Jak's View From Vancouver

The Bigger Picture on the Attorney Scandal

Many of us have been following with interest the twists and turns in the Attorneys scandal in the United States.  What many of us have missed -- mainly because the mainstream media have failed to pick up on it -- is the bigger picture:  The attempt by the Bush regime to use electoral laws and US Attorneys to create an environment specifically better for Republican voters than for Democrats.

McClatchy's Washington Bureau has an excellent and detailed overview of the situation today -- it really is a MUST READ.   

One quote stood out for me.  It stood out because it was not made by a Democratic politician or someone in the "liberal" blogosphere.  It was made by Joseph Rich, who left his job as chief of Justice Department's Voters Rights Section in 2005.  He said the actions of the Bush regime fit a definite pattern:

"As more information becomes available about the administration's priority on combating alleged, but not well substantiated, voter fraud, the more apparent it is that its actions concerning voter ID laws are part of a partisan strategy to suppress the votes of poor and minority citizens."

None of this comes as a shock to those of us who have believed for decades that the western electoral system is a crock.  It must however be upsetting to any regular American who has the naivete to believe that the DOJ and its various "Rights" sections are there to actually protect them.

Crime DOES Pay

It seems that disloyalty to the Democratic Party is about to be repaid in spades. 

Joe Lieberman is calling himself a Democrat again and telling the world that "he was reassured by Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid that he would retain his seniority when the new Senate convenes."  That means he would be in line to chair the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

What a racket!

Another Mindless Election ...

... in which one rich persons' party was exchanged for another rich persons' party.  I read that several billion dollars were spent on this election -- what a damn waste!

Of the MSM political commentators, Lou Dobbs probably got it closest:

November 7 also demonstrated that the American electorate is far more discerning and independent-minded than either political party or our elites would like to believe. While the Democratic Party was the clear winner, I don't believe for even a moment that the Democrats' ideals prevailed over Republican ideals. Election Day was middle-class America's declaration of independence from a Republican-led administration and Congress that for six years has been telling working men and women and their families in this country to shut up, listen up and go to hell. The middle class just returned the favor and demonstrated discernment while delivering their loud message to Washington, D.C.

Bravo for the middle class!  Do you think any of the majority -- the working poor -- were elected?

Why Both Parties Deserve To Lose

Regular readers know that I am an anarchist:  I hold no truck with the phony "freedom" offered by modern electoral politics.  With that out of the way, it is probably also obvious that I am fascinated by the power games that political parties play and that therefore I follow electoral politics rather closely.  With that in mind, I want to draw your attention to a smart and clever piece in Fortune magazine by Cait Murphy entitled "Why The Republicans Deserve To Lose." 

Despite the title, Murphy constructs an argument that neither side deserves to win next week, but that the Democrats will take the prize based on anti-Bush sentiment rather than anything positive to do with Democratic policies.

"Democrats may well benefit politically from the mess in Iraq - but only by default, because the only discernible Democratic policy on the matter is to blame Bush for it. More troops? Fewer? A timetable for withdrawal? With conditions? Who knows?

On immigration, entitlement reform, military tribunals, education, the environment - the Democrats have been intellectually missing in action. (Hint: Bashing Wal-Mart  is not an economic policy and trashing Big Oil is not an environmental one.) If they take Congress in November, it will not be because they did the soul-searching Labor did in the '90s or the Republicans in the '70s. It will be because the public wants to spank Bush."

As Murphy concludes, the Democrats are going to need a lot more than anti-Bush to win in 2008.

This is a thoughtful piece that deserves to be read.

Mr Bush and the Devil

More brilliance from Mr Fish.

Foleygate

I've been following the Foley scandal, of course.  The intrinsic facts of the matter are rather boring (except perhaps to the people actually involved), and yet it is a major scandal.  We are seeing once again that it is not what one does that is important, rather it is how one and others handle what one did that creates the problem.  The cover-up is nearly always more important than the event itself.

I'm fascinated by the minutia:  that the Rev. Moon's Washington Times -- a truly conservative bastion -- was the first media outlet to call for the resignation of Speaker Hastert;  that Fox News would firm up its position as the GOP's propoganda arm by claiming tonight that Foley was a Democrat;  that Katherine Harris doesn't have enough of her own problems without putting her nose into this one; how Tom Reynolds keeps digging his own grave deeper and deeper.

All this and an election in five weeks!   It makes me weak at the knees.

Harris For Jesus

The soon-to-be-disappeared-and-never-brought-to-mind Kathleen Harris, who is being crushed in her congressional re-election bid can still spit bile and ignorance:

"If you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," she told interviewers, citing abortion and gay marriage as two examples of that sin. "Whenever we legislate sin," she said, "and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong . . ."

Friend and foe alike have dumped on the unlikable Ms Harris:

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said she was "disgusted" by the comments "and deeply disappointed in Rep. Harris personally  ... [it] clearly shows that she does not deserve to be a Representative."  State Rep. Irv Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, demanded an apology, saying the statements were "outrageous, even by her standards. "What is going through this woman's mind?" said Slosberg.

Ruby Brooks, a veteran Tampa Bay Republican activist, said Harris' remarks "were offensive to me as a Christian and a Republican." And Jillian Hasner, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said: "I don't think it's representative of the Republican Party at all. Our party is much bigger and better than Katherine Harris is trying to make it."

During the same interviews, Harris said that separation of Church and State was wrong.  Separating religion and politics is

"so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.  And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women," then "we're going to have a nation of secular laws. That's not what our founding fathers intended and that's (sic) certainly isn't what God intended."

University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato said the comments will appeal to Christian fundamentalists who typically turn out for Republican primaries. "It's insane," he said. "But it's not out of character for Katherine Harris."

Maybe the depths to which she has fallen in the polls gives her a certain freedom to just say what she feels without concerning herself with the political consequences.  That's a good thing in and of itself.  And politically, as Sabato says, she will now attract a certain kind of fundamentalist voter that a more centrist Republican would eschew. 

Either way she's a goner in the primary.  Hopefully she will make the next few weeks' campaigning laughingly memorable.