I'll be watching John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May and The Manchurian Candidate, but for those interested in contemporary politics...

ABC's "This Week" -- Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; evangelist Pat Robertson; New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

CBS' "Face the Nation" -- Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Richard Durbin, D-Ill.

NBC's "Meet the Press" -- White House chief of staff Andrew Card; Sens. George Allen, R-Va., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

CNN's "Late Edition" -- Card; Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak Al-Rubaie and Saudi foreign policy adviser Adel Al-Jubeir; former Labor Secretary Robert Reich; publisher Steve Forbes.

"Fox News Sunday" -- Card; Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Link.

Nebraska, a state George W. Bush won in 2004 by a two to one margin, is gearing up to be a state to watch in 2006. Already, the Nebraska Senate race is becoming increasingly competitive, as conservative Dem. Ben Nelson fights for his political life. Now, a primary battle has erupted in the state's gubernatorial race, as the AP's Kevin O'Hanlon reports:

Former Nebraska football coach Tom Osborne plans to seek the Republican nomination for governor instead of a fourth term in Congress.

The 68-year-old Osborne made the announcement Saturday in his hometown at Hastings College, his alma mater.

[...]

To get to the governor's mansion, the famed former coach will face at least two opponents in the Republican primary — Gov. Dave Heineman and Omaha businessman David Nabity.

It's always enjoyable to watch when a couple of conservative Republicans duke it out for a nomination. This year, we have the distinct opportunity to watch this not only in Nebraska, but also in Texas, where Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is preparing to challenge Governor Rick Perry. So grab your popcorn. It's going to be an entertaining two years.

The Boston Globe's Nina J. Easton has an extremely interesting article today on the right wing's retreat from supporting President Bush's privatization scheme. She leads,

The Weekly Standard, an influential conservative magazine, this week published an "exit strategy" for the president's Social Security plan.

Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer says the White House plan for private accounts, the heart of his reforms, is on life support. Free-market activist Stephen Moore, who in January felt "the stars were aligned" for Congress to adopt private accounts, now says the "window has slammed shut."

Even Edward H. Crane, president of the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, and a chief architect of private accounts, said he thinks it will take another congressional election before President Bush has a realistic chance of enacting the centerpiece of his second-term agenda. "I don't see the momentum in Congress right now," he said.

If there's any momentum in the Social Security debate now, it's moving away from privatization. As much as the President and his cronies have tried to sell the American people on drastically cutting benefits in return for minimal investments, the fact is that the American people do not support gutting the program. The progressive community can see it. The centrist community can see it. Even the far right, as represented by Cato and The Weekly Standard, can see it. The real question is why the White House can't see it.

In politics, you can never go wrong when the founding fathers are on your side. Mario Cuomo put this theory to the test in the Democrats' weekly radio address today, reports the Associated Press:

If Republicans rewrite Senate rules to more easily end filibusters, the country will experience "exactly the kind of `tyranny of the majority' that James Madison had in mind," former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo said Saturday.

Cuomo, in the Democratic Party's weekly radio address, said Senate Republicans "are threatening to claim ownership of the Supreme Court and other federal courts, hoping to achieve political results on subjects like abortion, stem cells, the environment and civil rights that they cannot get from the proper political bodies."

"How will they do this? By destroying the so-called filibuster, a vital part of the 200-year-old system of checks and balances in the Senate," Cuomo said.

"The Republicans say it would assure dominance by the majority in the Senate," he said. "That sounds democratic until you remember that the Bill of Rights was adopted, as James Madison pointed out, to protect all of Americans from what he called the `tyranny of the majority.'"

"It sounds nearly absurd when you learn that the minority Democrats in the Senate actually represent more Americans than the majority Republicans do," Cuomo said.

The Madisonian line of attack is an effective one for Dems, but so too is Cuomo's last quote. As Chris Bowers has noted here and other places, even though the Dems lost seats in 2004, they actually received more votes than the Republicans. Go figure.

In an impressive piece of investigative journalism for The Washington Post, Dan Morgan and Marc Kaufman report that the FDA officials found that two dozen Representatives went around the checks and balances of government at the behest of a pharmaceutical lobbyist. They write,

The German pharmaceutical giant Bayer suffered a serious setback last year when a federal administrative law judge backed a proposed ban on a drug used to fight poultry infections at factory farms. The judge cited growing scientific evidence suggesting that the practice was reducing the effectiveness of antibiotics vital to human health.

Facing defeat in a three-year legal battle, Bayer sought help in a new arena -- Congress. In a letter written in the office of Rep. Charles W. "Chip" Pickering Jr. (R-Miss.), and with the assistance of a Bayer lobbyist who was a longtime Pickering friend, 26 House members argued that the poultry medicine was "absolutely necessary to protecting the health of birds." It called on Lester M. Crawford, acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, to set aside the judge's decision regarding the class of drugs. The Bayer product is known as Baytril.

The Baytril case provides an unusual look at an attempt by lawmakers to influence the executive branch's handling of an important public health issue involving parochial economic interests and complex science. In stepping in, the congressmen entered a murky area and overstepped legal limits on their involvement, FDA officials said. While members of Congress frequently write to agencies as part of regular oversight, they are not supposed to intervene in formal, trial-type proceedings.

[...]

Pickering's office said a senior House Democrat, Rep. Bobby R. Etheridge (N.C.), and members of the House Agriculture Committee were given a chance to make changes. In all, 18 Republicans and eight Democrats signed. Among them were the House's third-ranking Republican, Whip Roy D. Blunt (Mo.); John A. Boehner (Ohio), second-ranking Republican on the Agriculture Committee; and Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), who recently became chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee's health panel. [emphasis added]

Although Republicans might take the line that members of both parties were at offense in the issue, the numbers tell the larger story. 18 Republicans, but only eight Democrats, were involved in the action. What's more, among the Republicans was Majority Whip Roy Blunt, the number three member of his party. So no matter how the GOP tries to spin this, they shouldn't be let off of the hook.

A glimpse into my life...

Tonight I had the great pleasure of participating in a game of political jeopardy here on campus. After single jeopardy I was stuck in last place at a disappointing zero. Luckily, the first place contestant only had 900, so I was not out.

Double jeopardy, in which the categories (current events, elections, constitutional law and Gov 2) were better suited to my areas of knowledge, treated me better. By the end of the round, I stood at 4600, my nearest competitor at 3000.

Naturally, I bid 1500 in final jeopardy, in which presidents was the category. After answering how many presidents have died in office correctly (8 -- Harrison, Taylor, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, FDR and JFK), I won by a 6100 to 6000 margin, taking home a $100 gift certificate to Best Buy.

In other news, we're almost done with the complete redesign of this site, which has been necessary for some time. Finally, Basie! will have a professional looking template. Finally, Basie! will be accessible on Safari browsers. More info to come early next week.

Mark Z. Barabak (usually of LA Times) has an extremely interesting piece in this issue of The Washington Monthly on whether Arnold is quickly becoming Jesse Ventura redux. Barabak writes,

If the narrative arc sounds familiar—a charismatic, unconventional governor comes to the statehouse in a weird election, succeeds at minor reforms, but soon overreaches with ambitions exceeding his political skills—that's because we've seen this movie before.

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura won office in 1998 as an independent in a fluky three-way contest. He began his tenure with promise and in his first year achieved some modest accomplishments. He managed to push an on-time budget through the Democratic Senate and Republican House with relative ease. He also made a start at improving public transit and reducing congestion in the Twin Cities area. By the end of his second year, however, voters grew weary of Ventura's macho act, impatient with his inability to balance the state budget or work with lawmakers, and indifferent to initiatives such as creating a unicameral legislature. Lawmakers, once cowed, gleefully struck back, slashing—among other things—money for the governor's security detail. Ventura left office bitter and mocked, his “populist-centrist” reforms largely unfulfilled.

The danger for Arnold Schwarzenegger is falling into a similar spiral. Voters are clearly less awed by their celebrity governor in his second year in office, and he's staked out ambitious goals that would try even a far more practiced politician. “He's shown himself to be someone who really can communicate with voters,” says Tony Quinn, a non-partisan Sacramento analyst. But more than any philosophy or set of policies, he suggests, Schwarzenegger's tenure, thus far, has been primarily about salesmanship. “The problem he seems to be having now is getting a consensus on what we need to sell,” Quinn adds. In short, the business of governing.

This week, the Democrats cleared the field for State Treasurer Phil Angelides to run against Arnold. With Schwarzenegger stuck at a 40% approval rating, it's not entirely inconceivable that Arnold will go the way of Jesse.

In other Ventura-related news, Dean Barkley, former advisor to the Minnesota Governor and United States Senator (for a month), has joined Kinky Friedman's third party gubernatorial campaign in Texas. The AP's Kelley Shannon has the story:

Former Sen. Dean Barkley, who has recently been a consultant and lobbyist, will serve as campaign director and chief strategist, Friedman announced Friday.

Barkley founded Minnesota's Independence Party and in 1997 recruited Ventura, a former pro wrestler and actor, to run the following year. As governor, Ventura appointed Barkley to fill the vacancy left when Sen. Paul D. Wellstone died in a plane crash in 2002.

Friedman must collect 45,539 voter signatures after the spring 2006 primary to make the November ballot. Republican Gov. Rick Perry is seeking re-election next year, and GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell, a Democrat, are among his expected challengers.

Luis Saenz, director of Perry's campaign, said of Barkley: "I'm sure he will at least be able to help the Kinkster sell more books."

This should certainly be a race to watch in the next two years. Suffice to say it will be very entertaining.

From the AP's Thomas Wagner:

Insurgents set off at least 17 bombs in Iraq on Friday, killing at least 50 people, including three U.S. soldiers, in a series of attacks aimed at shaking Iraq's newly formed government. An audio tape by one of America's most-wanted insurgents, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, warned President Bush there was more bloodshed to come.

The well-coordinated attacks, which also wounded 114 Iraqis and seven Americans, came as political leaders are trying to curb the insurgency by including all of Iraq's main religious and ethnic groups into an uncertain new Shiite-dominated government that takes office Tuesday. Most of the bombing targets were Iraqi security forces and police, whom insurgents accuse of collaborating with the Americans.

This weekend, I have the treat of speaking with a number of powerful and important journalists right here at Pomona College. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak once again with Bill Keller, Executive Editor of The New York Times, as well as Steve Gettinger, Managing Editor of National Journal (a premier political magazine). In about 15 minutes, I'll be off to see a conversation between Louis Menand, staff writer for The New Yorker and Verlyn Klinkenborg, a member of The New York Times' Editorial Board (all of whom are alumni of Pomona College). I'll let you know how it all went a little later this afternoon.

At least that is the concern of consevative activists, as reported by The Washington Post's Dana Milbank and Jim VandeHei:

[C]onservative Republicans will balk at his call last night for "progressive indexing," which would reduce future payments for middle- and upper-income retirees by linking increases to prices rather than wages. Stephen Moore, a leading proponent of personal accounts, warned of a "nightmare" in which benefit cuts "cost Republicans the Senate in 2006."

"He has a clear conundrum right now," Moore said.

Look for more defections from the right in the near term, and not just from outsiders. It would be hard to imagine the dozens of members of the extremely conservative Republican Study Committee in the House to sign on to any plan that cuts benefits unevenly (leaving alone the fact that Dems won't agree to a plan that cuts benefits so dramatically). Conservatives in the Senate might be as loath to support such a plan as well.

So while The Washington Times and Fox News might have deemed the President's press conference last night a success, looking ahead, it's clear that the President did little to advance the cause of privatization.

"Earlier today Iraqi legislators ended a three month impasse by approving a cabinet for new Prime Minister Ibrahim al Ja'afari. The new prime minister is a Shiite, the new president is a Kurd, and of course as always, the new transportation secretary is Hispanic."

-- Jon Stewart (Comedy Central's "The Daily Show")

Link.

The insiders over at National Journal [via Poltical Wire] think that the 2008 Presidential contest will feature:

A National Journal poll to be released tomorrow of "congressional and political insiders" finds Sen. George Allen (R-VA) ranked first among 2008 GOP presidential candidates and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) ranked first among Democrats. Each of 215 insiders were asked to rank their top five choices.

On the Republican side, Allen finished with 229 combined points, while Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) finished second with 217, Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) third with 184, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani fourth with 129 and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney fifth with 109 points.

On the Democratic side, Clinton led all Democrats with 388 points, followed by former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) with 192, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner with 166, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) with 125 and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) with 90.

A Senator versus a Senator. That should provide for a riveting race...

Surprise, surprise. Gordon Smith once again gave in to the White House. One minute I'm praising him for standing up and pledging to upend the Republican budget, the next he caves to the conservatives in his party. The AP's Mary Dalrymple has the story.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who held Republican leaders in protracted negotiations over the size of Medicaid reductions, announced his support for the plan.

"Those who care about Medicaid, those who are served by Medicaid, be engaged and know that my office, my heart, my mind are open to you to do this right and not just to do this fast," Smith said.

Smith said he's working with the White House to assemble a commission through the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine. The advisory panel would recommend one round of changes by Sept. 1 and issue a final report for comprehensive restructuring in December 2006.

I'm not even sure why I'm surprised by this. Perhaps I expected Smith to act on his moderate statements rather than his conservative voting record. Today provides yet another piece of proof that Oregon's Dems must find a strong candidate to run against Gordon Smith in 2008.

The Economist's Lexington columnist [subscription reqd.] has a lot to say about Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and not much of it is good. Here's a key section:

Mr Frist's problem is not just with his politics (which are clearly malleable). It is with his personality (which is less so). In his move rightwards, the good doctor has tried to ape the younger George Bush; too often, however, he has seemed more like Al Gore. Like that other patrician Tennessean, Mr Frist feels a constant need to prove himself. “With the family emphasis on self-worth,” he once wrote, “I longed to be first in everything, to be king of the hill, the grammar school capo di capo.” Like Mr Gore, he is a robotic speaker; and like Mr Gore, he has discovered radical ideology rather late in life, giving the distinct sense that he is trying to prove too much.

Mr Frist is clearly an extraordinarily talented man. If he could rein in his ambition, he might yet become a great leader of the Senate. But his longing to be “king of the hill” and “first in everything” could be his undoing. It is not only forcing him through an embarrassing ideological makeover. It is also conjuring up a high-stakes political battle that may end up harming himself and the Republican Party, and the country too.

Traditional conservatives -- like those who read The Economist -- are getting increasingly fed up with Frist's tendency to side with the religious right over the economic right. If anything will split the GOP coalition, it will be an overreach by Christian zealots that will force economic conservatives (who tend to be social moderates) to either stay at home on election day or defect to the libertarians. Frist is nearing that precipice rapidly. Let's hope he takes that step over the edge.

You've got to hand it to Gordon Smith. One day he's maintaining FIW (finger in the wind) status in Josh Marshall's Social Security Conscience Caucus, the next day he bucks his national leadership on the budget, as The New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports:

Congressional negotiations to break an impasse over the federal budget hit a major stumbling block on Wednesday, when an influential Republican senator walked away from the talks amid a dispute with the White House and the Republican leadership over Medicaid spending.

The senator, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon, has told the leadership that he is now prepared to vote against the budget, a spokesman said. The majority leader, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, had hoped to bring the $2.57 trillion budget measure to the Senate floor for a vote on Friday; a spokesman said Wednesday evening he planned to stick to that schedule.

"We intend to go forward," the spokesman, Bob Stevenson, said.

But whether the measure can pass the Senate without Mr. Smith's support is unclear. When the budget came before the Senate last month, Mr. Smith spearheaded a drive to eliminate reductions in the growth of spending on Medicaid, the federal government insurance plan for the poor, and instead to create a commission to study the future of the program. His proposal passed, 52 to 48, drawing support from six other Republicans. [emphasis added]

While it would be nice to see Gordon Smith stand up to his party on privatization of Social Security and especially on the nuclear option, if he is able to help block a GOP budget, he can be credited with:

• Stopping drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve
  
• Preventing the Republicans from driving the country further into debt
  
• Blocking significant cuts to Medicaid, student loans and farming subsidies

Although his voting record shows he's not the most moderate GOP Senator by far, if Gordon Smith blocks the budget, he must win serious respect from progressive community (along the lines of a Linc Chafee, perhaps).

You know George W. Bush is mired in tough times when his approval ratings fall in a Fox News poll. Perhaps that's why reporter Dana Blanton relegates the President's numbers to the ninth paragraph of her write up of the poll.

President Bush’s job approval sits at 47 percent, with 43 percent disapproving. His approval rating is down 2 percentage points since last month (March 29-30) and down 5 points from his 52 percent approval rating at the beginning of the year. While approval among groups that have traditionally been strong supporters of the president — like men and Republicans — are holding fairly steady, Bush has lost ground with women and independents in the last few months.

Tom DeLay doesn't fare any better.

Looking at some other names in the news, 21 percent of the public have a favorable view of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, 34 percent have an unfavorable view, 25 percent are unsure, and the remaining 20 percent say they have never heard of the Texas congressman.

Despite any claims that the President is gaining traction, his approval rating has fallen five points in the last two months -- and in a Fox News poll, to boot. More and more people are meeting Tom DeLay, and more and more people disapprove of his actions. Isn't it about time they thought about moderating?

So much for talk about running for President in 2008 (leaving aside the constitutional issues, of course). California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has seen his approval rating drop precipitously in recent months, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Today, 40 percent of Californians approve and 50 percent disapprove of the way Governor Schwarzenegger is handling his job overall, a substantial change since January when a strong majority (60%) approved of his performance. Schwarzenegger’s approval ratings have also dropped below a majority among likely voters (45% approve, 47% disapprove). On education, the governor’s disapproval ratings (51%) remain unchanged since January. As with his overall ratings, there are sharp partisan differences: A majority of Democrats (69%) and 50 percent of independents disapprove, while 50 percent of Republicans approve of the governor’s handling of education.

Republicans reveled in the notion that the dissonance between Schwarzenegger's posturing (moderation) and his actual governing (conservatism) was being overrided by his celebrity status. Apparently, the people of California have finally woken up to the fact that their governor is significantly to the right of center, a political death sentence in a "left coast" state.

Jeff Birnbaum's headline in The Washington Post tomorrow morning says it all.

Now that it's clear that his controversial private-paid trips abroad will be put under a microscope in Congress, Tom DeLay is in serious danger of being declared in violation of House ethics rules, legal experts say.

Lawyers who specialize in ethics cases believe that the Republican House majority leader from Texas might be in technical breach of at least a few congressional regulations. According to published reports, a registered foreign agent paid for one of DeLay's overseas trips and a registered lobbyist used his credit card to pay for another foreign airfare -- actions the rules prohibit. DeLay may also have accepted gifts that exceeded congressional limits, taken an expense-paid trip overseas for longer than the rules allow and not disclosed all of the benefits he received.

"It appears from news reports that there were aspects of his trips that did not comply with the ethics rules," said Jan W. Baran, a lawyer and ethics expert.

[...]

"DeLay's gotten himself in a terrible predicament," he added. "At the very least, he's been taken advantage of by lobbyists. He has a lot of explaining to do."

How do the Republicans respond to news that their leader will most likely be admonished, and perhaps even censured, in the near future? Blame the Democrats, of course! Alexander Bolton and Patrick O'Connor have the story for The Hill:

Republican lawmakers who met yesterday to discuss a proposal by Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to reverse changes to House ethics rules said it is inevitable that their colleagues will file complaints against Democrats once the ethics panel is again operational.

Republicans said that not one of their colleagues has volunteered to file a complaint against a Democrat but that they have no doubt that will in fact happen.

Some GOP legislators are upset that they were forced to back down on the ethics rules, handing House Democrats a huge political victory. Others, including Hastert, believed that keeping the rules in place would have inflicted significant, long-term damage on House Republicans.

“They’re angry about it,” Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R-Minn.) said as he walked out of the meeting.

It will be very difficult for the Republicans in the House to spin their way out of this predicament. Regardless of the small infractions of some lesser-ranking Democratic members of Congress, the fact is that their Majority Leader acted unethically -- and perhaps illegally. Should DeLay be indicted (still a real possibility), 2006 will play as 1994 redux. As it is, even the specter of ethics violations surronding DeLay scares the GOP witless, and you don't want to be a scared party. The scared party can't legislate. The scared party can't govern. Above all, the scared party can't win elections.

"What are you doing endorsing my 2008 presidential opponent?"

-- Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) admonishing his colleague Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN) for backing Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.

Link.

It was not long ago that a cigar became the subject of discussion in Washington (enough said!). Today, Karen Tumulty reports for Time that another cigar is entering the political fray.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, according to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a cigar is an economic prop to a brutal totalitarian regime. Arguing against loosening sanctions against Cuba last year, DeLay warned that Fidel Castro "will take the money. Every dime that finds its way into Cuba first finds its way into Fidel Castro's blood-thirsty hands.... American consumers will get their fine cigars and their cheap sugar, but at the cost of our national honor."

DeLay has long been one of Congress' most vocal critics of what he calls Castro's "thugocracy," which is why some sharp-eyed TIME readers were surprised last week to see a photo of the Majority Leader smoking one of Cuba's best—a Hoyo de Monterrey double corona, which generally costs about $25 when purchased overseas and is not available in this country. The cigar's label clearly states that it was made in "Habana." The photo was taken in Jerusalem on July 28, 2003, during a meeting between DeLay and the Republican Jewish Coalition at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

[...]

Asked about the Majority Leader's consumption of a Cuban cigar, his spokesman Dan Allen replied there has been "no change in our Cuban policy."

The Majority Leader is having a tough time these days. More and more Americans are coming to know him by face, and more and more of them are coming to disapprove of him. The last thing Tom DeLay needs to do now is provide the late night shows with more fodder for jokes.

[Update 4:46 PM Pacific]: Judd over at Think Progress notes that DeLay has previously proclaimed "[e]very dime that finds its way into Cuba first finds its way into Fidel Castro’s blood-thirsty hands." To this, Judd says,

To be fair, Tom DeLay may not have put any money “into Fidel Castro’s blood-thirsty hands.” There’s always a chance Jack Abramoff bought the cigar for him.

Zing.

Oregon's purportedly "moderate" Senator Gordon Smith (he voted to the right of eleven of his colleagues in the Senate GOP caucus in 2004 according to National Journal -- some moderate, indeed) is finally being pressured by his constituents to show a little spine on the issue of Social Security, report Edward Walsh and Jim Barnett of The Oregonian.

The Democratic Party's radio ads began running Tuesday in Portland, Eugene, Medford and Smith's hometown of Pendleton. Kelly Steele, the state party's spokesman, said Smith's voting record on Social Security indicates that he will support the Bush plan "unless Oregonians force his hand."

"Gordon Smith's current nonposition on Social Security suggests he is either ignorant or he is deliberately misleading the public," Steele said. "Gordon Smith needs to take a position on Bush's plan, and it needs to be 'no.' "

[...]

About 150 people attended the Portland rally, where they waved yellow and black signs reading, "Hands Off My Social Security." The rally was sponsored by a coalition made up largely of labor unions.

In an interview before the rally, Oregon AFL-CIO President Tim Nesbitt said Smith is being targeted because "Gordon Smith's vote is critically important." His membership on the Finance Committee "really puts Senator Smith in an important position, not only for Oregon but for the country," Nesbitt said.

The only way Gordon Smith is going to explicate his position on privatization is if his constituents raise their voices loud enough. The grassroots activists have done what they needed to do -- inform the public through ads and rallies about the danger of privatization -- so it's now up to normal Oregonians to let Senator Smith know that they are against contracting out Social Security.

Real questions about America's ability to prosecute a successful war on international terrorism have been raised by data released yesterday by the State Department. As Susan B. Glasser reports in The Washington Post, terrorist activity grew at a nearly exponential rate last year, undermining any pledge by the administration to curtail worldwide terror.

The number of serious international terrorist incidents more than tripled last year, according to U.S. government figures, a sharp upswing in deadly attacks that the State Department has decided not to make public in its annual report on terrorism due to Congress this week.

Overall, the number of what the U.S. government considers "significant" attacks grew to about 655 last year, up from the record of around 175 in 2003, according to congressional aides who were briefed on statistics covering incidents including the bloody school seizure in Russia and violence related to the disputed Indian territory of Kashmir.

Terrorist incidents in Iraq also dramatically increased, from 22 attacks to 198, or nine times the previous year's total -- a sensitive subset of the tally, given the Bush administration's assertion that the situation there had stabilized significantly after the U.S. handover of political authority to an interim Iraqi government last summer.

Glasser reports that more than 1,000 people died in terrorist attacks last year -- not including those in Iraq. For America to become truly safe, the federal government will have to begin to spend significant money outside of Iraq on combating terrorism. If the folks in Washington don't do this, then the American people should seriously consider a change of leadership.

The New York Times' David E. Rosenbaum and Robin Toner take a hard look at the privatization plan's chances of even reaching the Senate floor. In two words: not good.

The Senate Finance Committee's first full-scale debate on Social Security raised new doubt Tuesday about whether a majority of the committee would vote for President Bush's proposal for individual investment accounts.

All the Democrats on the panel who spoke said they were resolutely opposed to the president's plan. And the reservations of Republicans were more ominous for the White House.

As a last resort, some administration officials have said, they might be able to keep their plan alive by pushing a private accounts bill through the Finance Committee on a party-line vote rather than in a bipartisan manner. But at the hearing, one Republican, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, said she did not want to tamper with "the foundation for our seniors," and another, Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming, expressed concern over the amount of borrowing that proposals like the president's would require.

The committee has 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats. If only one Republican joins a solid bloc of Democrats, the measure will fail for lack of a majority and will not be sent to the full Senate.

While it's good to see The Times imply that the privatization plan is all but dead, but isn't it about time that the pundits began to shift their "conventional wisdom" as well. I'm ready to see the talking heads over at Fox discuss the death of the President's plan for hours upon end... but I'm not holding my breath.

In January, House Republicans rammed through a rules change to severly restrict the ethics process in an attempt to shield their leader Tom DeLay from being punished for his improprieties. Now, with Americans finally realizing what the Republicans have actually been up to for the last ten years, the GOP has been forced to rescind the DeLay rule. The Washington Post's Mike Allen has the story:

House Republican leaders, acknowledging that ethics disputes are taking a heavy toll on the party's image, decided yesterday to rescind a controversial rule change that led to the three-month shutdown of the ethics committee, according to officials who participated in the talks.

Republicans touched off a political uproar in January by changing a rule that had required the ethics committee to continue considering a complaint against a House member if there was a deadlock between the committee's five Republicans and five Democrats. The January change reversed this, calling for automatic dismissal of an ethics complaint when a deadlock occurs.

Democrats rebelled against that and other changes -- saying Republicans were trying to protect House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) from further ethics investigations -- and blocked the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the ethics panel is officially known, from organizing for the new Congress.

The Republicans backing down? The Democrats forcing the Republicans' hand? The political climate in Washington and the country must be shifting rapidly if the GOP actually follows through with this. Who'd have ever thunk it? The Democrats have the momentum these days.

Shouldn't he be more concerned about trailing by 14 points right now in his bid for reelection? The Hill's Bob Cusack reports that despite the fact that he's sinking quickly in his bid for another term in the Senate, Rick Santorum is nonetheless looking forward to a possible presidential bid in 2008.

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) has “no intention” to run for president in 2008, but a media communications firm that represents him has registered a slew of relevant domain names in case the senator changes his mind.

New Media Communications, an Ohio-based Internet strategy company that runs Santorum’s 2006 reelection website, has bought domain names such as ricksantorum2008.com, ricksantorum2008.net and santorum2008.org.

Those purchases could play a role in Santorum’s tough reelection race. One of the questions that is expected to surface throughout the 2006 campaign is whether Santorum would serve a full six-year Senate term if he is elected to a third term.

[...]

Casey spokesman Marc Farinella said, “This is just more evidence that serving the people of Pennsylvania is not Rick Santorum’s top priority. I think it’s safe to say that Pennsylvania would be better served having a senator focused on doing a good job for Pennsylvania than by a senator focused on becoming president. In any case, after he is defeated in 2006, Mr. Santorum will have plenty of time on his hands to pursue his presidential ambitions.”

I am puzzled at how Santorum could possibly think that he would have a shot at the White House, his anemic polling numbers aside. When combined with the fact that he very well might lose his reelection bid, I see no reason whatsoever for him to have registered these domains. It's amuzing to see him dream, though.

I have a new column up over at Singer's Song today entitled "Becoming Unwired" on the roadblocks to high speed wireless internet. Check it out, if your interested. In related news, Drew Clark of National Journal's Technology Daily reports that America is falling rapidly in access to broadband internet.

The United States has dropped even further in the international high-speed Internet race.

Statistics released this month by the International Telecommunication Union show that U.S. global broadband penetration dropped last year from 13th place to 16th. The ITU figures show the United States at 11.4 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants as of Dec. 31, 2004. That percentage of broadband is less than half of what South Korea boasts; the latter country is the global leader with 24.9 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants.

Behind South Korea, filling out the top five nations are Hong Kong at 20.9 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants; the Netherlands, with 19.4 per 100; Denmark, 19.3; and Canada, 17.6. Canada dropped two slots -- from third place in 2003 to fifth place in 2004. South Korea and Hong Kong ranked first and second, respectively, in both 2002 and 2003.

[...]

In 2001, the United States ranked fourth among OECD member nations. In 2003, it ranked 10th. The group has not finalized its December 2004 ranking – but, in June 2004, the United States ranked 11th. "When we finalize [statistics] to the end of 2004, it should be about 12th or 13th," said OECD telecom unit head Dimitri Ypsilanti. Hong Kong, Taiwan, Israel and Singapore are not OECD nations -- so a 16th place ranking in the ITU survey would translate into a 12th place ranking in the OECD list.

This is an unacceptable development in this country, and Congress must do something about it. American students have already fallen behind their competitors around the world in the applied sciences, much to the detriment of our nation's economy. What happens if they also fall behind in technological development?

The stakes are too high for the Republicans to allow telecommunications reform turn into another porkbarrel frenzy. Perhaps they can for once take the high road and simply pass a piece of good legislation that fixes the problems without giving away the bank to their big corporate donors. Most likely this will not occur, of course, and America will slip further and further behind the rest of the world in high speed internet access.

The latest polling shows that Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), the second most conservative member of the Senate (according to National Journal's 2004 vote rankings, he had a composite conservative score of 90.8), is in some deep trouble. CQ Today's Midday Update (free email service) reports:

According to the Associated Press, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., who is up for re-election next year, has seen his job approval ratings drop to 42 percent from 49 percent in January in the latest Rocky Mountain Poll by Behavior Research Center. President Bush’s job ratings also declined, as did those of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who dropped to 61 percent approval from 73 percent in January. “Twenty-one percent of those polled believe Kyl is doing a fair job while ten percent say he’s doing a poor job.” The survey of 682 Arizonans was conducted April 12-17 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. [original story here]

If only the Democrats could field a viable candidate, Arizona would look like a prime pick-up opportunity for 2006. Former Senator Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ) suggested to me that state party chairman Jim Pederson would be the ideal candidate to run against Kyl. Perhaps this new polling data will help him decide to jump into the race and give Kyl a run for his money.

It looks Tom DeLay will have a top-notch challenger next fall. Roll Call's Chris Cillizza reports that a former four-term Congressman has decided to enter the fray [subscription reqd.].

Former Texas Rep. Nick Lampson (D) has decided to challenge embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R), filing papers Monday with the Federal Election Commission.

In addition, 2004 Democratic nominee Richard Morrison removed himself from the race Monday, citing family considerations in an e-mail to past supporters.

[...]

Lampson is clearly viewed as a strong contender by national Democrats. Sarah Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, called him a "fantastic candidate who is hitting the ground running."

Lampson will hold his first fundraiser on Thursday evening in Washington, D.C. A copy of the invite urges donors to "welcome Nick Lampson into the race against Tom DeLay in TX-22!"

Just how vulnerable is Tom DeLay? Before the majority of these ethical issues hit the press, he ran significantly behind George W. Bush in his district -- against a relatively unknown opponent.

By the numbers, the seat remains a Republican stronghold. President Bush won 64 percent in the 22nd in 2004 even as DeLay defeated Morrison 55 percent to 41 percent.

With a real challenger and real scrutiny from the press, it will be extremely difficult for Tom DeLay to win reelection -- that is if he makes it to election day...

"It has now been revealed that a Washington lobbyist personally paid for DeLay's trips using his own credit card. Even more embarrassing, the lobbyist also put the purchase of Tom DeLay on his credit card."

-- Jay Leno (NBC's "Tonight Show")

Link.

---

"It's a sign of respect and affection -- nothing sexual whatsoever."

-- Nail Jubeir, spokesman for the Saudi embassy, on the scene of President Bush holding hands with Crown Prince Abdullah

Link.

These are tough days in the office of the House Majority Leader. The Washington Post's Mike Allen writes that "House Republican aides said yesterday for the first time that they believe they will have to reverse or modify the ethics rules that were passed on a party-line vote in January and have caused Democrats to refuse to allow the ethics committee to organize." Feeling the heat, yet another GOP staffer is leaving the hill for the more comfortable environs of K Street. The Hill's Jonathan E. Kaplan has the story.

Juliane Carter Sullivan, a senior aide to Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), has joined Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.

She is the fifth DeLay aide to leave since the start of the 109th Congress. Stuart Roy and Jonathan Grella, DeLay’s spokesmen; Carl Thorsen, his counsel; and Deana Funderburk, a policy analyst, all left earlier this year.

[...]

Sullivan played a role in one of the transgressions for which the House ethics committee admonished against DeLay. [emphasis added]

DeLay's aides are jumping ship left and right. Do they forsee tough times ahead? Tough to say. It could be that they just want to cash in by becoming corporate lobbyists. Just the same, they might suspect that their boss' days are numbered and want to get out while they still can. Either way, it's not measure of confidence when five of your senior staffers leave in the course of just a few months.

We now know a little bit more about Zell Miller's famous challenge to Chris Matthews in September thanks to Albert Eisele and Jeff Dufour of The Hill. They write,

Former Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.) had a beef with “Hardball” host Chris Matthews before he ever appeared on the show immediately after his fiery speech at the Republican National Convention last year.

The famously disloyal Democrat reveals in his new book, A Deficit of Decency, that before telling Matthews he wished he could challenge him to a duel, he had long “detested” Matthews’s “know-it-all attitude and his bullying way of interviewing.” And earlier that evening, Matthews’s fellow MSNBC pundit Ron Reagan called Miller “kind of weird,” while Matthews himself had referred to Miller as an “old-time seggy,” meaning segregationist — a characterization Miller vehemently disputes.

How surprising! Zell Miller had a preexisting beef with Chris Matthews when he went on his show and challenged him to a duel. Who'd have ever expected that.

People For The American Way (a group I always think is nativist but is in fact in favor of the separation of church and state) has a great new ad -- based on a 25 year old ad -- out on television today. Check it out, if your interested.

As promised, here is the data from today's Washington Post/ABC News poll. On Bush's approval, the polling finds:

General Approval

Approve 47 (lowest since August)
Disapprove 50

Soc. Sec. Approval

Approve 31
Disapprove 64

Iraq Approval

Approve 42
Disapprove 56

Economy Approval

Approve 40
Disapprove 57

Terrorism Approval

Approve 56
Disapprove 41

Energy Approval

Approve 35
Disapprove 54

Support for allowing individuals to invest part of their Social Security contributions in the stock market is down eleven points in the last month. In other interesting news from the poll...

Whick political party, the (Democrats) or the (Republicans), do you think better represents your own personal values?

Dems 47
Reps 38

Would you support or oppose changing Senate rules to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm Bush's judicial nominees?

Support 26
Oppose 66

In a not entirely surprising development, Drudge got this poll wrong. 66 percent of Americans oppose ending judicial filibusters, a striking figure given that the term "nuclear option" was not used. It will be interesting to see how this polling will effect the weakhearted like Smith, Warner, Hagel, etc.

Per Drudge (so consider the source):

WASHPOSTABCNEWS poll finds 60% of Americans side with Dems in saying Senate rules shouldn't be changed to make it easier to confirm Bush's judicial nominations... Developing...

The tide is turning.

It seems Harry Reid has figured out a way to challenge the Republicans on the nuclear option without being labeled "obstructionist." CQ Today's Midday Update (free email service) has the story:

Senate Democrats today unveiled a new strategy for action if Republicans successfully execute the so-called nuclear option to end filibusters against judicial nominees.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said for months that his party may employ little-used and often-waived Senate rules to virtually shut down floor business if Republicans force an end to filibusters of judges.

But today Reid outlined a different approach, saying he will use a variety of approaches to force floor votes on Democratic legislative priorities. That could trigger roll call votes Republicans might prefer to avoid.

Bills on the Democrats’ list include a veterans’ benefit increase (S 845), a pay-as-you go budget bill (S 851), a minimum wage increase (S 846), education funding increase (S 848); suspension of crude oil deliveries to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (S 847) and a family planning funding bill (S 844).

It might be safe to say that the reason Reid has backed off his threats to shut down the Senate stems from the fact that he simply does not have the votes to follow through with it.

I argued a month ago that the Democrats would not suffer the same fate as Newt because the entire government would not be shut down, only the Senate (a sentiment echoed by Josh Marshall this week), so I would still like to see the Democrats go ahead and stop the Republicans from forwarding their radical agenda in response to their nuclear option. Nevertheless, this new tactic from Reid should work for the Democrats as well, and it will be very difficult for the Republicans to label the Dems obstructionists if they are no longer slowing the Senate.

The latest Gallup poll finds George W. Bush at 48% approval, down two points in the last two weeks. I'll try to parse through the data from the poll when it is released later today.

"A president from Indiana. It kind of has a little resonance to it."

-- Indiana Senator Evan Bayh (D) joking about his possible run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Link.

Tom DeLay might be in some deep trouble now. The Washington Post's R. Jeffrey Smith scores the big scoop on page one of Sunday's paper.

The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe, according to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number.

DeLay's expenses during the same trip for food, phone calls and other items at a golf course hotel in Scotland were billed to a different credit card also used on the trip by a second registered Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham, according to receipts documenting that portion of the trip.

House ethics rules bar lawmakers from accepting travel and related expenses from registered lobbyists. DeLay, who is now House majority leader, has said that his expenses on this trip were paid by a nonprofit organization and that the financial arrangements for it were proper. He has also said he had no way of knowing that any lobbyist might have financially supported the trip, either directly or through reimbursements to the nonprofit organization.

The documents obtained by The Washington Post, including receipts for his hotel stays in Scotland and London and billings for his golfing during the trip at the famed St. Andrews course in Scotland, substantiate for the first time that some of DeLay's expenses on the trip were billed to charge cards used by the two lobbyists. The invoice for DeLay's plane fare lists the name of what was then Abramoff's lobbying firm, Preston Gates & Ellis.

Tonight I was watched KCAL news (my first news consumption in a couple of days -- I was in withdrawal). One of the three major stories teased throughout the broadcast was the newly-developing story that there were credit card receipts proving Tom DeLay had received a lobbyist paid trip. If that is big news for local stations -- albeit on a Sunday night -- DeLay is becoming a larger story than I had previously thought.

The most recent polling a few months ago showed most Americans didn't know who Tom DeLay even is. With news of his ethical violations reaching local stations, suffice to say most Americans will be ready to see him go in no time. The real question now is whether the Democrats will figure out how to use this for top effect.

Tonight, I find myself in Palm Desert after an enjoyable junket to Las Vegas. This is the longest I've spent away from Basie! in a few months (since I was in mainland China, I believe), buy I appreciate you bearing with me. Blogging should commence shortly.

I'll be off to Vegas in a bit before heading out to the desert for Passover. As a result, posting will most likely be sparse until Monday. I'll try to check in before then, but until then, have a wonderful weekend.

I would not have figured Gordon Smith to be one to stand up to his party and the President. Perhaps the teachings of his predecessors Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood have rubbed off on him. CQ Today's Midday Update (free email service) reports:

Despite indications that the administration is on the verge of a deal with Sen. Gordon H. Smith, R-Ore., on Medicaid cuts, budget negotiators still must resolve a series of tough issues if they hope to produce a conference report before the Senate departs for a one-week recess April 29.

It appears that Smith has won agreement from the administration to appoint a commission to study how to implement the Medicaid cuts that would be assumed as part of a final budget resolution’s reconciliation instructions to the Senate Finance Committee.

According to a Senate GOP source, the Medicaid savings number would be below the $12 billion sought by Senate Budget Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H. The full Senate voted against making any cuts in Medicaid this year.

Budget writers hope that a Medicaid deal will pave the way for an overall budget deal, but it remains unclear whether they can find enough savings in other programs to secure the $40 billion to $45 billion in mandatory savings they have been discussing.

Even though it is commendable that Smith is standing up to Bush on Medicaid cuts, wouldn't it be something if the Republicans actually considered cuts for the wealthy (slowing tax cuts for the extremely rich) instead of cuts for the poor?

Oregon is extremely lucky to have Intel's largest base of operation in Hillsboro (a suburb of Portland). Intel's high-paying jobs have truly enriched the community. That having been said, there is some troubling news out of the Beaver state these days as its counties and cities are forced to effectively bribe companies like Intel to stay. The Oregonian's Mike Rogoway has the story:

Washington County and the city of Hillsboro gave the state's largest private employer what it wanted in a 15-year package of tax breaks unveiled Thursday.

Intel would save almost $580 million in property taxes under terms of the tentative deal, as long as the computer chip maker continues to spend billions upgrading its Oregon factories.

The company employs about 15,500 at its seven Oregon campuses, more than at any other cluster of Intel facilities. The deal aims to keep the state in that leading position. It would extend until 2025 an agreement that exempts nearly all of Intel's high-tech equipment from property taxes that most businesses pay.

I certainly don't advocate Hillsboro letting Intel leave. This would only hurt the city, the county and the state. Nevertheless, the perceived requirement for localities to allow companies to pay little or no taxes is extremely troubling. The downward spiral hurts all areas of the country.

To be frank, I'm not sure what the answer is. Whatever is done must be national, otherwise there will be losers throughout the country. There is a problem, though, and if nothing is done to abate it, more of America's tax burden will fall on working and middle class families.

One of the leaders of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., the sect to which Senate Majority Leader Frist belongs, will speak out tomorrow against the Senator's upcoming appearance on Sunday's anti-Democrat telethon. David D. Kirkpatrick and Sheryl Gay Stolberg have the story for The New York Times:

As the Senate battle over judicial confirmations became increasingly entwined with religious themes, officials of several major Protestant denominations on Thursday accused the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, of violating the principles of his own Presbyterian church and urged him to drop out of a Sunday telecast that depicts Democrats as "against people of faith."

[...]

Religious groups, including the National Council of Churches and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, are planning a conference call with journalists on Friday to criticize Senator Frist's participation in the telecast. The program is sponsored by Christian conservative organizations that want to build support for Dr. Frist's filibuster proposal.

Among those scheduled to speak in the conference call is the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, a top official of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., in which Dr. Frist is an active member.

"One of the hallmarks of our denomination is that we are an ecumenical church," Mr. Kirkpatrick said in an interview on Thursday. He also said, "Elected officials should not be portraying public policies as being for or against people of faith."

By acusing the Democrats of being against people of faith, Frist and his ultra-right wing cronies in the Republican Party are showing the American just which party has a values problem. For Reverend Kirk to come out so forcefully against one of his parishioners is further proof that the Republicans have gone off of the deep end with their pandering to the far, far right (when a leader of the Presbyterian Church is concerned enough to speak out, it says something).

Yesterday Senator Rick Santorum cowered away from the nuclear option, admitting that the Republicans' own polling showed their voters to overwhelmingly oppose the measure. Today, the AP's Jesse J. Holland and David Espo have the results of that poll for everyone to see.

Private Republican polling shows scant support for a plan to stop minority Democrats from blocking judicial nominees, officials said Thursday, as two of President Bush's most controversial appointments advanced toward a possible Senate confrontation.

These officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a recent survey taken for Senate Republicans showed 37 percent support for the GOP plan to deny Democrats the ability to filibuster judicial nominees, while 51 percent oppose.

Additionally, the survey indicated only about 20 percent of Americans believe the Republican statement that Bush is the first president in history whose court appointees have been subjected to a filibuster, a tactic in which opponents can prevent a vote unless supporters gain 60 votes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, noting the survey data has not been made public.

The Republicans can't even win a majority to their side in biased polls written by their own strategists? They can't get more than 20% on their push poll question of whether judicial filibusters had a precedent (a low figure regardless of the fact that there is precedent).

This poll can't make wavering members more likely to support the measure. Republican Senators Sununu of New Hampshire, DeWine of Ohio, Warner of Virginia, Collins of Maine, Smith of Oregon, and Specter of Pennylvania -- all of whom represent "purple" states and none of whom have come out in support of the nuclear option -- can't be reassured by these numbers.

It's becoming less and less clear that Bill Frist will be able to whip up the necessary 50 votes for the nuclear option. If he does, the Senate will be shut down by the Dems; if he doesn't, GOP control will be weakened and Frist's shot at the White House will be done. The stakes simply could not be higher for the GOP right now, and though this is what they have wanted for some time, no outcome looks particularly appealing for them now.

George W. Bush's major reasoning behind pushing for energy "reform" is that gas and energy prices are too high, so something must be done. Should the resulting bill actually raise energy prices, though? The New York Times' team of Elizabeth Bumiller and Carl Hulse take a gander at the situation in today's paper:

President Bush demanded on Wednesday that Congress send a long-stalled energy bill to his desk for signing by the summer, even as he admitted that the legislation would do nothing to lower the rising gasoline prices that polls suggest have cut into his approval ratings.

"I wish I could simply wave a magic wand and lower gas prices tomorrow," the president told a gathering here of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. The bill "wouldn't change the price at the pump today," he said. "I know that, and you know that."

[...]

Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, estimated that the House bill would provide up to $22 billion to the industry over a decade in the form of tax relief and potential federal aid. He cited one Energy Department estimate that the measure would boost gasoline prices by 3 cents a gallon.

"That's right, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer," said Mr. Hoyer. "Apparently, this Republican majority believes you need to pay more for gasoline." [emphasis added]

Maybe the Dems can get their act together on this issue and produce an ad to the effect of Hoyer's comment. "Apparently, this Republican majority believes you need to pay more for gasoline." That's brilliant stuff. Now it's time to let all Americans hear about it, too, not just Times' readers.

Freedom is on the march, despite the best efforts of George W. Bush to stop it. Hartford Courant's Daniela Altimari has the story:

Connecticut became the third state to legally recognize same-sex couples Wednesday, signifying a new era in the gay rights movement and bucking a national trend.

The landmark law permits same-sex partners to enter into civil unions and grants nearly all of the rights and responsibilities available to married couples. Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed the bill late Wednesday afternoon, about an hour after the state Senate gave the measure final legislative approval. It takes effect Oct. 1.

Vermont is the only other state to recognize civil unions. Massachusetts allows gays to marry. But unlike Connecticut, those states were reacting to court rulings.

In the hallway after the 26-8 Senate vote, supporters chatted, smiled and hugged. "It's a great day," said Anne Stanback, president of Love Makes a Family, the gay rights coalition that once dismissed civil unions as an unacceptable compromise. "We commend the legislature for supporting the expansion of rights for all of Connecticut's families."

Hopefully it will not take Oregon too long to join this list...

On Monday morning, I had the opportunity to speak with Jonathan Cowan, the founder and president of Third Way, "a Senate-focused progressive advocacy group." In 1992, he co-founded Lead...or Leave, which became the nation's leading Generation X advocacy group, and following the election of Bill Clinton became Senior Advisor to the HUD Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs. In the late 1990s, Mr. Cowan served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. I spoke with Mr. Cowan from his office in Washington.

Jonathan Singer: Thank you so much for joining me this morning. It’s a real honor, a real pleasure. Byron York has proclaimed a vast liberal conspiracy. When we look at a comparison in pure numerical terms, Rob Stein has found that the conservative side has about $300 million per year to play around with. The progressive side has significantly less than that. Do you feel confident that there is a vast left wing conspiracy yet, or is it still a ways away?

Jon Cowan: Great question. The simplest way to put it is [that] the focus on whether there is a vast left wing conspiracy or a vast right wing conspiracy really misses the point. The central question is, What are both sides doing to prepare themselves to advance their long-term arguments and to win elections?

Right now, conservatives are simply doing a better job of preparing themselves to win the long-term arguments about the country’s future and to win elections, and progressives are not nearly as well organized to do so. Until progressives figure out a way to organize themselves and make a set of arguments that will connect with self-identified moderate voters in much greater numbers, we have absolutely no chance at building a progressive majority again.

Singer: There does seem to be a start of creating the infrastructure. Of course your organization, Third Way – your think tank – is affiliated with moderate Senate Democrats, and you have a budget, as reported in National Journal in February, of between two and three million dollars. John Podesta’s Center for American Progress has $11 million, the largest piece of the puzzle right now. Do you think you will be able to hit, eventually collectively, the same mass of hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on spreading the message, and creating the message, that the Republicans or the right wing has?

Cowan: Absolutely. Without question. Rob Stein and the Democracy Alliance have started to put together a very large collection of investors who are prepared to make the same kind of massive long-term investment in progressive politics that conservative donors have made into conservative politics.

I expect that because of the work of the Democracy Alliance that over the next number of years – five to ten years – we’ll see a dramatic increase in the amount of money going into multi-issue progressive causes. Not single-issue groups, because on our side they are already very well funded, but on multi-issue groups that take a long-term prospective for the progressive cause, both on issues that we work on as well as the messaging to sell those issues.

Singer: One of the jabs that right wing groups like Heritage have talking down to your organizations and others is that you guys are just the voice of the Democratic Party. You’re not creating ideas, you’re just packaging them to sell to a mass audience. Do you think that’s a fair attack? Or are you doing something different?

Cowan: No I don’t think it’s fair. What Third Way is doing is really unique. We’re looking at the group of self-identified moderate voters who make up 45% of the electorate, and we are thinking up both new ideas as well as the kind of messaging that will sell those ideas that will make the progressive cause relevant and modernized for the 21st Century.

For the 20th Century, without a doubt, progressives led the way. We did the New Deal. We did the Great Society. We were kind of the great reformers in the 20th Century. We won and fought multiple wars. We really pushed the envelope both on social progress and on protecting the country.

We have lost that mantle now, and somehow conservatives have become the ones who are seen as the true reformers and the protectors of the country. Unless we are able to flip that around, we have absolutely no chance of regaining the majority.

Third Way’s work is to really push the boundaries of what’s currently acceptable within the progressive cause, break with the traditional orthodoxies, and look for new ideas and the messaging to sell those ideas to connect with a much larger cut of voters.

Singer: You brought up an important point a couple of moments ago about appealing to the great moderate base of American voters. Looking at the CNN exit poll data, the breakdown is as follows: 21% of the electorate was liberal in 2004, 45% was moderate, 34% was conservative. So clearly there can’t just be a liberal majority. Within the moderates, John Kerry was able to win 54% to 45%, but how do you go about pushing that closer to 60 or 65% to ensure victory in the future?

Cowan: That’s a great question. Kerry was able to win moderates, but not nearly by enough. When you are behind by almost 50% in terms of the percentage of voters who identify as liberal versus conservative, you have to absolutely crush conservatives among self-identified moderates. That’s not what Kerry did, and it’s not what we’re doing in many of the twenty to thirty so-called “red states” where we’re losing. That’s the simple kind of electoral reality.

More importantly, there’s a huge opportunity there. Moderate voters are much more in synch with the long tradition of the progressive cause – of social justice, of economic opportunity, of strong national defense – they’re much more in touch with those values, and the conservatives are steadily being drawn further and further right by their right wing to a place, ultimately, where they’re going to turn off moderate voters.

We’ve got to be positioned so that we are ready to pick up those moderate voters that conservatives consistently turn off. That means we need new ideas and new messaging that will work with those voters and protect our progressive values.

Singer: There’s a careful balancing act that must take place, though. There’s a lot of animosity between some of the so-called “centrists,” led the DLC, and some of the bloggers. I know that Al From had some comments about the left wing of the party that may have been taken out of context by some and you see some of the bloggers come out and hammer at the moderates. How do you balance that and find a happy medium?

Cowan: Great question. The divide between the left and the center, or the moderates and the liberals, is really overstated and really beside the point. You need both parts. The party has to motivate and energize its base and it also has to expand that base and persuade new voters, swing voters, moderate voters to come our way.

The choice between one or the other is a completely false choice, and it’s one that will lead the party down a path at which we can do no better than maybe 40% – in between 35 and the low 40s in the electorate – and even worse in the 20 or 30 red states in which we’re struggling. So it’s a completely false choice, and only by rejecting that choice – finding a way to pull both the most moderate voters as well as self-identified liberal voters – do we have a chance of building a sustainable majority.

In fact, in the 20th Century, what you’ll see is that there was never a liberal majority in the United States, there was a Democratic majority. And the way we got that Democratic majority was that the liberals cut a deal with Southern segregationists, who were Democrats. Only by cutting that deal were they able to maintain a Democratic majority.

So in fact there was never a liberal majority. There was always tension between the left of the party and, at that point, the far, far right of the party. That tension is much less today than it was during the time of Southern segregationists.

What it really means is that instead of trying to recreate a liberal majority that once existed, we’re actually trying to create a progressive majority that never existed, and do it without having to cut the same kind of deal we cut with Southern segregationists 40 years ago.

Singer: We see your counterparts over at the Center for American Progress reaching out to the blogosphere through Think Progress, their blog. Do you foresee setting up something like that at Third Way to connect to the party base?

Cowan: I hope so. We’re so new and getting ourselves fully funded and underway, so it will probably take a little while. Podesta’s group was instantly funded. They had millions and millions of dollars. They just have a much larger capacity than we do.

Our hope is that as our capacity builds, we’ll be able to connect with folks much more widely, particularly out at the grassroots level. That’s almost completely dependent on how well we do in raising money.

Singer: Let’s talk about the South, where you have had a lot of background and focus. I was talking with Michael Dukakis a few weeks back and he brought up the fact that there were literally over ten thousand donors to the Kerry campaign in Alabama alone. There is a base there. How do you rally them to grow that base, because there are clearly activists there, even if some Democrats in Washington write off fighting in Alabama or Mississippi or states that haven’t been won in a long time?

Cowan: Third Way has an entire project on the New South to really take a hard look at how you build a new progressive majority in the South. Nobody really knows right now. Nobody has the answers. But there are elected officials like Senator Mark Pryor from Arkansas, Senator Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas, Senator Mary Landrieu from Louisiana, Governor Mark Warner from Virginia, and many others who have figured out how you can win in the South and be a progressive.

We’re going to be taking, over the next few years, a very close look at the work they do, figuring out what they do right that works, and then helping translate that to progressive elected officials and candidates up and down the ticket in the South.

Singer: There is a piece in the LA Times today by Mark Barabak comparing Democratic prospects in the West with the South. This is something we talked about when you were here at Pomona College a few months ago. When you look at states like Colorado – one of the vice-chairs of your organization, Ken Salazar, is from Colorado – and you look at Montana and some of those other states – Nevada, the Democrats have seen quite a bit of resurgence there. What do you think of the idea that the Democrats need to look west – still look at the South – but look at the West as the key to their resurgence?

Cowan: It’s a tricky thing. Democrats cannot write off the South. First of all, that would be an electoral disaster. Secondly, that would be wrong. The South is a vibrant place with significant pieces of the new economy, one of the most culturally interesting regions of the country. It would be foolish for Democrats to write off the South.

On the other hand, we don’t need to write off the South to actually go aggressively after the West and the Southwest. It should not be an either or choice. Certainly if you get beneath the Presidential level and look at the Senate and House and Governorships, it’s not an either or. We have to be able to do well in both regions. If we write one entire region of the country off, there is no way we get back a Congressional majority, and that would be a disaster, even if we were able to win the White House.

Singer: The exit polling data is a little rough, in terms of the Hispanic vote. Initially it was estimated that he did better than he actually did – his numbers are a little lower now. He seems to have done best in places like New Mexico and in Florida, where they have Hispanic communities that are a little different than the national community.

But you look at a state like Oregon, where I’m from, the Hispanic turnout quadrupled in four years and they voted over eighty percent for the Democrats. I know the Hispanic population in the South is also beginning to grow in places other than Florida, places like Georgia. Do you think it will be possible to co-opt their growth to help spur Democratic regrowth in the region?

Cowan: Very, very hard to say. The larger issue is, beyond any particular region, the all-encompassing issue is: are we willing to look at the progressive cause and think about how we modernize it in a way that does not have us hew to our orthodoxies but begins to try to generate fresh ideas as well as the messaging to sell those ideas. Unless we’re willing to question our orthodoxies and find new ways of achieving traditional ends, we’re not going to be able to regain majority status anywhere in the country except for the two coasts.

Singer: One of the ways you’ve challenged the orthodoxy of the Democratic Party is on Gun Control. If you look at Montana, a person like Brian Schweitzer – their Governor – trumpeted his “A” rating from the NRA. It’s not necessary for someone to get an “A” rating with the NRA, but what are some other creative ways of diffusing issues like guns and issues of religion that are big in many parts of the country?

Cowan: The answer is, in short, that you really have to show genuine respect for people with values. And if you don’t show genuine respect for people’s values, they’re not going to give you their vote.

On guns, my view is that – I grew up actually going to camp shooting guns, enjoyed them – I think that the 48% of the electorate that has a gun in their house, that’s their personal choice and I strongly support them for making that choice. It doesn’t mean guns are for everyone, but for many people it is, and I think it’s a great choice.

For example, people who are trying to respect the values of gun owners need to be strongly for the Second Amendment. They need to understand that people who make the choice to own a gun do that either out of a sense self-defense or love for hunting or sport, and they should deeply and genuinely respect that choice.

That applies to a wide range of other values and cultural issues in which for Democrats to appeal to moderates, we’ve got to return to what I think should be some of our core values: keeping in touch with mainstream values of the country, respecting the choices people make, which means, for example, not having a double standard around privacy. If we believe in privacy for choice, we should also believe in privacy for the Second Amendment.

Singer: One of the ways that Schweitzer and others around the country have been able to work on the gun issue is to turn it around to issues of conservation and the environment. They say to sportsman that President Bush is trying to give away the lands for hunting and other outdoor activities – fishing, and whatnot. That seemed to be successful. Should the Democrats try to push a similar theme across the country, not just in the West?

Cowan: Absolutely. Most hunters deeply love the land, are connected to it, and want to be good stewards of it. And there’s no question that there’s tension in the conservative coalition between people who support gun rights and love the land and people who would actually put the land in jeopardy. There’s no question there’s tension in their coalition, and we absolutely should be looking for ways to drive a wedge into that coalition, because frankly they shouldn’t be allowed to be so contradictory, so hypocritical about protecting the land for their hunting base but destroying the land for those who would want to pollute it.

Singer: Just one last question. What should we look forward to from Third Way in the next year and the longer term as well?

Cowan: You should look for Third Way to do two kinds of work. One is developing legislative, policy ideas that Senators and Senate candidates can carry and introduce that appeal to moderate voters that help them reach out to moderates. The second is Third Way will be doing a series of playbooks on the economy, on national security and on cultural issues to show progressive candidates and progressive elected officials how to handle and talk about these issues, and the messaging around them, in ways that connect to self-identified moderate and independent voters.

Singer: I hope that in the future we can continue the dialogue between the various parts of the Democratic electorate, and we’re as always glad to have you a part of it and help grow the coalition. It was a real pleasure to speak with you. Thanks so much.

Cowan: My pleasure. Any time.

[THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.]

Since when did Republicans make decisions based on polling? Since always, of course. Leave it to Rick Santorum, scared beyond his wits by his anemic polling numbers, to become the first GOP leader openly weak-kneed about the nuclear option. Alexander Bolton has the story for The Hill:

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), a leading advocate of the “nuclear option” to end the Democrats’ filibuster of judicial nominees, is privately arguing for a delay in the face of adverse internal party polls.

Details of the polling numbers remain under wraps, but Santorum and other Senate sources concede that, while a majority of Americans oppose the filibuster, the figures show that most also accept the Democratic message that Republicans are trying to destroy the tradition of debate in the Senate.

The Republicans are keeping the “nuclear” poll numbers secret, whereas they have often in the past been keen to release internal survey results that favor the party. David Winston, head of the Winston Group, which conducts Senate GOP polls, did return phone calls seeking comment.

[...]

“People see checks and balances as Democrats checking Republicans, not the legislative checking the executive or the judiciary checking the legislative,” Santorum said. Filibustering presidential nominees was not something the Founding Fathers envisioned as a tool for balancing power between the branches, he argued. In other words, Democrats have managed to convince the public of their right to check Republicans in the Senate. [emphasis added]

A number of progressives have complained about Senate Democrats' inability to block conservative legislation, like ANWR and the Bankruptcy Bill. This Bolton article shows, however, that Harry Reids tactics of strategically, but forcefully hitting the Republicans on key issues is working.

Even Republican polling shows this. Whether the sentiment of the American people is enough to sway Bill Frist away from invoking the nuclear option is unclear. Nevertheless, the Democrats have gotten their message out -- even Santorum admits as much -- and the American people are on their side.

Who'd have ever known it? In fact, about seven in ten voted in 2004, and a quarter were active in the electorate. Harvard University's Institute of Politics takes a look at how these students voted and finds that they break down into four categories:

Traditional Liberals (43 percent of college students): This group voted overwhelmingly for Kerry in the last election (76 percent), believes in health insurance and Social Security guarantees, and firmly disagrees with the statement "homosexual relations between consenting adults are morally wrong." In addition, 86 percent believe the U.N. should take a leading role in solving international crises. This group saw the largest growth in the past year, growing from 32 percent of the population to 43 percent.

Traditional Conservatives (14 percent of college students): Eighty-one percent of this group voted for Bush in the last election, and they are the group most likely to support the war in Iraq. They support Social Security reform, and are very concerned about the moral direction of the country, strongly opposing homosexual relationships and abortion.

Religious Centrists (21 percent of college students): Religious centrists split in the 2004 election: 47 percent voted for Kerry, 47 percent voted for Bush. They, too, are concerned about the moral direction of the country, and are more supportive of religious influence. However, they also believe that health insurance is a right and support school choice.

Secular Centrists (18 percent of college students): This group voted for Bush by a 59 to 29 margin. They feel the country is headed in the right direction, and generally support the war in Iraq and would tolerate further casualties for continued progress. This group is 11 percent smaller than last year.

The voting trends of the "centrists" are particularly interesting. While it might be commonly believed that the religious centrists would trend to the GOP and the secular centrists would lean to the Dems, in fact, this was not the case.

The silver lining of the poll for the Dems: Traditional liberals "saw the largest growth in the past year, growing from 32 percent of the population to 43 percent." Perhaps there's hope after all.

More connections to uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The AP's Suzanne Gamboa has this installment of DeLay-mania.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay treated his political donors to a bird's-eye view of a Three Tenors concert from an arena skybox leased by a lobbyist now under criminal investigation.

[...]

The skybox donation, valued at thousands of dollars, came three weeks before DeLay also accepted a trip to Europe — including golf with Abramoff at the world-famous St. Andrews course — for himself, his wife and aides that was underwritten by some of the lobbyist's clients.

[...]

His defenders say the House leader did nothing wrong in the skybox case. Federal law at the time didn't require DeLay's committee to disclose or reimburse for the skybox gift, they note — though the law was changed to require such disclosure a few months later.

[...]

DeLay's boss, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, came to a different conclusion in recent days, reimbursing Abramoff for a political event two years after the fact. One of Hastert's political committees had used a restaurant partly owned by the lobbyist, and the Hastert committee decided recently to reimburse for the use.

Tom DeLay is stuck in an interesting news cycle in which old stories, under reported (or unreported) in the past, are finally seeing the light of day. Even if all of these actions were legal -- something unclear at this moment -- even the perception of corruption can take someone down. The more these stories come out, the tougher it will be for DeLay to shrug them off... and the less likely it will be that his Republican allies continue to shill for him

It's not Crawford, Texas... It's not 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue... The Austin American-Statesman's Ken Herman reports that...

President Bush and his wife, Laura, claim a Chicago post office box as their "home address."

On the 1040 they signed, which the White House released last week, the listed home address is "Northern Trust Co., P.O. Box 803968, Chicago, IL 60680."

Strange.

David Sirota sees a distinct possibility that Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will succeed Jim Jeffords in the Senate.

[Update 11:28 AM Pacific]: CQ Today's Midday Update (free email service) has more on the race...

Speculation on a successor immediately centered on Vermont’s lone House member, self-proclaimed socialist Bernard Sanders, another independent first elected in 1990 who caucuses with the Democrats in his chamber. Two-term moderate Republican Gov. Jim Douglas would likely offer the GOP its strongest shot at the seat.

Though this seat certainly leans Democratic, it will be a race to watch in 2006.

The AP's Christopher Graff delivers a very disappointing piece of news out of Vermont today:

Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords, an independent who triggered one of the most dramatic upheavals in Senate history when he quit the GOP four years ago, intends to retire at the end of his term next year, officials in his home state and Washington said Wednesday.

Jeffords will make the announcement Wednesday afternoon in Burlington, three sources close to the senator told The Associated Press on Wednesday. They spoke on condition of anonymity.

No calls to Jeffords' press secretary or staff were returned Wednesday morning.

Jeffords, 70, has been adamant in saying he will seek re-election, but there have been increasing concerns voiced about his health in recent weeks.

Jeffords, who was one of the very last remaining liberal Republicans in the Senate, will be sorely missed. The Democrats will be able to hold the seat, but it is highly unlikely that they will find someone as intelligent, talented and decent as Jim Jeffords.

There is some brighter news from Pennsylvania, where new polling shows a surprisingly uncompetitive race at this early juncture. Peter Jackson has the story for the AP:

Democrat Robert P. Casey Jr. holds a 14-percentage-point lead over Republican Sen. Rick Santorum in the 2006 campaign for Santorum's seat, according to an independent poll released Wednesday.

Casey, Pennsylvania's state treasurer and son of the late governor, was favored by 49 percent of the respondents in the Quinnipiac University poll, compared to 35 percent for the second-term incumbent. Thirteen percent were undecided.

The widening of Casey's lead, from 46-41 percent in a Quinnipiac survey in February, comes on the heels of Santorum's high-profile advocacy of two controversial causes - President Bush's Social Security overhaul plan and congressional intervention in the Terry Schiavo case.

If there is any silver lining today, it comes with the fact that Rick Santorum is sitting at 35% right now. While this doesn't mean he has lost the race, it certainly means his next year and a half will be hellish, at best.

[Update 11:01 AM Pacific]: Says Josh Marshall...

For Rick Santorum, phase-out may take on a whole new meaning.

Per the AP's Martin Crutsinger:

Consumer prices jumped 0.6 percent in March, the biggest inflation surge in five months, as the costs of energy, clothing and airline fares all rose sharply.

The Labor Department said last month's increase in the Consumer Price Index, the most closely watched inflation gauge, followed a 0.4 percent rise in February and left consumer inflation rising at an annual rate of 4.3 percent in the first three months of this year. That was a full percentage point above the 3.3 percent rise in prices for all of 2004.

So much for Republican claims that the deficit doesn't matter...

The Hill's Albert Eisele and Jeff Dufour report on this interesting development.

The death of Pope John Paul II, strangely enough, may have had an effect on the ultimate fate of the so-called “nuclear option,” the tactic barring the filibuster of President Bush’s judicial nominations, which Republicans refer to as the “constitutional option.”

Republicans planned to pull the trigger to confirm either Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown, two controversial nominees for federal circuit court judgeships. Owen was considered the most likely nominee over whom the GOP would go nuclear as they had scheduled her to be the first to face the Judiciary Committee, but a vote to send her nomination to the floor was postponed because Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) missed a meeting to attend the funeral at the Vatican.

DeWine’s absence, along with a Democratic boycott, left Republicans short of a quorum, delaying the panel’s consideration of Owen by a week. This meant that the earliest date on which the GOP could go nuclear will have to wait until next week.

If you listen to Republican strategist Dick Morris, stopping the nuclear option wouldn't be the worst thing for Bush and the Republicans at this time.

Despite his top-heavy Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, the public backlash was so severe that Roosevelt couldn’t pass the court-packing bill. The unpopularity he triggered by trying so weakened him that he was unable to pass much of anything for the next four years.

A similar fate could await President Bush if the Christian right succeeds in embroiling him in a battle to change the filibuster rule for judicial nominations. The filibuster, once seen as the last refuge of racists seeking to thwart the progress of civil-rights legislation, has increasingly become part of our checks-and-balances system. Changing the rules in the Senate will be seen as the modern equivalent of the court-packing scheme of FDR.

I hate to say it -- I truly hate to say it -- but I agree with Morris in this instance. The American public might want the President to be able to pursue his agenda -- even at the expense of minority rights -- but they will only accept so much trampling of the other side. Should Frist and the Republicans try for the nuclear option, it's going to be a long year and a half before the midterm elections.

[Update 8:12 PM Pacific]: The New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg has an interesting article on the subject of the nuclear option, looking at the story from the vantange point of the handful of Republicans who have yet to stake out a position on the issue. They include John Warner of Virginia and

Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Gordon H. Smith of Oregon and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Those already opposed to the move:

Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island [are] on record as opposing the change and a third, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine [is] expressing "deep concerns about this approach."

There is yet another camp among the Republicans as well:

The issue has aroused such passions that some Republicans, like Senators John E. Sununu of New Hampshire and Mike DeWine of Ohio, have made up their minds but are keeping their views private.

"I just decided that I wasn't going to take a public position," Mr. Sununu said tersely, "and I haven't."

This morning I had the great opportunity to speak with the Honorable Dennis DeConcini, the three-term Democratic Senator from Arizona. After serving as a Pima County attorney from 1973 to 1976, DeConcini was elected to the United States Senate, where he served from 1977 to 1995. DeConcini was a member of the Judiciary Committee and chaired the Select Committee on Intelligence for a term.

Jonathan Singer: Senator DeConcini, it is such a pleasure to speak with you today. You sat through a number of the major judicial battles of the ‘80s and the early ‘90s, and in 1992 you wrote an essay for the Arizona Law Review on the judicial nomination process. You had a number of interesting things to say, like “The Senate's role in the confirmation process is not simply to rubberstamp the President's selection.” Today there is a Republican Congress and a Republican President but there are similar problems. What do you see today? Do you think the nuclear option will be abated? Or how should the Senate go about it?

Senator Dennis DeConcini: I think it will be attempted by Mr. Frist unless he is certain he is more than two or three votes away from it. If he thinks he is within one or two votes, I think he will do it.

I’m not sure it will pass. There’s been a lot of Republicans – I’ve talked to many of them – and some are opposed to it on philosophy, though they’re very upset with the Democrats. One of them who is a very influential man, Senator Hatch, he really doesn’t want to do it, but he feels like he’s at the end of his rope with the Democrats.

I think it will be attempted, and my guess is that this very right leaning President – and his popularity with the Republicans – it may carry. It will be a big mistake. It will not bring down the Republic, but it will be a big mistake.

Singer: Going back to your text, you said that

if the President has a political agenda and nominates judges he expects will fulfill that agenda, then the Senate has a duty to determine whether the nominee will go so far as to forsake judicial independence to impose the President's political agenda through judicial fiat.

By all indications, it seems like that’s what the President is intending to do. You were writing this at a time when there was a Democratic Senate and a Republican President. Do you think the minority has the right to block Bush’s judges?

DeConcini: I think they have the right to do it, yes. Would I be part of it if I were there? Probably not, if I thought these people were qualified. I voted for a lot of judges that I disagreed with and I voted for eight of the nine Supreme Court Justices. I did hearings in the Judiciary Committee when I first went there, just because the chairman liked me and nobody wanted to do the non-controversial ones. And I did hundreds of hearings.

If I think they’re qualified, and they don’t express themselves in such a manner previous to the hearings on nomination that their agenda is purely political – as Robert Bork was determined to have been – I’d vote for them. I think that some of these judges that the Democrats [have held] up, I have not looked at their file, but I would probably vote for some of them.

Singer: There was an article in The New York Times Magazine this weekend on the so-called “Constitution in Exile” movement, a conservative/libertarian movement, that calls for overturning the last 70 years of jurisprudence since the 1937 series of Court rulings. If a judge from that school were to be nominated, would it be right for the Democrats to block in that case?

DeConcini: For me, it is impossible to give a yes or no answer, and I know that’s what you’d like, because it depends on what they have said and done. And if they were a sitting judge, if their rulings were just absolutely contrary to jurisprudence and Supreme Court majority rulings, then yes, I might do that, as I did with Bork. But Bork… [it] was really the exception when I voted against nominees from the White House. I think I voted against another one from Texas, a Hispanic man (I can’t remember his name). But even Lloyd Bentsen, the senior Senator, I believe voted against him. It just depends what their back record is.

When they appear before the committee, with the exception of Bork, generally they leave a very good impression that they understand what the game is, what the rules are. But when they’re sitting on the bench not being considered to being promoted, or they’re a lawyer in private practice making speeches on the side or representing the Republican Party, that tells you what they really think and what they really will do.

If they advocate changing the Supreme Court, impeaching judges because of the decisions they’ve made, then that would influence me immensely. If they opposed them because of philosophical reasons, short of taking drastic action, I would respect that. And I did in a number of cases. I used to read these files meticulously whether it was a controversial one. I wanted to at least satisfy myself that the person was not a Bork.

Singer: If I’m not mistaken, you supported Clarence Thomas in 1991.

DeConcini: I did. Probably the deciding vote on the Judiciary Committee.

Singer: Your former colleague, the current Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid had in effect called – or maybe in as many words – called him an embarrassment to the court.

DeConcini: I think he called him an idiot. He said that Scalia would be fine for him for the Supreme Court, but he thought that Clarence Thomas was an idiot.

Singer: What do you make of that assessment?

DeConcini: Well, I disagree with my friend, Senator Reid, and he is a longtime friend of mine. But I disagree with him as to Clarence Thomas being an idiot.

Singer: You brought up the potential for impeaching judges. A number of Republicans, ranging from John Cornyn, the Senator from Texas, to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, also of Texas, have, in one way or another, called for the impeachment of judges for ideological reasons. In other words to force judges to adhere to the Republican ideology. What do you think of the potential move by Republicans to do this?

DeConcini: I think it’s a big mistake, and I think eventually it will really backfire on them. The American public doesn’t pay a lot of attention to the everyday politics in Washington, DC, but I just believe that there will be some revolt by the American public eventually if the right wing continues to pursue what they pursue. They appear to be on that road, which as a Democrat, that’s just fine. I may be wrong. It may be wishful thinking.

Singer: You were in the Senate at the time of the last major overhaul of Social Security in 1983. 1983 was a very bipartisan move, in part because there was divided government, but what do you make of the kind of unilateral—

DeConcini: I think it is a total subterfuge by the administration. I served three terms [in the Senate], and every ten years, the Congress has made adjustments to preserve – and maybe strengthen, maybe weaken, depending on your opinion – Social Security. And we’ve done that. In some cases we’ve raised the amount of income that would be taxed, we have adjusted benefits, we’ve raised the age.

And now for Bush and the administration and particularly Snow (the Secretary of Treasury) – he knows better – to indicate that the program is going to go broke, it’s just absurd. That happened when Jimmy Carter was President, and there was a big scare. Carter wanted to be a reformer, and at the end of it when I voted that, I voted against it. I was for it because I believed the information that was put out by the White House. But later in doing my own research with other Senators and I voted against it. It did pass because the Senate was [more than 60] Democrats then.

But it’s just absolutely egregious to do what these Presidents do. Carter tried it, and now Bush is trying it, too. In Bush’s case, it’s even worse because it doesn’t fix the problem. In Carter’s case, they claimed to fix the problem, by a number of pretty strong positions, including raising the taxes. But in this case, what he is pushing, primarily – the private accounts – doesn’t fix the problem. It’s a political set up, and the Bush White House is very good at it, far better than many, many of us Democrats ever thought that they could do.

Singer: What do make of the push for Social Security reform at a time when the bankruptcy of trust fund won’t occur for another 30 years – and that’s just the bankruptcy of the trust fund – but when Medicare will be broke much sooner, within the next decade.

DeConcini: That’s a very cogent point, in my opinion Jonathan, and one that the Democrats have not been able to get across to the media and the public. Medicare – if there is a crisis, and there may be, depending on your own interpretation of a crisis, very close to that – Medicare should be addressed first.

I don’t think they should not address Social Security. But to do what they are suggesting, and Bush is pushing so hard, it’s just absolutely subterfuge as to addressing the problem, in my opinion.

Singer: I want to shift gears a little bit and look to your home state of Arizona. Your successor in Arizona, Jon Kyl, did not face real opposition in 2000 and as of yet, there doesn’t appear to be a strong Democrat who has come out to oppose him in 2006.

Arizona is a state that could trend either way at this point. At this point it is certainly leaning Republican, but the demographics could move it in another direction. What can the Democrats do to turn things around in Arizona?

DeConcini: Two things. One is to find a quality candidate who can either have himself or herself, or put together, the finances. The Democrats have some good candidates there, good office holders. Whether or not they’ll take on Senator Kyl, I don’t know.

Arizona is a tough, tough state for a Democrat. It was tough when I ran, the last time in particular. But it’s just a tough state, and you have to really have your ducks in a row if you want to win as a Democrat in Arizona. You can’t be naïve about it, and many people who run for politics in states that are more Democratic if you’re a Democrat or Republican, you just have to be a little more sophisticated and you have to really have a candidate.

Arizona has got some good candidates. Whether or not they’ll take him on, I don’t know. Jim Pederson, the state chairman, is a very, very wealthy individual who has a businessman background, very successful in business, and all of the credentials of a Democrat. He’s the kind of candidate that the Democrats would have to get. Whether or not he’s got the stomach for that, I don’t know.

Singer: Looking at the Mountain West in general, the Los Angeles Times just had a piece yesterday talking about [beliefs that] the future of the Democratic Party could lie in that region, with Colorado, the Democrats making big gains there, Montana, a little bit north of you also the Democrats seeing games, and even Nevada, your neighbor, the Democrats seem poised to attack, and also New Mexico. Why is Arizona a little bit more difficult for the Democrats?

DeConcini: Those states you mentioned are difficult, too. I belong to a group – (what’s it called) Western Democrats Association, or something, with former Democratic Governors and Senators. Our problem in the West, and to me it’s a little bit less in Nevada because of Harry Reid, but certainly in Utah and New Mexico, with the exception of Bill Richardson there, the national Democratic Party and its platform and its last candidate John Kerry will not listen or do not want to listen or don’t know how to listen to issues that affect the West.

Bill Clinton did. He carried Arizona, after 1948 the last time it ever went Democratic. He invested the time, the resources and paid attention to it. Kerry and the Democratic Party generally [don’t] do that. The exception there is Nevada because of Harry Reid’s position.

Singer: There have been some turnarounds, with the legislature in Colorado, and of course Janet Napolitano is your Governor, so there is a Democratic Governor. Do you think that with the demographic changes in your state – I know that there are still a lot of conservatives moving in because it’s a Sunbelt state, but there’s great growth in the Hispanic population – do you think there’s a chance for transformation in the next decade or so?

DeConcini: Yes I do. Two things come to the fore here. One is you mentioned the Hispanic population and its increase. Two is smart Democrats, and Napolitano is really one of them.

I nominated her to be US Attorney, and she had held no political position before, but had been active in the Democratic Party. And I offered her some advice – she might have already planned on doing it – but having been a prosecutor in Arizona, I told her to stay close to the police and represent them. She did that. And when she ran for Attorney General, she had Republican sheriffs all over the state and chiefs of police supporting her, because as US Attorney she paid attention to the law enforcement.

Now that’s, to me, smart, practical politics assuming you believe that’s the right thing to do – and I believe she did – and she did that as Attorney General for two terms. She was liberal in the areas that were fundamental to her – women’s issues, reproductive issues, and minority issues – but she was very pro law enforcement and business deregulation. And so she was able to conjure up very good support from a lot of Republicans, and that’s what you have to do to win in Arizona, in my judgment. I was fortunate enough to put that together.

Singer: Can I ask you just one more quick question?

DeConcini: Sure.

Singer: You brought up the challenges of connecting the national party to the state parties, in terms of the different issues of importance. We see in Pennsylvania this year, the leading Democratic candidate, Bob Casey Jr. – whose father was not allowed to speak at the 1992 Democratic Convention – and who is a pro-lifer, it looks like he has a good shot at getting the Democratic nomination. And even moreover, Senator Hillary Clinton has come out and talked about the need to moderate at least the way to talk about abortion. You, if I’m not mistaken, are pro-life –

DeConcini: I am.

Singer: Do you think that is enough? To moderate the language and embrace some more of these candidates?

DeConcini: Good question. It certainly is an important step. And there are no political two people in the United States that are smarter and more strategic and convincing than both Clintons, in my opinion. Doing that several months ago was quite impressive, in my political scale, of her capabilities as a politician, and I say that respectfully.

The Democratic Party, it’s a perfect example of what you point out, refusing a popular Governor of Pennsylvania, a crucial state, a platform to speak at the national Democratic Convention because he was pro-life. That is what loses votes immensely, if people even pay attention to it. But that depicts, to me, how the Democratic Party is not inclusive as much as we like to say we are. It is exclusive. If you’re not on 100% with the women’s issues, then you can’t speak at the national convention. That’s absurd. It sounds like the right wing Republicans?

Singer: But what about the resurgence of his son, who looks like he will be the choice to face Rick Santorum?

DeConcini: Well I know his son. He’s a bright young guy. I only met him once. I knew his father much better, talked to his father, and been on appearances on pro-life positions before. I don’t know will he do it or not. But he has a name, he has a legacy there. But if he gets captured in the abortion issue and lets them – the Democrats in the primary – brand him as “that’s the issue he will bring to Congress,” he won’t get the nomination.

I was pro-life, but I never ran as a pro-life Senator. I explained my positions and went to something else: the Equal Rights Amendment, childcare assistance, leave of absence for working mothers, and all kinds of other issues that I had a long history with. But I just wouldn’t dwell on that or respond to trying to make me a one-issue candidate, a pro-life candidate.

[THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.]

Mining more information from today's CBS News poll, we find some very interesting information about people's feelings about the two Congressional parties.

Congressional Republicans themselves are viewed a bit more negatively than Democrats. Forty-two percent of the public has a favorable opinion of Republicans in Congress, compared to 49 percent for Democrats in Congress. As would be expected, views of each party in Congress are highly subject to partisan leanings. Americans view their own party's delegation favorably, and the opposing party's negatively.

VIEWS OF EACH PARTY IN CONGRESS

Republicans in Congress:
Favorable 42%
Unfavorable 49%

Democrats in Congress:
Favorable 49%
Unfavorable 40%

If the Democrats have any chance of winning back Congress in 2006, they must nationalize the campaign. Being viewed more favorably than the Republicans by seven points this early in the game is a good start, but much more must be done. If the GOP ends up in the 30s by election day, they'll be finished. The Democrats have their work cut out for them, indeed.

The transcription of the Jonathan Cowan interview has been briefly curtailed as another interview possibility emerged yesterday. This morning, I had the opportunity to speak with former Senator Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ) on a number of issues ranging from the nuclear option to the state of Arizona politics. The interview will be transcribed by the late afternoon, so check in then.

For all too long, the Democrats have flailed about, moving from one message to another. Suffice to say this is not the most effective way to run effective campaigns. Top non-partisan political analyst Charlie Cook seems to think the Democrats have finally found their voice, though.

But over the last week, Democratic leaders seem to have finally found -- or stumbled upon, depending upon one's perspective -- an effective message. The broad theme that Republican Senate and House majorities have shown a pattern of arrogance and abuse of power is one that might prove a winner for them, because a variety of charges can be used to support it with different voters and constituents likely to embrace different justifications.

For some it is the threatened change in Senate rules to end the filibustering of judges, for others, the changes in the House Ethics Committee's chairmanship, membership and rules after Majority Leader Tom DeLay's, R-Texas, admonishment last year, and for yet others it was the Terri Schiavo case, in which Congress stepped into territory previously thought of as the purview of the states and courts.

[...]

The new Democratic message is an effective one, an umbrella argument that can now be buttressed with new arguments, each reinforcing the strength and persuasiveness of the broader theme. Different people are disturbed or even outraged by different accusations, but they all buttress the same conclusion. While the paucity of competitive House and Senate seats makes a turnover of control in either body extremely unlikely in 2006, it might easily lead to a loss of seats and put control of the bodies in real doubt in 2008.

[There's more, but you need to have the free subscription to view the rest. To sign up for Cook's Off to the Races column, click here.]

"A man in West Bend, Wisconsin who bought a shirt at the local goodwill store found $2,000 stuffed inside the pocket, isn't that amazing? ... The more amazing part is how did one of Tom Delay's old shirts wind up in Wisconsin?"

-- Jay Leno (NBC's Tonight Show)

Link.

As George W. Bush ables towards the end of his Social Security privatization tour, the American people still aren't ready to buy his plans and an increasing amount disapprove of his presidency. CBS News' Joel Roberts has the story:

President Bush doesn’t fare very well in the latest CBS News poll with an approval rating of just 44 percent and still limp support for his proposed Social Security overhaul.

But at least he's doing better than Congress, which earns a thumbs-up from only 35 percent of Americans – nearly as low a rating as it received last month immediately after lawmakers' unpopular intervention in the Terri Schiavo case.

Approval ratings for Congress have historically been low but they're now at one of their lowest points since the late 1990s. Disapproval of the Republican-controlled Congress even extends to 39 percent of Republicans, along with 59 percent of Democrats.

Parsing through the numbers on the Republican Congress, some interesting details emerge.

Asked to name the thing Congress has done over the past year that sticks out most in their minds, the highest number, 9 percent, said the Schiavo decision; 3 percent mentioned actions surrounding the Iraq war; 4 percent said Congress had accomplished nothing; while 68 percent could not name anything it had done.

In some respects, this is bad news, in others it is good. The Democrats surely want the country to understand some of the awful legislation forwarded by the Republican Congress -- the Bankruptcy bill comes to mind -- so this poll shows that they have a long way to go to educate the American people.

On the other hand, the fact that most Americans have no idea what Congress is doing -- and the few who do can only recall the Terri Schiavo case -- presents the Democrats with the distict possibility of lampooning the "do-nothing Republican Congress" (a la Harry Truman). Should the Republican Congress fail on a budget this year (as they did last year), the Democrats will have that much more ammo to sling at the GOP.

John Kerry won in only 18 Repuhlican House districts in 2004, and as a result, CQ Weekly's Gregory L. Giroux believes that it will be difficult for the Democrats to retake the House in 2006.

The Democratic road back might conceivably begin in the 18 districts with Kerry majorities and GOP House members. But the party was not even competitive last year in most of those districts: Only five of the Republicans won by fewer than 10 percentage points.

[...]

But even if Democrats manage to wrest away most of the Kerry-Republican districts, that will not be enough to win the House.

“Just by the numbers, in order to broaden the playing field, we’re going to have to expand our sights into places where Bush won in 2004, and we feel like there are some places where we have some good chances,” said Bill Burton, communications director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

One of the main reasons why the Democrats will have such a hard time in 2006 and why Kerry won so few House districts (180 of 435):

Redistricting after the 2000 census exacerbated the imbalances. Republicans were in charge of redrawing the congressional boundaries in the four most hotly contested presidential battlegrounds: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Bush and Kerry each won two, and the president had a narrow edge in the aggregate popular vote of the four states — but Republicans won 51 of those states’ 77 House districts, in large part because the maps packed Democratic voters into overwhelmingly liberal enclaves and thereby created opportunities for Republicans elsewhere.

It is extremely important that the Democrats work hard within the next two and four years to try to retake the House. That having been said, in the longer term, it is imperative that they force the four aforementioned states to draw fairer districts. Whether that means a ballot measure calling for non-partisan redistricting (Florida) or just doing a better job where the Dems are now in control (Pennsylvania and Michigan), the Democrats simply must do something about these states. If they fail to do so, they might be stuck for the better part of the next decade, too.

It's bad enough when Republicans pass massive tax cuts for the extremely wealthy, but it's inexcusable that they are giving away the house to oil companies at a time when gas prices are higher than ever (as are company profits). Justin Blum has the story for The Washington Post:

The House this week will consider $8 billion in tax breaks targeted to the energy industry at a time when some of those companies are enjoying soaring profits from high consumer prices.

The vast majority of the tax breaks would benefit companies that produce and supply traditional forms of energy, with a large portion going to the oil and natural gas sector.

Even President Bush -- an oilman -- thinks the idea is ridiculous:

Dana M. Perino, a White House spokeswoman, would not comment on the House measure but referred to comments made by President Bush last week. "I will tell you with $55 oil we don't need incentives to oil and gas companies to explore," Bush said in a speech to newspaper editors in Washington. "There are plenty of incentives. What we need is to put a strategy in place that will help this country over time become less dependent."

This is yet again another example of the real principles of the Republican Party. At a time when Medicare is about a decade away from complete bankruptcy and the federal deficit is ballooning to all-time highs, all the Republicans can think about is how much money they can give away to their cronies in the oil industry.

Ask anyone who paid $2.57 for a gallon of gas if they think Exxon needs another few billion dollars in tax breaks. In fact, run an ad asking that very question. Perhaps the American people will be interested to learn that while Bush is proposing to cut their Social Security benefits, his party is planning on giving billions to the oil companies.

Bob Dole has been out of power for about a decade, but that hasn't stopped him from delivering some sound advice to his fellow Republicans. James Gordon Meek has the story for the New York Daily News:

Former Sen. Bob Dole yesterday joined the list of top Republicans urging embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to come clean on his ethics troubles.

"I think what Tom needs to do is just to come out somewhere and to just lay out everything," said Dole, the ex-Senate majority leader and 1996 GOP presidential nominee.

Dole helped lead the 1994 Republican takeover of the Congress with DeLay and ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who has also said DeLay should give his side to the public.

Dole suggested the GOP might even cut loose the firebrand majority leader if the controversy continues smoldering.

The reason why DeLay will not "just lay out everything" is clear. It's the same reason why DeLay killed the House ethics process. He's acted improperly in the past and he doesn't want the American people and his constituents to know about it.

[Update 6:26 PM Pacific]: In other news from the House...

U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde, the Illinois Republican who steered the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton and championed government restrictions on abortion funding, announced Monday that he will retire when his term ends in 2006. [Link]

It's a good day in Washington when Hyde is on his way out.

I just got off of the phone with Jon Cowan of Third Way, a new centrist/progressive think tank allied co-chaired by Democratic Senators Blanche Lincoln (AR), Evan Bayh (IN), and Tom Carper (DE). I am unfortunately unable to transcribe the interview right now, but will have it up by tomorrow morning at the latest.

Mark Z. Barabak prominently features this famous Horace Greeley quote in his Los Angeles Times piece on Democratic prospects in the West. The idea that the future for the Democratic Party is in the West is not a new one. (I opined about it here in mid-December and the folks over at Western Democrat have been talking about it even longer.) Nevertheless, it's always nice to see a long article like this in a major paper. Barabak writes,

Democrats have reason for hope. In the Pacific West, California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii continue to lean their way in presidential politics. In addition to the party's strong 2004 showing in the Colorado Legislature, Democrats elected a governor in Montana and took control of the House and Senate in Helena, the first time they won either chamber in a decade.

The party also now has governors in Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. Overall, Democrats gained 31 legislative seats across the West in 2004, but the party continued to lose ground in the South.

At the presidential level, the West accounted for six of the 10 states where Democratic nominee John F. Kerry topped Al Gore's 2000 performance.

New Mexico and Nevada — which President Bush carried by less than 1 percentage point and 2.6 percentage points, respectively — had two of the four tightest contests in November.

"Given the closeness of the presidential vote in New Mexico, Nevada and even Colorado" — where Kerry won 47% of the vote — "we don't need to make great inroads," said Paul Harstad, a Democratic strategist in Boulder who has done extensive polling throughout the West. "We need to make incremental inroads."

It would be nice to see some of the Democratic establishment start to listen to these ideas, because they provide the party with a real shot at reemerging from the political wilderness. What's more, when you compare Democratic prospects in the West and the South, it becomes clear that not only should the Dems focus on the West, they must.

For more depth on the subject, check out our interview with Gary Hart.

Google search: who controls congress

Second listing: Basie!: Which Party Controls Congress?

The crux of the post: Not enough Americans know that the Republicans control Congress.

Conclusion of the post: "[T]here is no such thing as the 'US Congress,' there is only the 'Republican Congress.' There is no 'House,' there is a 'Republican House.' There is no Senate, there is a 'Republican Senate.'"

---

While I am flattered that Google's algorithm has chosen me to explain which party controls Congress, this search underscores the key fact that too many Americans have no idea as to the answer of that question.

Once again, I call on Democrats -- and their 527 allies -- to lead an effort to educate the American people on the Republican Congress and all of the bad things it has done for the country. Congress is already unpopular, so if the Dems can tie that unpopularity to the Republican Party, they will be set for 2006 and 2008.

"He claimed the Christian Right as dependents, he declared the 2000 election as a gift, and he tried to write off all the mileage he got from 9/11."

-- Bill Maher on Bush's tax returns (HBO's "Real Time")

Link.

Video is finally available from Wes Clark's speech before the California Democratic Convention on Saturday night. Congrats to the folks over at The Insurgent Political Campaign for scoring the exclusive coverage of the event.

By the way, try to check in with The Insurgent Political Campaign, and it's sister site The Political Dogfight, if you're interested. They have some great coverage of politics over there.

[Update 12:26 AM Pacific]: By the way, consider heading over to Wes Clark's new website, Securing America, as well.

In Washington, nominees beliefs seldom take them down; rather, other aspects of their lives can become part of the larger story that block their nomination. Such is the case with John Bolton, and The Washington Post's Dafna Linzer has the story on the latest devolpment on his quest to become U.N. Ambassador:

John R. Bolton -- who is seeking confirmation as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations -- often blocked then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and, on one occasion, his successor, Condoleezza Rice, from receiving information vital to U.S. strategies on Iran, according to current and former officials who have worked with Bolton.

In some cases, career officials found back channels to Powell or his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, who encouraged assistant secretaries to bring information directly to him. In other cases, the information was delayed for weeks or simply did not get through. The officials, who would discuss the incidents only on the condition of anonymity because some continue to deal with Bolton on other issues, cited a dozen examples of memos or information that Bolton refused to forward during his four years as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.

Two officials described a memo that had been prepared for Powell at the end of October 2003, ahead of a critical international meeting on Iran, informing him that the United States was losing support for efforts to have the U.N. Security Council investigate Iran's nuclear program. Bolton allegedly argued that it would be premature to throw in the towel. "When Armitage's staff asked for information about what other countries were thinking, Bolton said that information couldn't be collected," according to one official with firsthand knowledge of the exchange.

As Linzer notes, Bolton still has a way to go before confirmation by the Senate.

But, yesterday, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said the allegations were beginning to pile up.

"If there's nothing more that comes out, I will vote for Bolton," Hagel told CNN's "Late Edition." But Hagel also said that he was "troubled with more and more allegations, revelations, coming about his style, his method of operation," including charges that Bolton had intimidated a member of Hagel's staff who had worked briefly under Bolton at the State Department's Nonproliferation Bureau.

The vote is scheduled for Tuesday, though it could be postponed should either Hagel, or Lincoln Chafee, waver in their support for Bolton. It will certainly be interesting to see how the Senators react to these new allegations.

"Hey, look, let me be very straightforward here. I, 15 years ago, had a problem because I behaved inappropriately. The ethics committee stepped in. Newt Gingrich had a problem. He was reprimanded; the ethics committee stepped in. The difference between us and Mr. DeLay is, I think, we changed our behavior. Mr. DeLay changed the ethics committee."

-- Congressman Barney Frank on Republican changes to the House ethics process (Meet the Press).

Link.

On this beautiful Sunday afternoon, I've been engaged in some interesting reading.

• Jeffrey Rosen's expose in The New York Times Magazine this week on the effort to overturn post-1937 Supreme Court rulings. Choice quote:
  
  

  "Judicial activism will have to be deployed. It's plain that the idea of judicial deference was a dead end for conservatives from the get-go."
  
  -- Michael Greve of the American Enterprise Institute

• Also on the docket: the transcript of Bill Moyers' interview with children's author Maurice Sendak. Sendak explains the genesis of his classic book, Where the Wild Things Are:
  
  

  MOYERS: So, the wild things are your extended…
  
  SENDAK: Relatives. They're…
  
  MOYERS: Jewish relatives.
  
  SENDAK: Jewish relatives.

  Who would have ever known?

Click here for more on the book.

This morning, The New York Times' Steven R. Weisman reports on a second allegation that Bush's nominee to be U.N. Ambassador, John Bolton, bullied low-level bureaucrats, a potential sticking point in his case for approval by the Senate. Today, a second Republican Senator on the Foreign Relations Committee intimated that he might not vote for Bolton. The AP's Siobhan McDonough has the story:

A top Senate Republican raised the possibility Sunday that he might vote against President Bush's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations if more accusations surface about John Bolton's alleged harassment of analysts who disagreed with his views.

With a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote expected Tuesday, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska was asked whether he would endorse Bolton.

"At this point, I will ... but I have been troubled with more and more allegations, revelations, coming about his style, his method of operation," said Hagel, the committee's No. 2 Republican.

"We need a uniter," he told CNN's "Late Edition." "We need a builder. We need someone who will reach out to our friends and our allies at the United Nations."

Bolton's nomination might not be dead, but it's certainly on life-support at this juncture. Should either Hagel or Linc Chafee (R-RI) vote against Bolton in this weeks vote, Bush's nominee will be defeated, a surprising blow for the administration as it tries to strong arm Congress.

Now that you've paid your taxes, if you want to know how the folks in Washington are going to spend them...

FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sens. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and Reps. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and California first lady Maria Shriver.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Reps. David Dreier (R-Calif.) and Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Blunt.

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.); former Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.); former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger; former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski; the Rev. David O'Connell, president of Catholic University of America; Chester Gillis, chairman of the theology department at Georgetown University, and former Vatican diplomat John-Peter Pham. [Link]

Just about all the shows tomorrow sound interesting. My money is on Face the Nation and Meet the Press for tomorrow's excitement.

And borrows a whole lot too. The AP's Suzanne Gamboa takes a gander at Tom DeLay's latest FEC filing and finds some interesting information.

The ethics troubles of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay have not hurt his ability to raise money for his re-election.

In the first three months of this year, DeLay's personal campaign committee took in $438,235, including $100,000 he borrowed personally for his campaign, according to the latest records from the Federal Election Commission.

Where else is this money coming from, other than huge bank loans?

More than half of DeLay's contributions, $221,000 were from corporate political action committees or trade associations.

Only about one quarter of DeLay's fundraising this quarter came from individuals. And these individuals include people like Tony Rudy -- a former DeLay aide who now works for Jack Abramoff's old lobbying firm -- and Rudy's wife, both of whom gave $2,000. So while Gamboa's assertion that DeLay's ethical woes haven't hampered his fundraising abilities is true, the report shows a relatively low amount support for DeLay from real people of his district, an important fact neglected in this article.

What do you do if an upcoming report contains unfavorable information about your administration? Stop it from being published, of course. Knight Ridder's Jonathan S. Landay has the big scoop:

The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

[...]

[C]urrent and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.

"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

How bad is the news in the report?

According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the issue, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004.

That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades.

The statistics didn't include attacks on American troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror."

The numbers in the report raise two significant questions. The first, of course, is whether President Bush is doing enough to combat terrorism. I always believed that John Kerry should have tried to outflank Bush on the right on issues of terrorism, a la JFK on the missile gap. The same strategy still holds today, and the Democrats now have firm proof that the President's policies are not cutting down worldwide terrorism (and in fact are allowing more terrorist attacks than ever).

The following is an equally important question: should the Americal people support a man who blocks information from the public that might tarnish his image? If ever there were proof of this President's "divorce from reality" (thank you, Mr. Guckert), this is it. The Dems -- or their allies -- should really consider running an ad on this because it's high time Americans realized what type of man their President really is.

Looking at the South in 2004, it would be easy to come to the conclusion that the Democrats fell flat on their faces. Looking at the larger picture -- especially looking out West -- it is clear that the Democrats are not in as dire straights as some might have you believe. Annie Chuang's latest story in The Oregonian shows yet another aspect Democratic strength in the West that is all too often overlooked: growing Hispanic turnout.

Nearly four times as many Oregon Latinos voted in the 2004 presidential election as did in 2000, according to a recent analysis of voter records by state Democratic Party organizers.

About 45,000 Latinos voted last November -- a number that reflects both a growing population in Oregon and a high-profile, closely contested presidential race.

The numbers have gained national attention from Democratic party leaders who cite "The Oregon Model" for Latino voter outreach pioneered in 2002 by a five-person staff from a dank office in industrial Southeast Portland.

Republicans counter that the increase has as much to do with their stepped-up voter outreach efforts and the appeal of President Bush among Latinos.

The appeal of President Bush among Latinos? In Oregon, Bush won a whopping 17% of the Latino vote. Nationally, John Kerry won as much as 65% of the Latino vote, quite an accomplishment given the large number of Cubans who vote en masse for the Republicans.

If the Democrats can replicate the results from Oregon on a larger scale across the West -- and even in the South, where the Hispanic population is beginnning to explode -- they will have a real shot at building a real majority coalition for the future. It won't be easy, but the potential benefits are well worth the effort.

"The basic difference in this is — everyone is welcome in the Democratic Party. We are not a party of divisiveness; we are a party of inclusion."

-- Governor Joe Manchin (D-WV) speaking on the differences between Democrats and Republicans during his party's weekly radio address.

Link.

Yesterday was income tax day for all Americans, but it was particularly special for me. Lo and behold, I made it to my 21st birthday. Thank you to everyone who sent me greetings and warm wishes.

The Economist is no liberal rag, to say the least. So when American columnist Lexington calls for the ousting of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, it means something (subscription reqd.):

The longer you study the DeLay affair, the more clearly it has passed the point where conservatives have more to lose than gain by rallying around him. If they continue to support Mr DeLay, they risk tarring the entire movement with his ethical problems. If they replace him with a clean new face (say, Roy Blunt, the majority whip), they save themselves months of distraction and begin to rein in their increasingly dangerous affair with K Street, the lobbyists' home in the capital.

[...]

For the American right, K-Street conservatism is the political version of steroids: it confers short-term strength at the expense of long-term health problems. The Republicans took over Congress in 1994 in part because they skilfully used attacks on individual politicians to suggest that the Democrats were soft on corruption. The Republicans are vulnerable to exactly this treatment. From that perspective, getting rid of Mr DeLay is only a first step. But it is a good place to start.

Strong words. I agree completely with Lexington's assessment that the longer DeLay sticks around -- the more the situation festers -- the worse the end outcome will be for the Republicans. Perhaps the Democrats should hope DeLay lasts until the 2006 midterm elections. He might just be the biggest electoral boon for them in 20 years.

So much for thinking the public's discontent with the President was going to be short-lived. Harris Interactive has the latest numbers:

The last month has not been a good one for President Bush and the Republicans. Most people have opposed the President’s proposals for reforming Social Security and most were unhappy with the positions taken by Republicans in the Terri Schiavo case. The result is that the president’s job ratings have fallen to 44 percent positive, 56 percent negative, the worst numbers of his presidency, and a drop from 48 percent positive, 51 percent negative in February (and 50% positive, 49% negative last November).

This is one of the results of a new Harris Poll of 1,010 U.S. adults surveyed by telephone by Harris Interactive® between April 5 and 10, 2005.

Ouch.

The Rockefeller Republicans -- though few in number -- still know how to make a ruckus to upset their party. You might remember, for instance, the stink that a number of moderates made on the eve of the GOP convention in August. Today, they're once again out in full force, as Thomas Ferraro reports for Reuters:

Ten former Republican U.S. lawmakers on Friday urged a reversal of new House of Representatives ethics rules that they charged were changed to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay from further investigation.

In an open letter to Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, the former lawmakers said the rule changes early this year, which make it more difficult to probe an ethics complaint, must be reversed "to restore public confidence in the people's House."

"We felt grave concern when the Republican leadership changed the ethics rules ... We saw it as an obvious action to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay," the letter said.

[...]

In addition to [Pete] McCloskey [of California], other signers of the letter included Mark Andrews of North Dakota, a moderate who served in the House and Senate between the 1960s and 1980s.

Others, all of whom served in the House in the same era were: John Buchanan of Alabama; M. Caldwell Butler of Virginia; Paul Findley of Illinois; Bud Hillis of Indiana; James Johnson of Colorado; Richard Mallary of Vermont; Wiley Mayne of Iowa, and G. William Whitehurst of Virginia.

This letter might not have a direct effect upon the Republican leadership of the House, but it does send an important signal to the few remaining moderate Republican voters: your party has abandoned you. When the Rockefeller Republicans pay heed to this obvious statement, the Democratic Party should be more than willing to embrace them.

Questions still remain about whether Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) will seek an unprecedented ninth term, but if Barack Obama has anything to say about it, Byrd will be in the Senate through 2013. Apparently, the people of West Virginia agree with the junior Senator from Illinois, as Roll Call's Lauren W. Whittington reports (subscription reqd.):

The National Republican Senatorial Committee on Friday released a new poll that showed the veteran lawmaker just barely above the 50 percent mark.

The survey, conducted by the Anderson Group for the NRSC, showed Byrd leading Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R) 52 percent to 42 percent in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup.

The real story behind this poll is the fact that the best candidate the GOP can come up with in West Virginia only gets 42% in a skewed poll. When you take a gander at the fundraising totals so far, the real competitiveness of the race -- or rather lack thereof -- becomes apparent. Roll Call has the story (no link available):

Gearing up for a potentially grueling 2006 re-election fight, Sen. Robert Byrd (D) raised almost $1.2 million in the first quarter of the year, his campaign announced Wednesday.

The three-month total is more than the overall amount Byrd raised for his non-competitive 2000 re-election race.

The majority of Byrd's funds were raised through an e-mail solicitation signed by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and distributed nationally by the liberal group MoveOn.org.

Published reports have estimated that the group's members pitched in almost $833,000 in less than three days to aid Byrd's re-election.

[...]

[Byrd's potential GOP challenger Shelly] Capito raised $72,000 in the quarter and ended March with $104,000 in her campaign account.

It's sure going to be difficult for a Republican to win with only $104,000, even in a purportedly "red" state like West Virginia. Perhaps Byrd will have a few more years in the Senate after all.

The latest news from Bill Toland and Tom Barnes of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette seems to indicate that the answer is yes.

Gov. Ed Rendell's director of communications, Penny Lee, is leaving Harrisburg to become the new executive director of the Democratic Governors Association in Washington, D.C.

So the readers of political tea leaves are trying to figure out what it all means -- could Rendell run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008?

Having a former aide like the politically savvy Lee occupy a key national position is seen by some politicians as an indication of Rendell's interest in the 2008 race. But many others say there's no connection.

While it might seem like the press often reads too much into these things, this case might be slightly different. The campaign for position of executive director of the DGA is in many ways viewed as an early primary for '08, with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack also angling for their aids to get the spot. In this regard, the selection of Lee can be viewed as a real victory for Rendell. It's a long way away from '08, but the wheels are turning.

Shocking! Simply shocking. The New York Daily News has the story:

On the March 31 installment of the shouting-head show, the guests included two of the late Terri Schiavo's former nurses, Trudy Capone and Carla Sauer Iyer, arguing that their patient wasn't brain-dead.

Between commercials, according to an off-air audiotape obtained by investigative comedian Harry Shearer for last Sunday's episode of his weekly radio program, "Le Show," Hannity coached the women on exactly how to respond when liberal co-host Alan Colmes cross-examined them.

"Just say, 'I'm here to tell what I saw,'" Hannity can be heard instructing his guests. "No matter what the question, 'I'm here to tell you what I saw. I'm here to tell you what I saw.'"

Hannity adds helpfully: "Say, 'I'm not going to be distracted by silliness.' How's that? Does that help you? Look into that camera. Look at me when I'm talking."

Is it real journalism when you tell your interview subjects how they should answer questions?

"If he chose to resign as majority leader until these matters are resolved, that's probably not the worst idea."

-- Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), on Tom DeLay

Link.

President Bush and his conservative allies in Congress thought that they were going to be able to enact massive cuts to Medicaid -- which benefits the poor -- so they can pass more tax cuts for the extremely wealthy. Though he must have been taken aback when the Senate passed the Smith-Bingaman amendment to strip the Medicaid cuts from the budget, Bush certainly knew that the conservative establishment in the House wouldn't let him down. Right? Wrong. The AP's Kevin Freking has the scoop:

President Bush's budget centerpiece to squeeze billions of dollars from spending on health care for the poor ran into jeopardy Thursday as 44 House Republicans signed a letter protesting the cuts.

The lawmakers said reducing Medicaid spending over the next five years by up to $20 billion as approved last month by the House "will negatively impact people who depend on the program and the providers who deliver health care to them."

The cuts would amount to about a 1 percentage point reduction from Medicaid's projected 7 percent-plus growth over the next several years. By law, benefit programs grow automatically to keep pace with factors such as inflation and ever-rising numbers of beneficiaries.

The lawmakers sent the letter to Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, chairman of the House Budget Committee. Bush in February proposed $8.5 billion in Medicaid cuts. GOP leaders in the House and Senate proposed making the cuts bigger to pay for new tax cut initiatives. The Senate, however, rejected any cuts in Medicaid spending.

The letter does not include a pledge by the 44 GOP lawmakers to vote against the budget should the Medicaid cuts be reinstated. (Much like the Smith-Bingaman amendment, it is highly possible that fainthearted Republicans will go back on their word and support a budget with massive cuts for the poor.) Nevertheless the defection is yet another indication that the Republican coalition -- once as tight as a knot -- is beginning to slip apart at the seams.

This morning, I had the distict opportunity to speak with former United States Senator Bob Packwood (R-OR) over the telephone. Packwood was first elected to the Oregon State legislature in 1963. In 1968, Packwood defeated incumbent Oregon Senator Wayne Morse (one of two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resoltution).

A fierce moderate, Packwood rose quickly within his caucus, chairing the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Republican Conference, the Commerce Committee, and eventually the Finance Committee. It was there that he helped craft the Tax Reform of 1986. Packwood resigned from office on October 1, 1995.

Jonathan Singer: Senator Packwood, it is such an honor to speak with you this morning. Tax reform was one of your great legacies in the United States Senate. You worked very hard to simplify the tax code in 1986, getting rid of a number of the excessive deductions and other schemes that were available at that time. But today, the tax code is as complicated as is has ever been. With tax reform effectively tabled until 2006 – some have said – what does Congress need to do to move forward to create a “fairer and simpler” tax code as the President has called for?

Bob Packwood: The President is going to have to be deeply involved and he’s going to have to know what it is he wants to achieve. Congress will not do it without the President pushing. But let’s assume the President does push. Then the question becomes what is a “fairer and simpler” tax code?

You could go to a very simple code. It’s what we call a flat tax. No deductions of any kind, and everything counts as income. The value of the fringe benefits your employer provides is counted is income. Interest from municipal bonds is counted as income. You could literally have almost a postcard return. That would be simple. But if it was a pure flat tax, it would mean that those who are very rich would pay less taxes than they pay now. So you would have to do something to adjust it so that it reasonably reflected what you might call “fair progressivity.”

Singer: When you created the Tax Reform bill of 1986, you balanced the tax cuts. They were revenue-neutral. There are some calls for making the tax reform of 2006 not necessarily revenue-neutral, to make it a tax cut. Do you think this is an effective way to move forward, or do you think that it needs to be revenue-neutral?

Packwood: Interestingly, the President at the moment has said that he wants it to be revenue-neutral, and I certainly would take him at his word on that. But there’s no reason – that’s not saying that I’d necessarily support or oppose tax cuts, I’d have to see what they are – there’s no reason you couldn’t do both at the same time. But I think he would be wiser to separate them, and to attempt to do the reform and to make it revenue-neutral, and then when he’s done it, say “all right, now what do we want to do in terms of tax cuts,” and look at them separately from reform.

Singer: Just one more question about 1986. You worked very well across the aisle with your counterpart in the House, Dan Rostenkowski (Democrat from Illinois), and with the ranking member of your committee, Russell Long, to ensure safe passage of the bill. If I’m not mistaken, when it moved out of the committee it was unanimous, or it was nearly unanimous – I don’t remember exactly – but today there seems to be much less comity in the Senate and there is much less bipartisanship. Do you think it can be moved forward in this much more highly partisan climate?

Packwood: I think it could. It certainly was bipartisan, nonpartisan in '86. It passed the committee unanimously and it passed the floor of the Senate 97 to 3.

The key is, by and large, the Republicans would like lower tax rates; Democrats would like to close lots of loopholes. If you close lots of loopholes, you can lower the tax rates. So I think you can put together a coalition that would be willing to do it. Your problem comes not so much with being Republicans and Democrats as from the interest groups on the outside who will not like the deductions eliminated.

Singer: A number of those interest groups include people like homeowners. How do you placate homeowners who love the mortgage deductions? I know it was a problem you faced in 1986.

Packwood: I remember Bill Bradley, who was practically the godfather of our efforts, said if you get rid of the mortgage interest deduction, you’ll kill tax reform. He said, “It is sacred. You can’t touch it.”

I don’t know if I agree with that totally. If you could get the rates so low – and you could get them quite low – I think most people would be willing to get rid of deductions if they thought the following was not going to happen: you get rid of the deductions, you lower the rates. Now that you’ve gotten rid of the deductions, and as the government wants more money, they just raise the rates but they don’t give the deductions back. That’s what scares a lot of people.

Singer: Now let’s move to another issue that’s under the domain of the Finance Committee, and that’s Social Security. You were in the Senate – I think maybe the second ranking member of the committee at the time of the 1983 overhaul of Social Security.

Packwood: Yeah.

Singer: Today the President and the Republican Party want to implement what they call “personal” accounts, what the Democrats call “private” accounts or “privatization.” This bill doesn’t seem like it will be able to pass without Democratic support – just on pure numbers, 60 votes are needed and there are only 55 Republicans. What can the Senate Republicans do and the President do to try to get the Democrats on board?

Packwood: The President is doing the only thing he can do on this. The Republicans are afraid to touch Social Security. A time or two in the past they have made modest adjustments – never got to be a law, just suggested them – and just got the bejabbers kicked out of them by the Democrats in the next election. So the Republicans are afraid of the issue, and understandably.

The President is therefore doing the only thing he can do. He’s going to the public. He’s going to try to so convince the public that these changes should be made that they will bring pressure on Congress. And I think that’s the only way it will work – and I’m not even sure it will work with him trying it – but it’s the only way it will work.

Singer: What are your personal feelings on the personal or private accounts?

Packwood: I don’t have any strong feelings on them. Most people don’t know that it’s voluntary. You don’t have to participate in this if you don’t want to. But let’s say half the public does, and instead of paying the full amount into Social Security they pay a slightly reduced amount and they pay money into the private accounts. That’s fine, but it doesn’t solve the Social Security funding problem. Whether or not you enact the private accounts or don’t enact the private accounts, it doesn’t solve the Social Security funding problem.

Singer: Along those lines, there is some discussion about when Social Security will run out. Taking the President’s numbers, the trust fund will start running a deficit in – I believe the newest numbers are – 2017 or 2018, though still until 2041 the trust fund will be able to fund 100% of benefits and even at that point, only a slightly reduced amount will be taken away from benefits. But looking at Medicare – which is another program under the Finance Committee —Medicare is set to run out completely of its trust fund about 2019 (I could have that year wrong). Is that not a more pressing issue than Social Security at this time?

Packwood: It’s more immediate. In fact, it’s in desperate financial trouble. I think you’re only talking about four of five years away. The reason it’s more pressing [is that] you can, with some accuracy, project Social Security costs. What’s the average age of the population? How many normally retire at 62? How many retire at 65 in a few months now? How long are they on average likely to live? And you can estimate reasonably Social Security. Medicare health costs you cannot. We have no idea what the health costs are going to be in five years. That program is on very slippery ground.

Singer: There are a number of related factors that cause the poor outlook for Medicare including more people reaching older ages and of course medical costs are going up. But one of the large factors is also the prescription drug benefit that originally was believed to have cost $400 billion. Now over a slightly different period of time it’s expected to cost closer to $1 trillion. Do you think that program needs to be tweaked in order to ensure the viability the Medicare program.

Packwood: I fear not. That program goes into effect next year, in 2006. I don’t think it will be tweaked very significantly. This was my experience on any medical program the federal government had: Whatever our estimates were were wrong, and they were low. By the time you added the prescription drug benefit to it, it just further makes the funding crisis close to immediate. It’s just a tremendously heavy burden.

Singer: So what might you say to some of the House Republicans in the more conservative wing of the party who want to restrict the prescription drug benefit to the original $400 billion? They come from the point of view that “we were told it will only cost $400 billion and we believed it.”

Packwood: I think they feel duped. A number of them that I’ve talked to said had they known everything in full, they wouldn’t have voted for it. The pressure to vote for it was tremendous. But they’re not going to repeal it now.

You used the word tweak, and you’re right. They might tweak it. So let’s say a new program that’s going to cost – not $400 billion and I don’t think $1 trillion, but I think $700-$800 billion – you tweak it and it costs $650 billion instead of $750 billion. That is still $650 billion that you weren’t obligated to before you passed this program.

Singer: Let’s move to more of your original home base, the state of Oregon. The Oregon Republican Party for close to a century was – [there] basically was one-party rule in Oregon. Even through your tenure in the state legislature and later in the United States Senate, the Republican Party thrived on moderation. Now the Party has seemingly moved to the right in the state and has been shut out of office save for one Senate seat. What are your feelings on what the Oregon state Republican Party can do to come back into power in the state?

Packwood: The single thing it could do would be to not just moderate, but to totally change its position on, by and large, social issues. On abortion, on gay rights, they are in my mind on the wrong side meritoriously, but certainly the wrong side politically on these issues. So as long as the Republican Party appears to people to say “women should have no choice on abortion” and “gays should have no rights,” the Party isn’t going to do well.

Singer: The conference that you founded, the Dorchester Conference, [which] once was really at the forefront of the liberal or moderate wing of the Republican Party – people like George Romney spoke there, a number of leading presidential contenders spoke there. This year, they passed a resolution against gay marriage and in past years have come out against abortion. Do you see any possibility of changing it?

Packwood: I ran it for the first five years, from 1965 to 1969. The first five years, the conference was pretty much invitational. I was the person doing the inviting, and it was very specifically designed to be on the liberal or moderate cutting edge of the Republican Party.

Since that time, anyone who wants to go can go, and therefore, as we’ve all learned, zealots – be they right wing zealots or left wing zealots – are more inclined to be active than moderate people. And so now, those who go to the conference – and anyone can go – are more inclined to be very conservative.

Singer: [Looking] more broadly than just Oregon, we saw in 2004 a primary challenge in Pennsylvania to one of your former colleagues, Arlen Specter – who is a moderate. We see a possible primary challenge in Rhode Island against Lincoln Chafee, with whose father you served. What do you think of this move to rid the Republican Party of the moderates in the Senate?

Packwood: I think it’s one of the reasons that things have become more divisive. Not only have the Republicans been shedding their moderates, the Democrats have been shedding their moderates. You used to have any number of Southern, heavens, conservative, let alone moderate Democrats, and especially in the Midwest – the Mike Mansfields in Montana, the Alan Bibles in Nevada – they were Democrats, but they were moderates. By and large, both parties have been shedding their moderates, therefore making compromise much more difficult.

Singer: So is there anything to be done to recreate or rebuild the political center of American politics?

Packwood: I’m not sure I know the answer. Again, activists are usually zealots – right wing or left wing – and they are disproportionately influential in primaries and the nominating process. So you often get a right wing Republican against a left wing Democrat in the general election. And whoever wins, they carry that philosophy into the legislative body.

[THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.]

The Associated Press files this story:

The Bush administration is impeding an investigation into the Education Department's hiring of commentator Armstrong Williams by refusing to allow key White House officials to be interviewed, a Democratic lawmaker briefed on the review said Thursday.

In addition, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is considering invoking a privilege that he said would require information to be deleted when the final version is publicly released, which is expected within days.

Miller called for Jack Higgins, the inspector general at the Education Department, to delay the report until Spellings agrees not to invoke "deliberative process privilege" and the White House grants interviews with current or former officials familiar with the deal.

"The public's right to know is absolutely more important than any claim of privilege that the White House or the Department of Education might make," Miller said. "The public has a right to all the facts about possible misconduct."

It comes as little surprise that President Bush is blocking the investigating into his administration's bribery of Armstrong Williams. One question remains, however: what are they hiding?

---

Note: I'm almost done transcribing, so the interview will be available in about an hour (around 3:00 PM Pacific)...

I didn't come up with the term, but I suppose I'll use it anyway. Christopher Shays became the first Republican to call for Tom DeLay's resignation this week, so Dana Milbank takes a gander at him in The Washington Post:

Shays seized a prominent role in the DeLay ethics controversy Saturday when he told constituents that the leader is "an absolute embarrassment to me and to the Republican Party." To DeLay's foes, Shays is a brave truth-teller; to DeLay's defenders -- and that includes the most powerful Republicans in Congress -- Shays is a self-righteous grandstander.

[...]

It's yet unknown whether Shays's rebellion remains the act of one gadfly or becomes the sort of movement that occurred after John B. Anderson became the first Republican in Congress in 1974 to call for President Richard M. Nixon's resignation. That nobody in the party has yet joined Shays reflects the enormous power and loyalty DeLay commands. A few colleagues have given Shays private encouragement, but a similar number have avoided eye contact with him.

For those who missed it, check out my interview with Congressman Anderson from back in November. Make sure to check back in this afternoon, also, for my interview with a former high ranking Republican Senator (and a moderate, to boot!).

You heard it here at Basie! over a month ago: Trent Lott (R-MS) wants his spot back as Senate Majority Leader. The Washington Post's Shailagh Murray takes a closer look at Lott's campaign to reassume power.

Trent Lott is reminiscing with supporters at the Rocky Creek Catfish Cottage, recalling the goat barbecues and Jaycee meetings that marked his first House campaign 33 years ago. But the senator draws the biggest whoops when he mentions the "little bump in the road" he hit in December 2002, when his return to the position of Senate majority leader was scuttled by what some saw as nostalgic words about segregation.

[...]

Lott does little to discourage speculation that he might make another run at a leadership job. "If the right circumstances came along, I might do it again," he said. Lott said he finds Senate whip the most appealing post, because the whip is in the thick of everything but "doesn't have to make every damn decision," as Lott puts it.

It all depends on how the next year or two shake out. Lott has to decide for certain that he will run for a fourth term in 2006, though he says that is his intention. Frist plans to retire from the Senate next year, and his successor is all but certain to be Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the current majority whip. Sen. Rick Santorum, the No. 3 Republican, is slotted to move into McConnell's current post. But Santorum is expected to face a reelection fight in Pennsylvania next year. If he loses, that could be Lott's opening.

Lott was a relatively acceptable Majority Leader in terms of ensuring comity between the two parties. He's a conservative, but he is not an arch conservative like Frist.

The problem for the Democrats now is that Lott must shift right in the short term to draw the support of the Republican caucus in the Senate. For instance, Lott has taken quite a strong position in favor of the nuclear option (something he didn't overtly support while serving as Majority Leader). If the Democrats can weather this period in the short term before Lott (possibly) resumes leadership of his caucus, they will at least be able to begin to restore some good will between the two parties and make the Senate a more effective body.

Jonathan Finer, on the front page of today's Washington Post:

Connecticut's House of Representatives passed legislation Wednesday that would make the state the second to establish civil unions for same-sex couples, and the first to do so without being directed by a court.

The state Senate overwhelmingly approved a civil-unions bill last week, and lawmakers said they expect to endorse the House version as early as next week. Gov. M. Jodi Rell (R) said Wednesday that she will sign it.

The House also passed an amendment -- favored by Rell and designed to make the bill more palatable to more conservative members -- that defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

"It's an unbelievable victory," said Rep. Michael P. Lawlor (D), one of the bill's main supporters. "The idea that both houses endorsed this concept of civil unions is an incredible step."

With "an incredible step" forward comes an understandable, yet disappointing step backwards. The Oregonian has the story:

The Oregon Supreme Court this morning dismissed a lawsuit seeking to obtain equal benefits for same-sex couples and voided marriages certificates obtained by 3,000 gay and lesbian couples in Multnomah County last year.

The ruling was a victory for social conservatives who backed Measure 36, the 2004 initiative that defined marriage as being between a man and a woman.

It also reduces pressure on the 2005 Legislature to address civil unions legislation.

Gay rights advocates, who were riding high just a year ago, now must now start over with a new lawsuit. And although the prospects are still good that the courts will say the Oregon Constitution requires the state to give same-sex couples the same rights as married couples, such a victory likely is several years away.

Civil unions are far from dead in Oregon, but they are still a ways away from passing. A Democratic state House would help though...

I just got off of the phone with a former high ranking Republican Senator for an interview that touched on a number of very interesting topics. The transcript will most likely be delayed until this afternoon, but please check in then for what should be an engrossing conversation.

"Down in Washington DC ... the feds jumped a guy who was behaving suspiciously and carrying two large suitcases ... Turns out it kind of had a funny ending: he's not a terrorist and the suitcases were full of cash for Tom Delay."

-- David Letterman (CBS' The Late Show)

Link.

The AP's Laurie Kellman manages to slip an important fact into the 17th and 18th paragraphs of today's Tom DeLay article.

On the Republican side, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee professes wonder at Democratic leader Harry Reid's threat to bring the Senate to a halt if the GOP abolishes the filibusters Democrats have used to block President Bush's judicial nominees.

The threat to shut down operations "baffles me," Frist said. It shouldn't. Frist was a member of the newly minted GOP majority that shut down the government in the 1990s during a budget standoff with President Clinton. [emphasis added]

The truth isn't always nice, and though Frist might like to forget it, we won't.

Should the Republicans move forward with their plan to trample two hundred years of Senate history by attempting the nuclear option, they will have to do it over the objections of the GOP-appointed parliamentarian. Geoff Earle has the story in The Hill:

If Republicans seek to break the Democratic filibuster of judicial nominees, they would have to do so over the objections of the Senate parliamentarian, according to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Such objections by the appointed keeper of the Senate’s rules would have little practical effect — since any Republican sitting in the chair would be free to reject or ignore the parliamentarian’s advice. But opposition from an ostensibly neutral staff member could have a political impact, making the GOP tactic appear to be out of bounds.

Even Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) — a strong proponent of breaking the filibuster — acknowledged that “anything right now might have some political value” in the charged debate over judicial nominations.

[...]

Reid received the assurance from the parliamentarian during a private conversation within the past few weeks, according to aides. Reid told reporters this week that the parliamentarian assured him that, if Republicans go through with the move, “they will have to overrule him, because what they are doing is wrong.”

A Congressional Research Service report on the subject, updated this month, leaves little doubt that moves being contemplated by Republicans — specifically a ruling that a supermajority requirement to cut off debate is not in order — would not be based on previous precedents of the Senate.

This might not stop the Republicans outright, but it certainly will make the Democrats' job a little bit easier.

In a much talked about piece (at least within the liberal blogosphere), Newsweek's Howard Fineman extols the job Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has been doing. As Kos writes, "Dean, Reid and Pelosi, versus Bush, Frist and DeLay. I'll take our guys any day of the week." Along these lines, The Hill's Alexander Bolton (whose work we often cite here at Basie!) pens an article entitled "GOP fears it's losing Frist v. Reid."

Senate Republican leaders were due to meet last night amid rising concern that they are being beaten on the “nuclear option” by Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) public-relations war room.

The GOP’s talks follow a meeting last week in which aides warned Bob Stevenson, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tenn.) communications director, that something needs to be done to win back lost ground, a participant said.

[...]

At a closed-door luncheon Tuesday, members of the Democratic caucus were presented a stack of more than 260 press editorials from 41 states and the District of Columbia arguing against changing Senate rules to prohibit judicial filibusters. That’s quite a change from a year and a half ago, when many editorial boards criticized Democrats for blocking confirmation votes on President Bush’s judicial nominees.

The turnaround has flummoxed Senate Republicans and conservatives. They say it is incredible that Democrats who have “undone 200-plus years of precedent” by filibustering nominees have managed to portray Republicans as “overreaching.” Republicans say eliminating the filibuster of nominees would merely restore Senate tradition.

“They turned it around,” the aide said, and “one can suggest that it’s because of our lack of organized countermessaging.”

The nut quote of the article:

Another GOP aide said: “There’s a general sense in the rank and file that we are a little in the hole and that Democrats have been more aggressive on messaging, that we’ve kind of gone dark. Democrats have gotten a head start and defined the issue ahead of us.”

There is a sense in which the Democrats have patted their leaders on the back for achievements that have not yet come to fruition (i.e. blocking privatization of Social Security), but this article points to the larger idea that the Democrats are simply better organized than the Republicans, something that has not been the case for years (and perhaps decades). This is no time for the Dems to stop and congratulate themselves; nonetheless, it's beneficial for them to see that they may have finally found their voice and that they should continue in this vein as long as it is beneficial.

Harris Interactive takes a look at blog readers on the commission of The Wall Street Journal Online:

Two-fifths of Americans who are online have read a political blog, and more than a quarter read them once a month or more, according to a recent Harris Interactive poll.

Perhaps we are more important than we had previously thought.

Still, 56% of the public has never read a political blog and only 7% of online adults have posted a comment, according to the poll.

Perhaps not...

I have a new post up over at Western Democrat entitled The Hill: "Ensign to get a free pass". Check it out if you're interested.

"Today, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned Iraq's new leaders against hiring their friends and family members for government jobs, and then Majority Leader Tom Delay gave the rebuttal."

-- Jay Leno (NBC's "The Tonight Show")

Link.

When Tom DeLay begins to end up on late night jokes, it is apparent that his name recognition has gone through the roof. The more people hear about the House Majority Leader, the less they like him.

"In the hallway, I ran into Barack Obama. He recognized me before I recognized him."

-- Subway spokesman Jared Fogel on meeting the junior Senator from Illinois.

Link.

The New York Times' Carl Hulse pens an interesting article in today's issue on Republican machinations on the nuclear option. Apparently, though Frist and his cronies had planned on postponing the action until next month, Hulse reports that they now hope to try to quash the Democratic voices within the next two weeks. (For an interesting article on the efforts to abate the dilemma, check out Alexander Bolton's piece in The Hill today.)

In the course of the article, Hulse notes a heated discussion that took place on Capitol Hill today as Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) berated Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy for alleged judicial activism, who was testifying on the need for increased security for judges.

"Lately we've had rulings that seem to go beyond the rule of law" and that reflect "outside influence," the congressman told the justice. He pointed to a Supreme Court decision last month barring the execution of those who were juveniles when they committed their crimes. That decision, which was written by Justice Kennedy and which cited international treaties and practices abroad, appeared to reflect "pressure put on by the United Nations and other agencies," Mr. Tiahrt said.

Mr. Tiarht said the court was "not interpreting the Constitution and laws that govern America anymore," and added that his views were shared by people "across the United States."

[...]

Representative Steven R. Rothman, Democrat of New Jersey, said he was surprised to see Republicans criticizing the court when seven of its nine members were nominated by Republican presidents. (Justice Kennedy himself was nominated by Ronald Reagan.) And criticism of Justice Kennedy was belittled by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania.

"I read about people wanting to impeach Justice Kennedy for decisions that he has handed down," Mr. Specter told reporters. "You'll pardon me for mentioning it, but the only reason I mention it is because it's not worth mentioning."

Rep. Rothman makes an important point that is all too often forgotten by the American media: the vast majority of Supreme Court Justices are Republican appointees, and more broadly, the majority of all federal judges were appointed by Republican Presidents. Perhaps they're not all extreme liberals after all!

Specter's comments are also of note. They represent the feelings of most Americans who believe it to be beneath a member of the House of Representatives to attack a judge for promoting justice as best he can. The more Americans hear of such scurrilous comments, and the more Americans realize that they represent modern Republicanism, the sooner moderate Democrats retake Congress and restore sanity to Washington.

From the AP:

Insurgents hit an American fuel-supply convoy Wednesday in the Iraqi capital, witnesses said, leaving a tanker truck engulfed in flames that sent smoke rising high over the city as the second high-level American official visited in as many days.

Twin blasts targeted the convoy of two U.S. Humvees and a fuel tanker as it made its way through an eastern Baghdad neighborhood, witnesses at the scene said, as the truck burned violently and sent up a large plume of black smoke visible across Baghdad.

It wasn't immediately clear if there were any casualties. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

Portland, how I will miss thee!

This Al Kamen brief in tomorrow's issue of The Washington Post exemplifies the hubris of the modern Republican Party.

Members of Congress want to ensure that our nation's children understand basic American civics. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), for example, put a link to the Constitution on his Web site so young people can read the document and simple explanations of what it's about.

If the kids get interested, there's a link they can click on for "related topics," which takes them to a review of "Great Documents of Freedom."

Here they find, first, the Magna Carta in 1215, with a nice overview of its place in the road to democracy. Next, the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and, of course, the Bill of Rights in 1791.

But then there's a bit of a dry patch for a couple of hundred years until -- what else? -- the "Contract With America" in September 1994.

This ranks right up there with the Bill of Rights, DeLay's account says, because it "presented clearly defined positions on issues of concern" to people, not piddly stuff. Moreover, it "was a written commitment," so "the people could read The Contract with America and embrace the agenda presented in the document."

(In contrast to the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence, the Contract is always to be italicized to show its importance -- though boldface, underlining or using all capitals probably would do.) "The resulting vote [in November 1994] re-established the people's control of Congress," our primer tells us, after "the people" lost control, apparently in 1954, to evildoers, taxers, homo sapiens and such.

Do they really believe they are that important?

I'd never thought about Republican attempts at nixing the inheritance tax this way until the folks over at New Democrats Online brought it up.

So what are the Republicans who run the U.S. House of Representatives planning to do tomorrow? Give the Paris Hiltons of this world not just another tax cut, but a complete free ride from taxation of the riches they never earned. It would almost be funny if it were not so serious a matter.

The right came up with a brilliant concept when they framed the inheritance tax as the "death" tax. Who wants to be taxed for dying?! The NDOL folks have come up with an ingenious way to reframe the inheritance tax as the "Paris Hilton" tax. If there's any way they can beat the "death" tax, this is it.

The Republicans are itching for a fight on their nuclear option, but some of the groups who are most offended by the effort are conservative activist groups. The AP's Jesse J. Holland reports:

Two groups normally allied with Republicans have bolted from the party's effort to ban judicial filibusters — the first major defections from a conservative push to prevent Senate Democrats from blocking President Bush's judicial nominees.

The National Right to Work Committee, a 2.2 million-member group critical of unions, and the Gun Owners of America, with 300,000 members, say they fear eliminating judicial filibusters could eventually lead to doing away with filibusters altogether.

Both groups have benefited in the past from use of the Senate parliamentary tactic to block gun control and labor bills. A filibuster technically is unlimited debate, and requires 60 votes from the 100-member Senate to stop.

For the GOP to eventually be successful in changing the Senate's two century old rules, almost the entire Republican caucus will have to be in line. With conservative activist groups breathing down the necks of Majority Leader Frist and Majority Whip McConnell, it might be just a little more difficult for the Republicans to trample dissent.

As chosen by CQ Today's Midday Update (free email service):

"The Democratic Senate’s been nowhere near as obstructionist to President Bush on judges as the Republican Senate was to me, not even close.”

-- Bill Clinton on Democratic tactics to blog Bush's agenda (NBC’s “Today Show”)

Indeed.

NPR's Steve Inskeep scores the big interview with the former Senate Majority Leader (via Daily Kos).

NPR: Your former colleagues in the Senate are debating judgeships pres bush's judicial nominees, and one thing under consideration is maneuvering to do away with the filibuster.

DOLE: I think you have to be very careful, that's my advice, before you start tinkering with the rules. I mean the rules have been changed before. You want to think down the road. The Senate's going to change. It's not always going to be Republican. It changes back and forth. History shows that.

It's not surprising that Dole, a long time Senator who served both in the Majority and the Minority, does not believe the Republicans should move so quickly to implement the nuclear option. Perhaps his former colleagues would be well served to listen to him.

For all of the talk abour President Bush's close relations to Ariel Sharon and staunch support for the state of Israel, it looks like American Jews didn't give up on the Democratic Party in 2004. Ronald Brownstein has the story for Los Angeles Times:

Before the election, some analysts predicted that Bush would make substantial gains among Jews because of his strong support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who met with the president Monday at Bush's Texas ranch.

But the initial Edison/Mitofsky National Election Pool exit poll had found that Jews preferred the Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, over Bush by 74% to 25%. The Los Angeles Times exit poll had found an almost identical 74% to 26% split among Jews.

The new study, conducted by the Solomon Project, a Washington-based group encouraging civil involvement by the Jewish community, reexamined the results by factoring in hundreds of Jews that the National Election Pool surveyed in state exit polls but did not include in its original number. After that recalculation, the study concluded that Kerry's percentage was slightly larger than originally reported, at about 77% to 22%.

Either way, the results represented only a small change from the last few elections. In 2000, exit polls found that Al Gore won 79% of the Jewish vote; Bill Clinton carried 78% in 1996 and a record 80% in 1992. Republicans held Democrats to two-thirds or less of the Jewish vote during the three elections of the 1980s — Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and George H.W. Bush in 1988.

If you're interested, check out the specific data from the Solomon Project.

It most certainly will not come in the form of a Republican, however. The Oregonian's Jeff Mapes has the scoop:

Sen. Vicki Walker, D-Eugene, may be staking out her turf on the Internet -- she has, for example, registered the domain name walkerforgovernor.org -- but she says she hasn't decided whether she will challenge Gov. Ted Kulongoski next year.

Walker has been a vocal critic of the governor, a fellow Democrat, but she appeared flustered Monday when asked why she registered two Internet addresses last week that present her as a candidate for governor.

"This kind of catches me by surprise," she said. "I need about 15 minutes to think about what I want to say."

Later, Walker said she is interested in being governor, but she doesn't know whether she will run -- and if she does, whether it would be in 2006 or 2010.

The right doesn't like him because he has proved the efficacy of the moderation and the left doesn't like him because he has not forwarded progressivism at all costs. Perhaps this is why Ted Kulongoski has been such an effective governor for Oregon.

The past few years have been a real challenge for Oregon, but Kulongoski has done an effective job of navigating the middle ground between the two parties to ensure that the state always benefits. The unemployment rate is down and the budgetary situation is improving rapidly. As a result of this (and the impressive GOTV effort of statewide Democrats and allied 527 groups), the Democrats are just a few seats away from reclaiming the state House, thus cementing their domination of state politics.

Perhaps Oregon's Democrats will chose to dump Kulongoski in the primary. It would be foolish to believe this would help them in the long run. Just as the Oregon Republican Party -- once dominant in the state for decades -- lost all of its power when it moved from the center to the extreme, so too will the Democrats find themselves in dire straights should they move too far to the right. It's only a matter of time. Walker's progressive record might please the Democrats in the short run, but Kulongoski's moderation has strengthened the Party for today and the future.

Exciting news here at Basie!. The blog is now available at Basie.org, which is much more memorable than the original blogspot address (though you can still access the site of of the basie.blogspot.com address). So if you are thinking about passing on my site to some of your politically-minded friends, your task has become a little bit easier.

The only thing that can save House Majority Leader Tom DeLay from further negative coverage in the media would be for an equally disagreeable political figure to enter the fray. Luckily for DeLay, this exact situation appears to be happening. The Hill's Alexander Bolton has the scoop:

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) will spend two days in New Hampshire next week to meet editorial boards and conservative activists, convincing several of his former House colleagues that he will run for the presidency in 2008.

Gingrich will spend Monday and part of Tuesday in the Granite State and has packed his schedule with events calculated to boost his profile and woo influential Republicans whose support would be critical in a presidential primary. New Hampshire is the site of the first primary.

[...]

Gingrich will also travel to Iowa on May 12 and 13 for visits to Sioux City, Cedar Rapids and Iowa City and will likely participate in events for the local Republican Party and attend one or two book signings, Tyler said. The Iowa caucuses are the first election of the presidential nominating process, followed by the New Hampshire primary a few days later.

Does Newt seriously believe he has any shot at winning the Presidency in 2008? More importantly, do Republican activists actually believe he can win for them? Apparently, the answer is yes.

News of Gingrich’s foray into the presidential battleground and the array of politically significant activities have prompted enthusiastic responses from House Republicans.

The only people who should be as happy as conservative Republicans about a possible Gingrich run are the multitudes of Democrats who want to see one of their own in the White House. Aside from perhaps Sam Brownback, there are very few Republicans who would fare as poorly as Newt in a general election. Luckily for the Democrats, the GOP nomination is sown up in primaries, not in the general election. Perhaps the Dems have a shot after all.

A leading bamboozler might be in the ride for his life, reports CQ Today's Midday Update (free email service) [original story here].

According to the Boca Raton News, the Terri Schiavo case and the debate over Social Security’s future “have divided GOP ranks and shaken Republican dominance in the eyes of the public, according to polls.” Coincidentally, against that backdrop, veteran state Sen. Ron Klein, known as a moderate, has declared that he will run in 2006 against Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., the No. 2 Republican on the Ways and Means Committee. Republicans initially said “Klein didn’t have the political legs to carry the GOP-heavy Fort Lauderdale section of Shaw’s district,” according to the paper, but “Democrats said the long-time senator . . . could easily go nose-to-nose with Shaw.”

It will be most enjoyable to watch Shaw, one of the leading proponents of privatization, face a serious political challenge for the first time in years. In another development CQ Today's Midday Update also notes that something might be up in Missouri [original story here].

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that some Missouri Democrats are privately touting state Sen. Chuck Graham as a possible challenger to Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., in 2006. Graham’s boosters point to two attributes, according to the paper: “One is his passion on the stump, especially when it comes to defending a certain type of stem-cell research called therapeutic cloning that’s now under siege in the state Capitol. The other is his wheelchair, a visible symbol of the medical breakthroughs that supporters say the research could spawn.”

Things just might be turning around for the Dems. They just might...

Have the American people finally rid themselves of their unhealthy dislike for paying a fair share of their incomes in taxes? A new NBC News poll seems to indicate the answer is yes (from National Journal):

As April 15 approaches, a new survey has surprising news for the Internal Revenue Service: Americans don't dread the infamous tax-filing deadline as much as one might think. NBC News found that a 41-percent plurality was neutral about the process of paying their federal income taxes, and 15 percent said it made them feel satisfied. Negative emotions -- frustrated (17 percent), anxious (10 percent) and angry (7 percent) -- got less support. Four percent even said it made them happy.

More than six in 10 said they paid "just about their fair share" of income taxes; 35 percent said they paid too much and 2 percent said they paid too little. A majority, however, did have some negative feelings on the system: Fifty-four percent said they thought corporations paid less than their fair share; the same percentage said they thought the federal tax system as a whole was unfair. Nearly four in 10 also said they would prefer a flat-tax system with no deductions, but 55 percent said they would choose a system similar to the current one. [emphasis added]

Once the American people begin to realize once again the importance of paying a fair amount of taxes -- as this polling shows they are starting to -- the Republicans as a one issue party (bankrupting America through tax cuts for the rich) will cease to have a majority coalition.

Bush at the Pope's funeral, per the AP's Victor L. Simpson:

When Bush's face appeared on giant screen TVs showing the ceremony, many in the crowds outside St. Peter's Square booed and whistled.

Oy.

Seldom is an incumbent pleased to move up to 34% against a leading challenger, but such is the case in New York today. The AP's Marc Humbert pens an article that is interestingly entitled "Poll: Pataki Narrows Gap Against Spitzer."

Republican Gov. George Pataki has narrowed the gap against state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in a possible 2006 governor's race, according to a statewide poll released Monday.

The Siena College Research Institute poll of registered voters had Democrat Spitzer leading Pataki 48 percent to 34 percent. A Siena poll conducted last month had Spitzer leading Pataki 53 percent to 30 percent.

If I were a Pataki advisor, I am not sure that I would express such excitement at a poll showing my candidate only losing by 14 points. Perhaps that's why I'm not a Republican advisor...

Rick Santorum raised $250,000 during a trip to Florida last month. The original purpose of the trip: to speak on behalf of Terri Schiavo. Leave it to good ole Rick to raise money off of a dying woman.

It appears they just might have, though it's not necessarily a new one. Robin Toner and Carl Hulse have the story in tomorrow's issue of The New York Times.

Newt Gingrich, the conservative firebrand who won control of Congress a decade ago by campaigning against an entrenched, arrogant and all-powerful Democratic majority, is once again an inspirational figure on Capitol Hill.

This time, his message is being carried by the Democrats.

The party's leaders are increasingly making the case that in 2005, it is Congressional Republicans who are drunk with power, overreaching on issues like Social Security and judicial nominations, ethically challenged, and profoundly out of touch with their constituents.

[...]

In short, some Democratic strategists are reaching to the old Gingrich playbook in an era with some striking parallels to the early 1990's: one party in control of Congress and the White House; a furor over ethics; a huge piece of long-promised domestic legislation seemingly dead in the water (now Social Security, then health care); increasing fault lines in the majority; and a surprising unity in the minority.

The Republican takeover in 1994 is a perfect example of how to use the issue of ethics to defeat the incumbent party. But 1994 didn't come out of no where. As Toner and Hulse note, in 1989, Democratic Speaker Jim Wright (also of Texas) was forced out of the House for ethical issues. If the Dems are eventually successful in taking down DeLay, they will be that much closer to retaking the House in 2006 or 2008.

If one needs any more evidence that DeLay is nearing his demise, one need only look at Philip Shenon's piece on onetime DeLay ally Jack Abramoff, also in The Times tomorrow.

Jack Abramoff, one of Washington's most powerful and best-paid lobbyists, needed $100,000 in a hurry.

Mr. Abramoff, known to envious competitors as "Casino Jack" because of his multimillion-dollar lobbying fees from the gambling operations of American Indians, wrote to a Texas tribe in June 2002 to say that a member of Congress had "asked if we could help (as in cover) a Scotland golf trip for him and some staff" that summer. "The trip will be quite expensive," Mr. Abramoff said in the e-mail message, estimating that the bills "would be around $100K or more." He added that in 2000, "We did this for another member - you know who."

Mr. Abramoff did not explain why the tribe should pay for the lavish trip, nor did he identify the congressmen by name. But a tribe spokesman has since testified to Congress that the 2002 trip was organized for Representative Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Administration Committee, and that "you know who" was a much more powerful Republican, Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader and old friend of Mr. Abramoff's. Both lawmakers have said they believed that the trips complied with House travel rules.

The e-mail message of June 7, 2002, is part of a mountain of evidence gathered in recent months by the Justice Department, the Interior Department and two Senate committees in influence-peddling and corruption investigations centered on Mr. Abramoff, a former college Republican campaigner turned B-movie producer turned $750-an-hour Washington super-lobbyist.

It's getting closer and closer...

The Minority Leader gets it right:

"This is the most radical notion we've heard, not only are they going to change the rules to the filibuster but they also have said they're going to start impeaching judges."

-- Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), speaking about the nuclear option on the CBS' "Face the Nation"

Link.

Two weeks ago, neocon dean Bill Kristol was pelted with a cream pie; yesterday, as The Washington Post' Dana Milbank reports, it was David Horowitz's turn.

The left-wing food fight continues on American campuses. Conservative commentator David Horowitz was hit by a pie Wednesday night while delivering a lecture at Butler University in Indianapolis. This follows the March 30 pie strike on Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, March 30 at Earlham College, Richmond, Ind., and an April 1 dousing of Pat Buchanan with salad dressing at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo.

It's tough to be a conservative...

I'd just like to take this opportunity to pass on a link to a very useful new blog that has entered the fray: TheInsurgentCampaign.com. Check it out, if you have a minute or two.

Newsweek's Michael Isikoff scores the latest major development in the saga of Tom DeLay: Jack Abramoff is getting close to selling him out.

Everybody is lying," Abramoff told a former colleague. There are e-mails and records that will implicate others, he said. He was noticeably caustic about House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. For years, nobody on Washington's K Street corridor was closer to DeLay than Abramoff. They were an unlikely duo. DeLay, a conservative Christian, and Abramoff, an Orthodox Jew, traveled the world together and golfed the finest courses. Abramoff raised hundreds of thousands for DeLay's political causes and hired DeLay's aides, or kicked them business, when they left his employ. But now DeLay, too, has problems—in part because of overseas trips allegedly paid for by Abramoff's clients. In response, DeLay and his aides have said repeatedly they were unaware of Abramoff's behind-the-scenes financing role. "Those S.O.B.s," Abramoff said last week about DeLay and his staffers, according to his luncheon companion. "DeLay knew everything. He knew all the details."

Abramoff isn't the only right winger to abandon the Majority Leader. Josh Marshall also reports that a key moderate Republican has joined the mix:

"He is an absolute embarrassment to me and to the Republican Party," Rep. Christopher Shays (R) of Connecticut told a constituents at a townhall meeting in Greenwich on Saturday.

"Do I think Tom DeLay will be the majority leader by the end of this term? No," Shays went on to say. "I don't think Tom DeLay is going to survive."

It sure is fun just to sit back at watch the unravelling of Tom DeLay. One can only hope he lasts long enough to see his party lose a few dozen seats next fall.

[Update 10:03 AM Pacific]: Even Rick Santorum is joining in the act:

The No. 3 Republican in the Senate said Sunday that embattled House Majority Leader Tom DeLay needs to answer questions about his ethics and "let the people then judge for themselves."

Sen. Rick Santorum's comments seem to reflect the nervousness among congressional Republicans about the fallout from the increased scrutiny into DeLay's way of doing business.

[...]

"I think he has to come forward and lay out what he did and why he did it and let the people then judge for themselves," said Santorum, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.

I'm not sure if these comments are as much of a true admonishment of DeLay or simply attempt by Santorum to shift to the "center." Either way, it's still stunning to see Santorum even come close to abandoning DeLay.

I know I won't be up in seven hours to watch them, but in case you are...

FOX NEWS SUNDAY: Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y) .

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), New York Attorney General Eliot L. Spitzer and British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.).

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), and former Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.).

LATE EDITION (CNN): Sens. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.); Iraqi President Jalal Talabani; the Rev. Andrew M. Greeley, professor of social sciences at the University of Chicago; the Rev. David M. O'Connell, president of Catholic University of America; and the Rev. Donald J. Harrington, president of St. John's University. [link]

My money is on Face the Nation as the show to watch tomorrow, with Late Edition a close second (you never know what Biden might say next, and good ole Dick Lugar can deviate from his party at times). Spitzer's appearance on This Week might also be worth watching. For coverage of the goings on, check out Sunday Morning Talk.

It's taken me some time to be able to post, but I'm back online and ready to go. So...

I will be in the Rose City until Tuesday night, so boy am I excited. I'll talk to you later today.

This is really scary stuff. At "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny," a conference among conservatives on the independence of the judiciary, a number of fairly powerful right wingers finally showed their true beliefs about American government. Dana Milbank has the story for The Washington Post:

Not to be outdone, lawyer-author Edwin Vieira told the gathering that Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, "upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law."

Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line" for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said.

The full Stalin quote, for those who don't recognize it, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." Presumably, Vieira had in mind something less extreme than Stalin did and was not actually advocating violence. But then, these are scary times for the judiciary. An anti-judge furor may help confirm President Bush's judicial nominees, but it also has the potential to turn ugly.

A judge in Atlanta and the husband and mother of a judge in Chicago were murdered in recent weeks. After federal courts spurned a request from Congress to revisit the Terri Schiavo case, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) mused about how a perception that judges are making political decisions could lead people to "engage in violence."

It is simply appalling that someone like Vieira would have the audacity to even imply that Stalinist tactics be used against judges. Talking about violence against judges is against the fabric of this country and makes every American less safe.

Josh Marshall addresses the larger push by the right to rid the country of an independent judiciary in an intelligent way.

How high on the list of national priorities for the American people do you figure disciplining the federal judiciary is? Higher than the economy? Terrorism? Health care? Iraq? Social Security? Long-term care? Road quality?

Perhaps it is time for the Democrats simply to embrace their destiny as the party of grown-ups. No members of congress threatening judges. No gonzo federal legislation cooked up in the middle of the night to game a family struggle in Florida. Borrowing money and saving money are not the same thing. A reasonable respect for the rules under which the country has long been governed. Congressional staffers will neither steal work material from members of the opposition party nor stand on principle when caught. Bribes tendered on the floor of Congress will be frowned upon ...

Marshall has stumbled upon what could prove to be the most coherent set of ideas to come out of the Democratic Party in years. While it will still be difficult for the Dems to protect the filibuster against the nuclear option, they now have strong moral and political footing for their position: a defense of the independent judiciary. Now, even if they lose on the nuclear option, they have done so in protecting the rule of law for every American.

By tying this action to previous steps taken by the Republicans -- bribes of the House floor, trampling the state and federal judiciary, etc. -- the Democrats can show the American people what the Republican Congress really stands for. If there's any way of ciponhing votes away from the libertarian and moderate wings of the GOP at the same time, this is it. These are scary times, but perhaps there is a spark of hope for the future...

If you're in the Claremont area, why don't you head on down to Jazz Night? 8:30 to 11:00 tonight at Edmunds Ballroom at the Smith Campus Center at Pomona College. Great jazz, great food, great refreshments... what more could you ask for?

More info here.

If you take the time to read this blog or others like it, I would assume that you know the answer of this question is the Republican Party. What about Americans as a whole, though? Do they know who controls Congress? The National Conference of State Legislatures takes a gander to see the answer to these questions (warning, the link is a large PDF file).

Three-quarters of [Americans 26 and older] correctly identified the party of their state’s governor and three out of five knew the Republicans control Congress.

[...]

The political knowledge of the DotNet generation [ages 15-25] is dismayingly poor. Eight out of 10 of them can tell you that the television Simpsons live in Springfield, and 64 percent know that Ruben Studdard is the most recent American Idol. But less than half know the party of their state’s governor, and only 40 percent can say which party controls Congress. Forty-eight percent acknowledge they don’t know which party controls the Congress, and 19 percent got it wrong. [emphasis added]

Although this survey says quite a bit about the decline of the education system in the United States, an important, but obvious fact emerges: too many Americans do not know that the Republicans control Congress.

Congress, as a whole, is not popular. Just look at these results from the latest AP-Ipsos poll:

Overall, do you approve, disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way Congress is handling its job?

Total Approve 37
Total Disapprove 58

The problem for the Democrats is that not enough Americans tie their unhappiness with Congress to the Republican Party. If they did, surely the Democrats would have a shot in 2006.

What can be done about this? The answer is simple: there is no such thing as the "US Congress," there is only the "Republican Congress." There is no "House," there is a "Republican House." There is no Senate, there is a "Republican Senate."

Nationalize this. Really. Run national cable ads on non-traditional programs (please, no CNN, no Fox News, etc.) talking about some of the policies of the REPUBLICAN Congress. It might cost some money, but it will all be worth it.

Democrats should not waste time talking about the GOP. The GOP is just a way to confuse Americans about who to blame for woeful conservative policies. (It's like the Woody Allen joke that the Russian Revolution began when the peasants finally realized that the Tsar was the same person as the Czar.)

If the 58 percent of Americans who disapprove of Congress realize that it's the Republicans that they disapprove of, the Democrats have a shot in 2006. The stakes could not be higher, so get to it.

The right fringe of American politics does not like Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA). The came very close to knocking him off in last year's GOP primary and almost rallied enough support to block him from assuming chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee. It still pains them greatly that he maintains power, especially in the middle of the fight over filibusters, as Forward's E.J. Kessler reports:

In the middle of the fight is Specter, who assumed the Judiciary Committee chairmanship in January over the strenuous objections of Christian conservative leaders, including James Dobson, chairman of the evangelical powerhouse Focus on the Family. Last week, Specter told NBC News that he tried to defuse the nuclear option crisis by suggesting to Bush that he consult senators, especially Democrats, before making judicial nominations, which had been the practice in earlier administrations. But, he added, Bush had been "noncommittal."

Specter's moves have angered his evangelical antagonists. "Arlen Specter... is again threatening to subvert the nomination process.... He must not be permitted to do that," Dobson wrote in his newsletter this month. He blasted Specter for saying recently that "the far right is going to come hard at a nominee if it is not a nominee of their choosing. But I think there's a much broader base in America than the far right."

Specter, for his part, claimed he was doing his job.

There is something about a moderate Jew spearheading President Bush's effort to confirm extreme right wing judges that the ultra right finds patently offensive. It's unclear if it's Specter's moderation or Judaism that they protest the most.

It could not please this blogger more to see that Specter is still drawing the ire of Dobson types. Although it would have been very nice to see a Democrat like Hoeffel in the Senate, it is so much more enjoyable to see the uber-conservatives in pain over a member of their own party.

One of the primary goals of the modern Republican Party is to ensure that the wealthy pay as small a proportion of the nation's taxes as possible. To this end, they have fought tooth and nail to rid the country of one of its oldest types of taxation: the estate tax. As CQ Today's Midday Update (free email service) notes today, they aren't quite ready to get rid of it yet, though.

House Republicans next week will make their fourth attempt since 2001 to win permanent repeal of the estate tax, which under current law is being phased out temporarily.

Their earlier efforts have been stymied in a closely divided Senate, but small-business groups and GOP members hope this year will be different. With Senate Republicans boasting an expanded majority and some “red state” Democrats reluctant to defend the “death tax,” advocates of repeal see their best chance yet. “This is a really good opportunity to get it done,” said a top lobbyist at the National Federation of Independent Businesses. “We feel like this is the year.”

However, even with 55 Republicans, up from 51 last year, Senate GOP leaders still appear short of the 60 votes needed to overcome objections to the bill. “We don’t have the votes for a full repeal,” said one Senate Republican leadership aide. “It’s pretty close, and that’s the killer — it’s like two or three votes.”

The estate tax is a necessity in this country, and whether the first $1.5 million isn't taxed or the first $15 million isn't taxed, it's important that the extremely wealthy (anyone with more than $15 million should be considered extremely wealthy) pay their fair share to society when they give away their money to relatives and friends.

The only people who would gain from the repeal of the estate tax are people already set to inherit millions of dollars, so it's an issue of fairness and morality. Do people who get a gift of a few million dollars need further tax cuts at a time of backbreaking deficits? Really.

"Privatization is dead. [It] won't pass, no way, no how."

-- Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee (which has jurisdiction over Social Security, among other things).

Link.

They're dropping here, they're dropping there, they're dropping everywhere! Just look at what the AP's Will Lester has to say:

President Bush's standing with the public is slumping just three months into his final term, but Americans have an even lower regard for the job being done by Congress. Bush's job approval is at 44 percent, with 54 percent disapproving. Only 37 percent have a favorable opinion of the work being done by the Republican-controlled Congress, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.

Bush's job approval was at 49 percent in January, while Congress was at 41 percent.

"This is a pretty sour spring," said Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion analyst at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. "People are not very impressed by what Bush is doing or by what Congress is doing Democrats or Republicans."

54 percent disapproval. That's impressive. Not to be outdone, the Governor of California has also set to the task of alienating his constituents with overtly political acts and highly unpopular and radical policies.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's approval rating has dropped below 50% amid a dramatic reversal of views on whether California is headed in the right direction, according to the latest statewide poll by the Survey and Policy Research Institute at San Jose State University.

Adults in California are evenly split -- 43-43% -- on their approval or disapproval of the job Schwarzenegger is doing as governor, in the California Consumer Confidence Survey taken the last week of March. That represents a sharp decline from January, when the survey found Californians approving the governor's performance 59-26%. [Link]

A drop of sixteen points in just three months. Who would have ever thought Schwarzenegger would ever become as unpopular as George W. Bush?

Their fake news:

Governor Mitt Romney's administration has awarded a $10,000 contract to a Boston Herald op-ed columnist to promote the governor's environmental policies.

The columnist, Charles D. Chieppo, started working yesterday with the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.

His job calls for writing op-ed pieces and internal documents "to support the efforts of senior management to promote education, awareness, and acceptance of major policy initiatives" on the environment.

-- Raphael Lewis, The Boston Globe

Our fake news:

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart won his second Peabody Award, for his satiric take on the 2004 election campaign [...]

Stewart’s show, which also won for its “Indecision 2000” coverage, “provides the kind of cathartic satire that deflates pomposity on an equal opportunity basis,” judges said.

-- The Associated Press

Last night, I had the opportunity to speak with former Illinois Senator/Democratic Presidential hopeful Carol Moseley Braun, who was in Claremont to speak at a conference on Religion and the American Presidency. The Senator was her normal charismatic self, winning over the audience with her intelligence, wit and charm, and it was a real honor to be able to speak with her.

Jonathan Singer: Ten hour waits at the polls. Is this Democracy?

Carol Moseley Braun: No. That was called a violation of the Voting Rights Act. It's no question. The failure in Ohio to have adequate voting capacity for the people who were registered and eligible to vote was an absolute denial of their right to vote. I just think the tragedy, of course, is that it wasn't raised and resolved in time to make a difference in the election.

Singer: 1992 was the "year of the woman" in the Senate and 2004 has been heralded as the "year of the minorities" because three people were elected to the United States Senate. So there are now three minorities in the United States Senate out of 100.* It doesn't seem like much of a start, but it is a beginning. What steps can be taken to continue it - to better represent the United States population?

Moseley Braun: Campaign finance reform. The reason that minorities and women don't have a better shot at getting elected to the Senate or to statewide office is because the campaign finance rules are so skewed as to make it very difficult for non-traditional candidates to raise the money necessary to get elected. So I think that if we want to have a Congress, if we want to have government that looks like America, if we want to have government that is truly a representative Democracy, then we need to clearly address how we get our campaign laws out of the way of Democracy.

Singer: There are two prominent African-Americans running for Senate right now, both in Tennessee and in Maryland. Kweisi Mfume and Harold Ford might be running-

Moseley Braun: I was about to say I hadn't heard him announce yet.

Singer: He's just released a poll today.

Are there other opportunities for not only African-Americans, but other people of color, Hispanics...

Moseley Braun: I think so. The really important victory of the civil rights movement was that it made racism unpopular, whereas a generation ago at the turn of the last century, you had to embrace racism to get elected to anything. I think the legacy of the civil rights movement is that now whites are more open to being represented by people of color or people who are women or, again, non-traditional candidates. So I think that that change -the majority population is willing to tap some additional capacity - will just benefit and serve the whole community better.

Singer: Can I ask you just one more quick question? Your home state of Illinois is represented in the House by either nine Democrats and eight Republicans or ten and nine. But it's a state that voted overwhelmingly Democratic in the last Presidential election, and the House makeup is very much a result of gerrymandering. We've seen re-redistricting in Texas, but Governor Blagojevich say he does not want to do the same thing in Illinois. Do you think it's time to redraw the districts to be more fair in Illinois?

Moseley Braun: No. I think it's time to get a reapportionment process that frankly takes out the incumbency protection and the raw politics of the process. We can do it by computers, frankly, at this point. It is an antediluvian outrage that we are still letting people set up and draw lines that have no relation to the people whose right it is to be represented by the person of their choice.
I went through suing my own state on the issue of reapportionment, and I really think it is past time to get it out of the realm of the purely political and respect the voters' rights to elect.

Singer: Thank you. It is really such an honor to speak with you.

Moseley Braun: Well thank you.

[THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.]

I've had little luck posting all day. I wrote this post about seven and a half hours ago. So it goes...

I have an interview with former Senator/Democratic Presidential hopeful Carol Moseley Braun waiting in the wings right now, so hopefully the people over at blogger.com will figure out whatever problems they're having.

More information about the President's falling approval rating is now available from National Journal (parts of the poll are available here).

As President Bush nears the 100th day of his second term, his overall approval rating is idling below 50 percent, according to a new Westhill Partners/Hotline poll. The president's handling of key issues such as the economy, Social Security and the war in Iraq are garnering even lower marks.

Forty-five percent of those surveyed gave Bush a thumbs up, but that's a drop from his 51 percent approval rating in February. Now, 51 percent of the public disapprove of his job performance, and a majority of the public (53 percent) said Bush had done more to divide than unite the country during his presidency. On the economy -- cited by a 19-percent plurality as the most important issue facing the country -- 56 percent of respondents frowned on Bush's work, while 39 percent approved. More than half of those polled (54 percent) disapproved of his handling of the conflict in Iraq and almost two-thirds doubt that the Bush administration has a clear exit strategy.

Link.

While the polling that showed Bush falling at the end of last month could have been chalked up to the Terri Schiavo measure (though Iraq and Social Security also played a large role then), this Hotline poll provides the first confirmation that the drop in approval is not merely a short-term aberration. It makes this blogger begin to wonder when the President will begin to realize that it's high time to stop promoting radical policies and move back to the center.

President Bush and his cronies are trapsing around the country trying to sell privatization of Social Security to the American people, but at what cost to the taxpayer (most of whom do not want Bush to get rid of the program)? The Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman reports on the quest to find the answer to this important question.

The Bush administration's ongoing Social Security blitz is unusual in scale in the selling of a domestic policy, mobilizing the president and vice president, four Cabinet secretaries and 17 lesser officials, down to an associate director of strategic planning for the White House budget office.

It also may be one of the most costly in memory, well into the millions of dollars, according to some rough, unofficial calculations.

House Appropriations Committee Republicans have quietly asked the administration for an accounting of its "60 Stops in 60 Days" blitz. And yesterday, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Government Reform Committee, formally asked the Government Accountability Office not only for the cost but also "whether the Bush Administration has crossed the line from education to propaganda."

[...]

Even Republicans raised their eyebrows when they heard new employees were brought on for the campaign, said a House Republican staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid embarrassing the president.

It's perfectly fine for business interests to dump tens of millions of dollars into the attempt to bamboozle Americans into buying privatization. If they believe it to be in their interest, it's their prerogative.

When the US government starts spending taxpayer money for a tremendous political effort, serious warning flags must be raised. Is it really kosher for the President to put the weight of the federal government behind his efforts to usurp more power for the Republican Party? Should the nation spend potentially tens of millions of dollars to promote an unpopular policy that has slight chances of passing when there are so many other priorities?

The answer to these questions is a resounding no. Hopefully the GAO will agree.

How low will it go?

A Westhill Partners/Hotline poll shows that 59% of regis. voters think Pres. Bush has done a fair/poor job in the first 100 days of his 2nd term. 54% said given Bush's position on Social Security, they would be "unlikely" to vote for him now.

Link.

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal shows cause for concern for the President as well.

The poll, conducted by Hart/McInturff, shows that only 34 percent of those polled believe that the country is headed in the right direction, compared with 51 percent who say it’s headed in the wrong direction. That’s a significant drop from the last survey in February, when 42 percent said the nation was on the right track.

[...]

On Social Security, the poll shows that support for the president’s plan to partly privatize the government program has dropped, even though the Bush administration has spent the last few months campaigning aggressively for it. Fifty-five percent believe that it’s a bad idea to allow workers to invest their Social Security contributions in the stock market, while 35 percent think it’s a good idea. That’s a drop from the February survey, which found that 51 percent opposed Bush’s plan versus 40 percent who supported it. “Opinions are hardening, and they are hardening in a way that makes Bush’s job more difficult,” McInturff said. “It reflects the caution that you’ve been hearing from members of Congress.”

The wording of this poll is unclear, but if 35% of Americans disapprove of allowing people "to invest their Social Security contributions in the stock market" (a much more acceptable term than privatization), then the President is in real trouble.

[Update 8:36 AM Pacific]: John Harwood has more on the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll:

After winning re-election on the strength of support from nine in 10 Republican voters, the president is seeing significant chunks of that base balk at major initiatives, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows. One-third of Republicans say Democrats in Congress should prevent Mr. Bush and party leaders from "going too far in pushing their agenda," and 41% oppose eliminating filibusters against Mr. Bush's judicial nominees -- the "nuclear option" that Senate Republican leaders are considering.

Where's that national groudswell of support for the nucleaer option? Where's the support even within the Republican base?

The race for the US Senate in Tennessee will be an extremely difficult one for the Dems in 2006. But if they are able to pull off an upset, the Senate will be there's for the taking. That's why the most recent polling out of Tennessee is so important.

Global Strategy Group (D)
March 22-24 among 600 registered Tennessee voters “who they say definitely or probably will vote” in 2006

Rep. Harold Ford (D): 30 (38 with leaners)
Rep. Ed Bryant (R): 30 (40 with leaners)

Ford: 29 (38)
Former Rep. Van Hilleary (R): 32 (41)

Ford: 28 (39)
Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker (R): 24 (34)

The Hill's Peter Savodnik notes that pollster Harrison Hickman of Global Strategy had this to say about the numbers.

Hickman, the Democratic pollster, pointed out that Bryant and Corker, as well as Hilleary, have run statewide. Bryant and Corker previously ran for the Senate.

“They’ve made their case to the voters in the past and, in all those cases, have higher name recognition than Congressman Ford,” said Hickman, who polled for Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign and John Edwards’s 2004 White House bid. Hickman added that Ford “is … very strong with Democrats.”

Hester, the state Democrats’ executive director, said Ford barnstormed the state during the congressional recess, particularly in eastern Tennessee.

Democrats added that Bredesen, a business-savvy, middle-of-the-road Democrat who enjoys strong support at home, would be at the top of the ticket next year.

These numbers underscore the fact that Tennessee will be a very difficult place for the Democrats to win in 2006. That having been said, Bredesen's spot at the ticket cannot hurt Ford (who has yet to officially step into the campaign).

The race will become more clear when first quarter fundraising totals are made public. For Ford to be competitive, he will need many millions of dollars, so if he's still stuck at about $1 million -- where he was at as of December 31 -- the Dems must be concerned. If, however, he has edged closer to the $2 million level, this might just turn out to be a race to watch in 2006.

Activists within the extreme right fringe of the Republican Party (a substantial chunk of the GOP coalition) have begun to voice outrage that the Senate Republicans are not pursuing the nuclear option with sufficient effort. Alexander Bolton lays out some of these concerns in The Hill:

Conservative alarm surged when the Republican leadership canceled a briefing of Senate staff and activists by Martin Gold, a former Frist aide and master of Senate parliamentary procedure who is advising Republicans on the issue. The cancellation of the special meeting, which was scheduled for the Easter recess, left some with the impression that Frist might be backing away in the face of Democrats’ threat to retaliate by shutting down the Senate.

Business interests on K Street are urging Frist to delay the tactic because it could imperil their legislative agenda, as The Hill reported this week.

The conservatives’ concern was also fueled by Frist’s efforts to negotiate with Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to find a compromise. One Democratic aide said that Frist appeared to be backing away from the tactic.

Conservatives have also expressed concern about a paucity of information about GOP plans to overcome filibusters. GOP aides in the Senate said that they too know little about what is being planned; strategy and negotiations over the nuclear option are closely held within Frist’s office.

At the root of this concern is the reality that a) the American people do not support such a move, and b) a number of Republicans have refused to back the plan -- and not just liberals like Linc Chafee.

Even Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), assistant majority leader, has been viewed as wavering.

Given the political reality in Washington -- i.e. the backlash against GOP attempts to trample the independent judiciary in the Terri Schiavo measure -- it's going to take a lot more than a speech by Rick Santorum to lead this blogger to believe that the Republicans will ultimately triumph on the nuclear option.

I don't mean to turn this blog into all Tom DeLay all day long, but this quote says it all...

Some people feel that if he goes down, we all go down. There is also a sense that if he doesn’t clean up his act we’ll all be in trouble.

-- An unnamed House Republican who is an "ideological opponent" of DeLay, on the potential repercussions of the scandals surrounding the Majority Leader.

Link.

Or potentially less, so sayeth the sometimes-nonpartisan Larry Sabato. John Cochran (not the one that passed away last week) of CQ Weekly has the story:

But before campaigning begins in earnest, Republicans will want the slate wiped clean — one way or another, says Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist who has written extensively about the arc of the political scandal.

DeLay has “less than a year” to get out from under this crisis or risk losing his leadership position, Sabato says. “He’s got maybe eight months, maybe less.”

This is a period of enormous danger for DeLay, according to Sabato and other political analysts. Swirling around the leader is a complicated, volatile tale involving overseas junkets, American Indian casino money, powerful lobbyists, a Senate committee inquiry and a Texas grand jury investigation. A criminal indictment is DeLay’s greatest worry, but any new allegation or detail that tumbles out now could cost him support.

As DeLay continues to drag down his party, Josh Marshall might have the right idea for the Democrats and progressives: make sure Tom DeLay doesn't resign. That way, the stink of his ethical problems will stick to every Republican across the nation, whether they're running for dog catcher or the United States Senate.

In the fifth installment of Basie!'s Minnesota Watch series (here, here, here and here), we note the relative success of Democratic fundraising in the state. CQ Today's Midday Update (free email service) passes on Greg Gordon's article in the Star Tribune:

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, raised $580,000 in five weeks for her anticipated campaign for the Senate seat of retiring Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., her campaign announced Tuesday. That surpassed the fundraising of child safety advocate Patty Wetterling, her likely primary opponent. Wetterling will report raising $330,000 in three weeks, her campaign said. “Klobuchar’s dialing for dollars also outdistanced Rep. Mark Kennedy, the Republican frontrunner, whose campaign said he raised $550,000 in the quarter. Klobuchar’s campaign ended the three-month period with about $560,000 in cash, while Kennedy had $510,000, their campaigns said.” Former GOP Sen. Rod Grams said he has not begun fundraising.

Dayton's seat will not be easy for the Democrats to hold in 2006, but at Chuck Todd noted last month,

Ninety-nine times out of 100, a party is better off with an incumbent seeking re-election. Meet the one-time exception.

If the Democrats want to retake the Senate, they must hold Dayton's seat. Klobuchar's fundraising efforts have been very impressive so far. It will be interesting to see if she is able to keep it up.

Governor Sir Charles?

"I'm not big on either party. But I sure would have a hard time running as a Republican"

–- Charles Barkley, former NBA star, on a possible bid for governor in his home state of Alabama

Link.

Check out Charles Barkley's new book, Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man?, which features interviews on race and racism with the likes of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Tiger Woods and George Lopez

Hotline's Wake-Up Call notes today that recent polling indicates that just about one quarter of Americans hold a favorable view of Tom DeLay.

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll shows House Maj Leader Tom DeLay with the lowest fav ratings since he became maj. leader with 27% having a fav view of him and 31% having an unfav view.

The House Majority Leader is not the only polling subject in Washington with luke-warm support from the American people. Another poll from Gallup shows that support for private accounts has dropped precipitously in recent weeks.

Despite a desire for more action on Social Security, Americans show only limited support for the most talked-about reform proposal -- allowing workers to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in stocks and bonds. Thirty-nine percent favor such a proposal and 56% are opposed, a decline from 48% support in December.

A separate question measured support for private investment of Social Security taxes but told respondents that such a proposal would entail a reduction in future guaranteed Social Security benefits. Just 33% of Americans say this proposal is a "good idea," while 61% say it is a bad one.

What more could the Democrats ask for? An unpopular House Majority Leader (Newt redux) raising his national profile (and his negative ratings) and quickly dropping support for the President's number one policy agenda... it's the best of both worlds for the Democrats. Let's see is the alleged vast left wing conspiracy can parlay this combination into electoral victory in 2006.

President Bush all but nixed any possibility that stem cells would be able to cure problems from spinal cord injuries to Alzheimers when he limited funding to stem cell research in the summer of 2001. A California referendum this year helped begin the move towards funding the study of the cells, but a measure in Congress could breath new life into the research. Patrick O'Connor of The Hill has the story:

A controversial bill to hike funding for stem-cell research is gaining momentum in the House, increasing the chances that it will be the first bill President Bush vetoes.

The bill, sponsored by Reps. Mike Castle (R-Del.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), has 186 co-sponsors, including 20 Republicans, and a Democratic aide tracking the bill predicted the legislation will eventually secure a majority of the House. Most of those votes are expected to come from House Democrats.

Because a Senate version of the bill already has 58 co-sponsors, many political observers expect the bill to reach the president’s desk if it clears the House.

The President would love to be able to veto this bill to get in the good graces of the extreme right of his party. Fortunately for the Democrats, should Bush veto a stem-cell measure, his party would suffer in 2006 and beyond.

Bad news days are nothing new for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) -- he was admonished three times by the House last year, many of his lobbyist-funded trips have been scrutinized, he faces possible indictment in Texas for illegal political activities, etc. Seldom, however, are there two negative stories for the Exterminator on the same day. In the first, The New York Times' Phillip Shenon raises some questions about DeLay's campaign expenditures.

The wife and daughter of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, have been paid more than $500,000 since 2001 by Mr. DeLay's political action and campaign committees, according to a detailed review of disclosure statements filed with the Federal Election Commission and separate fund-raising records in Mr. DeLay's home state, Texas.

[...]

Mr. DeLay, whose position as majority leader makes him the second-most-powerful House member, has offered a vigorous public defense in recent weeks to a flurry of ethics accusations from Democratic lawmakers and campaign watchdog groups, including charges that he violated House rules on travel. The executive director of Americans for a Republican Majority and a major fund-raiser for the committee were indicted in Texas last year on charges of illegal fund-raising, and prosecutors there have refused to rule out the possibility of charges against Mr. DeLay in the continuing inquiry.

In recent weeks, public interest groups have called on the House ethics committee and the Justice Department to review lavish, privately financed overseas trips for Mr. DeLay and his aides, including a 1997 trip to Russia that was underwritten by a conservative education group closely linked to a powerful Republican lobbyist who often boasted of his influence with the majority leader.

R. Jeffrey Smith and James V. Grimaldi take a little closer look at recent allegations over the aforementioned 1997 trip on the front page of tomorrow's issue of The Washington Post:

A six-day trip to Moscow in 1997 by then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was underwritten by business interests lobbying in support of the Russian government, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the trip arrangements.

DeLay reported that the trip was sponsored by a Washington-based nonprofit organization. But interviews with those involved in planning DeLay's trip say the expenses were covered by a mysterious company registered in the Bahamas that also paid for an intensive $440,000 lobbying campaign.

It is unclear precisely how the money was transferred from the Bahamian-registered company to the nonprofit.

The expense-paid trip by DeLay and four of his staff members cost $57,238, according to records filed by his office. During his six days in Moscow, he played golf, met with Russian church leaders and talked to Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, a friend of Russian oil and gas executives associated with the lobbying effort.

DeLay also dined with the Russian executives and two Washington-based registered lobbyists for the Bahamian-registered company, sources say. One of those lobbyists was Jack Abramoff, who is now at the center of a federal influence-peddling and corruption probe related to his representation of Indian tribes.

With all of these outside distractions clouding his mind, it's no wonder that Tom DeLay has been unable to cajole and coerce his comrades in the GOP to support privatization of Social Security.

The more DeLay enters the political limelight, the better chance the Democrats have of winning back seats in the House and Senate in 2006. Any Dem who wants DeLay out now is completely off-base; if the Democratic Party has any chance at winning back Congress in 2006, Tom DeLay just might be their ticket to victory.

Editor & Publisher passes on the news that the folks over at Gallup have finally figured something out about George W. Bush: historically speaking, he's not very popular.

It's not uncommon to hear or read pundits referring to President George W. Bush as a "popular" leader or even a "very popular" one. Even some of his critics in the press refer to him this way. Perhaps they need to check the latest polls.

President Bush's approval rating has plunged to the lowest level of any president since World War II at this point in his second term, the Gallup Organization reported today.

"All other presidents who were re-elected to a second term had approval ratings well above 50% in the March following their re-election," Gallup reported.

Bush's current rating is 45%. The next lowest was Reagan with 56% in March 1985.

How long will it take for the opinion makers in the mainstream media to stop calling George W. Bush a "popular" President?

What type of man would come up with the twisted logic that judges' rulings incite violence against them? Try a United States Senator. Think Progress has the video.

The San Francisco Chronicle's political writer Carla Marinucci seems to believe so and lays out a pretty detailed analysis of California politics to back up her claim.

He's on the front lines, backed with money and troops to push his policy agenda across California.

But with just weeks before Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will have to decide whether to call for a special election, Democrats are jubilant and concerned Republicans are expressing alarm. They say Schwarzenegger is on the defensive and not playing to his charismatic strengths as he fights to win the public relations war.

The governor's declining poll numbers, political observers from both parties say, come as he relies less on straight talk and more on gimmicks to push a crowded and weighty agenda -- budget caps, redistricting of legislative boundaries, overhauling the public employee pension system and adopting teacher merit pay.

As Marinucci notes, Schwarzenegger's support is dropping rapidly within the California electorate, most notably among self-identifying independents. Why is this happening? The same voters that swept him into office in 2003 because he can get things done and "he's not a politician" have been turned off by his overtly partisan acts. What's more, as Schwarzenegger seeks upwards of twenty items on his agenda, the public simply begins to tune out. The results:

"He is suffering right now," says Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo, whose February survey showed Schwarzenegger's approval rating at 55 percent, having slipped 10 points in five months. "It wouldn't surprise me if (his job approval ratings) were below 50 percent today," says DiCamillo, who notes the biggest decline has been among "a very powerful and positive group for him" -- nearly 1 in 5 state voters who are nonpartisan or "decline to state."

Schwarzenegger's mandate is sure starting to look like the Bush mandate...

For the second time in five years, a Portland reporter has been honored with a Pulitzer prize. The Oregonian's Edward Walsh is in a surprisingly deferrential mood this morning with his treatment of Willamette Week's big score.

Nigel Jaquiss, a reporter for the alternative weekly newspaper Willamette Week, won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting Monday for his exposure of former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl.

The revelations of abuse, which disgraced one of the most admired public figures in modern Oregon history, provoked an uproar in the state and is still causing repercussions. Goldschmidt, a powerbroker in state politics, withdrew from all public activities after he admitted the abuse as Willamette Week prepared to publish last May.

"It's a fantastic honor and really unexpected," Jaquiss said. Willamette Week is only the third alternative weekly paper -- after the Boston Phoenix and New York's Village Voice -- to be awarded journalism's highest prize.

The Pulitzer Board announced the prizes in New York City. The Oregonian was one of three finalists in the national reporting category for its series about the methamphetamine epidemic. That category was won by Walt Bogdanich of The New York Times for stories about the corporate cover-up of responsibility for fatal accidents at railroad crossings.

It came as a surprise to see last month that two of Oregon's papers were being considered for the Pulitzer. Perhaps the news coverage in the city is not quite as bad as some of us think.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and his Republican allies have been champing at the bit in anticipation for their highly unprecedented move to overturn part of the Senate's filibuster rule. Just as their vote nears, it appears that the window of opportunity is closing. As Geoff Earle reports in The Hill, a number of the GOP's key allies have withdrawn their support for the move and are in fact concerned about the potential consequences of the move.

Worried that their agenda will come to a screeching halt, business leaders are urging Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) not to exercise a bold parliamentary tactic known as the “nuclear option” on judicial nominees.

Industry lobbyists and association heads so far have avoided taking a public role as the debate over stalled judicial nominations escalates. Instead, they are relying on one-on-one conversations with Senate leaders, comments in meetings on other subjects, and staff contacts. But, according to multiple sources on K Street, the employer community has concluded that, whatever its merits, the nuclear option is not worth the price of imperiling the GOP’s legislative agenda.

“If and when they play this nuclear-option card,” said one association head, “it’ll certainly make a big impact on how the legislative agenda is dealt with. … It’s less important to the business community than it is to others.” The association chief added that industry officials “have given advice to the leadership,” adding that business leaders who have pending “agenda items” undertook the initiative on their own.
One person who has spoken to Senate Republican leaders about the nuclear option and its repercussions on the legislative agenda is former Michigan Gov. John Engler (R-Mich.), who now heads the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). In January, NAM announced its launch of a new effort to get conservative judges on the bench.

Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, also has communicated his concerns about using the tactic to GOP leaders, according to sources. Members of the Chamber were not available for comment.

At least one high ranking Republican is listening.

In an interview with The Hill earlier this year, former Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he does not support using the constitutional option to thwart legislative filibusters.

Where, might one ask, will the Republicans find the 51 votes to overturn judicial filibusters? That's the right question to be asking, though the answer might surprise, as The Washington Post's Charles Babington notes:

Aides to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said yesterday that he soon will offer Democrats a compromise on the long-standing impasse, even though a growing number of conservative activists are pressing him to force a showdown now. Democrats predict the offer will be too flimsy to entice them to stop filibustering several appellate court nominees, but the mere fact that Frist is talking of negotiations, they say, convinces them he lacks the 51 votes he needs to change the filibuster rules in a chamber with 55 GOP members. [emphasis added]

Frist doesn't have the votes so he tries to whip up a fake compromise. Very surprising, Dr. Frist. Too bad for you the Democrats know how to count. Perhaps if you offer a real compromise, they'll listen; until then, send Mitch McConnell out to whip the caucus because the Democrats are not going to accept anything short of defending the United States Senate.

Check out the 18th paragraph of Charles Babington's article in tomorrow's issue of The Washington Post:

Under Bush's proposal for individual accounts, the national debt would more than triple, from about 40 percent of the economy, or gross domestic product, to 150 percent of GDP by 2072. "That does not sound like something the Democrats would sign on to," the aide said Hatch remarked. [emphasis added]

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) thinks that tripling the national debt does not sound like something the Democrats would sign on to. This, of course, begs the question: why would the Republicans sign on to a plan that increases the debt by a factor of three? Which party, exactly, believes in fiscal sanity and which one hopes to bankrupt the country? Take it from no less a conservative than Orrin Hatch that if you want a balanced budget, don't turn to the Grand Old Party.

Cyrille and Drummond Play Thelonious Monk

ANDREW CYRIILE, drums
RAY DRUMMOND, bass
GARY FOSTER, alto saxophone
BILLY HARPER, tenor saxophone
GARY SMULYAN, baritone saxophone
RON STOUT, trumpet
DAVE WOODLEY, trombone
MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2005

The New York Times calls Andrew Cyrille "a consummate modern drummer." Born in Brooklyn in 1939, Cyrille studied with Philly Joe Jones and spent the first half of the 1960s studying in New York at Juilliard and the Hartnett School of Music. At the same time, he was performing with famed jazz artists that included Mary Lou Williams, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois Jacquet, Kenny Dorham, Freddie Hubbard, Walt Dickerson, and Rashaan Roland Kirk. In 1964 he formed what would prove to be an 11-year association with Cecil Taylor that brought him new acclaim and established him in the vanguard of jazz drumming.

Starting in 1969, Cyrille played in a number of percussion groups with notable drummers including Kenny Clarke and Rashied All. He formed his own group Maono in 1975 and has also worked with such top-flight peers as David Murray, Muhal Richard Abrams, Mal Waldron, Horace Tapscott, James Newton, and Oliver Lake.

Joining Andrew Cyrille for this special concert is a stellar octet of East Coast and West Coast artists that includes master bassist and frequent collaborator Ray Drummond, CMC class of '68. Internationally acclaimed bassist, Ray Drummond has over 100 jazz albums to his credit, and has performed with artists that include Wynton Marsalis, Betty Carter, Woody Shaw, Art Farmer, and Andrew Cyrille. He has taught at music schools all over the world, including the Stanford Jazz Workshop, the Berklee School of Music, the University of Massachusetts, and the Sibelius Academy of Music in Helsinki, Finland. Drummond is director of the Institute for Music and the Performing Arts at the California State University at Monterey Bay.

This concert is sponsored by the American Jazz Institute, the Claremont McKenna College Oral History Project, the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, and the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum.

Yep. Pretty stoked.

[Update 9:05 PM Pacific]: The jazz was indeed outstanding. Cyrille has magnificent taste on the drums -- a la his mentor Philly Joe Jones -- and Drummond was swinging like none other. Gary Smulyan was particularly on fire tonight (though I've never heard him out of the pocket).

If you're interested, check out Porgy and Bess: Revisited, the latest album from the American Jazz Institute. Also of note from AJI are The Clifford Brown Project and Grachan Moncur III's Exploration.

This morning, I had the opportunity to participate in a blogger conference call with General Wesley Clark in preparation for his upcoming testimony in front of the House Armed Services Committee. Other bloggers also invited include Juan Cole, Armando from Daily Kos, and Jerome Armstrong (Jerome was apparently unable to make the call).

The General began by providing an outline of his testimony. The three areas he will adress are as follows:

1. What went wrong in Iraq
   
2. How we get out of there the right way
   
3. The Implications for the Armed Services

---

1. When he appeared before the committee in September 2002, he stated his belief that force should be used as a last resort, only after all diplomatic actions had been exhausted. Because these steps were not fully achieved, America lacks legitimacy in the region. As a result of this lack of legitimacy -- which is also based in part on a poorly implemented de-Ba'athification, a lack of security in the country, and the failure to reconstruct parts of the Iraqi infrastructure -- we "emotionally empowered the insurgency."
   
   
2. In September 2002, the army claimed that it would only need 75,000 troops in the country. Today, there are seventeen brigades on the ground (out of the 33 active duty brigades available. As a result, the situation is not sustainable. To get out the right way, three tool kits must be implemented. They are:
   
   
   • An effective military: It is extremely important to be effective in training the Iraqis. Right now, we are not resourced for that.
     
     
   • Political: Paul Bremer was completely ineffective, and thought Ambassador Negroponte got an election, he will be leaving soon. [At this point, I was briefly bumped off of the line]
     
     
   • Diplomatic: [I was still off the line for most of this bullet point]
   
   
3. This is the first time that the all-volunteer army has been in sustained action. Already, the effects on the troops can be seen, and there has been an "incalculable consequence for their families."
   
   We need a larger active duty force. This will cost significantly more money, but that money has not yet come. As a result, we are "overextended and off balance."

---

At this point, the floor was opened to questions. As no one stepped in immediately (I think they asked for a question from Armando, but he may have still ben on mute), I stepped in and asked a slightly off-topic question. (As interested as I am in Iraq -- the topic of this conference call -- my interest primarily lies in the political consequences of the war and General Clark's political stature and ambitions.)

In a somewhat rambling way, I noted to the General that he seemed to be taking a larger role in Democratic politics in the past few weeks (with the re-launch of his website, his mass email and blogad campaign on FCC restrictions, etc., though I didn't mention them at the time) and asked him if this foreshadows something to come in 2006 or 2008.

The General replied that I had worded my question in an interesting way (I suppose I had) because he had never stopped campaigning for John Kerry ("I've never stopped being active"). Though he reiterated his commitment to forwarding and improving the Democratic Party -- to make it "know enough" and be "strong enough" to defend the American people -- he gently neglected to answer my question. (He's clearly much more adept at navigating such questions than he was in September 2003.)

Armando jumped in next and asked if the Iraqi election meant anything. Clark responded that though "the administration has taken advantage of the election," Sunni participation was low (as Armando noted in his question). As a result, the election has not yet brought the country together.

Juan Cole followed up with an extremely interesting question (I will not even attempt to reword it) inquiring as to how we get a soft landing in Iraq. General Clark explained that we need to bring in Arab troops from Gulf states and train more Iraqi troops so we can begin to decrease American participation. This presupposes the legitimacy of the Iraqi government, which will be contingent on politics on the ground and diplomacy in the region.

A larger question surrounding American involvement in Iraq that must be answered is if the American presence in Iraq will lead to (or rather is a result of) the larger US involvement in the region. The President laid out a plan to the American Enterprise Institute for reshaping the Middle East along the lines of policies created by Douglas Feith, Richard Perle and others for Benjamin Netanyahu. The plan entailed Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and regime change in Syria and Iran. Teheran "sees what's coming," so they have a vested interest in aligning with Syria. As a result, right now we're not moving "towards a soft landing but a deeper, quixotic involvement in the region.

Armando brought up the recent attack on Abu Ghraib and asked General Clark what to make of the Zarqawi attack. Clark noted that it is relatively unguarded and has been attacked before. He then explained that the attack was Zarqawi's attempt to gain legitimacy in the country by attacking the symbol of American hubris. (Hubris is my word. I can't remember exactly how Clark put it, but it was something to that effect.) Unlike the case in Vietnam, he said, there's no chance for the Iraqis to keep up with superior American strength. As a result, the situation will remain relatively static: suicide attacks and guerilla tactics.

[Armando followed up in asking about the advisory role for the Americans in the future (something Clark referenced in his previous answer). I apparently did not take coherent notes on the answer.]

I jumped into the conversation with another meandering question on oil. Many in the administration predicted that Iraqi oil revenue would support rebuilding of the country so that American costs would not be more than $1-2 billion. As we've seen, though the Iraqi oil infrastructure is no where near being rebuilt entirely. In related news, oil prices hit a new high of $58 per barrel. I finished this rant by asking how we can get Iraqi oil production up and running again for us, and more importantly, the Iraqis.

Clark noted that even at the end of Saddam's regime, the infrastructure was getting old, so there were preexistring problems with the pipelines. That having been said, the pipelines are being attacked because it's easy. There's no shortcut to protecting the oil lines aside from securing the country as a whole. There simply aren't enough troops, and even if there were one million troops defending the pipelines, insurgents would be able to break through. Nevertheless, the low production level in Iraq has less to do with the price than the rapidly increasing demand, particularly from China and India. Unless the supply begins to grow more rapidly than demand, the price will continue to increase.

Juan Cole -- much more of an expert on oil and Iraq than I will ever be --followed up by noting that $10-15 of the price of each barrel comes from security concerns in the region (thanks for explicating my question!). He then commented that the pipelines weren't safe during the Saddam period because insurgents didn't want to attack them but rather because the tribes protected them (as a result of bribes and other tactics by the Ba'athists). When the pipelines are attacked today, it shows the complicity of the tribes in the insurgency, in effect proof that the guerilla war is not winding down.

Clark replied, "I don't think you can tell if you're winning this or the attacks are down" for unrelated reasons. He then brought up his bullet points on how to fix the situation before opining, "If there's a way out -- if there's a way -- this is it."

Armando got the last question of the morning. He asked what are the risks of misreading whether we're winning or if the insurgents are merely laying low. Clark first stepped back and reminded us that he's not over there (so he is not seeing the latest data and reports). Nevertheless, he explained that there are three risks:

1. Staying there and overstaying your welcome. America could become ineffective and eventually be thrown out by the government.
   
   
2. Pulling out too soon. This could lead to a civil war, thus requiring America to step back in.
   
   
3. The risk to the all-volunteer army. If the Armed Forces become discredited (as they were following Vietnam), much work will have to go into rebuilding the army. Part of the problem is that American involvement in Iraq had never solely been about Iraq. This makes the soldiers' job harder.

It was a true honor to get to speak with General Clark again and further to be included with the likes of Juan, Armando and Jerome. As I digest the event, I'll have more on the conversation to come, so check in later on.

[Update 1:16 PM Pacific]: Juan Cole provides another account of our discussion with General Wesley Clark today.

[Update 3:59 PM Pacific]: Armando over at Daily Kos completes the trifecta of coverage of the conference call.

George W. Bush carried Indiana by 16 points in 2000, a whopping 21 points in 2004. No Democrat has carried the state since Lyndon Johnson. He did this in a year when he carried 60.9% of the national vote. Before that, the last Democrat to carry the state was FDR -- in his first reelection bid. That means even Franklin Delano Roosevelt lost Indiana twice.

None of this history bodes well for the Democrats' chances to pick up Indiana in 2008. However, a new Indianapolis Star/WTHR poll shows that the state's voters might be warming up to at least one Democratic presidential hopeful.

Two out of three Hoosiers believe Hoosier Sen. Evan Bayh has the personal qualities needed to be a good president.

And without knowing who the other candidates might be, about half said they are likely to vote for Bayh if he is the Democratic Party's presidential candidate in 2008, according to a new Indianapolis Star/WTHR (Channel 13) poll.

[...]

But while only 49 percent said they are likely to vote for Bayh for president, political analysts said that's a good number. A third said they would vote for another candidate, and 18 percent weren't sure.

"Even if Evan Bayh runs for president, and even if he wins Indiana, he's not going to carry it with 70 percent of the vote. That's just the nature of partisan politics, particularly in Indiana, where partisanship is pretty important," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. "I think he can make the case that as a Democrat running for president, he can carry his own state."

Indiana is not the only place in the Mthat might be looking up for the Democrats. As Peter Slevin reports today in The Washington Post, a number of farmers in the region are becoming increasingly unhappy with Republican proposals to slash farm subsidies (a move fiercely opposed by Midwestern Dems).

No one is talking about eliminating federal subsidies, just reducing them. But in North Dakota, where more than three in four farmers receive payments -- the highest percentage of any state -- the proposals working their way through the hearing rooms on Capitol Hill are big news.

Bush proposed cuts of $5.7 billion from agricultural programs over the next 10 years as part of a deficit reduction package. The House Budget Committee set the figure at $5.3 billion, while its Senate counterpart said $2.8 billion should be trimmed.

Exactly how much will be cut and from which programs remain to be determined this summer. Congressional leaders must settle on a target, which can be met in many ways, including by cutting food stamps.

[...]

Victory is in the beholder's eye, and as far as most North Dakota farmers are concerned, any cut would be a bad cut.

While the President's proposal bodes well in the short term for Democratic Senators Kent Conrad (ND) and Ben Nelson (NE) -- both of whom expect difficult reelection bids -- it is highly possible that such a move could provide an opening for the Democrats in the region.

While Americans might not believe in porkbarrel legislation, it's not clear that they are opposed to helping out small family farmers -- a position that would also help the Dems immeasurably in the Midwest. The Democrats can also help themselves on the issue of defense by protecting America's farms from unfair budget cuts by the Republicans. Surely it is in the national interest to have ample food production in case of a crisis, terrorist attack or war. China's reliance on American foodstuffs certainly would make them think twice before taking any aggressive action against the West.

On a number of economic issues, Bush and the Republicans have left themselves wide open to the mass defection of some of their most important supporters. Now, it's up to the Democrats to make best use of this opportunity to help bring North Dakotans, Indianans, and voters across the region into their camp for 2006, 2008 and beyond.

"My question to you: Is this how you help balance the budget at the White House by ripping off retailers in the towns you visit? If that is the case, please do not come back to the Rogue Valley."

-- Kirsten Yunuba Stephens of the Red Lion Hotel in Medford in a letter to the White House requesting the $3,332.72 the President owes the hotel. In total, the White House owes Southern Oregon hotels "nearly $19,000."

Link.

Protect Your Check, the newest organization to join the Social Security fray, has just finished cutting an ad for a $1 million national cable ad buy. It's not the most effective ad I've ever seen, but it certainly gets its point across.

For all of the national disapproval of Tom DeLay, the only people whose opinions actually matter in determining his standing (aside from Republican Congressmen who elect him their leader and possibly a jury of his peers) are the people living in his district. According to the latest poll of these voters, Delay's supporting is waning quickly.

Support for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has slipped in his district, and a majority of voters surveyed disapprove of his decision to lead Congress into the Terri Schiavo case, according to a Houston Chronicle poll.

Forty-five percent of 501 voters questioned last week said they would vote for someone else if a congressional election were at hand, while about 38 percent said they would re-elect DeLay.

The powerful Texas Republican maintained that his constituents backed his decision to take Congress into the dispute over whether to keep the severely brain-damaged woman alive. But nearly 58 percent of those surveyed said they opposed his decision, while about 33 percent expressed support.

"There seems to be no question that there has been an erosion in support for the congressman," said John Zogby, whose company Zogby International conducted the poll. "These are not good re-election numbers."

Perhaps Tom DeLay shouldn't have raised his profile after all. Or, even better, perhaps he shouldn't have committed ethics violations in the first place.

Why is it that the drive back to Claremont -- which should only take an hour and a half -- always seems to take two and a half hours (or four and a half, for that matter) when I have something important to do?

Anyway, blogging to commence shortly.

Two articles in the Sunday papers seem to indicate that the answer to this question is yes, at least in the realm of domestic policy. First, The Washington Post's team of Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and John F. Harris report that the President is failing miserably at achieving one of his prime legislative agendas.

Almost everywhere President Bush traveled on the campaign trail last year, he lashed out at plaintiffs' lawyers for filing "junk lawsuits" that he said were sending the cost of health care out of sight.

These days the president rarely mentions the topic, and the effort in Congress to rein in medical malpractice litigation has stalled, according to proponents and opponents of the bill.

The troubles faced by his "med-mal" proposal may signal a turn in Bush's fortunes on domestic policy. In the first three months of the year, he scored large and comparatively easy victories on legislation to restrain class-action lawsuits and to revamp bankruptcy laws to make it harder for consumers to wipe out their debts -- both measures that had been long sought by business interests.

But those proposals represented what a senior Democratic Senate aide called "low-hanging fruit," easily picked by a newly reelected president. The medical malpractice legislation -- a more complex and more controversial idea -- is proving to be a longer reach.

[...]

Although passage of the medical malpractice bill is seen by both sides as virtually assured in the House, Senate Democrats plan to block such legislation by using a filibuster, a procedural maneuver that prevents controversial bills from reaching an up-or-down vote. Republicans hold 55 seats in the Senate, five short of the 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster. In addition, a few Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), do not support the measure. [emphasis added]

Though some in the blogosphere claim to have been caught off guard by the bankruptcy bill, such a bill had been moving through Congress for years, just like the med-mal bill. The real difference betweeen the two measures is that there is money to defend against changes to malpractice law (from the trial lawyers) while there wasn't the money to defend against changes to the bankruptcy law.

Birnbaum and Thomas hit on another key point in the article. Although it might seem that the President has scored some sweeping sucesses in the first months of his second term, in reality, the measures passed were close to enactment long ago and just needed a slight change of votes in the Senate (which came in the form of the 2004 election). On issues of larger import such as Social Security -- issues for which there has not been decades of fighting and organizing by the right -- radical change has not been nearly as easy, as David E. Rosenbaum reports for The New York Times:

Midway through their 60-day coast-to-coast blitz to promote fundamental revisions in Social Security, President Bu