition to the treaty because it is being proposed by a Democratic administration, as reflected by Digby's recollection (whether or not strictly interpreted) and Burt's remark

If we can’t ratify this treaty, we are going to send a signal, I believe, of almost total incompetence to the rest of the international community. People on Capitol Hill love to talk about American leadership. Well, I’ve got to tell you, this is not American leadership. I mean, this is what J. William Fulbright in the Vietnam period called America as a helpless giant and that’s what we become if we can’t pull ourselves together to get this treaty ratified.

This would fit in conveniently with the charge of the Republican right that Barack Obama is a weak president for whom there is no respect abroad, and who is damaging the prestige of the United States everywhere. He cowardly denies, the drumbeat goes, American exceptionalism, as expressed in the demagogic words of the former half-governor of Alaska: "Could it be a lack of faith in American exceptionalism? The fact is that America and our allies are safer when we are a dominant military superpower - whether President Obama likes it or not."

The U.S. Senate may end up yet ratifying the new Start treaty. But President Obama, as with so many issues, is fighting GOP intransigence little based on substance but more so by the party's responsiveness to powerful special interests and its determination to bring this president- and with it, possibly the nation- down.

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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---------------------------------

Offensive

Senator Jon Kyl (R.-AZ.) appeared on C-Span's Newsmakers today to slap Europeans in the face. Oh, that wasn't his primary objective but he made clear his attitude toward our allies across the Atlantic. Watch (video below) Senator Kyl, responding to a question about Guantanamo Bay, complain

You know, the fact that some European leader — first of all, they didn’t like the fact that we invaded Iraq and replaced Saddam Hussein either.

There are two ways to view this. Writing on the Center for American Progress (the organization responsible for thinkprogress.org) website, Lawrence Korb, Sean Duggan, Laura Conley (not in response to Kyl) argue

The Bush administration’s decision to take us into a needless war has also made the American people less secure. After six years of fighting in Iraq, we have emboldened new enemies, created a pocket of terrorist activity that did not exist before our invasion, severely limited our ability to provide adequate resources to Afghanistan, the real central front of the war on terror, and undermined the capability and readiness of the military.

True enough. Additionally, however, Kyl's politically correct swipe at Europeans obscures the fact, of which Kyl should have some semblance of awareness, that as of August 16, 2008, 297 Europeans had lost their lives in our nation's war of choice. The number pales in comparison to the number of Americans who have been killed, but the European nations are much smaller than the U.S.A., and did not initiate the war. And that is at least 15 nations which, misguided or otherwise, did not complain about the U.S. invasion, in contrast to Ky's whine about Europe.

Sometimes ignorance is no excuse.