I just got back from the speaking engagement of conservative talk radio host/blogger/law professor who was speaking at Claremont McKenna College. Very interesting stuff.

The most important thing I took from the talk was the importance of keeping an ear out for what the other side is saying. All too often I get stuck listening to people who agree with me without realizing there are quite a few people in this world who don't.

A great deal of the audience was conservative -- something rarely seen at the Claremont Colleges (even at the purportedly conservative CMC) -- and so I got to hear a number of talking points I had not yet been familiar with. A number of the people at my table, for instance, seemed to believe that Michael Schiavo was lying about his wife's sentiments, though they wouldn't say so outright.

Hewitt was extremely interesting in talking about the proliferation of the new media. Although I fundamentally disagree with him on many of his political conclusions, I was surprised to find that I agreed with him at times.

A few of things stuck out to me. Hewitt listed the five founding myths about blogs, some I agreed with, some I didn't. They were:

1. The Trent Lott Scandal (the reporting of Jonah Goldberg and Josh Marshall)
   
2. Howell Raines at The New York Times (losing his job on account of the Jayson Blair issues, and specifically blogs' commentary on it)
   
3. John Kerry's Swiftvet Issues (bloggers proved some of their claims to be true, thus allowing the media to listen to them)
   
4. Rathergate (the debunking of forged documents)
   
5. Eason Jordan at CNN (being forced out by blogs' reports of his comments in Switzerland)

Although I don't entirely agree with all of his points (Trent Lott lost his job because Bush no longer wanted him, though Marshall and Goldberg played a role, for example) and disagree with his omission of Jeff Gannon/James Guckert, it was interesting to hear how the other side thinks about the blogosphere.

During the Q&A session, I asked Hewitt about the success of Air America (how it has grown from three stations to 51 in a year, how it is outperforming rightwing radio in places like New York). His response was that Air America is "bad product" and it "won't last long." "It will ultimately fail." I fundamentally disagree with the conclusions Hewitt draws about Air America but he raised an interesting point. Air America isn't necessarily bad product in comparison with right wing talk radio (although I assume he believes it is); Air America is bad radio compared to NPR, which draws northwards of 20 million listeners each week. If Air America fails in the future -- I don't believe it will, though -- but if it does indeed fail, Hewitt's explanation that it loses to NPR, not Rush, will probably be correct.

After the talk and the Q&A, I went up to Hewitt and introduced myself. "Oh, the Air America guy!" I explained to him that he had assailed me in his blog two weeks earlier, though he had said he had just linked to me (which is probably closer to the truth). We talked a bit more about Air America -- I tried to rebut a few of his claims, he said he was bumped off the air in Eugene in favor of Air America -- and I gave him the info on my blog. It sounds like I have a shot at being assailed (or linked to) by Hewitt in the future -- perhaps even tomorrow -- and that's moderately exciting.

It's not often that I have the opportunity to see a right wing talk radio host cum blogger like Hugh Hewitt, but tonight seems to be the night. You might remember that two weeks ago Hewitt used me as an example of a naive Democrat who believes that the Democrats should push through the nuclear option:

Reid is not without his supporters. There is college student Basie [...] who is buying into the argument that the Democrats have a mandate to block judicial appointments [...] I hope that Senator Reid or some other Democratic spokesperson embraces it on a national platform, as the laughter that follows would be enormous.

It should be an interesting evening, so check in later on tonight for a brief account of the talk (and my probable question or two for him).

What do you do to a man who was the strongest proponent of a war that has since been proved to have been based on faulty and fixed intelligence? If you're Lyndon B. Johnson or George W. Bush, you evidently promote that man to head the World Bank. Reuters has the story:

Paul Wolfowitz, known worldwide as an architect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was approved as the World Bank's new president on Thursday.

His nomination by President Bush was sealed in a unanimous vote by the World Bank's 24 executive directors, the bank confirmed.

This hasn't been the best week for every neocon, though. Don Fasnacht of the Richmond Palladium-Item reports:

A well-aimed pie tin filled with goop delayed, but failed to derail, an otherwise civil dialogue on U.S. foreign policy at Earlham Tuesday evening.

Neoconservative journalist and commentator William Kristol was about 30 minutes into his speech on international affairs when a slender young man crossed the stage of Goddard Auditorium and slung the ersatz pastry into his face.

Kristol appeared momentarily stunned, then wiped the brown and white goo from his eyes with a paper towel, stepped back to the podium and said, "Let me just finish this point."

Ouch.

Taegan Goddard passes on one of the best new ads in a long time.

People For the American Way Foundation has launched a new phase of our emergency campaign to save the filibuster. We’re sounding the alarm and mobilizing Americans to stop far-right leaders in their tracks.

Senator Frist’s “nuclear option” scheme relies on a bogus procedure that would need the backing of 50 senators. We need at least six Republican senators to stand up for checks and balances. Fortunately, many Republicans have deep misgivings about the nuclear option. They know it would damage the Senate and violate basic principles of American democracy.

The vote is too close to call. We can defeat the nuclear option if we get our message out.

Our ad is designed to secure the needed Republican votes against the nuclear option. It features a clip from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the movie classic in which the protaganist used the filibuster to stand up to corrupt forces in the Senate. The ad also features a Republican firefighter saying America works best when no one party has absolute power. Polls tell us that a huge majority of Americans agrees with this message.

Our goal is to reach and mobilize millions of common-sense constituents of key Republican senators. The first wave of ads has launched in Arizona, Nebraska, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, Virginia, Indiana and Kansas, as well as on several national outlets.

For more information, visit SaveTheFilibuster.org.

---

Click here to buy the Frank Capra
classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Last month, Sen. Robert Byrd, the 87 year old West Virginia Democrat, began to publicly discuss a reelection bid. Byrd, the oldest current member of the Senate, will break Strom Thurmond's record of 48 years in the Senate next year, and is one of the wisest parliamentarians in the history of the chamber. About two weeks ago, leading Democrats called on supporters to begin to raise funds for Byrd should he decide on a bid for a 9th term. Now, as Paul J. Nyden reports for the Charleston Gazette, Democratic activists have done just that -- and more.

Early Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., sent an appeal over the Internet urging people to contribute to the re-election campaign of Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va.

In less than 24 hours, more than 15,000 contributors gave $634,000 to Byrd’s campaign, according to the National Journal’s daily Internet publication “Hotline.” The average donation was about $42.25.

In Obama’s appeal, sent out by the MoveOn Political Action Committee, he wrote, “In 2006, Senator Byrd will be the target of Republicans because he stands up for what he believes. Will you join me in supporting Senator Byrd’s campaign for re-election, before a critical deadline this Thursday?”

Obama told The Charleston Gazette on Wednesday, “Sen. Byrd has spent his career in the Senate standing up for the Constitution and putting principle over politics. The people of West Virginia are lucky to have such a distinguished and powerful advocate fighting for them who consistently delivers results.”

Do you think $634,000 in one day might help sway Byrd's decision?

In Oregon, and across the nation, Air America Radio is growing and expanding. What was once a small network servicing three cities just a year later reaches 51 -- including three in Oregon alone. Kristi Turnquist of The Oregonian reports on the success of one of Air America's flagship stations, KPOJ Portland.

"They said we wouldn't last, and we're still here," says Mike Dirkx, operations manager for KPOJ (620 AM).

It was exactly one year ago today that the Portland station started carrying programming from Air America, the liberal talk-radio network that has inspired criticism, praise and predictions of doom. But the Portland station hasn't just survived; it's become a national model for how to carry off the still-evolving "progressive talk" radio format.

Since switching from an oldies music lineup to progressive talk, KPOJ has moved into the top 10 most-listened-to stations locally. "We went from a 0.4 rating to a 3.7, and that's a pretty substantial jump," Dirkx says of the latest Arbitron ratings, for fall 2004. "It's the most successful progressive talk station going right now."

The key point of this article is the fact that although there were dozens of articles across the country lampooning Air America's effort -- claiming that it would die within weeks -- the network has continued to grow at a remarkable pace over the last twelve months.

Apropos to the Turnquist article, although Portland is indeed a "liberal" city, the success of the station -- increasing its listenership by more than nine times in just a year -- is proof that progressive talk radio can overcome the odds and knock Rush and Hannity off of their pedestals.

Craig Ferguson, on the Pat O'Brien sex tapes:

"His reputation has taken such a hit, that someone saw him on the street today and yelled, 'hey, there's Bill O'Reilly!'"

Link.

There are very few moderate Republicans left in the Senate, and on budgetary matters -- where only 50 votes are necessary for passage -- their voices alone don't matter (as we saw this year with ANWR, the minimum wage, etc.). Nevertheless, on normal votes where 60 votes are necessary for passage, their support is crucial for the GOP. So when two Republicans voice their qualms about the Bush Social Security plan, it's highly meaningful. Kelley Bouchard has the first story on Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) for the Portland Press Herald:

Speaking during a roundtable discussion at the AARP office on Congress Street, Snowe said that diverting 2 percent to 4 percent of Social Security payroll taxes to personal accounts would undermine the basic premise of the program.

She said Social Security has worked "exceptionally well" for more than 70 years and is expected to be funded until 2042. She called for a fact-based initiative to inform Americans of all ages about Social Security and develop solutions to the problems it faces.

[...]

Letters, calls and faxes to Snowe's offices on the issue of private investment accounts have run 6,897 against and 188 in favor since the president's inauguration. Many of her constituents are overwhelmed with anxiety at the prospect of losing some of their benefits, she said.

Even Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), usually a lackey for the administration, is showing some qualms about the Bush plan. Nicole Tsong of the Anchorage Daily News reports:

As President Bush made the case nationwide to add private investment accounts to Social Security as part of a system overhaul, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Tuesday she would consider his proposal as an option.

But that plan alone "is not sufficient" to provide full benefits to all recipients, she said.

At this point in the game -- halfway through the 60-day bamboozlepalooza tour -- President Bush needs to be attracting supporters, not hemorrhaging them.

The New York Times' Edmund L. Andrews does a masterful job of reporting on the effort to debunk the President's faulty economic models, upon which the Bush privatization scheme is based.

In barnstorming the country over Social Security, administration officials predict that American economic growth will slow to an anemic rate of 1.9 percent as baby boomers reach retirement.

Yet as they extol the rewards of letting people invest some of their payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts, President Bush and his allies assume that stock returns will be almost as high as ever, about 6.5 percent a year after inflation.

[...]

Many believe that stock returns will be lower than they have been in the past, closer to 5 percent than 6.5 percent, and that returns on a balanced mix of stocks and bonds will be much lower than that.

[...]

Under Mr. Bush's plan, moreover, people would need to earn at least 3 percent a year after inflation just to make up for automatic cuts in traditional Social Security benefits.

In a paper to be presented on Thursday at the Brookings Institution, three economists who are longtime critics of Mr. Bush argue that stock returns are likely to be about 4.5 percent if economic growth slows as much as the administration predicts.

If these models are correct -- and they most likely are because they have not been skewed by pro-administration lackeys -- and there is 4.5% average growth in the stock market rather than 6.5% average growth, a substantial number of Americans (20%-32%) will fare worse under the privatization scheme.

The American people aren't willing to bet their retirement fund for a one in three chance that they will earn a little more money. It's that simple. Until the President realizes this, there is no way he is going to win over the American people.

"When the fervor of political passions moves the executive and legislative branches to act in ways inimical to basic constitutional principles, it is the duty of the judiciary to intervene. If sacrifices to the independence of the judiciary are permitted today, precedent is established for the constitutional transgressions of tomorrow."

-- Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr., a Bush 41 appointee "who has a reputation as consistently conservative," on the legislative wranglings by President Bush and the Republican Congress in the Terri Schiavo case

Link.

Facing the prospect that Tom DeLay might be forced out of office, a group of powerful conservatives has banded together to protect their ethically-challenged House Majority Leader. Mike Allen has the story for The Washington Post:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) challenged his liberal critics yesterday to "bring it on," as major conservative groups organized a formal defense against questions about DeLay's ethical conduct.

The groups -- led by David A. Keene of the American Conservative Union and including the Heritage Foundation, Leadership Institute and Family Research Council -- met privately with DeLay last week and pledged to use their grass-roots databases and networks to try to mitigate the damage from news accounts of DeLay's travel and relationships with lobbyists.

The groups have talked about holding a salute or tribute dinner for DeLay, with the proceeds benefiting a children's charity not associated with the majority leader. [emphasis added]

Allen scores a bit of humor in that last sentence as Tom DeLay has gotten in trouble in the past for raising funds for children's that don't always benefit needy children. Nice work, Mike.

Howie Fineman, a veritable bellweather of national sentiment, seems to believe so.

A new drama of survival has begun here – political, not physical; legal, not spiritual. The central character isn’t a woman in a hospital bed but a controversial Republican leader in the House of Representatives. Rep. Tom DeLay may not want to admit it to himself, but he’s fighting for his political life.

I wouldn’t have said so two weeks ago. But I’ve seen enough of these dramas unfold to know when I’m watching a new one, and now I am. You know the story line, which dates back to the Greeks: a powerful, hubristic leader is brought low by his own flaws. Think Jim Wright, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton.

A key but cautious leader of the Republican leadership put it to me this way in private recently: “Members want us spend our time protecting them. They don’t like having to spend their time protecting us.” Meaning: their idea of fun and productive use of time in the capital is not “DeFending DeLay.”

Christy Hoppe adds fuel to the fire with a story in today's issue of The Dallas Morning News detailing the most recent developments in the investigation of DeLay's political action committee, TRMPAC. Kos writes of the case,

Once this grand jury finishes its business, Earle is expected to convene the fourth grand jury on the matter targetting DeLay specifically. Rumors are already flying that those already indicted are singing in exchange for more lenient sentences. No one wants to rot in jail for DeLay's sake.

Sounds like things are beginning to move quickly in this matter.

First Jim Langevin drops out of the Rhode Island race. Now Patrick Kennedy, too? Apparently.

Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., on Wednesday ruled out a run for the Senate in 2006, saying he could better serve his constituents by staying in the House and serving on the Appropriations Committee.

Kennedy has been in Boston caring for his mother, Joan Kennedy, who was hospitalized with a concussion and a broken shoulder after a passer-by found her lying in a street Tuesday.

In a statement, Kennedy did not cite family responsibilities as a reason for his decision, but he and his brother and sister recently took temporary guardianship of his mother to ensure she receives treatment for her alcoholism. Patrick Kennedy was seeking to become her permanent legal guardian.

"I am grateful for the support and encouragement I have received to run for the Senate," he said. "But over the past few days, I have determined that I can make the greatest difference in the lives of Rhode Island families by remaining on the Appropriations Committee in the House of Representatives and fighting for their priorities." The committee controls about a third of the nearly $2.6 trillion federal budget.

Polls had showed Langevin whalloping Chafee in a head-to-head matchup, and a run by Kennedy would have made Chafee's life extremely difficult. Secretary of State Matt Brown, the only Democrat left in the race, trailed Chafee by 14 points. Though former attorney general Sheldon Whitehouse, who has yet to enter the race, he fares little better than Brown. Linc Chafee, who just a month ago appeared to have a one-way ticket out of Washington, just might represent Rhode Island for another six years.

"I don't see the votes there."

-- Conservative Republican Congressman Lee Terry (NE), stating that the Bush proposal to partially privatize Social Security won't likely to get through Congress.

Link.

The Hill's Peter Savodnik reports today on the latest battleground in the privatization war and the fight for the Senate in 2006: North Dakota.

When Treasury Secretary John Snow swoops into North Dakota tomorrow to discuss the politically fraught issue of Social Security reform, he’ll meet with business leaders, students and a handful of state lawmakers.

The one person he won’t be seen with is the most powerful politician in the state and a member of Snow’s own party: Gov. John Hoeven (R), who has yet to take a public position on what should be done about Social Security.

It’s not that Hoeven is against appearing with White House officials. He flew to North Dakota on Air Force One with President Bush after Bush gave the State of the Union address. He showed up with Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns at a recent Republican dinner. And he’s scheduled to be with Johanns when he returns to the state in April.

The problem with Snow, Democrats in North Dakota and Washington say, is that he’s talking about the one issue Hoeven, who is considering a challenge to Sen. Kent Conrad (D) next year, would rather not talk about: revamping the nation’s retirement program in a state filled with retirees.

“I think that sending him in here is harmful to the Republicans,” said David Strauss, chairman of the North Dakota Democratic Party, referring to Snow. “I don’t think promoting the Bush privatization scheme has much positive political impact.”

Anyone believes that Kent Conrad is an easy target is nuts. It's not that North Dakota is a particularly progressive state, because it's not. In fact, Bush's 28-point margin was one of his largest in the nation.

The more important fact of the matter is that Kent Conrad is extremely popular in his state. As Savodnik notes,

Farmers, among the state’s biggest and most powerful constituencies, have generally praised both Hoeven’s and Conrad’s efforts to protect cattle ranchers from Canadian beef and to help the state’s thousands of corn, wheat and soybean farmers, among others.

It's more fundamental than this, though. When Kent Conrad first ran for the Senate in 1986 against incumbent Republican Mark Andrews, he pledged not to run again in 1992 if the deficit was not decreased. When it wasn't, he didn't run for reelection -- even though polls showed him to be a shoo-in -- and his seat was won by Byron Dorgan. For this honesty, among other things, North Dakotans are truly endeared to Conrad. As fate would have it, longtime Democratic Senator Quentin Burdick passed away that fall of 1992, and Conrad won his seat that December, thus remaining in the body.

Conrad's large campaign chest of $883,705 (as of the end of the year), combined with the paltry state of the NRSC under Liddy Dole, leads this blogger to believe that North Dakota won't quite as easy of a win as the GOP would like.

It seems opponents of President Bush's plan to partially privatize Social Security are finally getting their act together. As Jeffrey H. Birnbaum reports on the front page of tomorrow's Washington Post, the AARP has amped up its ad drive to protect FDR's legacy.

In the punch-for-punch debate over Social Security, AARP is working hard to keep the White House on the ropes.

When President Bush arrives in Iowa today to talk up his private-accounts proposal, the senior citizens group plans to counter him with two news conferences, the release of a national poll, full-page newspaper advertisements and commercials on radio and television.

Over this week and last, AARP, the nation's largest lobby, will have spent more than $5 million on ads attacking the president's Social Security plan -- nearly three times as much as all the supporters of his proposal put together. That's just for starters.

Every state that has a swing-vote senator will have AARP forums, which have been drawing about 300 people each. And every time a member of Congress holds a town meeting, AARP volunteers are dispatched there to protest the president's plan for individual accounts.

"We're going to do this as long as it takes," said William D. Novelli, AARP's chief executive. "We will put just about everything we have into it."

Birnbaum, one of the finest reporters in the business, has a lot of interesting things to say in the article, so read on if you're interested. For now, I'd point you to the other major development in the the Social Security debate. The Hill's Bob Cusack has the scoop of the day: "Dems craft their own plan."

After months of criticizing President Bush on his Social Security reform plan, congressional Democrats are crafting their own retirement savings plan that does not call for any change to the entitlement system.

The Democrats’ move signals a shift in their strategy on Social Security. Until now, the opposition party has opted to lambaste Bush while declining to reveal its own ideas for encouraging saving.

Democratic senators on the Finance Committee this week quietly floated a document titled “Savings Options,” which sources say is designed to as a counter to Bush’s plan for personal accounts in Social Security. The document, obtained by The Hill, details several legislative possibilities, including a mandate on employers to provide payroll-deduction savings options for all employees.

It also tackles low-income incentives for saving by setting up accounts at birth in which the government would deposit $500 for each newborn and $1,000 for families with below-average incomes. The accounts would allow parents to contribute more money until the child turns 18, “with a government match for contributions from lower-income parents.” [emphasis added]

The contrast could not be better. Bush and the Republican Congress call for a plan to "fix" Social Security by partially privatizing it -- a move that would hasten the program's insolvency. The Democratic plan would fix Social Security without significant changes. Which plan do you think the American people support? I'll give you a hint.

It's about time the left got properly organized in the fight against Tom DeLay! The Democrats need a national wave against the GOP to retake the House in 2006, and the potential backlash against the misdeeds of the House Majority Leader could provide the necessary impetus for such a campaign. The New York Times' Glen Justice reports that the first round of ads are just beginning this week.

Two left-leaning groups intend to do just that [attack DeLay] in tough advertising campaigns that attack the majority leader and highlight the scandals involving former DeLay aides and advisers.

The Campaign for America's Future, which is calling for Mr. DeLay's resignation, is spending about $75,000 to run commercials in the majority leader's home district in Texas. The advertisement opens with a man wearing cuff links and a Rolex watch walking down the stairs into a basement, where he begins washing his hands. An announcer ticks off cases surrounding Mr. DeLay as the figure tries harder and harder to get clean.

"Tom DeLay can't wash his hands of corruption by involving Congress in one family's personal tragedy," an announcer says, referring to Mr. DeLay's involvement in the Terri Schiavo case. "But Congress can certainly wash its hands of Tom DeLay."

The Public Campaign Action Fund is spending $25,000 to pressure Republican lawmakers to denounce Mr. DeLay. Those targeted include Representative Doc Hastings of Washington, the chairman of the Ethics Committee, and Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, who heads fund-raising for House Republicans.

The ad involving Mr. Hastings exhorts him to "do your job and clean up Congress without delay."

Let's hope this is just the opening salvo in the case against DeLay, not the peak of progressive involvement. Millions must be spent so the American people can meet Tom DeLay and learn what modern Republicanism is really about.

[Update 8:06 PM Pacific]: Mike Allen has more on the story in tommorow's issue of The Washington Post, if you're interested.

[Update 8:26 PM Pacific]: The Hill's Alexander Bolton has a couple of DeLay stories in the Wednesday issue of the paper. First, he provides in-depth coverage of the aforementioned anti-DeLay ads run by the progressive groups. In another interesting piece, Bolton reports on DeLay's 2004 -- and possibly 2006 -- opponent in Houston.

Richard Morrison, the little-known attorney who gave House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) a tougher-than-expected race last year, is traveling to Washington next week to meet with the Democratic congressional caucus.

Morrison announced his plans in a fundraising e-mail sent to supporters yesterday. The message announced a fundraising drive “with the goal of sending Richard back to Washington in 2006 as a Congressman!”

Morrison is looking for 100 sponsors for his trip to D.C., soliciting contributions between $10 and $100.

It’s already clear that Morrison would make ethics a big issue in a race against DeLay. His website features a slew of articles critical of DeLay’s ethics, including a March 28 Wall Street Journal editorial titled “Smells Like Beltway” that concludes: “Whether Mr. DeLay violated the small print of House Ethics or campaign-finance rules is thus largely beside the point. His real fault lies in betraying the broader set of principles that brought him into office, and which, if he continues as before, sooner or later will sweep him out.”

Morrison, an environmental and consumer rights attorney, lost to DeLay last year 55 percent to 41 percent.

It's good to see Morrison making such an early start to his campaign against DeLay. Bolton reports that the Democratic leadership has yet to agree to meet with Morrison. Let's hope they get their act together and realize that a man who held DeLay to 55% while being outspent 4.6:1 ($3,143,559 to $685,935) is the horse to bet on in the 2006 race.

The New York Times' Robert Pear on Howell Feflin:

Former Senator Howell Heflin of Alabama, a conservative Democrat who supported civil rights legislation and was sometimes described as the conscience of the Senate, died on Tuesday at a hospital in Sheffield, Ala., near his home in Tuscumbia. He was 83.

His death was announced by his family.

Mr. Heflin, a large, bearlike man, was chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court before he was elected in 1978 to the Senate, where he served for 18 years.

Fellow senators often called him Judge Heflin, referring to his probity and his judicious approach to issues. For 13 years, he passed judgment on his colleagues as a senior member or chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics.

The Associated Press on Tom Bevill:

Former Representative Tom Bevill, a Democrat who became known as the King of Pork over three decades in Congress, died on Monday, his office said. He had turned 84 the day before.

Mr. Bevill, who had been in declining health since heart surgery last summer, represented what is now the Fourth Congressional District in north Alabama from 1967 to 1997.

He got his nickname for his ability to bring special projects into Alabama, and he played a major role in the building of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. He was chairman of the House Energy Development and Water Appropriations Subcommittee for eight years.

Carla Hall of the Los Angeles Times on Johnnie Cochran:

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., the masterful attorney who gained prominence as an early advocate for victims of police abuse, then achieved worldwide fame for successfully defending football star OJ. Simpson on murder charges, died this afternoon. He was 67.

Cochran died at his home in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles of an inoperable brain tumor, according to his brother-in-law Bill Baker. His wife and his two sisters were with him at the time of his death.

Cochran, his family and colleagues were secretive about his illness to protect the attorney's privacy as well as the network of Cochran law offices that largely draw their cachet from his presence. But Cochran confirmed in a Sept. 2004 interview with The Times that he was being treated by the eminent neurosurgeon Keith Black at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Long before his defense of Simpson, Cochran was challenging the Los Angeles Police Department's misconduct.

From the 1960s on, when he represented the widow of Leonard Deadwyler, a black motorist killed during a police stop in Los Angeles, Cochran took police abuse to court. He won historic financial settlements and helped bring about lasting changes in police procedure.

May each of these men rest in peace. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families.

Lindsey Graham might be a realist on some issues, but there's no question that he's conservative throughout. For this reason, it's extremely interesting to see a fringe group on the right begin to run attack ads against him in his home state of South Carolina, as reported in National Journal.

Club for Growth President Patrick Toomey today announced his group is launching a 30-second television ad in South Carolina to criticize GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham's proposals to increase the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes. Graham supports a plan to raise the $90,000 cap on income subject to Social Security taxes to as much as $160,000. That money would be used to offset part of the transition cost to private accounts, estimated at between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. Toomey criticized Graham for trying to move the debate away from personal accounts. "We're very disappointed with Sen. Graham that we need a big tax increase ... and his recent comments that private accounts are a sideshow," he said.

Graham's office said in a statement that his opponents spent $3 million during the 2002 campaign targeting Graham's Social Security views. The Graham ad, which Toomey said would run for about two weeks, accompanies two other television ads the Club for Growth is launching in Nebraska and North Dakota to encourage Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson and Kent Conrad to support President Bush's plan to change Social Security. A Nelson spokesman said Nelson would not be influenced by outside advertising. He said Nelson's decision would be made based on the interests of Nebraska voters. "The senator has said he is open to private accounts provided they don't add to the deficit and they don't reduce benefits," the Nelson spokesman said. He said the ads are the first television spots on Social Security in Nebraska, adding AARP has run newspaper ads in the state.

The far right must be in dire straights if they have to secure the support of someone like Lindsay Graham (not to mention moderate GOPers like Chafee and Snowe, or conservative Dems like Baucus).

Josh Marshall notes the real third party action to watch in the Social Security debate will come on Thursday as thousands around the country will protest against bamboozlepalooza funders Charles Schwab and Wachovia.

Shocking. Just shocking. President Bush knew that there was an outstanding warrant for Bernie Kerik's arrest. He knew that Kerik was using an apartment designated as a rest area for those cleaning up the World Trade Center for an extramarital affair. He knew that Kerik was alleged to have accepted bribes from mafiosos. So what did he do? He nominated Kerik to be the Secretary of Homeland Defense. Kerik discusses this, and more, with New York magazine.

Kerik, however, is adamant that he didn’t view accepting the Homeland Security nomination as taking a risk. “The process is ever-present in your mind; it’s always there,” he says, relaxing in a high-back, soft-green, tufted-velvet chair in a sitting area that’s off to one side of his office. “You worry about everything. But you know what you know and you think what you think. I have to live in the real world, and everything that’s come out is stuff I either told the White House about or they already knew.” [emphasis added]

The hubris of these guys still amazes me.

Although New York Republicans haven't been competitive on the Presidential level for decades, they have still been able to mount respectable showings on both the Congressional and statewide levels. 2006 might be the breaking point for them, as two reports today indicate. First, Newsday's Dan Janison reports that New York City's "Republican" Mayor is edging towards endorsing Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Senatorial race.

Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg hinted strongly Monday night he would endorse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton next year for re-election -- aiming yet another Democrat-friendly signal at city voters.

"I think that I've said as many times as I could both Senator Schumer, the senior senator, and Hillary Clinton, the junior senator, have worked very hard and very effectively for New York City," he said.

[...]

Running in a mostly Democratic city, Bloomberg also declined to commit to Republican primary debates. Last week he distanced himself from the Republican party on the Terri Schiavo case, saying lawmakers shouldn't intervene.

Last year he endorsed Schumer for re-election.

The Republicans don't have a candidate to go up against Clinton yet, and even if they did, Mayor Bloomberg might not support him or her. NY GOPers have cause for concern on the gubernatorial level as well, as Fredric U. Dicker reports in the New York Post.

Gov. Pataki has decided not to seek another term next year and will concentrate instead on a bid for the vice-presidential nomination in 2008, a report last night said.

The New York 1 report — which cited unnamed "sources" saying the governor had told friends of his decision — was quickly denied by Pataki's chief spokesman, David Catalfamo.

"Claims that the governor has decided not to seek a fourth term are false," Catalfamo said.

Many leading Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, have already predicted Pataki won't seek a fourth, four-year term next year, but the governor himself has indicated he wouldn't make an announcement until June.

Should the Democrats be able to take the statehouse and state legislature in 2006, watch for a possible mid-census redistricting effort in the state. It might not be the best decision in a policy sense, but the Republicans have left the Democrats with few alternatives.

"I've got too many skeletons in my closets for politics."

-– Angelina Jolie, as quoted by US Weekly

Link.

---

Blogger.com is in one of its funks again. I'll try to push through it, but please bear with me.

Today, the Supreme Court delivered a major victory for women's rights in Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education. The AP's Hope Yen decodes the case for us.

The Supreme Court expanded the scope of a landmark gender equity law, ruling Tuesday that it shields whistleblowers who accuse academic institutions of discrimination based on sex.

The 5-4 decision in favor of Alabama high school girls basketball coach Roderick Jackson is a victory for women's advocates who say the legal protection will prompt reports of bias that would otherwise go unsaid or unheeded.

The ruling means Jackson can pursue a lawsuit claiming he was fired for complaining that the boys team received better treatment. Congress intended such lawsuits when it passed the Title IX law, justices said.

"Without protection from retaliation, individuals who witness discrimination would likely not report it, indifference claims would be short-circuited, and the underlying discrimination would go unremedied," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the majority.

She was joined in her opinion by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

The 1972 law, best known for promoting women's athletics, bars sex discrimination in any educational program receiving federal funds. It already was settled law that students or others could sue if they thought they were shortchanged based on their sex.

But the statute has been silent as to the rights of whistleblowers — regardless of gender — who aren't direct victims of discrimination but who claim retaliation. Since 1975, the federal government has interpreted Title IX to cover retaliation claims.

I am reminded of what former Senator Birch Bayh -- who wrote Title IX -- told me about the case last month:

Here you have Coach Jackson, who is a male basketball coach who happens to be black -- to put the scenario in the full context. Color has nothing to do with the issue; the fact that he's a man probably does, because here a man is asking his school board to do something about discrimination against his women students, his girls, and that to me is the way it ought to be done in the schools, communities throughout the country. Teachers stand up and say, "Hey, we have injustice going on here."

They, the Coach Jacksons of this world, are the symbols to alert the community generally that there's discrimination going on. You shouldn't have to sue somebody to get justice. It ought to come through administrative process. With the help of people like Coach Jackson to bring it to their attention, the School Board says "OK, we'll put a stop to this." Shouldn't have to sue them to get it done.

And to actually retaliate against Jackson, which compounds the problem here, to actually shoot the whistleblower, so to speak, I think is a major injustice. So I was glad to get involved in that.

He had much more to say about the case, so I highly recommend you check it out if you're interested.

The Washington Post's Dan Balz reports that Polidata has completed the first analysis of Presidential voting trends by Congressional District for the 2004 elections. The results don't necessarily bode well for the Dems.

Only 59 of the 435 congressional districts went in different directions in presidential and House elections last year, according to newly released data from the political analysis firm Polidata. In the remaining districts, voters either backed both President Bush and the Republican House candidate or John F. Kerry and the Democratic House candidate.

[...]

Polidata's Clark Bensen said that Bush carried 255 congressional districts on his way to winning reelection last November, while Kerry won 180. The president captured 214 districts held by congressional Republicans and 41 districts that were won by Democratic House candidates. Just 18 of the districts that Kerry won are in GOP hands.

[...]

Bensen's figures show again the depth of the Democrats' problems in the South. Not only did Bush carry every southern state, he carried the overwhelming percentage of congressional districts, except those where minorities are in the majority. Bush carried 116 southern congressional districts, Kerry just 38. According to Bensen, just three House Republicans from the South occupy districts won by Kerry, while almost two dozen southern Democrats are in districts carried by Bush.

Although I don't believe the Democrats need to devise a "Southern strategy" in order to retake the White House, it's clear from this map that the 2008 nominee will have to do better in the region. Even more fundamentally, the nominee must be more competitive across the entire nation. Winning just 180 CDs just isn't going to cut it.

Last week we noted that Tom DeLay's large role in the Terri Schiavo case could hasten his fall. The Wall Street Jounral provided an early sign of wavering right wing support of the House Majority leader today, and CQ Weekly's Bob Benenson reports that the Democrats are waiting in the wings to pounce (no link available).

In recent campaigns, Democrats have sought to influence contests in competitive districts by portraying Republicans as right-wing extremists and Texas Republican DeLay as their mastermind, just as they did former Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia in the mid-1990s. But most voters have shrugged at the Democrats’ invocation of DeLay’s name.

[...]

Given DeLay’s political elusiveness over the years, some Democrats felt a bit of an adrenaline rush seeing him suddenly rushing into the national spotlight — even in a situation such as the Schiavo case that played so well among DeLay’s and the Republican Party’s social conservative base.

“A lot of us have felt over the past three or four years: Please put Tom DeLay on talk shows, get him out there,” said veteran Democratic strategist Peter Fenn. “Every time he does, our numbers go up.”

The Democrats should seriously consider devising a 50-state campaign against DeLay and Republican ethics problems for 2006. 50-state. Not 20-state.

Look at Wyoming, for instance, where Bush won by 40 points in 2004. Incumbent Republican Congresswoman Barbara Cubin was held to only 55% against a seriously underfunded candidate. If the Democrats can add a repulsion towards Tom DeLay to Wyoming's dislike of Cubin, there's a real possibility that a Democrat can win there in 2006. Try the same tactic in Democratic-leaning states like Connecticut and Illinois and they have a chance -- however small -- that they can retake the House.

A major earthquake struck off the west coast of Indonesia's Sumatra Island late Monday, and officials warned that a tsunami could strike the area. Residents of Banda Aceh fled their homes in panic.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the temblor, described by one of the agency's geologists as an aftershock of the devastating Dec. 26 quake, measured a magnitude of 8.2.

Link.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the millions living in the region right now. Let's hope the residents will have time to reach higher ground before a tsunami hits the area.

From Hotline's Wake-Up Call!

Jack Kemp was seen Friday at the Bethesda Barnes & Noble buying "Why the Jews Rejected Jesus" (Wake-Up Call! sources)

Yes, the Jack Kemp who was the Republicans' Vice Presidential candidate in 1996. I don't quite know what to make of this

Who would have ever thought that the extreme right wingers over at the opinion page of The Wall Street Journal would ever be willing to disparage one of their own. Today it happened, though.

Taken separately, and on present evidence, none of the latest charges directly touch Mr. DeLay; at worst, they paint a picture of a man who makes enemies by playing political hardball and loses admirers by resorting to politics-as-usual.

The problem, rather, is that Mr. DeLay, who rode to power in 1994 on a wave of revulsion at the everyday ways of big government, has become the living exemplar of some of its worst habits. Mr. DeLay's ties to Mr. Abramoff might be innocent, in a strictly legal sense, but it strains credulity to believe that Mr. DeLay found nothing strange with being included in Mr. Abramoff's lavish junkets.

While I do not agree with their characterization of the situation -- they make it seem like DeLay has done no actual, they are correct to assert that DeLay epitomizes what's wrong with government. Perhaps some on the far right will begin to examine their fanatical defense of DeLay and begin to think hard about kicking him out of Congress and back into the bug business, where he belongs.

Another day, another poll. Today, it's Time's turn.

In the wake of the Schiavo case, President Bush's job rating had now dipped to 48% approve – 46% disapprove, down 5 points from last week. While the Schiavo case might have contributed to the decline, the Time Poll identifies other possible culprits, including record low ratings on Bush's handling of Social Security issues, down 6 points, to 31% approve – 58% disapprove. Even Bush’s handling of terrorism, long a core Bush strength, is down 11 points from last week, to 52% approve, 43% disapprove.

The poll finds some possible political fallout as well from the Congressional intervention. More than half (54%) would go as far as to say that they would be more likely to vote against their Congressman if he or she voted to move the Schiavo case to the federal courts.

There is important news for Oregonians in this poll as well.

A slim majority (52% - 41%) favor legislation allowing physician assisted suicide. Oregon is currently the only state that allows a terminally-ill adult to request a physician to administer a lethal dose of medication to end their life.

The Bush approval drop is unsurprising; every other recent poll has shown him drop 5-7 points this week. The Oregon numbers are particularly interesting given the supposed "culture of life" in this country. Perhaps the nation isn't Bush country after all...

Josh Marshall passes on a disconcerting, yet unsurprising story out of Florida:

At the same time one of Florida's most visible television reporters brought the news to viewers around the state, he earned hundreds of thousands of dollars on the side from the government agencies he covered.

Mike Vasilinda, a 30-year veteran of the Tallahassee press corps, does public relations work and provides film editing services to more than a dozen state agencies.

His Tallahassee company, Mike Vasilinda Productions Inc., has earned more than $100,000 over the past four years through contracts with Gov. Jeb Bush's office, the Secretary of State, the Department of Education and other government entities that are routinely part of Vasilinda's stories.

Vasilinda also was paid to work on campaign ads for at least one politician and to create a promotional movie for Leon County. One of his biggest state contracts was a 1996 deal that paid nearly $900,000 to air the weekly drawing for the Florida Lottery.

Meanwhile, the freelance reporter's stories continued to air on CNN and most Florida NBC stations, including WFLA-Channel 8 in Tampa.

Should we be at all shocked that the Bushes' hiring of journalists to forward their agenda is not relegated to the White House? This is a dangerous world we live in today where politicians (mostly Republicans) seem to believe that it's all right to use taxpayer money to bribe journalists to spread propaganda.

"Oregon is a model for how to thoughtfully discuss difficult issues. It's that we think government is supposed to be about more than political sound bites and 30-second TV commercials. We understand that's the way much of political debate takes place in our country, and we're going to insist on something different."

-- Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), on his state's doctor-assisted suicide law

Link.

---

In other news out of the Beaver State, it looks like uber-conservative Kevin Mannix -- the GOP chairman with over $500,000 in outstanding debt from his 2002 gubernatorial bid -- will have some company in the 2006 Republican primary for governor.

Blue Oregon passes on the news that Ron Saxton has created an exploratory committee for a run. As Jerome notes over at MyDD, "Saxton was favored in '02 before being knocked out for being "too liberal" in the Republican primary by the social conservative Mannix." Saxton will have to do better than his third place showing in the 2002 primary if he want a shot at the Big Kulongoski, though.

"I think it seriously weakens the arguments of conservatives that we respect process, that we respect precedent, that we respect the courts."

-- Bob Barr, the Republican former congressman from Georgia, on the move by the GOP Congress to affect court rulings in the Terri Schiavo case.

Link.

This brings an entirely new angle to the story surrounding the overreach of the Republicans in the Schiavo case. Senate Republicans have tried to claim high ground in the debate over confirmation of judges by decrying activist judges who legislate from the bench. In this case, the GOP tried to adjudicate from Congress, which is just as unwanted by the American people.

Will balance be restored in the land of Sunday morning talk?

FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) and former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

THIS WEEK (ABC): Reps. David Joseph Weldon (R-Fla.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.); Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, and author Rick Warren.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and authors Reza Aslan, the Rev. Robert F. Drinan, Richard Land, Jon Meacham and Jim Wallis.

LATE EDITION (CNN): Gen. John Abizaid; Javad Zarif, Iranian ambassador to the United Nations; and the Revs. Jerry Falwell, founder of Liberty University, and Al Sharpton, founder of National Action Network. [Link]

Five Demcrats and three Republicans. That's a first!? But wait! There are a handful of extreme right wind activists and an administration-backing General, so perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised at this week's balance...

Tom DeLay's greatest asset today -- something that has saved him from nationwide backlash to his ethics problems -- is the fact that the American people do not know who he is. As of a February Gallup poll, only 53% of Americans knew enough about the House Majority Leader to form an opinion about him. As Carl Hulse and Adam Nagourney report in today's New York Times, DeLay may have made a tactical error of stupendous proportions in the Terri Schiavo case.

Still, for Mr. DeLay in particular, the decision to step forward in the first place - after weeks in which he had methodically avoided television cameras as he fended off questions about his ethics - may prove to be crucial in what could turn out to be his most difficult year in Congress. While the Schiavo case may have energized his conservative supporters, Democrats and some independent analysts say, it may also have thrust him into the national consciousness at the very moment his opponents are trying to make him a symbol of Republican excess and force another ethics investigation.

"Tom is doing everything backwards from the way I'd be inclined to do it," said one Democrat, Jim Wright, a fellow Texan who himself was forced out as speaker of the House in 1989 after failing to surmount challenges to his ethics. "He seems to want to keep hostility at an agitated level."

Some Democrats have begun drawing parallels between Mr. DeLay and another Republican who eventually became a weight on his party, former Speaker Newt Gingrich.

[...]

It is not just Democrats who share that view. In a regular e-mail commentary he distributes, former Senator Dave Durenberger, Republican of Minnesota, wrote, "If I were a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota in 2006, I would make DeLay the issue in the campaign right now."

Hulse and Nagourney are entirely correct with their assesment of the Tom DeLay situation. Why a man would want to raise his national profile exactly at the time when he is under fire and faces a possible indictment is beyond me.

It is a testament to DeLay's cynicism about the American people and hubris that he would even try to attempt such a move. As has been the case in the past, though, such a move could prove the Majority Leader's undoing.

From The Miami Herald via Josh Marshall.

Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted -- but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge's order, The Herald has learned.

Agents of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told police in Pinellas Park, the small town where Schiavo lies at Hospice Woodside, on Thursday that they were on the way to take her to a hospital to resume her feeding.

For a brief period, local police, who have officers at the hospice to keep protesters out, prepared for what sources called ``a showdown.''

In the end, the squad from the FDLE and the Department of Children & Families backed down, apparently concerned about confronting local police outside the hospice.

I'm not even sure what to say about this, but it's certainly disconcerting.

"How deep is this Congress going to reach into the personal lives of each and every one of us?"

-- Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), one of only five Republicans in the House to vote against the Schiavo bill, on the overreach of his party.

Link.

Chuck Grassley has never been as one able to stick to the standard GOP message. The conservative Senate Finance Chairman blunt, Midwestern speaking style has in fact been cause for consternation among the Republican leadership for years. His comments to the Associated Press today are a prime example.

Sen. Charles Grassley, at the center of the fight over revising Social Security, said Friday that the odds are against Congress approving the proposal being pushed by President Bush.

"I think it's very difficult for me to say today that we'll present a bill to the president," the Iowa Republican said in an interview with Associated Press reporters and editors.

Even though such comments have come to be expected from Grassley, they nevertheless represent a further blow to the President as he attempts to privatize Social Security.

For all of the talk of bringing Democrats on board, the President has not done nearly enough to bring his own party on board yet. I'm not just talking about physical numbers (like the fact that only one of Alabama's five Republican Congressmen support private accounts). It's more fundamental than that.

President Bush has not yet made the Republicans believe this is a winning issue. Perhaps his trouble lies in the fact that it isn't a winning issue.

Even more importantly, the President no longer has coattails to offer to members of Congress in return for their support. The race for the Senate in 2006 won't play out in the South -- where Bush on the ticket helped immeasurably -- like in 2004; rather, most close races will happen either in states where the John Kerry won (i.e. Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Minnesota) or the Democrats are resurgent (like Montana).

On the national level, Bush's numbers are tanking. A President in the 40s doesn't have much sway, but a President in the 30s (should he drop a few more points) has no power to cajole Congress into action.

In a sense, privatization isn't dead yet. Tax reform isn't dead yet, either, but no one in the Republican Party wants to touch it. Immigration reform isn't dead yet, but it would take a miracle to pass. Clear Skies isn't dead yet, but it's no where near passage. The Federal Marriage Amendment isn't dead yet, but it doesn't have the votes to get through Congress. So privatization isn't dead yet; it's just in a state of perpetual legislative limbo from which it will be very difficult to emerge -- ever.

Bill Frist is having a tough time these days. His medical ethics are being questioned. His nuclear option is in serious jeopardy. Things are so bad that his fellow Republicans are already beginning to run for his leadership spot.

Why is all of this happening? Because of his focus on running for President instead of presiding over the Senate. As Forward's E.J. Kessler notes, even that's not going well.

Dr. Deadly: No one in Washington accuses Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of having a hopping personality. But the GOP presidential hopeful from Tennessee, a heart transplant surgeon, really needs to give a jolt to his stump skills, if a speech he gave at the Republican Jewish Coalition's winter meeting earlier this month is any indication. The address flat-lined, according to several Republicans to whom we spoke. "People were shocked at how bad it was," said one Republican, who for obvious reasons will remain nameless. "He was poorly prepared and a poor speaker.... People were turned off. There were some major-league fund raisers in that room." RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks did not return a call seeking comment by press time. Frist protégé Michael Lebovitz, who did not attend the speech, said that Frist "is committed to a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and is working hard as Senate majority leader to that end."

It flat-lined? People were shocked at how bad it was? If Frist continues to drop the ball, who are the ultra-conservatives going to turn to in the 2008 primaries? Santorum? He could easily lose this year. Brownback? The guy has the charisma of the man who previously held his seat -- Bob Dole. Newt Gingrich? Tom Coburn? James Dobson?

Today's choice is courtesy of CQ Today's Midday Update (free email service):

"The Bush administration is manufacturing propaganda, plain and simple."

-- Sen. Frank R. LAUTENBERG, D-N.J., after the Government Accountability Office announced it would investigate the administration's relationship with columnist Maggie Gallagher.

[Link for the quote]

After sitting above 50% for the last month, the President's approval rating flopped this week on a combination of factors. Gallup's David W. Moore writes up the latest poll for CNN and USA Today:

President George W. Bush's approval rating is now at 45%, according to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted March 21-23. This is the lowest such rating Bush has received since taking office, although it is not significantly different from the 46% approval rating he received in May 2004.

In the last three Gallup surveys, conducted in late February and early March, Bush's job approval rating was 52%. The timing of the seven-point drop suggests that the controversy over the Terri Schiavo case may be a major cause. New polls by ABC and CBS News show large majorities of Americans opposed to the intervention by Congress and the president in the Schiavo case, and Gallup's Tuesday-night poll shows a majority of Americans disapprove of the way Bush has handled the Schiavo situation. Almost all recent polling has shown that Americans approve of the decision to remove Schiavo's feeding tube.

But the CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey suggests that the public's increasingly dismal views about the economy, and about the way things are going in general, could also be factors in Bush's lower approval rating.

The last paragraph here is key. While many pundits incorrectly assume that the Terri Schiavo case is the sole source of the President's nose dive, polling indicates that the the low ratings are a result of many different factors. CBS found a 7-point drop in Americans' support for the policy in Iraq, and Pew found that young Americans had significantly cooled to the idea of privatization.

Things can turn around for the President -- he was heading in this direction about a year ago before he managed to turn things around. But without John Kerry to tar and feather in the conservative press, it will be much more difficult for Bush to distract conservatives and Americans as a whole from his abysmal vision and unpopular policies.

It doesn't even matter which ones are running, in fact. Check out these numbers from the most recent Democracy Corps poll of 1002 people over March 15-21 (MoE +/- 3.1%).

I know it is far ahead, but thinking about the 2008 election for president, if the election for president were held today and the candidates were Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Jeb Bush, for whom would you vote -- Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Jeb Bush?

Democrat Hillary Clinton 49
Lean Democrat Hillary Clinton 1
Republican Jeb Bush 46
Lean Republican Jeb Bush 1
(Other candidate) 2
Lean (Other candidate) -
(Undecided) 1
(Refused) 1

Total Democrat Hillary Clinton 50
Total Republican Jeb Bush 47
Total (Other candidate) 2

Now I'd like you to imagine that the Constitution is changed and there is no limit on the number of terms a President can serve. Thinking about the 2008 election for president, if the election for president were held today and the candidates were Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush, for whom would you vote -- Democrat Bill Clinton or Republican George W. Bush?

Democrat Bill Clinton 50
Lean Democrat Bill Clinton 1
Republican George W. Bush 45
Lean Republican George W. Bush 1
(Other candidate) 3
Lean (Other candidate) -
(Undecided) -
(Refused) 0

Total Democrat Bill Clinton 51
Total Republican George W. Bush 46
Total (Other candidate 3

Maybe the blogosphere shouldn't fear a run by Hillary after all...

In another instance of dog bites man reporting over at The Washington Post, Shailagh Murray reports that there are deep divisions within the Republican Party on the issue of immigration. Really? Shocking!

Republican lawmakers are headed for a showdown over illegal immigration, an issue that exposes a deep and bitter rift within the GOP.

The drama will unfold when Congress returns early next month and turns to finish an emergency spending bill to fund the Iraq war. The House version, approved before the Easter break, carries tough immigration restrictions, reigniting a long-simmering battle with the Senate over how to deal with the growing illegal population.

It is a conflict that President Bush scarcely needs as he tries to unite his party behind contentious Social Security changes and judicial nominations. Meeting Wednesday with Mexican President Vicente Fox, Bush promised to continue pushing Congress for a program allowing temporary guest workers. That accommodation is the opposite of what House conservatives are seeking with the crackdown on asylum seekers and state driver's-license requirements for illegal immigrants that they attached to the Iraq bill. Bush acknowledged the limits of his influence: "I'm not a member of the legislative branch," he told Fox.

The immigration debate pits one core GOP constituency (law-and-order conservatives) against another (business interests that rely on immigrant labor). One camp wants to tighten borders and deport people who are here illegally; the other seeks to bring illegal workers out of the shadows and acknowledge their growing economic importance.

Although I chide Murray for this piece, this article does serve to highlight the pitfalls Bush faces in the coming months. His approval rating is abysmal (as evidenced here and here); his tax "reform" is essentially dead, as is his privatization scheme; it even appears he might be in trouble on stem cells.

The Republicans had every reason to gloat in November, but as they now see, governing is a lot harder than campaigning, especially when your legislation benefits the few at a cost to the many.

I just got out of an advanced screening of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, a documentary by Alex Gibney set for national release on April 29. It's a real top notch film that you should definitely check out when it hits the theaters.

Click here to buy Bethany McLean's The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, the book upon which the documentary was based.

March has become an extremely difficult month for George W. Bush and the Republican Congress. Their privatization scheme is not popular; they have significant ethics issues; and their overreach in the Terri Schiavo case is extremely unpopular, even among evangelicals. The latest poll from Pew underscores this, and further points to an erosion of support for privatization among one of the key demographics.

While public opinion on private investment accounts has not changed much in the past month, support for the idea among younger Americans – who up to this point have been the most reliable backers of the proposal – has weakened significantly. In February, people age 18-29 favored the idea of private accounts by a 66%-19% margin. Today, just 49% favor private accounts, while 25% are opposed, and nearly as many (26%) say they don’t know how they feel about the issue.

Looking at the specific data (in PDF form), there are a lot of interesting trends. Bush's approval sits at 45%, his lowest mark since May. The GOP leadership in Congress fares even worse at 39%, its lowest mark in nearly five years. The Democrats still have a long way to go before they're able to parlay these numbers into a Congressional majority, but 2006 is looking better and better.

Say what you will about Newt Gingrich, but you cannot deny that he is a shrewd political strategist. What's more, he knows his Republican constituents. So when he comes out and says that the President's privatization is bad politics -- as The Boston Globe reports today -- it's quite meaningful.

"I think we are in a very dangerous period on Social Security," former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said in an interview this week, adding his voice to the growing chorus of prominent critics in the GOP. He said the president's advisers think "they could sell benefit cuts and tax increases. . . . It could be catastrophic for the Republican Party if we end up as the party of tax increases and benefits cuts."

Gingrich is apparently running for President right now, so it's not surprising that he's trying to raise his profile.

I believe that his judgment on Social Security is right. If Bush raises taxes at all -- which is a must to get anything done -- he and the party will suffer the fate of his father a decade ago. What's more, if they become the party of Social Security cuts, they will lose any gains they made with the baby boomer generation that doesn't want to have to completely foot the bill for their parents. Bush has really cornered himself here and it's fun to watch him squirm.

Jerry Springer is finally close to having his opinions heard by millions of Americans around the country. Well, I suppose he already has that, but now his political talk radio show will span the country, not just his bawdy television show. The AP's Lisa Cornwell has the story:

More people will be able to hear trash TV host Jerry Springer under a deal announced Wednesday to take his radio program nationwide.

Springer's show will go live weekdays on the Air America Radio network beginning April 1. The liberal all-talk network currently broadcasts on 51 radio stations and on the Sirius and XM satellite networks.

Springer will be heard on about 45 of those stations initially.

"I said when I started the show that I am committed to making this radio program work, not only because I enjoy it, but because we need to hear progressive voices as well as conservative voices in our conversation today," Springer said in a telephone interview from Chicago.

[...]

The "Springer on the Radio" show, which began in January on WCKY-AM in Cincinnati, has expanded to other Clear Channel Radio stations in Cleveland, Detroit, Miami and San Antonio. Springer said the deal with Air America will not affect his relationship with Clear Channel.

The key point to take from this story is that progressive talk radio is not only viable, its profitable as well. In just one year, Air America has expanded from three stations to 51, many of which are owned by the usually conservative Clear Channel Communications.

As Springer said, there is a real need for voices on the left in radio, and Air America -- along with others like Ed Schultz -- are filling that niche. What's more, specific hosts like Springer and Franken are creating a new genre of talk radio: a witty combination of politics and comedy. Anyone who tells you that liberal talk radio doesn't work is simply wrong.

"You know you can't call them illegal aliens anymore. You have to use the politically correct term 'Wal-Mart employees.'"

-- Jay Leno

Link.

"I thought of a new reality show -- Desperate Housemembers."

-- Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE), on Congress' inability to reconcile its energy and transportation bills

Link.

While the AP's Glen Johnson dwells on the fact that Bush's overtly partisan trustees' assessment that Social Security will begin paying out about 75% benefits beginning in 2042 (a figure higher than today's payout, even when accounting for inflation), The Washington Post notes the more important news from the report: Medicare's situation is significantly worse than Social Security's. Jonathan Weisman, writing for The Post:

The two independent trustees overseeing Social Security and Medicare broke with the Bush administration's trustees yesterday, saying Medicare's financial problems far exceed Social Security's and are in urgent need of attention.

Republican Thomas R. Saving and Democrat John L. Palmer said Social Security's condition has changed little since they joined the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees in 2000. But in the trustees' report released yesterday, they wrote that Medicare's prospects have "deteriorated dramatically" with rising medical costs and the addition in 2003 of a prescription drug benefit.

"The financial outlook for Social Security has improved marginally since 2000," wrote Saving and Palmer. "In sharp contrast, Medicare's financial outlook has deteriorated dramatically over the past five years and is now much worse that Social Security's."

The real crisis in America pertains to Medicare, and Bush's nearly trillion dollar giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry in the form of the Prescription drug benefit only weakens the program.

If the President and his GOP Congress actually cared about this country, they would begin to deal with Medicare now instead of trying to privatize Social Security. As they push on with their plan for private accounts, however, they show once again that they care more about ideology and partisanship than the wellbeing of America.

The blatant disregard for legal precedent and good policy finally appears to have caught up to President Bush and the Republican Congress. The AP passes on the results of the most recently published public opinion poll.

More than two-thirds of people who describe themselves as evangelicals and conservatives disapprove of the intervention by Congress and President Bush in the case of the Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman at the center of a national debate.

A CBS News poll found that four of five people polled opposed federal intervention, with levels of disapproval among key groups supporting the GOP almost that high.

Bush's overall approval was at 43 percent, down from 49 percent last month.

Looking at the specific data from the poll, a number of other things pop out. Firstly, Congress' approval rating has dropped seven points in one month, from 41% to 34%. Congress has not been this unpopular since 1997 in the wake of GOP investigations into Democratic fundraising.

Also interesting to note is that the President's approval on Iraq is down to 39%, a drop of six points this month. This is consequential due to the fact that there have not been any major attacks recently.

As the President nears the 30s in approval rating (I'm not, by any means, predicting that he will go to the 30s, though he could), his sway in Congress diminishes greatly. All of the sudden, the nuclear option becomes less appealing, privatization less likely, etc. The extremes of the Republican Party -- the few moderates and the far right -- will begin splintering off, making it tougher to pass legislation. Momentum will be on the side of the Dems, who will feel emboldened. Bush needs to do something soon to turn things around or else he's going to look like Jimmy Carter pretty soon.

The woes of Tom DeLay have been well documented on this blog and others, and the story is finally beginning to gain some traction in the mainstream media. Leslie Stahl dug deep into the story on 60 Minutes earlier this month, and most of the major national papers have also begun to look into the story. This week, it's US News and World Report's turn to look into the Hammer. Kit R. Roane, Dan Morrison and Carol Flake Chapman have the first story:

It takes a lot to work off a bad handle. So it says something about Tom DeLay that the scrappy Texas legislator once known as "Hot Tub Tom" has become "the Hammer," one of the most powerful Republicans to come down the pike in a long time.

It didn't happen overnight, of course. It took years, but as he accumulated more and more power, DeLay also made more than his share of enemies, and some began looking for him to slip, wondering if there would finally be a payback time for his cozy relationships with lobbyists, his fundraising schemes, and his ham-handed politics.

These days, Washington is on the edge of its seat as the Hammer faces a maelstrom of legal and ethical troubles, caught up in scandals involving former aides, eight-figure lobbyists, and political action committees.

The trio of Roane, Morrison, and Chapman do a good job of connecting all of the dots in the story and laying out the state of the potential case against the Majority Leader. If you don't feel like you know all of the details, make suer to check it out. For those interested in the larger picture, US News' resident pundit Gloria Borger has a piece of her own in the issue as well.

If DeLay reported to a corporate board, he would be in a heap of trouble. At the very least, he would be answering some tough questions. But, lest we forget, this is Congress--so DeLay's pals are protecting him. In November, they passed a rule allowing someone who is indicted to continue to serve, just in case. (Happily, it was quickly overturned when Republicans realized they had created a public-relations disaster.) But GOP efforts to support DeLay didn't stop there: They bounced the Republican who led the ethics panel that dared rebuke DeLay, replacing him with a more dependably loyal member. Then, GOP party leaders decided to rewrite the rules of the traditionally bipartisan ethics committee to make it more difficult to pursue investigations of misconduct. Now Democrats on the committee are balking, refusing to conduct any ethics deliberations at all. It's a mess, leaving the House without any real way to investigate or punish its own.

Borger provides the Democrats and progressives with a perfect line of attack to go after DeLay: the Republicans purport to run Congress like a business, but the only business run like the Republican Congress is Enron.

Charles Hurt of The Washington Times (no liberal rag) is skeptical that Frist will be able to prevail on the nuclear option.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist does not have firm support among his caucus to employ the so-called "nuclear option" for dislodging the Democratic filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominees.

Of the 55 Republicans in the chamber, at least six are undecided or adamantly opposed to the plan of using the rare parliamentary procedure to end the filibusters with a simple majority vote, rather than the 60 votes normally required.

"I am very concerned about the overuse of the filibuster," said Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who said she remains undecided. "But I am also concerned that a rule change will further charge the partisan atmosphere to the point that we will not be able to conduct business."

[...]

In addition to Miss Collins, three other Republicans say they are undecided but have serious reservations. They are Sens. John W. Warner of Virginia, John McCain of Arizona and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

[...]

Firmly opposed to the measure are Republican Sens. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, who cite concerns about protecting the minority party and avoiding a Democratic promise to halt most Senate business.

Setting aside the politics of this move -- the American people overwhelmingly oppose such a move, and it's bad policy all around -- it's extremely interesting that the Republicans might not even have the requisite votes to ram this down the throat of the American people. It's good to see that at least a few GOP Senators care about history and the Constitution.

Per Jeannine Aversa of the AP:

Consumer prices gained momentum in February, rising by 0.4 percent, the biggest increase in four months. It was a fresh sign that inflation is picking up.

The increase in the consumer price index, the government's most closely watched inflation barometer, came after prices nudged up by just 0.1 percent in January, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.

The newest snapshot of the inflation climate underscored the Federal Reserve's resolve to continue to lift interest rates in an effort to prevent high energy prices from stoking broader inflation.

I thought that Alan Greenspan believed Bush's massive budgetary deficits didn't matter... isn't that why he approved of round after round of tax cuts for the extremely wealthy?

A new Republican poll is out in the Terri Schiavo case gauging the support of Floridians for the unprecedented move by Bush and his Republican allies in Congress to try (however unsuccessfully) to override judges' rulings in the case. The results were not positive.

Do you support the decision to remove Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube?

Yes 61%
No 30%
Undecided 9%

Do you approve or disapprove of the Congress and president intervening in the Terri Schiavo case?

Support 33%
Oppose 64%
Undecided 3%

Would you want to be kept alive if you were in a state similar to Terri Schiavo’s?

Yes 13%
No 81%
Undecided 6%

In somewhat related news, Richard Sisk and Kenneth R. Bazinet of the New York Daily News report that this isn't the first time Senate Majority Leader Frist has been involved in cases of taking people off of life support, though his decision in this case might be novel.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who has championed the "rescue" of Terri Schiavo, is a renowned heart surgeon who has pulled the plug on a "regular basis," his office acknowledged yesterday.

Is Frist cynical enough to override the Judiciary, the Constitution and plain old common sense just to help himself in 2008? You be the judge.

"He'd stop and get a dozen tacos and say, 'Maybe I'll bring some home. Maybe I'll eat 'em myself.'"

-- Rick Bryant, spokesman to Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., on his boss' gain of 57 lbs. while in office.

Link.

Is this any way to thank the woman who fudged the results in Florida to hand you George W. Bush the White House in 2000? The Hill's Peter Savodnik has the details:

Karl Rove, the president’s deputy chief of staff and political guru, has met twice in recent weeks with Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.), raising questions about who the White House wants to challenge Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) next year.

While Harris has insisted that no administration officials have tried to discourage her from running, some Republicans in Washington and Florida say President Bush would prefer that the congresswoman stay out.

Harris clearly believes that the GOP nomination is her due for dilligent support of Bush in 2000 and her willingness to forgoe a 2004 Senate run at the behest of the White House (it was thought that the Cuban Mel Martinez would help Bush win Florida, which might have been the case).

The GOP primary electorate is most likely supportive of Harris' aspirations on account of these facts, so it's quite possible that she doesn't need Bush to get the nomination. That having been said, a Harris run would mean six more years for Bill Nelson.

Brad Bannon, a pollster, penned an Op-Ed for The Hill that's solid gold. The crux of the piece: if the GOP doesn't mind its history lessons, it could face some dire consequences.

An ethics scandal here and a botched presidential policy overhaul there. Does anyone else see any parallels to the time in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Democrats reigned supreme in Congress but lost their majority in an electoral disaster in 1994?

Well fast forward to 2005 when the issues that bedeviled Democrats in the past are coming back to bite Republicans. The great philosopher George Santanya once wrote, 'Those who forget history are condemned to relive it." Republicans should either start remembering their history lessons or prepare themselves to live through hellish losses in the midterm congressional elections in 2006.

[...]

All of this suggests that if gasoline prices go much higher, Bush will start giving televised White House speeches wearing cardigan sweaters like Jimmy Carter did back in the 1970s.

The Carter-cardigan reference is right on the money.

More seriously, the Republicans indeed look like the Democrats in the early 1990s: they're corrupt, they're overstepping their bounds, and most importantly, they act like they have a divine mandate that will never run out. As the Democrats found out in 1994, though, no mandate is forever, and once a party begins to forsake the will of the American people, defeat isn't far away.

The Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman and Ceci Connolly report on yet another case of the strategic cynicism of Bush and his Rebublican Party.

As Republican leaders in Congress move to trim billions of dollars from the Medicaid health program, they are simultaneously intervening to save the life of possibly the highest-profile Medicaid patient: Terri Schiavo.

The Schiavo case may put a human face on the problem of rising medical costs, both at the state and federal levels. In Florida, where Gov. Jeb Bush (R) is pushing a dramatic restructuring of the Medicaid program, the cost of Schiavo's care has become political fodder. In Washington, where a fight over Medicaid spending threatens to scuttle the 2006 budget plan, the role of the program in preserving Schiavo's life is beginning to receive attention.

"At every opportunity, [House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay has sanctimoniously proclaimed his concern for the well-being of Terri Schiavo, saying he is only trying to ensure she has the chance 'we all deserve,' " the liberal Center for American Progress said in a statement Monday, echoing complaints of Democratic lawmakers and medical ethicists. "Just last week, DeLay marshaled a budget resolution through the House of Representatives that would cut funding for Medicaid by at least $15 billion, threatening the quality of care for people like Terri Schiavo."

Is it at all surprising that the Republican Party is willing to overstep all Constitutional bounds to overturn due course of law in order to save a woman to appease a small portion of its anti-choice base while at the same time cut benefits to her and millions of others? No.

The fact is that this is the most deeply cynical administrations in American history when it comes to the dissonance between its words and its actions. They know exactly what they are doing in their attempt to mislead (not spin) the American people. If the latest polls are to be trusted, they might have gone a little too far this time, and they just might pay for it come election day.