Bored and Gored
You know there’s something really, really wrong with American politics when some Democrats begin to think that “the conscience of the party” is none other than Al Gore!
Now, that was a pretty darn good speech Gore gave last Monday. A damn good speech. It even moved me to the write the only complimentary words I’ve ever penned about Big Al as evidenced in my just-published L.A. Weekly column (which appears on the Weekly’s just-redesigned website).
But let’s not get carried away. As I noted in the column, Gore’s performance as well as the position he staked out were laudable mostly because of the way his new-found passion was directed across partisan lines – rather than being a re-tread of the usual sort of knee-jerk pandering to the base (Plantations, Plantations!). I contrasted Gore’s stab at an actual electoral strategy with the political onanism of holding meetings, say, to demand a Republican Congress impeach a Republican President. An excerpt:
What really set Gore’s speech apart from the ordinary sort of echo-chamber wanking was not only the venue he chose — the Constitution Hall of the Daughters of the American Revolution — but also the bigger political frame of the event. Gore was co-sponsored by the liberal American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and by the Liberty Coalition. The latter group includes not only liberals like MoveOn.org’s political-action committee, but also such rightward groups as the National Taxpayers Union, the Free Congress Foundation and American Conservative Union. Also prominently endorsing Gore’s speech was the conservative former Georgia congressman Bob Barr (who, you will remember, was an enthusiastic torturer of Bill Clinton).
Two weeks ago, Gore staged a similar and dramatic crossing of partisan lines when he spoke about global warming to a group of conservative activists at a gathering organized by none other than right-wing warrior Grover Norquist. In other words, Al Gore has been out there actually trying to convince the unconvinced, trying to build right-left coalitions on issues that really matter.
In the past, no one has been tougher on or more disdainful of Al Gore than your faithful servant. Indeed, if anyone quotes this column praising him, I’m likely to deny I ever wrote it. But if Al Gore stays on this track of the last few weeks, I might find myself actually warming to him. In the short term, he has already won my admiration if not my affection.
Unlikely, however, that Big Al will get past first base in this sudden flirtation. I remember the previous Al Gore well enough to keep my knees tightly pressed together. Dennis Perrin does a ragged slicing of Gore’s rather noxious record lest we forget. I think Perrin’s skew might be a twist or two too tight. But his underlying argument is well taken.
As I said at the top: Al Gore’s looking great ------ by contrast. That tells you everything.
January 19th, 2006 at 4:52 am
“Why not try, for once, what Al Gore has started doing? Why not show the courage and the initiative to go out there and talk to all those other people who might not agree with you? Go, Al, go (gulp).”
Al Gore has been doing this most of his adult life…maybe not as effectively or nobly as some of us might like, but he’s been doing it nonetheless. Not to be too snarky, but I really don’t think someone who is best known via venues such as The Nation and KPFK has much room for acting like Al Gore has suddenly found some bi-partisan religion that they understood all along. Al Gore is a guy who, IMHO, has had his personality and his instincts as an individual hobbled by the dynastic presumptions of his (well-intentioned and essentially decent) parents since a very tender age, and as Senator and Veep he had all of the charm and authenticity of a vacuum cleaner salesman, but he would have made a pretty good President. I won’t comment on the judgement of folks on the left who tried to sell their “comrades” the Nader horseshit as an alternative, because we’ve been through that. If anyone deserves snark in the context of Gore’s recent public pronouncements, it’s not Al but the folks so consumed by self-righteousness and the self-isolation of the left that they helped sandbag his (admittedly crappy) Presidential campaign, as well as the “liberal” press who spread what were tantamount to lies alleging Gore serially fabricated stories about himself. Al Gore - certainly by Beltway standards - is an honorable man and more thoughtful than most of his peers in public life, although he’s far from a gifted politician. His holier-than-thou critics need a reality check.
January 19th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Well said Reg. In fact, perfectly said.
January 19th, 2006 at 8:50 am
I’m not entirely sure of Al’s essential case on the NSA thing, given that in the same speech he made sure to say the folllowing:
“The threat of additional terror strikes is all too real and their concerted efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction does create a real imperative to exercise the powers of the executive branch with swiftness and agility…. Moreover, there is in fact an inherent power that is conferred by the Constitution to the president to take unilateral action to protect the nation from a sudden and immediate threat, but it is simply not possible to precisely define in legalistic terms exactly when that power is appropriate and when it is not.”
So in Al’s mind, the simple fact of W doing what he did - at least at first - was right and proper, I take it. The inherent act of what is being called “domestic spying on US citizens” was in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 probably a good idea, I think Al is saying. Do the listening, worry about the legal shit later. In fact don’t worry about it at all: you’re the president, and you say it’s justified, and the constitution gives you that power. I’m not saying that; Al said that.
So I think his basic point is that W has been doing this some combination of too much, or too long without changing the law or addressing the warrant situation somehow.
Guven that, these are actual questions I have:
Does anybody here have a good idea of how the numbers involved affect the discussion? - From my understanding what we’re talking about is a kind of ongoing seining of calls involving a very large pool of numbers, a pool that began with the original trove found I think both here and in Afghanistan, but which probably has expanded.
Like, more specifically, does anyone here have an idea how the numbers involved affects the basic doability of getting warrants even three days after, as everybody keeps saying is okay, and the fact that they didn’t even do that is evidence of something suspect?
And: does anyone here understand why the members of Congress from both parties who were told this was going on at the beginning didn’t raise a stink about it after a while, and before the NYT article?
This was a surpise to us; it wasn’t a surprise to the Congress people told. If one of them said “oh we didn’t know it was still going on” I wouldn’t believe that.
So does anyone - and this is the main question I’m trying to figure out, really - does anyone understand what the WH told those people was the reason for this, and if they told them anything on why they weren’t doing the three-day-after process, and why they weren’t going to go for some change in the law making it okay?
Thsi is my hypothesis, by the way: and it’s pure hypothesis: It may be the WH case is, it’s very useful to engage in a kind of intelligence-gathering that goes a little bit beyond what al Q believes is permissible. While it’s definitely true that they understand their cell phone and other phone talks are subject to this, they may believe that relatively new numbers or something are safe for a few days; and it’s that window we’re getting at here. (What I’m assuming is a constant chain of new numbers being involved.)
So why not change the law? Because changing the law would give away the surprise. Maybe.
Again: I’m not so much resisting the idea of an impecheable offesne as trying to get through the reality that a lot of people including me don’t have a handle on the underlying situation.
January 19th, 2006 at 9:20 am
I think he should have kept the beard though. It made him look wiser, especially next to Not-So-Curious George. Image is everything.
Also, it’s good to see that he has come out of the escapist fantasy world that he was living in after the 2000 debacle. He was in pretty bad shape if you remember: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28084
January 19th, 2006 at 9:22 am
Damn reg….you actually changed my attitude abour Gore.
Really, no snark.
January 19th, 2006 at 9:56 am
I agree reg. Pundits spoiling for a fight with anyone can be overdone and underjustified. That’s the thing with opinions. others get to decide if they’re valid or not.
Gore’s biggest critiques were for his demeanor, a standard Bush hasn’t been held to even while being stumblingly blatantly wrong. Being on the forefront is difficult but in many areas Al was right before right was cool. Science of many varities is one of those fronts.
He would have been a good president moving forward not backward in time. I’d much prefer it to this nightmare anyday. I agree with everything he said in the speech.
January 19th, 2006 at 10:17 am
Okay, here’s another stab at the substance of the NSA issue. In today’s WSJ, Victoire Toensing says:
“Even if time were not an issue, any emergency FISA application must still establish the required probable cause within 72 hours of placing the tap. So al Qaeda agent A is captured in Afghanistan and has agent B’s number in his cell phone, which is monitored by NSA overseas. Agent B makes two or three calls every day to agent C, who flies to New York. That chain of facts, without further evidence, does not establish probable cause for a court to believe that C is an agent of a foreign power with information about terrorism. Yet, post 9/11, do the critics want NSA to cease monitoring agent C just because he landed on U.S. soil?”
I wonder if she’s right that that chain of events would not establish probable cause. if so: hm. Am I outraged if they keep listening?
The scenario she describes also, by not mentioning the topic, raises another issue which seems often glided over: Does it matter, in that scenario, if Agent C is a citizen? Should it matter?
In general, are people who are outraged only outraged if the person in the US is a citizen?
And are people who are outraged outraged by eavesdropping on suspected al Q collabaoraters who are US citzens while they are overseas, as happens I believe with some regularity? And if not, what exactly is the intense moral line crossed when that person returns here - when, if in fact there is cause to suspect, he would probably be closer to carrying out whatever?
Again: these are just specific questions I keep finding myself up against as I try to sort it out.
January 19th, 2006 at 10:42 am
It’s not “Victoire” Toensing. It’s “Victoria.” Victoire would be a cool name, though, albeit probably not a woman’s name.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:06 am
Paul, I can’t answer the question as to what the handful of congressmen who were briefed were told - or thought they were told or think about it all now - but the operative words in Gore’s speech are obviously “sudden and immediate threat” as regards what he understands is legitimate emergency action by a President. I can’t imagine anyone who could torture a justification of an ongoing program of this magnitude and “fuzziness” in it’s broad objectives and scattershot means out of the notion that it’s a response to a “sudden and immediate threat”. Under that rhetorical cover, literally anything goes, the president is all powerful and answerable only to himself.
Also there’s an article in today’s Times wherein the Congressional Research Service (official, non-partisan consultants to Congress, like the Budget analysts) has determined that the consultations themselves - limited to the 8 top relevant officials - were illegal, because it wasn’t advice of a plan that could reasonably be defined as a “covert action” within the meaning of the law. Again, that gets back to the generalized, shotgun scope of the surveillance program, as opposed to an action that has some focused, limited objective within a definable time-frame. All of this stuff may seem like nitpicking, but we do have a pesky Bill of Rights and when we’ve abandoned it wholesale out of fear, we’ve always done ouselves more harm than good.
Also, I dare say and at the liklihood of veering ont a tangent that - at least in light of my take on the criticisms of the post-Cold War CIA by Bob Baer - this NSA thing falls into the realm of attempting to find technological solutions to lack of intelligence that can be most effectively addressed by putting more people in the field who speak the language, understand the cultures and are willing to take risks. (And, yes, there’s a tension here between the attempts at reigning in the CIA in the wake of the Church commission and what we’re facing with al Qaeda but - guess what - those tensions are reflective of a reality wherein we must juggle, even improvise, and revise our methods, as opposed to assuming that one or another faction of critics has the Holy Grail, because they never have. There were several layers of problems that became apparent in the CIA after 9/11, but it’s clear that as bad a job as they did - especially after the analysts’ work was filtered through Tenet’s careerist prism and Oval Office bootlicking - there was far more complexity to their analysis of Saddam’s “WMD threat” than the pro-warriors are willing to acknowldege, and they consistently did better work than the maniacs and rank amateurs in Cheney’s office who attempted to over-ride CIA and State Department “timidity” about the nature of the alleged threat.)
On the issue at hand -this administration is steeped in the kind of thinking exemplified in an old joke about an Irish bartender who “only did what God would do if he knew the facts of the case.” The extension of this power was dubious in from the first, but to continue to claim it against any oversight by Congress or courts over several years after it originated and even as it becomes public knowledge goes beyond hubris and into the realm of patent illegality.
As for impeachment, it’s a pipe dream and, frankly, would be so bad for the country even if it could be done I wouldn’t go for it. As much as I hate Bush, impeaching him - even if Cheney could go with him - and putting Denny Hastert in the Oval Office would solve nothing. Might actually make things worse on balance. (Believe it or not, I’m not a fan of a weakened USA - which is one reason I think the war in Iraq was such a mistake. Actually tied our hands on stuff that likely matters more than Saddam did and surely empowers the Iranians over the long run - or maybe not so long. I doubt they’d be so glib about advertising their nuclear intentions if the U.S. hadn’t spent most of it’s Middle EAst political capital and wasn’t bogged down in Baghdad, ironically with their allies on the verge of taking over most of the country through a U.S.-sanctioned political process.) Rather than impeachment, I’d like to see the emergence of a faction of Republicans who are fed up with administration over-reaching beginning to work with Democrats to force some oversight on certain of the more outrageous of administration actions. That’s the best hope, and it’s hardly likely.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:12 am
Since Sept of 2002 when he gave a speech outlining the reasons not to invade Iraq and listing the likely consequences accurately Al Gore has shown just what we missed when the 2000 election was stolen. I am not surprised that Marc is not impressed. If FDR were around he’d still be an unwitting Nader acoylte. The fact is there is a growing feeling among a lot of Dem activists that a “Draft Gore” movement is needed. You know, we could do a lot worse. I note that even Arianna Huffington now says nice things about the former VP. So maybe I should change my mind.
In the meantime I’ll put in with Reg and let Marc cavort with the other PJ types and diss his betters while some of us still try to save this benighted country from fools on both sides.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:21 am
reg -
On your first point, right, it’s only in the aftermath of 9-11 that both “sudden” and “immediate” would obviously apply. That’s why Gore (I think) would limit his approval of the basic act to that context.
It’s only a side point, but it is a point: many critics seem to respond to the crude argument “the president can do anything” with horror, aside from context. Gore does agree, though, that in certain contexts the president can do anything, and constitutitionally, it’s only the president who can define that context.
Not that I’m approving of what W has done, the length of it and all - although I might still - but the simple argument of “the president can do anyting” is not the blinding proof of a power-mad president or hypnotized Republicans willing to sacrifice all our freedomspeople seem to assume. It’s not susbtance-free.
It’s true that we need better human intelligence and it’s true it’s easy to reach for a quick fix. But if my hypothesis of the reasoning is anywhere near accurate, it still would strike me as at least a defensible idea - constitutional questions aside. Assumig the threat is real at all, al Qaeda depends on holes in our system. if we can plug a hole without them knowing, well, hm. But it does definitely get thorny if the way we don’t let them know is by sidestepping the Constitution in a way they thought we wouldn’t.
So again, aside from the legality of the consultations: I’d be dying to learn what they were told, and what they tbought about it over the intervening years.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:24 am
On the second question…don’t you think that finding a phone number in the logs of a captured al Qaeda agent would constitute “probable cause” at least long enough beyond the 72 hours to determine whether or not this is somebody’s cousin in Queens who doesn’t have a clue or another Atta. Also, wouldn’t some hands-on investigation of suspects by agents on the ground yield more than scattershot listening filtered by computers. Frankly, I don’t think this is about phone numbers connected to al Qaeda suspects, but about running a needle-in-haystack data mining operation. There’s a legal way around that one, incidentally, which is for MI6, or whichever Brits are into this technology, to data-mine calls to the U.S. and the NSA to data-mine calls around Europe (if it’s illegal in any of those countries, which it’s probably not) and send relevant information to the partner agency when they hit something suspicious. It would be legal like one of those “technically true” deals, “we recieved information from British intelligence that Saddam tried to buy uranium from Niger” deals. I personally would be shocked if they don’t do that in response to any restraints they face in the wake of these disclosures. I assume that al Qaeda agents are more cynical (or at least assume as much improvisatory skill on the part of their adversaries’ intelligence operations) as me - which is one reason I can’t figure out how these operations could be yielding much useful information. Maybe I’m mistaken, but if these guys living in trailer parks in Florida can fill my bulk email with not-so-subtly coded messages that have fake ips and originating email addresses and don’t seem to get caught by “internet police”, couldn’t al Qaeda agents figure out some pretty simple codes and filtering that would pass through a data-mining bank ? I don’t really know, and maybe the truth of the matter is that most everybody’s kinda stupid and we’re really lucky that they are.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:25 am
On impeachment: I am begining to suspect that the Democrats are thinking seriously about setting up the ‘06 mid-terms as a path to regaining control or near-control of Congress so they can impeach W. Theres a big base groundswell for it.
By the way, I have a near-loathing for Gore for very specific reasons but I won’t get into it now.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:28 am
I won;t be able to take the time to find the link, but I think tje origins of this at least are about al Q-related phone numbers. I think it started with the troves they found after 9-11, especially on computers in Afghanistan.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:34 am
“I am begining to suspect that the Democrats are thinking seriously about setting up the ‘06 mid-terms as a path to regaining control or near-control of Congress so they can impeach W. Theres a big base groundswell for it.”
Paul, this is a weird thing to say coming from me, but I think you spend too much time on the internet.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:41 am
” I’d be dying to learn what they were told, and what they tbought about it over the intervening years.”
Senator Rockefeller was pretty clear that he thought this thing stepped over the line, but felt constrained by his position as one of the inner sanctum confidantes to go public with it or speak out. Which is why it’s hypocritical for folks on the right to yap about “the Democrats knew”, because they clearly were deliberately put in the position of being damned if they do or damned if they didn’t as far as raising an alarm about this. Nobody with the mentality of a U.S. Senator who’s risen to a top committee position is about to go whistle-blower - something Cheney and Bush understood and used in order to give themselves a thin cover. That’s why Rockefeller sent Cheney the letter to the effect, “if this ever comes out, I want it on the record that I think it sucks”. Like Cheney would give a shit.
January 19th, 2006 at 11:51 am
I do spend too much time on the internet, absolutely no doubt. But I don’t think you need to spend too much time on the internet to pick up the impeachment rumblings. You can also spend too much time reading newspapers and listening to the radio.
I wouldn’t expect them to “go whistleblower.” But if they really thought this was criminally unjustified, I would think there’s measures they could take: warning the White House that this was serious and they were going to cause trouble within channels; whatever. It would take balls or the female version thereof. There’s a reason the consultations are required, right? There must be some expectation that a meaningul negative reaction is feasible.
If, that is, they thought it absurd. So it all gets back to: I wonder what they were told. I hope that comes out some time.
I read the NYT article; it implies these briefings had been ongoing, which I wasn’t sure of. Were they? That deepnes my question, and draws me to the internet.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
It certainly is nice to see Al get some sand, as it seems few others are preaching the message, or maybe they just don’t have the heft Al does and can’t scale all the way to A1.
Still, and I know we’ve done this topic before, I don’t get the continuing fascination with Clinton and Gore. The bill of charges against them is well established, and reg, one hardly needs to be the lonely loony anarchist or greenest Green to think Gore is not cut from the finest Presidential cloth. If what one wants from the President is leadership on serious issues now largely ignored by the corrupt geese honking away in Washington, well, let’s hold off on the chisels–he wouldn’t get anywhere near Rushmore. The list of topics not on the national agenda is scary really, and few of these things were on Gore’s agenda. I’ll grant that he might have been a slight improvement over Bill, but shouldn’t we want something a little greater than that?
Bill and Al, despite serving two terms, will be remembered mainly for the gloaming their beloved DLC brought down on the Democratic Party.
But, I’ll repeat, it is nice to hear Al going after King George and actually talk about a foundation of liberty intelligently–a foundation that has nothing to do with shutting up and toeing the line which is what the midgets keep telling us.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Dan O -
The midgets I see are the midgets who insist on various things about midgets they see.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Toensing is a paid for government shill. Her take is so biased as to be irrelavant. Just an advocate lawyer arguing for her client.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Whatever.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Well Paul, you have far too many midgets for me to keep track of, but I’m referring to cynical denuciations by the administartion of dissent, and the cynical way in which they use the military to squelch dissent. I don’t hear Gore doing any of that. In case I wasn’t clear.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
From what I can see ex-liberals who decide, out of a sudden 9-11 blind fear, to go native and become residents of wingerville will be just as inmpossible to convince of anything close to reality as longtime residents of that town.
Every advocate stance they read no matter how speculative will always be prima facie. The Internet is loaded with such rubber rooms. It’s also loaded with good factual information. Purveying that in the proper context and weight is the job a journalists, not amateurs and advocates.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
You talkin’ to me? You must be talkin’ to me.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Wait a monute: are you sayign the blog world should be totally ignored, unelss it’s teh blog of an otherwise-employed journalist? Wow. Prety anti-evolutionary, man.
January 19th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Seriously though Mark: I offer some questions. I’m really not sure about them. reg responds with substance. It’s all good. Then here’s you: “the source you cite is a tool of the neo-fasciists, and you are a hypnotized convert even worse than the original neofascists.”
Okay. Points granted. Any thoughts on what I was bringing up?
January 19th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
Dan O -
I just hate argumentation that relies on acknowledging only the worst and sleaziest opposing argument. That’s what I thought you were falling into with your quick comment.
January 19th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
I agree Paul, although you haven’t interacted with me enough to know that. Still, it’s increasingly hard to be generous to these guys, and more and more, the sleaziest arguments are the only ones they have, sadly. I think we all yearn for something greater which is why the recent stirrings from Gore are a little bit of light.
January 19th, 2006 at 1:28 pm
My one remaining flaw is a bit of a hairtrigger reaction to what I take as code words for intellectual vacuousness. Forgive me.
January 19th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
That quote isn’t mine. I’m disagreeing with the evidence and substance of the site, and author. In this case toesning who I listened to intensively. She is her background.
Codw words is another sign of vacuousness.
January 19th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
I believe you also said you abhorred Gore but couldn’t say why. Where’s the beef in that presumption of guilt, for what pray tell? Inveting the Internet or some other untruth that’s been sprwad online for years?
January 19th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
“Couldn’t” say why? Where the hell did that come from?
And then galloping off to the first available potential example of my stupidity. Amazing.
Just for that I’m not going to tell you why. Instead I’m going to get off the internet and get some work done.
January 19th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Reg, what i dont get in any of your rather robust defences of the dems, is the admissison or realization that the party is being led by people who voted to authorize the unconstitutional war-by harry reid and hillary clinton: by people who made substancelss charges abour weopns of mass destruction, like howard dean and pelopsi, and have failed to recant these testomonials. There have been some, who have consistently stood up to bush, on iraq, on surveilleace, like Mckinney, barbara lee, or Mcdermott but they havew been few are far between. In your obsession with Nader you’re unable to understand why many of us are unwilling, on principle, to line up subseriantly behind the death penalty, welfare reform, the rpsion industry, all planks in your mans presidential campaign. I undertand political strategy. i’ve worked with liberals and wiull ocntinue to do so, but please have some perspective. The reality is that Bush could have the most odious forms of the patriot act, or spying programs, were it not for the passage of clinton and gores noxious attack of civil libeeties, represented in their “anti terrrorism” legislation. Our system is fundementally rotten and this isnt only about bush. let malcolm said we need to go after the man downtown
January 19th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Off topic but kind of interesting
A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP? I hear that Al Gore and Ralph Nader - whose third-party candidacy is still blamed by some Democrats for Gore’s 2000 defeat by George W. Bush - are actually quite cordial these days. The two former antagonists are apt to run into each other this weekend while accumulating bags of swag at the Sundance Film Festival, where they’ll be attending the premieres of documentaries about themselves. “I think Gore is much better out of office,” Nader told me yesterday, adding that he’s a big fan of the ex-veep’s speeches about the Bush administration (which he believes should be collected in a book), including yesterday’s barnburner attacking President Bush’s surveillance of American citizens. “That’s the speech the Democratic leadership in Congress should have given weeks ago,” Nader said, adding puckishly: “I bear him no ill will. He took more votes from me than I did from him.”
January 19th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
AN OVERLONG RESPONSE TO AHMED - SORRY, BUT I LIKE AHMED
I don’t have any illusions about the Democratic leadership. That said, I think one of the illusions I don’t have is that they are as bad as you claim they are. Let’s get this straight. I believe we are destined to live in a capitalist epoch for quite some time and need to learn to live with it. I don’t believe in “overturning the system” and think any such plans are doomed to irrelevance at best and bizarre, byzantine failure (Russia, China) at worst. That’s probably a fundamental difference we would have. I believe in reforming “the system” as much as possible - and I think the history of the 20th century shows that a lot of reform is possible, while a very great more is badly needed. I also believe that the worse things get, the worse things get - things getting worse isn’t a prelude to some great awakening of the working class but more likely a prelude to people believing less and less in the values of citizenship and looking more and more to some form of deliverance that is likely to be fascist, to one degree or another. I believe, at core, in the values of the New Deal at it’s best. As for the “left Dems” you mention, they aren’t uniformly my ideal politicos. I’m represented by Barbara Lee, but guess what? I’m not a big fan. I respected her vote against the Afghan war, but I didn’t agree with it. On some other issues I, frankly, find her simplistic and too predictable to totally trust her judgement. (Most of the folks who came up under Ron Dellums out here had neither his intellect nor his class and some of them were knee-jerk lefties with links to some of the creepier Bay Area radical hacks like Angela Davis.) I loathe Cynthia McKinney. I like the center-left Dems like Feingold. Particularly treasure the political lineage of folks from the northern midwest who’ve maintained a progressive tradition without succumbing to any affectations of moonbattery. That’s as radical as I’m willing to get. As for Malcolm, I love him as an iconoclastic cultural figure - he said things a lot of people felt, but were loathe to state publicly - but his actual political legacy pretty much sucked. All of the strains of the black movement that attempted to follow what they understood as his political path ended up in even worse cul de sacs than King’s rather motley and opportunistic heirs. Just putting my cards on the table. I think that the politics we need in this era - here, Europe, Latin America, wherever - are roughly those of the center-left social democratic parties. Here that’s the Dems, although it’s probably the most disappointing of a disappointing lot. Are these parties - and the social terrain they face - fraught with problems. Of course. But I’ll take their problems over the problems - not to mention irrelevance - of the far left any day. Say what you will about these reformist outfits, their failures and flaws are certainly no more egregious than those of the folks to their left and their achievements are more lasting and significant. All of the Trotskyists on all of the streetcorners will never erase the fact that the post-or-anti-social-democratic tradition of the leninist left was one of the most dishonest, oppressive, deadly and counter-productive political tendencies in the history of mankind. That’s no small feat, and certainly not for a movement that was - on the level of daily political struggle in the capitalist countries - harnessing the energies of some of the most idealistic, courageous folk one could find.
As for some independently radical “Naderism” or “Green Politics” that rejects the worst of the far left and the worst of the liberals, Paul Wellstone proved that the Democratic Party is such a broad and inclusive - in both the best and worst sense of the concept - and, ultimately, loose structure, that outsider, spoiler politics that don’t take the challenge not just of reform, but of reforming the only political vehicle in this country that has any likelihood of bringing real reform onto the table, aren’t just a pipe dream but a self-isolating choice one doesn’t have to make. I would be, personally, embarrassed to reject the party of Gavin Newsom, Howard Dean and Russ Feingold because parliamentary party leaders like Pelosi and Reid measure their words with a micrometer or because The Nation’s hero of the moment, Senator Byrd, has an unsavory past and represents one of the last living bastions of authentic conservatism. What else is new ? And actually, I think it’s a good thing there’s a place in the party for characters like him. Or Jack Murtha, another authentic conservative. The alternative ? The day that Lula or Bachelet or some other hopeful, “authentically leftist” democratically elected face can start changing the world with a magic wand rather than muddle through, or the day that media-dazed, consumption-crazed masses throw off the chains of false consciousness and rise up as an aroused, informed democratic citizenry, give me a call and I’ll drop some of my very modestly hopeful pessimism. Meanwhile, we make do.
YOU’LL HATE THIS EVEN MORE: As for “baseless assertions” that Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction”, frankly I think this is an argument that “both sides” (the Bushniks and their more kneejerk detractors) tend to make very badly from the weakest of premises. It wasn’t irrational to assume that Saddam probably had some so-called WMDs stockpiled, because he clearly wanted to keep some elements of doubt alive for reasons of regional strategy. One of the arguments Al Gore made in his first speech on Iraq that Nader apparently approves of was based on the assumption that Saddam had some of these types of weapons stashed away and that toppling him would make them more susceptible to control by terrorists. We now know, based on the near-complete lack of planning for controlling a post-war environment in Iraq, that this would probably have happened if such weapons as were believed to exist had actually existed. Certainly the lack of control over conventional, although extremely deadly, weapons stashes suggests this. The argument in my mind at the time was whether Saddam posed an iminent threat or “clear and present danger” not controllable by conventional strategies short of pre-emption. Frankly, had Bush engaged in the Bogarting of Saddam through 2002, gotten the inspectors in as he did (let’s remember that it WAS Bush’s belligerence that got Blix back in) and let them do their work without resorting to war, he would have been considered something of a strategic genius. And Saddam would have continued to be contained - even more effectively contained than had been proven to date. Anyone who claims that there was evidence of Saddam coordinating with al Qaeda or being close to gaining a nuclear capacity was pulling a casus belli wishlist out of their ass. But I don’t believe that anyone in 2002 could claim either that Saddam absolutely did have large stocks of certain weapons stocks forbidden under UN resolutions or that he had absolutely none. The best argument pro was that Saddam appeared to be playing cat and mouse. The best argument against was that the administration was clearly pushing evidence of weapons programs that were exaggerated or very flimsy. Persistent use of bad evidence on the part of BushCo should have raised more criticism and suspicion by the Democrats (and sane Republicans, for that matter), but I don’t think it was irrational to assume Saddam wasn’t engaged in full disclosure. What was irrational was thinking he was a significant threat to the U.S. or that the political aftermath of a war requiring extended occupation would be as easy as toppling a tinpot dictator or that turning him into a cornered rat held no great dangers if one did, in fact, buy into the notion that he’d secreted some chem or bio stockpiles, which certainly wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.
January 19th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE
There are SIX MAJOR issues that I have with “MR TOO LATEâ€:
1. Gore capitulated like a “lackluster lump of lard†in the 2000 Presidential Election, after he won 500,000 more popular votes than Bush—-he couldn’t muster-up a microscopic amount of gumption to aggressively fight that overtly fraudulent election.
2. He selected that sneaky snake from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman, for his vice-president. If Joe wasn’t Jewish he would be vying for Pat Robertson’s pulpit.
3. Clinton/Gore mindlessly expanded the PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, three fold— curtailed death row prisoners’ habeas corpus appeals.
4. Clinton/Gore passed NAFTA, which has been devastating for the working-class—-as well as expanding our role in the exploitation of third world countries.
5. Clinton/Gore failed to resolve the issue of universal health-care; after Hilary’s attempts were squelched—-the issue was dropped
faster than you could say “close, but no cigar!â€
6. Clinton/Gore launched The CIA’s controversial “rendition” program to have terror suspects captured and questioned on foreign soil.
What we can say about Gore and not Bush, is that Al’s brain waves are detected on the “MENTAL RICTER SCALE†whereas Bush’s brain waves show no sign of human life– it’s all spilt milk—there’s no use in living in the past; it’s time to move on and get out a fresh paper towel to clean-up the current mess!
January 19th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Great comments reg. I agree with nearly everthing you have said, except that it is precisely that center-left position that I see the leadership of the Democratic party sprinting away from at every opportunity. That of course is the DLC crowd and they have been in charge of the party now for over ten years, and the goods they deliver–policy or electoral achievments–haven’t been too stellar. There will always be a spectrum of vews in both parties, and good that there are. But I think to be truly successful the main voice needs to be the slightly left of center voice you like. Right now it’s the voice of DLC architects and it just ain’t working.
But it’s not just a voice. They, the DLC that is, don’t tolerate broadness in the party. They are zealots in the same way that the neo-cons are. Look at the way the “handled” Howard Dean by trashing him with the same rhetoric the Republicans use. It’s apostasy to reject their center right policy and strategy. It’s hard to argue, that while third party alternatives are going to fail, the Democratic party, as it currently behaves, has serious problems, and those problems stem from the narrow DLC strategy of running to the right. Gore, as you know, was a chief architect of this strategy, and look at the fine mess we’re in.
I want some more fightin’ Dems and not all these play-ball lap dogs.
January 19th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
What reg said. This “the dems are just as bad as the GOPers” theme is ludicrous. I see no evidence of that. I do see continual refusal to hear the many valid points they have and continue to make. The tin-ear is clearly on the other foot er… head.
January 19th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
So, question of the day: If Richard Nixon could be politically rehabilitated after losing a presidential election, and being humiliated in the California gubernatorial election (and throwing a tantrum over it in the bargain), who is to say that Al Gore couldn’t be politically rehabilitated after winning a presidential election?
Or, to put it another way, what is it about Al Gore that renders him unelectable? Gore running again is certainly a lot more credible than Kerry running again.
January 19th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Look…to be honest I hate most of the fucking Democrats for most of the same reasons outlined by Ahmed and Eleanor. And they almost always manage to put their worst foot forward. That’s as true as the “nuanced, reasonable” stuff I wrote above. But they’re real…and that’s not gonna change.
Also, I don’t think it makes much sense to hold the guy running for President to a very high standard, because - rather than the pinnacle of anything - it’s really mucking around at the bottom of the barrel searching frantically for some least-common denominator. It’s a pathetic, disgusting process, made worse by the evolution of the cable TV 24/7 news cycle, proliferation of blow-dried poseurs playing “reporter” and infotainment journalism. Given all this, have you ever noticed that the handful of guys who truly seem to enjoy the role are one’s like Clinton and Reagan who are so good at faking sincerity they’ve completely seduced themselves. There’s something pathological about pursuit of the modern Presidency. That said, a guy like Nader could have far more effectively used the Democratic primary process to push the debate and faced off on the campaign trail with Gore - or whoever - over some of the stickier issues and their overt opportunism than by running an outsider campaign only to siphon off a handful of super-liberal and radical voters. I also have to say that I’d support longer terms for people in the Congress, because that two-year electoral cycle turns them into even bigger fundraising whores than I’ll bet even many of them can stomach. No wonder so many of them give real whores a bad name. Carville’s proposal to let challengers raise money any way they can while limiting incumbents to public funds at 80% parity is an interesting - if extremely unlikely - approach to the problem of innate corruption fostered by raising campaign funds. It means once a candidate actually gets elected, they are free to serve their district as best they see fit and don’t have to spend most of their time hustling.
January 19th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
Just a little more info regarding FISA and “domestic surveillance‖
As we all now know, there is a SECRET COURT composed of 11 members called the FISA COURT (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court). The Judges on this court are all appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court , John Roberts, who was nominated by Bush.
One FISA Judge has already resigned, James Robertson, who was appointed to the FISA Court by Rehnquist. You remember him, he was the previous Chief Justice and a mentor to John Roberts, who replaced him. Rehnquist was also one of the key Judges responsible for anointing Bush in the 2000 election.
So why would James Robertson resign from this secret court, well word as it, that this illegal surveillance activity was even getting too scary for him. He had mentioned to a couple of associates that he felt deep concern for Bush’s WARRANTLESS SURVEILLANCE program. He felt that it was illegal and tainted the FISA Court.
Well I would take it one step further, it not only tainted the FISA Court it nullified it! SO NOW EVEN A SECRET COURT IS NOT SECRET ENOUGH!
And what is more interesting is that Robertson, was concerned that the information gained form warrantless NSA surveillance would then be used to obtain FISA warrants. So first Bush would illegally tell the military to spy, and then use that illegal information to get a legal warrant.
FISA court Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who had been briefed on the spying program by the administration, raised the same concern in 2004 and insisted that the Justice Department certify in writing that it was not occurring. Some of the FISA Judges say they feel they’ve participated in a “Potemkin courtâ€â€”the whole enterprise was just a sham.
Bush said the White House briefed Congress more than a dozen times. But those briefings were conducted with only 8 lawmakers who were sworn to secrecy and prevented from discussing the matter with anyone or from seeking outside legal opinions.
Two members of each committee received full briefings on intelligence operations, preventing staffs from carrying out meaningful research.
So why did Bush need warrantless searches? He said that he would lose valuable information if he needed to wait for a warrant.
But he was never impeded by the FISA Court; the Judges never refused any requests for warrants from the White House.
And how about the PATRIOT ACT–section 215 of the Patriot Act allows Federal Agents to demand a list of what individuals have checked out of the public library.
In addition to obtaining this info, they have the right to conduct a search of your private records without notifying the Individual who is being searched. That means you’re being watched but you don’t know it! They can check your: financial records; phone records; medical records and travel records– all in the guise of your protection.
But who protects us from these protectors? Before the enactment of the Patriot Act, the government needed a warrant or probable cause to access personal information. Under the FISA act of 1978, you could only justify “warrantless†surveillance when gathering foreign intelligence.
BUT NOW, the FBI only needs to substantiate to a FISA judge that the search is to fight terrorism. And since John Roberts appoints the FISA Judges—Bush is never denied! So are they really “data mining†for terrorists or are they digging-up domestic dirt?
January 19th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
“the ‘liberal’ press who spread what were tantamount to lies alleging Gore serially fabricated stories about himself. Al Gore - certainly by Beltway standards - is an honorable man and more thoughtful than most of his peers in public life, although he’s far from a gifted politician. His holier-than-thou critics need a reality check.”
Reg, they are much holier than Albert Gore, that is for sure.
To be certain, Reg, if there is anyone in Washington who could reasonably hold a patent on “fabricated stories” about his or her opponents, it is your hero Al Gore. Willie Horton, to name but one example, was not the creation of Lee Atwater; it was first trotted out by Gore during his primary race against Dukakis, and specifically targeted for primary voters in the south.
This man who you praise - the son of a man from Tennessee who was one of only a few senators who voted against the Civil Rights Act - reveled in political dirty tricks. Gore - or you, for that matter - have no business shedding crocodile tears over misrepresentations of facts, when Al Gore himself misrepresented facts whenever he saw fit.
And for him to pontificate about the excesses of executive power….pull the other one, mate. The administration that he was in did nothing to investigate the software theft allegedly perpetrated by Bush I’s people. His administration bombed both Kosovo and Iraq without approval from Congress, thus violating both the Constitution and the War Powers Act of 1974 by not getting approval from Congress (broken by other administrations, yes, but that still doesn’t make it right) When he sat in the Senate during the Iran-Contra hearings, he raised very few if any objections to the Reagan administration’s abuse of power. I could go on and on but the information is out there, if any of you care to venture beyond the confines of a mainstream media that, in my opinion, has been quite easy on the former vice-president.
January 19th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
Just to deal with one of your charges about Gore (who isn’t “my hero” incidentally, by a long shot), your citation of Willie Horton proves my point. Al Gore never brought the person of Willie Horton into the campaign. He asked Dukakis about whether he had supported furloughs for prisoners who later committed crimes, but Horton’s name never came up and Horton’s picture never was used by Gore, nor did Gore raise any racial issues related to the furloughs. Lee Atwater was the first one to use either the name or image of Willie Horton against Dukakis and it was done deliberately in a way to fuel racism rather than debate the legitimacy or liberality of the Massachusetts furlough program. The conventional wisdom that Al Gore was the first to smear Dukakis with Willie Horton has been repeated by every right-wing pundit you can name, from Novak to Hannity, but there is absolutely no evidence of in any transcript of a debate or any campaign materials emanating from Gore’s corner. I agree with some of your criticism of Gore, but other parts of it are either inaccurate or unfair - like raising the question of his father’s vote on the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. For the record, Al Gore Sr. was also one of only three Southern senators to refuse to sign on to the anti-integration “Southern Manifesto” in the fifites, he publicly apologized for his 1964 and earlier anti-civil rights votes when he voted for the Voting Rights Act in 1965, he was a pretty solid opponent of the Vietnam war and was one of the explicit targets of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” of bringing unreconstructed Dixiecrat voters into the GOP fold. In the context of his time and place, Al Gore Sr. was also one of the better specimens of Beltway pols from the South.
Of course, he obviously wasn’t holier than thou, even given some of the flaws in your assertions.
January 19th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
“folks on the left who tried to sell their “comrades†the Nader horseshit”
I voted for Nader in 2000 and 2004, and I don’t regret that vote at all.
In 1994 and 1995, polls consistently showed that a solid majority of Americans were in favor of Neo-liberal style “free trade” and solidly against universal health care coverage for all Americans.
In 2005, those polls have literally reversed themselves, and Ralph Nader, perhaps more than any politician - if you can call him that - is responsible for this trend.
Speaking of Gore, I can remember when NAFTA (George Bush’s old bill) was being lobbied by the Clinton administration to congress. Gore was the point man in selling these tickets.
So, a debate was arranged. Did this debate concerning an issue affecting all Americans take place in, say, an academic setting with opposing panels of academics familiar with global economics debating their views? Nope. Was it televised in a town hall setting with non-scripted questions from the audience? No, not even that. No, it took place, per Clinton-Gore wishes, on the “Larry King Show” on CNN (at a time in which King could squeeze this in between his Joey Buttafuco and Tonya Harding interviews, presumably).
And who did Gore agree to debate on Larry King? Well, there were some well qualified, articulate people who could have debated Gore on the show. Noam Chomsky? He said he would have if he’d been asked. Ralph Nader? No, he said he wasn’t asked either, although he was the central figure in the fight against the treaty. Jesse Jackson? No, not even him.
No - Gore agreed to only debate…Ross Perot. So, aside from proving that, yes, there really was a UFO crash at Roswell in the the 1930’s (and that the alien from that crash walks among us), it also demonstrated to America - if they were paying attention - that Gore and his administration wanted to paint a right wing crack pot as the face of the NAFTA opposition. In fact, in the debate, Gore characterized (fraudulently) the opposition to NAFTA as isolationists.
Nader’s campaign (which really began in 1996, in his limited presidential campaign), if nothing else, provided a rational and sensible voice to those of us who will not stand by idle while the Republicans and the DLC branch of the Democratic party (read, Al Gore/Bill Clinton) turn our country into a feudalistic wasteland held hostage to the desires of a few powerful lords.
Clinton and Gore may have looked good in their tailored suits and blow dried hair compared to Nader’s J.C. Penny attire, but I will take substance over style any day.
January 19th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
You are correct about the Willie Horton issue. I just called someone who is knowledgable of these matters and he set the record straight. I apologize and retract this statement.
January 19th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
Nader had no chance so that’s what gave us W. Nice work. Bill’s on you.
January 19th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
The strange thing is, I have been a New York Times and a Wall Street Journal subscriber and I can remember reading a cornucopia of stories alleging this at around the same time. My apologies again to Gore.
January 19th, 2006 at 7:49 pm
And Nader chose a path - independent “Green” campaign for the Jackpot, rather than Democratic primary challenges - that guaranteed he would be shut out of debating the major candidates he was trying to nudge to the left, the Dems, fracture liberal ranks with a bitter argument over a strategy that’s patently pointless on the face of it, and - who knows - maybe hand the Presidency to some GOP crackpot who’ll go start a war in the Middle East, appoint an ultra-conservative majority to the Supreme Court, attempt to dismantle Social Security and god knows what else before it’s all over. But hey…it’s a matter of putting substance over
style…
January 19th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
“The strange thing is, I have been a New York Times and a Wall Street Journal subscriber and I can remember reading a cornucopia of stories alleging this at around the same time.”
That’s what’s so creepy about it…the WSJ, of course, doesn’t surprise me, but one would expect better of the Times. On the other hand, the Times was instrumental in spinning Whitewater into a much bigger deal than it ever deserved.
January 19th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Mark, If Gore had become president, things would not have turned out any better, in my opinion. Can you name one piece of domestic or foreign policy that he would have done differently from the current president?
Reg, thank you for filling me in on Al Gore’s father better.
January 19th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
“Clinton and Gore may have looked good in their tailored suits and blow dried hair compared to Nader’s J.C. Penny attire, but I will take substance over style any dayâ€
That is the problem—presidential campaigns are like watching a circus carnival or episodes of Trump’s Apprentice—everything is geared to entertainment and image.
The average American reads at the level of a 6th or 7th grader and are “deeply concerned†about not missing an episode of “Lost.†Mainstream media and culture SUSTAINS our political system.
It’s hard to confront and contradict propaganda—that’s the one thing Madison Avenue and Hollywood is very good at!
January 19th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
“Can you name one piece of domestic or foreign policy that he would have done differently from the current president?”
Do you really believe he would have done the Iraq war ?
Also, wouldn’t you rather have two more Justices more similiar to Ginsburg on the Court than Roberts and Alito ?
I guess I’m sort of stunned by this kind of question…and, as I think I made clear above, I’m not someone who was in love with either Clinton or Gore and considered them both DLC tools who were fundamentally wrong-headed about some key issues and clearly opportunistic on some others, but it’s hard to imagine either one of them running as far or as fast in the absolute wrong direction or promoting as primitive a wordlview as the pair of 110% hard-right creeps we’ll have endured for eight years by the time it’s all over. And the worst of it is that the entire terrain of political discourse will have been shifted even further to the right than it was by 1992, more problems will have festered and we’ll all have grown so used to debating stuff like should we have a massive surveillance system WITH secret warrants by a secret court or WITHOUT secret warrants by a secret court that a moderate DLC type (we dare not speak her name) who at least doesn’t want to put Grandma in penury or invade the rest of the Middle East will seem like a God-send by 2008.
The more I think about this, the more I think we’re pretty much fucked.
January 19th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
“hand the Presidency to some GOP crackpot who’ll go start a war in the Middle East, appoint an ultra-conservative majority to the Supreme Court, attempt to dismantle Social Security and god knows what else before it’s all over. But hey…it’s a matter of putting substance over”
On the eve of the invasion of Iraq, Al Gore did not specifically oppose the invasion of Iraq. as for the Supreme Court…I believe it was Senator Gore who voted for both Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, and voted for Rehnquist to be Chief Justice. As for social security privatization…well, although his running mate in 2000, Joe Lieberman, had been a traditional advocate of that, Gore apparently wasn’t. So good for him. But do you think that really Bush had any chance of pulling this off? Americans traditionally don’t like to bite the hand that feeds their parents and grandparents…I think it is obvious that no politician will ever have the political capital to pull this one off (even Reagan didn’t have the cajonies).
Dennis Kuncinich tried to do what you suggested, and instead he just became marginalized. I doubt if very many Americans to this day even knew he was a candidate for President.
I went to Nader rallies in 2000 and 2004 and I can honestly tell you that I have never seen so much enthusiasm. I know that Bush winning was a bummer - to put it mildly - but when you do the right thing, things tend to turn out good in the end. I just couldn’t picture myself voting for the latest DLC candidate deemed appropriate by the New Republic, and then running for the nearest toilet in nausea and shame.
When I walked out of the voting booth in 2000 and 2004, I could look at myself in the mirror.
January 19th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
I guess what I should have added to that last post was this question, to both Reg and Mark, or any critic of third party candidates: at what point - if you think that there should be such a point - do we draw a line in the sand? We are all aware of the Democratic party’s betrayal in the area of destroyed welfare benefits for mothers and their children, unfair free trade agreements, telecommunications, corporate welfare, the failed war on drugs, and so on.
The message, however, from leading Democratic thinktanks in the wake of the 2004 election is that we need to “reach out to red state voters.”
Well, lets take Alabama. Most of the people in Alabama, I am sure, are good people. But in a 2004 ballot initiative on the day that they reelected Bush, a majority of Alabama voters approved a measure which is designed to undermine the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act of the 1960’s. Outrageous! Are these the kind of people whom we want be “reaching out to?” A good number of Democratic politicians in Alabama, it should be said, have supported this measure….would you support these kinds of people?
I guess the question that I have always wanted to ask Gore and Kerry supporters is this: What won’t you accept?
January 19th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
“Can you name one piece of domestic or foreign policy that he would have done differently from the current president?”
Oh Jesus Christ yes: all of them. Just natural resource policy alone is enough to sink your ship. Suffering Jesus. Go educate yourself.
January 19th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
Stunned reg? I’m flabbergasted and exasperated. Son of a bitch on a cracker.
January 19th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Given the fact that the Clinton/Gore record on the environment from 93-01 was calculated to be the worst record of any president up until that time, your post, Mark, still isn’t convincing.
You don’t know for an absolute certainty that Gore would have done things differently. But it is an absolute certainty that Nader would not have been this bad on this issue and many other issues. I would rather go with a sure thing. Gore and Bush were just too much alike for me.
Maybe they would have been a little different, but not enough for me to compromise myself in the voting booth.
January 19th, 2006 at 9:46 pm
“Dennis Kuncinich tried to do what you suggested, and instead he just became marginalized. I doubt if very many Americans to this day even knew he was a candidate for Presidentâ€
During the debates or when you we were able to hear Kuncinich’s message– it made a lot of sense. And everything that Ralph Nadar says about corporate American is absolutely correct—but the Democratic Party doesn’t embrace their philosophy. So is it possible that we are deluded into thinking that we have a two party system, but it is really; “same and more of the same.â€
Fifty percent of the population is too apathetic to vote; because psychologically they have disenfranchised themselves from the system, believing that it’s total BS.
Democrats need to spend some of their campaign funds to purchase a few COURAGEOUS SPINES! We are long overdue for some major campaign reform—the whole process is too lengthy and too costly. Candidates should be able to spread their message without paying a fee to mainstream media—this is a Presidential Election, not advertisement for a flea market.
Two million people are now warehoused in our penal system—why can’t they vote? If you commit a crime, does that mean you are no longer a human being? Many are warehoused for offenses which are drug related and not violent?
Besides if the prison population could vote, it would be one less factor that will not be attributed to data base irregularities.
January 19th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
Well said, Eleanore.
Look, I will concede that there are some differences between Gore/Kerry/Clinton and George W. Bush, and I also agree that life under Gore or Kerry would be marginally better than it is under G.W. Bush. I know that I made a blanket statement earlier (”Name one piece of domestic or foreign policy, yadda yadda”) that was ill-advised, but you have to understand that my puppy had to be put to sleep yesterday and so I’ve been hitting me Irish whiskey something bad this evening.
Still, I go back to my original question: What would be unacceptable to you in a Democratic Party nominee for president?
January 20th, 2006 at 8:01 am
First time poster here.
Just a quick comment for David C. - we don’t participate in politics so we can feel good about or selves or be able to look at ourselves in the mirror after we step out of the polling booth. This reduces politics to a personal morality play/psychodrama. I totally agree that Dems can me infuriating and disappointing, but within the current political structure, we have two options - self-marginalization or the hard work of turning the Democratic party into a tool that we can use. The structure is so loose and open that it could be used effectively by a core of activists intent on pushing the party left over a long period of time. The right did this with the GOP, and now they run essentially everything - even when the mainstream Repubs disappointed them, they worked harder to get their guys in there next time. Yeah, it sucks and it doesn’t always make me feel good to constantly have to make a choice between a bunch of not so great options, but then again, I’m not in this for personal therapy.
A couple of years ago I didn’t think I would say this, but I regret those votes that I cast for Nader in 2000 and 2004.
January 20th, 2006 at 9:24 am
“Given the fact that the Clinton/Gore record on the environment from 93-01 was calculated to be the worst record of any president up until that time, your post, Mark, still isn’t convincing.”
Well what would I know? I’m just a professional biologist who worked for four presidents. Your statement is false onits face.
The next claim about Gore is ad ignorantiam. Look it up.
January 20th, 2006 at 9:31 am
For heaven’s sake a get a fallacy list and learn what they are. It’s like being in the fourth grade again in the Internet discussions. And as Chris M. says you should regrett those votes. You are the direct cause of all of this. Nader a sure thing? Sheeessshhh. Wear it well and learn from it, if that’s possible.
January 20th, 2006 at 9:35 am
As a Democrat who found Nader insufferably self-righteous and misguided I don’t think he would have shared Kucinich’s fate had he entered the Democratic primaries. He has name recognition and a certain monastic charisma that would have grabbed him some TV spotlight. In retrospect I wish he’d run as a Democrat; the Dems might then have won the White House and I do think that would have made a significant difference. There may not be a large policy gap between the Dems of today and the Repubs of a few decades ago, but the political terrain has shifted dramatically since then (Bush has only furthered this shift) and there’s definitely a gap worth caring about.
By the way, I don’t think we should underestimate these dramatic changes when making strident calls for Dems to show some spine, grow some courage etc. Any remotely social Democratic party is currently sailing against very strong winds. Just keeping the boat afloat at this point is an accomplishment. To expect bold new changes in direction, fiercely expressed, is not realistic.
January 20th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Mark A. York: “you should regrett those votes. You are the direct cause of all of this.”
How fucking phantasmagorical. The only way a person can help get Bush’s vote total above that of Gore’s or Kerry’s is to actually vote for Bush (and this only has an impact on the outcome of the election if you do it in one of the few swing states). Otherwise, you’ve had no impact on the election and it’s the same as if you had sat out the election completely.
That is the problem with voting for Nader– it’s a pretty pointless symbolic gesture accomplishing exactly nothing. Despite all of this bullshit about Nader costing Gore the election, the party still didn’t try speaking to the issues that lured Nader voters away from the party, so nothing whatsoever was accomplished by Nader’s bid for the presidency. If Nader had scared the party into halting its rightward slide or if the Green party hadn’t gotten increasing irrelevant in the time since the 2000 election maybe it could be said that some good was done but it clearly ain’t so.
January 20th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
How so? Nader’s votes in Florida gave the election to Bush. Roughly so, but 3000 away from Gore leaves a 527 victory for Bush. That’s all there is to it. You’re right that no good was done.
January 20th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
“Well what would I know? I’m just a professional biologist who worked for four presidents.”
Mark, these sound like impressive credentials. Perhaps, then, you could try posting a reply that wasnt just one or two thoughtless sentences. I’m tempted to engage in a broader discussio0n with you, reg, but i think we’d go way off topic. i will mention though that many of the reform movements you praise, in this country, have historrically been opposed, rigidly, by so called moderates, liberals and the hillary clintons of the time
January 20th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Reg’s opening analysis here complements Marc’s article well. Let’s be fair and real: Al Gore has made sense more consistently, and has advocated more passionately for peace and environmental sanity than any near-mainstream politician in the past 2-3 years. What I cannot decide is whether he would now make a supportable candidate for president. Have too many people developed too much distaste for him? My initial conclusion is that I would support him, depending on circumstances.
January 20th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Oh, YEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! The moderate/centrist/”sensible” left shows its true colors on this board, ala “YOU are the direct cause of this.”
Chris M, that is PRECISELY what voting is about: voting for a candidate who shares your political values and philosophy. Unlike you and York, candidates Republican or Democrat (or Green) have to earn my vote. Why should I vote for the Democratic nominee for President based on superficial differences between he/she and the Republican nominee? By bullying Nader supporters like myself into supporting the two party monopoly, you shame true Democrats like Thomas Jefferson who would roll over in his grave and vomit at this rather bullyish philosophy.
January 20th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
I’m sorry, but am I the flipping planet Mars here? Did anyone other than me watch the three Gore/Bush “debates” in 2000? The whole thing was a race to see who could agree with each other the most! Death penalty, drug war, the “success” of the Clinton/Republican Congress Welfare Reform Bill….hell, Mark York, even in the area of environmental policy, G.W. Bush ran to the LEFT of Gore! Gore said that he would make regulation of pollution in waters outlying industrial plants “implemented by the industry.” Bush said that the government would regulate this whether industry liked it or not.
Much, much later in the 2000 campaign, in the final days, Gore was denigrated by the press and trumpeted by all of you moderates as “populist.” There is no doubt that he siphoned off hundreds of thousands of would-be Nader voters in these last few weeks of the campaign. But is there anyone on here who could honestly look me in the face and say that whatever progressivism that Gore exhibited was not due mostly or entirely to the fact that he was also running against Ralph Nader?
It is not the first time that Gore did an “image makeover” to con voters…most people don’t even know that Gore, before he sought the 1988 Presidential nomination, was a Pro-Life senator. Only this step into national politics changed his philosophy concerning abortion.
I think that Gore is a good person, but he has been successfully co-opted throughout his political career that I don’t think that any of us, including me, could possibly predict to a certainty how he would have governed as president.
January 20th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
“The structure is so loose and open that it could be used effectively by a core of activists intent on pushing the party left over a long period of time. The right did this with the GOP, and now they run essentially everything - even when”
Yes, Chris M., “the structure is so loose and open” if have what is called “money.” You say (I think…) that the GOP was able to push its party to the right within the party itself. Actually, you are wrong. Unless you consider cornucopious networks of political action committees (Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, GOPAC, Christian Coalition, etc. etc.) with literally hundreds of millions of dollars with shady and less than ethical practices a part of the Democratic Party’s “structure” (or that it even should be, in a true democracy), you are most comically mistaken if you think that the Democratic Party will be successful in “pushing the party to the left.”
The years 1980 and 1994, yes, marked serious shifts to the right in the Republican Party’s platform, agenda, and candidates for national, state, and local offices. This is due, however, to the unethical and perhaps illegal use of money.
Surely no one can seriously say that this Republican “revolution” that you speak of can be duplicated by a left progressive. Is anyone on here really naive enough to believe this? I am so sure that a candidate who advocates a sensible health care plan for all Americans, and who is against privatization of Social Security, for example, is ever going to be able to pile up the amount of cash and campaign support that Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingerich were able to accumulate in 1980 and 1994, respectively.
January 20th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
“Stunned reg? I’m flabbergasted and exasperated. Son of a bitch on a cracker.”
Son of a bitch on a cracker indeed, Mark. If you and Reg find it “stunning” that one needed a magnifying glass to detect the differences in 2000 between Gore and Bush, here’s another shocking revelation to you: they don’t make Democrats like they used to.
January 20th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
“Mark York, even in the area of environmental policy, G.W. Bush ran to the LEFT of Gore! Gore said that he would make regulation of pollution in waters outlying industrial plants “implemented by the industry.†Bush said that the government would regulate this whether industry liked it or not.”
Produce the quote verbatim. I simply don’t believe it from working for them. And what Bush has done? Christ it’s night and day. In other word I have inner knowledge of the policies voters don’t have. Like you for instance.
January 20th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Platitudes like that are proof of your naivte. I’m a Democrat like “there used to be.” Apparently that’s news to you.
January 20th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
“one needed a magnifying glass to detect the differences in 2000 between Gore and Bush”
Interesting how what was “not a dime’s worth of difference” in 2000 has mushroomed into some hundred’s of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives spent in Iraq. But whatever…
January 20th, 2006 at 9:32 pm
The difference; the Hubble telescope Big Picture: Chris Mooney He’s on Tavis Smiley tonight. Oh yeah there has always been a big difference in those two former candidates. Whose data is correct now? Allow me. Mine.
January 20th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Ahmed explain to me how my assertions are thoughtless. If you want be dossier just click the link e.g. my name. I’m an open book unlike some folks around here.
January 21st, 2006 at 2:08 pm
“How so? Nader’s votes in Florida gave the election to Bush. Roughly so, but 3000 away from Gore leaves a 527 victory for Bush. That’s all there is to it. You’re right that no good was done.”
Nader’s votes can’t “give the election” to Bush. Nader’s votes are Nader’s not Bush’s. Your characterization is as absurd as saying the non-votes of all those sat out the election “gave the election to Bush” because they also failed to increase Gore’s vote total. Another analogy: I saw a guy smash his way past the security guards at Best Buy with a VCR in hand. By your reasoning, my failure to rush after him and try to stop him (I was close by) caused the thievery. It’s nonsensical.
January 21st, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Who would they have voted for if not for Ralph? Bush? I doubt it. Nader voters are far left compared to Gore’s and certainly Bush’s. They would either not vote, or vote for Gore. That’s the scene whether you accept it or not.
January 22nd, 2006 at 12:10 am
“Who would they have voted for if not for Ralph? Bush? I doubt it. Nader voters are far left compared to Gore’s and certainly Bush’s. They would either not vote, or vote for Gore. That’s the scene whether you accept it or not.”
It’s entirely irrelevant what they might have otherwise done. You are saying Nader voters are the direct cause of Bush’s victory because they failed to support Gore. This is no different than the non-voter who also failed to vote for Gore and no different from me failing to take action against the shoplifter. When I failed to take a certain action (trying to stop the shoplifter– analogous to trying to stop Bush by voting for Gore) and instead took a different action (I kept on walking– analogous to voting for Nader) I was obviously not the direct cause of the shoplifting. In short, there is a difference between failing to stop an outcome and causing an outcome. If someone drops a ball from a tower and I fail to snatch it from the air, did I cause it to hit the ground? No, gravity (and the person dropping the ball) caused that.
All someone who voted for Nader “did” was to fail to take the action most likely to prevent Bush’s victory and did something else instead– they stood by and watched the ball hit the ground. The direct cause of Bush’s victory were the people who voted for Bush– the Nader voters, by not supporting his opponent Gore, just didn’t get in Bush’s way. This does not equate to causing Bush’s victory. You may believe that everyone has some sort of moral obligation to vote the candidate you have annointed. Personally I reject that notion but even if you are somehow right, it still only amounts to culpability and not to causality.
January 22nd, 2006 at 1:38 am
Yikes, this is what I get for checking back to older posts. What’s with the devolution into an embarrassing undergraduate philosophy discussion? Rouse me when the debate returns to something resembling relevant political discussion.
January 22nd, 2006 at 9:46 am
Not irrelevant but factual. It’s a safe bet at least 600 or so would have voted for for Gore in Florida alone. Your case for absolutist meaning is noted. Nader voters even they may be right on a myriad of the issues are too far left for any hope in such an environment as we have now. So protest on. In this context they are irrelevant. Not in that election.
January 22nd, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Nicholas: “What’s with the devolution into an embarrassing undergraduate philosophy discussion?”
The view that failure to prevent (or failure to make an attempt to prevent) an outcome makes one ethically responsible for that outcome is a pet peeve of mine. This is essentially what Mark seems to be arguing here, although couched in the language of causality, and, frankly, I don’t care much for political “discussion.” It rarely rises to a level that I would deign to call discussion. I would much rather argue the finer points of Aristotelian logic than involve myself in that depressing parody of rational thought known as political “discourse.”
Mark A. York: “Not irrelevant but factual. It’s a safe bet at least 600 or so would have voted for for Gore in Florida alone.”
If we’re going to continue this debate, I need to know if you hold non-voters responsible in the same way as Nader voters and if you don’t I need to know what you believe lessens their responsibility for the outcome of the election. If you do hold them equally culpable then we’ll just have to agree to disagree about the concept of moral obligation because questions about ethical principles are inherently irresolvable and don’t yield to logic.
January 22nd, 2006 at 12:57 pm
I wouldn’t make that distinction. The apathetic nonvoters are not in the equation. They opted out of their own volition. Nader voters knew full-well what the outcome of their decision would be a priori, thus, knowingly chose to throw their specific votes away once in the fray. It mattered little to whom, be it Ralph or Donald Duck. Either stood as much chance.
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:52 pm
“I wouldn’t make that distinction. The apathetic nonvoters are not in the equation. They opted out of their own volition. Nader voters knew full-well what the outcome of their decision would be a priori, thus, knowingly chose to throw their specific votes away once in the fray. It mattered little to whom, be it Ralph or Donald Duck. Either stood as much chance.”
So I take it you don’t consider non-voters as responsible as Nader voters for the outcome of the election then? I agree that Nader voters should have realized that they were wasting their time but I just don’t see why this matters as they had no more impact on the outcome of the election than non-voters. If Gore and Bush each had, for the sake of simplicity, 10 votes and someone then decided to vote for Nader, both of the other candidates vote totals remain unchanged (Bush’s vote total didn’t increase and Gore’s didn’t decrease– both still have 10 votes each). The Nader voter therefore had no more effect on the outcome of the election than the non-voter– it’s as if they hadn’t voted at all. I don’t see why it matters whether this failure to affect the outcome of the election came about through voting for a candidate who never had a chance or through sitting at home watching TV instead– it’s the same effect. It really doesn’t make sense to me at all.
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:16 pm
That’s because it’s circular. They would have voted for Gore if not for Nader being in the race. And Buchanan by accident. Nader votes are votes Gore lost on principal, but votes Bush never would gotten in any event, thus Gore lost them and would have gained them if not for this stupidity. Hence the flawed opposite result. These were Gore defectors.
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