When Lies Become Wounds

The Jessica Lynch and Tillman family testimony is heartbreaking. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz should go to jail or The Hague for this alone.

How tragic that brave people get chewed up by such appalling propogandists. Good on Jessica Lynch and the Tillmans for appearing, and good on the committee for giving them the shot.

By the way, how great is Henry Waxman? If you wrote such a character in a movie and then made him the congressman for Beverly Hills and then cast someone who looks like Henry Waxman they'd say you were hopelessly over the top. Reality wins again.

The Hillary Gang

This exchange at Swampland got me thinking about Hillary's people.

Ana Marie Cox pointed to a story about Hillary's people responding to claims "that their fundraising style is not just aggressive, but threatening and retaliatory". I must say the claims seem well founded.

I commented with, in part, this.

I am concerned about the bunkered down style of the Clinton operation, because it goes to what sort of administration they would make. The next administration is going to have to listen to everybody and tap in to all the energy and talent it can possibly get it's hands on. And it will still have a monumental task to dig us out of all the holes dug for us by George W My-Brain-Hurts.

If the Clinton people are already this far dug down into their fox hole, and seeing the landscape as littered with grudges, how on earth are they going to form the basis of the sort of administration we need?

This response from Becks G

Here here! Clinton is as bad as W. We don't need another one! We need a fresh breeze to waft through the WH and erase the stench of W's flawed Presidency. Clinton would just add to it. We need an Obama-breeze!!

and this from DonB

"If the Clinton people are already this far dug down into their fox hole,"

The Clintons know how to run a war and win. Something we can't say about Bush.

And my reply

Yes, they do.

But, here's the thing.

War ain't the answer.

McCain and His Pain

This from Ana Marie Cox over at Swampland highlights McCain's diffculties.

To which I added this comment.

Interesting numbers Ana.

It will be fascinating to see how much of a premium primary voters on both sides of the aisle put on electability. On the face of it the GOP folks appear to rate it more highly given that Guiliani (electablish but at odds with the base) is leading on that side and Hillary (not so much with the electable) is leading on the other side.

Conventional wisdom would have it that this will change once the bases get to know more about these candidates. But then, as someone in the dead tree Time has already pointed out, conventional wisdom would have told us that none of the top 3 candidates on either side have any business running for President in the first place.

And just to drive home the Senator's situation here's the grab from the RCP Averages trend

Now that's not a trend line to write home about. Also, notice Thompson starting to head Romney, and that's unannouced with no money spent. Great, another old actor. Just what we need.

Obama's Foreign Policy Warm Up

See this over at Swampland about Obama's foreign policy speech. Joe Klein is right in the highlights he picks out.

Here's the actual speech.

From this side of The Pond can I just say, bravo.

Objects in the Mirror

I thought this over at RCP about Hillary's rear view mirror (as in objects may be closer than they appear) was on the mark. Based on Rassmusen's numbers, which I respect, Obama is right there. Money quote :

"Combine the data points and you have Obama's appeal over Hillary in a nutshell: "much more likeable, just as electable.""

On the current RCP averages I might change that to "at least as electable".

The thing is, Obama's electability has plenty of room to grow within his favourable/ unfavourable spread. Given, luck, skill and hard work another 10 points is easily doable. Attacking Hillary's unfavourables may well turn out to be like wearing down El Capitan with a toothbrush.

The Electability Curve

I’m once again reading with interest the RealClearPolitics.com averages of opinion polls. A few things emerging over the past month :

Obama is gaining on Hillary, slowly, slowly, in national polls of likely or registered voters but is still 9 points down.

In head-to-head general election polling Clinton remains behind Giuliani and tied with McCain. Obama is at least tied with Giuliani and may be starting to move ahead. Importantly he has moved to a clear lead over McCain. Edwards is very close to Giuliani and McCain. All the leading Democratic candidates would beat Romney hands down.

There appear to be curiously overlapping groups here. The “any credible Democrat” group appears to be good for 43% or so. The “anyone but Hillary group” appears to be holding solid at 45% or so. Weirdly the results won by Obama and Edwards against Giuliani and McCain, as compared to Hillary, appear to show that there are some democrat leaning voters in the “any credible Democrat” group who are prepared to vote Republican just to avoid electing Hillary. Hillary’s continuing lead in the national democrat nomination polling shows that the “anyone but Hillary” group is coming mainly from independents and Republicans but it must include some Democrats as well.

What does this tell us about the road ahead? It’s starting to look like this. If you want to get a Democrat elected President you have two main courses of action from here out. Either find a way to knock the “anyone but Hillary” vote down to below 40% or nominate Obama and/or Edwards, preferably as a joint ticket, with the order not all that important but probably Obama at the top.

It’s still a year out and this is all a long punt at this stage. But, if by late fall there is no improvement in the size of the "anyone but Hillary" vote, and her unfavourables remain anchored at 50% (as they have for the last year) then her electability becomes an urgent issue. If Obama and/or Edwards are still holding or beating the GOP frontrunners at that time then Democrat primary voters should think really hard before voting for Hillary.

It should be said that Hillary’s unfavourables/anyone but her vote is unfair and unreasonable and is the result a successful demonisation campaign. That’s tough and it should be resisted but if, in the end, resistance fails, the cold truth is that this election is too important for the party to ignore electability shortcomings in candidates and we need to look elsewhere.

Time to Choose

Now that we have the first quarter of the presidential campaign under our belts and we've had enough time to sort out the top tier of candidates, one starts to feel under pressure to pick a candidate to support. If for no other reason than to define where you stand on the issues.

I've been back and forth and I think there is much left learn but, I think it is possible to pick someone at this stage. So, here's how I came down to it.

I think it's important to start at the end. That is, to start by thinking about what sort of president, and, importantly, what sort of administration team we want to see wading into their first 100 days in office in February 2009. This may seem obvious, but it can be tricky because it forces you to think through the question of how we get there from here. It also forces you to think about how we got to where we are now and what we want to change.

We stand at the end of a sequence of administrations that were all formed in the climate of a conservative revival that began in the 70s as a reaction to the 60s counter culture. We've had the founder of the revival, Ronald Reagan, his chosen successor, GHW Bush and his successor's son, GW Bush. This sequence was preceded and then interrupted, by two centrist, religious, southern Democratic governors, able to swim against the tide temporarily by differentiating themselves from the body of their own party.

The mainstream of the Democratic party have been shut out of the presidential process for nearly 40 years. To a lesser extent an older stream of the Republican party - the traditional, moneyed, WASP patriarchy - has been shut out for even longer. Bush Snr was really pretty much of this background but his candidacy and presidency were very much enabled and shaped by the Reagan revival.

So, in choosing who we want in power in 2009, we could pick representatives of one of these 4 long standing streams, Reagan GOP, traditional GOP, Clintonian centrist Democrat or traditional Democrat. Or we could go for something else altogether. I think the best answer is something else, because each of the 4 established streams have fairly rigid mindsets which include ideas that leave them unable to respond adequately to the enormous challenges of 21st century government.

George W Bush's principal legacy to American political life will be that his incompetence has managed to achieve what two generations of Democrats could not. He has brought an end to the Reagan conservative revival. Leaving it washed up and exposed as both morally and intellectually bankrupt. It is clear from the 2006 mid-terms and all the current polling that the American electorate has decided this and is keen to move on. So, the Reagan GOP is pretty much a non-starter at this point.

The traditional, corporatist GOP seems an unlikely choice as well. They represent interests that are far too narrow to be relevant to most of what's happening around us.
The traditional Democrat stream has been struggling to engage effectively for a couple of generations. In similar style but to a lesser extent than the traditional GOP they have too narrow a focus and keep getting blindsided by a world that is far more dynamic and complex than the one that formed their mindset 40 years ago.

So, on the face of it, this leaves the Clinton centrists as the most likely of the main established streams to deliver effective government. Whilst it is true that their determination to rethink things, along with their naked ambition and relentless opportunism, gives them a somewhat better chance to get a handle on current issues than some of the other contenders I think they also come up well short of what's needed. This is partly because this stream of politics has solidified into a something of a closed shop.

The very successful fund raising operations of the Clintons have hardened into a closed group of sponsors, interests and operatives who are bound together as much by loyalty to each other as by any coherent philosophy. All of which is exacerbated by the somewhat bizarre process of anointing a former first lady as the lead candidate. I very much fear that an administration formed from this stream could fail badly, by getting locked into too many deals and quickly descending into a bunker mentality.

So, where does that leave us? Whilst it is depressing that all the main streams of political life in America are inadequate to the task of forming a good government, the upside is that this forces us to think creatively about a new approach. Challenges that are dynamic in nature and global in scope require leadership that is operating independently of compromises between interest groups. It requires decision making based more in what you know and less in who you know. Everybody feels their part of the elephant and a compromise decision combining everybody's feel can seem like the right answer. The problem is that in the 21st century the beast keeps growing new legs.

What manner of president and administration do we need to deliver effective government? I think we need a president who is personally responsible, independently minded, intelligent and driven to solve problems. Critically, the dynamic challenges of this century require that a president not be bound by loyalties and compromises accumulated in the process of getting elected. We need to back such a president with a cabinet that is broadly based, chosen on merit and goal focused.

In other words it needs to someone who has the right personal qualities and capacities who arrives at the White House through a side door. All the various paths to the front door lead through too many toll booths and require promises to too many trolls under too many bridges. They all deliver candidates to the door carrying the seeds of failure.

In the end I think that the candidate with the best chance of being the president we need and forming a government that can work is Barack Obama. With some very big ifs. If he can continue to fund his campaign through large numbers of small donations from non-corporate sources. If he retains his commitment to thinking things through rather the forming policies for policy's sake. If he can avoid trade off's and debts to interest groups. If (and this is the big one) he can establish a constituency for change that reaches previous non-voters. He just might pull it off and arrive at the White House door, intact, as the sort of leader we need.

Critically, Obama needs to answer his most obvious shortcoming. Namely, inexperience. I think the best response to that is to turn the question on it's head. As in, "You say that like it's a bad thing". What much of the political establishment means by, and has lived with, as "experience" is actually about connections. It's about who you know. It contains the assumption that you can't get things done unless you know people that owe you. For the problems this new president will face that sort of experience is the wrong answer.

The other, more conventional, answer to a lack of experience is to form a good team of advisers and proxies, a government in waiting with breadth and depth. Embodying in the process the idea that what matters in a president is personal qualities and capacities. That a curious intellect, a top tier capacity to synthesize and a clear set of principles matter more than detailed previous knowledge of, say, Pakistani politics or pharmaceutical cost pressures.

I think these two approaches can deal with the experience question well enough to give the candidate a shot in a general election.

So there you have it. My tortured reasoning on why the best choice is to back Obama. Now, if only everyone would agree with me would could save a couple of billion bucks and go fishing for the next 20 months.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like W?

This is a sequence I got involved in at Swampland, which starts with this piece in the dead tree version of Time by Joe Klein, in which Joe declares the Bush presidency dead in the water and muses about what to do with such a Presidency in it's lame duck years. Followed by a blog in which Joe cast doubts the wisdom/practicality of impeachment and many commenters howl for immediate impeachment.

Ana Marie Cox's husband (Swampdad) weighed in with this :

I really like his article - even tho he says in the blog he is not calling for impeachment. [Then] what the f**k is he calling for?

Love,

Sam

To which Joe replied

Ana, ask Swampdad to think about the effects of impeachment: If successful, you get President Cheney. If unsuccessful, you get a latter day precedent--any President, and especially the next President, is more likely to be impeached than not. Impeachment was cheapened by Republicans in the last administration; it shouldn't be cheapened by Democrats in this one. It should be saved for the most blatant cases of serious criminality, not for criminal adolescence and incompetence.

As for what to do now: oppose the Bush foreign policy without proposing precipitate and ill-considered alternatives (listen to politicians like Jim Webb, John Warner, Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel on Iraq), publicize any ensuing acts of carelessness (like Walter Reed) and expose--and block--Rovean overreach. And try to find a next President who is more thoughtful and judicious.

Upon which I commented

Joe is right. Hard as it is to swallow, impeachment for incompetence is not the right answer and not what the founders wanted. It's just too bad a precedent. That said, we should be absolutely vigilant for any evidence of an impeachable offense and act swiftly if it crops up.

Short of impeachment, whats to be done? One of the better (if somewhat fantastic) scenario's would be the removal of Cheney and the appointment of a compromise, centrist, caretaker VP (which is the only kind this Senate will approve). Colin Powell would be my choice but maybe there's some responsible, moderate ex-governor. So, any time and effort put into possible crimes that require the removal of Cheney is absolutely worthwhile. And the Dems should start thinking about who would be an acceptable stand in if the gap comes up.

A few more thoughts.

The most destructive effects of this administration have been the result of the symbiosis between Cheney's ideology and Bush's stupidity. These tragic failures have been enabled by the fact that Bush is dumb enough to do the evil things Cheney dreams up. Break them up and you reduce the damage, potentially, a lot.

Replacing Cheney is a really good way to contain the damage the Administration could do in the next two years. Critically, it also means that if you then come up with valid grounds for impeachment you don't end up President Cheney. A prospect that gives horrific new meaning to "out of the frying pan and into the fire". In fact, any candidate to replace Cheney as VP would have to be credible as a caretaker President, keeping in mind the real potential for this President to be impeached, resign in disgrace or otherwise be hounded from office.

Perhaps the most realistic hope of moderating out the potential damage to America and the world from this Administration is to slowly build a veto proof majority out of Democrats and disaffected Republicans. There's some hope that, at least issue by issue, moderate Republicans and those facing reelection will be persuaded to override vetoes on key pieces of legislation. It will require top class legislative leadership to pull that off and sadly it's not clear that Pelosi and Reid have what it takes. Steny Hoyer just might though.

Perhaps the bigger issue, which goes to the biggest risk for catastrophic error, is to wrest back the war power. Given the horrible consequences of stumbling in to war with Iran, Syria or North Korea, any damage Congress sustains in a full out war powers fight is a price worth paying. That course of action would require big brass ones. Which appear to be in short supply in Congress.

Finally to echo what Joe said. On Iraq, it's always a good idea to listen to Jim Webb .