The Commentariat -- Sept. 21, 2014
Internal links removed.
On "60 Minutes" this evening, Leon Panetta will severely criticize President Obama's past decisions re: Iraq & Syria.
CW: I wasn't going to read Matt Bai's piece in the New York Times Magazine on Gary Hart. But I did. It's pretty good. See MAG's related comment in yesterday's Comments section. Also James S.'s follow-up comment. Bill Clinton, whose tawdry escapades probably made Hart look like a comparative paragon of probity, knew exactly how to handle the issue -- with an overt hypocrisy that would satisfy any Church Lady. He learned from Hart's mistakes. ...
... AND, since we're traveling down Memory Lane, Philip Shenon, in the Washington Post: "... when it comes to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the list of important, seemingly credible public figures who count themselves as conspiracy theorists is long and impressive." CW: I'm a halfhearted conspiracy theorist myself, but to those who more-or-less buy the Warren Commission findings, it is certainly reasonable to believe that Oswald acted alone. One need look no further than Friday's breach of the White House to see than one resolute person can get pretty far.
David Atkins in the Washington Monthly: "Steve Koonin has an obfuscatory piece in the Wall Street Journal today claiming that the science of climate change isn't settled. But it's not the usual radically ignorant posturing. As with much of the evolution of the conservative 'debate' over climate, it represents another move in the shifting ground of conservative chicanery intended to paralyze action to solve the problem.... His position is that because we don't fully understand all of the complex reverberating effects of climate change, we can't make good climate policy yet.... Of all the cynical arguments against action on climate change, Koonin's ranks among the most disturbing because it's so obviously calculated by a very smart person to make a radically irresponsible conclusion just to protect a few entrenched economic elites." The Koonin piece is here.
Dear Mister Presidint, Thank you for sending my teacher the tanks, grinaid launchers and cool army rifles. Recess used to be boring. Now its not. Joey S. 5fh grade.
CW: Re: the WashPo story I linked yesterday on "The Daily Show"'s Redskins segment, Zara Golden of Gawker: "The segment was bumped for Bill Clinton but will air this week."
Justin Huggler of the Telegraph: "President Vladimir Putin privately threatened to invade Poland, Romania and the Baltic states, according to a record of a conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart. 'If I wanted, in two days I could have Russian troops not only in Kiev, but also in Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn, Warsaw and Bucharest,' Mr Putin allegedly told President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, reported Süddeustche Zeitung, a German newspaper. If true, this would be the first time that Mr Putin has threatened to invade Nato or EU members." CW: Doesn't sound like a threat to me. Just a bully boasting his is bigger than yours.
... CW: I do love it when scientists talk to the nitwits. Here Emily Atkin of Think Progress provides some outtakes of "White House Science Advisor Dr. John P. Holdren..., a lauded theoretical physicist, appear[ing] before the Republican-led House Committee on Science, Space and Technology on Wednesday to testify about the Obama administration's plan to fight climate change." ...
... The problem is that these representatives operate under a belief system -- bolstered by their biggest contributors -- which always trumps facts. The members are not only ignorant, some say they believe that ignorance is superior to knowledge: climate scientists cannot be trusted because they are, you know, paid for studying climate change. Worth noting: those House members are paid for being dumb as dirt. Next time any of them need some surgery, I'd be happy to do it for free. I am completely ignorant of how to perform any medical procedures. But I'm sure a knife will come in handy.
God News
Here's your Sunday Bible story. Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post (September 12): Steve Green -- the son of the founder of Hobby Lobby -- is building a massive Bible museum two blocks from the Washington Mall. He also amassed a huge collection of valuable Biblical artifacts after the global financial crisis left owners in need of cash. The question now is whether the museum is going to be a Noah's Ark-type joke or a center for scholarly research. Via Steve Benen.
Rachel Zoll of the AP: "On Saturday, Pope Francis named [moderate Bishop Blase] Cupich as the next archbishop of Chicago, sending a strong signal about the direction that the pontiff is taking the church. Cupich will succeed Cardinal Francis George, 77, an aggressive defender of orthodoxy who once said he expected his successors in Chicago to be martyred in the face of hostility toward Christianity." ...
... The Chicago Sun-Times story, by Francine Knowles, is here.
Gubernatorial Races
Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times assesses the Florida gubernatorial race, which polls show as nearly tied up up between Democrat (& former Republican governor) Charlie Crist & the current govenor, Rick Scott. ...
... Jonathan Chait takes another look at "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Answer: Gov. Sam Brownback.
Beyond the Beltway
Playing in Peoria. Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "... can a citizen be prosecuted for dope possession when the police were raiding his home looking for a fake Twitter account?" CW: Answer so far: Yup. This story sounds like an outtake from some half-assed 1980s comedy. Peoria definitely needs a new mayor.
News Ledes
New York Times: "Afghanistan's election commission on Sunday pronounced Ashraf Ghani the winner of the country's presidential election, but it withheld an announcement of the total votes won, despite an exhaustive and costly audit process overseen by the United Nations and financed by the American government. The suppression of the vote totals was apparently the final step necessary for the two presidential candidates to sign an American-brokered agreement to form a power-sharing government, giving the runner-up, Abdullah Abdullah, substantial powers in what is, in effect, the post of prime minister."
New York Times: "NASA’s latest Mars spacecraft, Maven, arrives Sunday evening [link fixed] to study the mystery of what happened to the planet's air. A 33-minute engine firing, beginning at 9:37 p.m. Eastern time, will put Maven in orbit around the planet. Acknowledgment will reach mission controllers 12 1/2 minutes later, the time it takes for a radio signal to travel to Earth from Mars. NASA’s website will provide a live broadcast beginning at 9:30 p.m."
Share Article
Reader Comments (10)
Well, I did read Matt Bai's piece and then reread MAG's comments. I was interested because I have always lamented Hart's demise at becoming president. At the time I thought it was part of Lee Atwater's nefarious cut throat activities. Coincidently I was engaged in a discussion with a friend over this very issue several days ago and I, too, thought all sexy doings by past presidents came to light after Nixon when journalists were after the brass ring of reporting. FDR cultivated reporters by bringing them into the White House holding court with much bonhomie and jocularity. He even knew all of their names. And they protected him. So much for those days.
And speaking of a Roosevelt –-after watching the last segment of Burns' saga last night I was reminded again of Eleanor's stalwart march into the political area after FDR died. It doesn't matter that she needed to be needed nor does it matter that she accomplished so much because she was fending off her demons just as TR did. She succeeded and made our country the better for it.
Gary Hart would have made this country better (and certainly through his writings he has tried to keep his voice out there) but he emerged at the wrong time for keeping personal peccadilloes under wraps. Ask Bill who barely escaped. And the idea that people whose bono fides would be perfect for getting into politics shy away because of such close scrutiny ––-digging deep for any speck of dirt––then results in these nitwits running I think is accurate.
Have we had women in the political arena whose hanky-panky prevented them from running? If not, why not?
I tried to respond yesterday to MAG's comment about Gary Hart but my Nook rooked me.
Gary Hart/Donna Rice: one of those episodes that makes you want to scream. Gary Hart had everything going for him, except common sense, and letting the little head do the thinking for the big head. After eight years of Ronbo, the Iran-Contra cluster fuck, and an administration so crooked and unethical it made the Nixon White House look like a meeting of Our Lady's Sodality, people were ready for a change. Hart was smart, sharp, savvy (well, in certain ways).
But hubris kicked his ass as if he were a character in an Aeschylus play. When he challenged reporters to get the goods on him, I knew bad things were about to happen. And, of course, get him they did, in flagrante, and on a boat named "Monkey Business". You can't make that shit up.
Even after his demise, there was a strong possibility that Mike Dukakis could beat Poppy Bush, but an ill-advised tank ride, a queerly dispassionate answer to a question about what he would do if his wife had been beaten, raped, and murdered (Christ, no wonder Kitty drank), and the image of Willie Horton (thanks, Atwater, you rat fuck; if there's a hell, I sincerely hope you're swimming in a lake of fire with no shore in sight) intervened.
So we were left with a president who, as Gary Trudeau once said, had placed his manhood in a blind trust for eight years, and a drooling simpleton who probably still can't spell "potato".
Worse than that, Hart's poor decisions set back any possibility, for a generation, of escape from the gilded age arrogance Reagan ushered in, perhaps, indefinitely. I can't say that his indiscretions gave us The Decider and Uncle Death, but they certainly helped create the circumstances under which, as Bai suggests, plenty of smart, qualified candidates would decline to run.
And although sexual escapades and infidelity are nothing to brag about, they don't necessarily make one ineligible as a leader, even a great one. One can make the case that JFK, although a good one, wasn't perhaps a great leader, no one can ever say that about FDR.
It's been a staple of American politics that getting caught with your fingers in the till, something that would put you out of office in many European democracies, is not nearly as big a deal as getting caught with your fingers elsewhere. Gary Hart should have known that.
Bet he does now.
@pdPepe Racked my brain, but no 'political' women and hanky-panky came to mind. However, it seems them schoolmarms keep on keeping on with the 15-year olds! Believe there was a case in New Jersey that came to light last week.
@JamesSinger of yesterday: Yes, Helen Mirren's 'Jane Tennison' character in Prime Suspect had quite the matter-of-fact adult approach!!!!
Interesting op-ed with reader comments in NY Times on hospital 'out-of-network' charges in PAYING TILL IT HURTS' (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/us/drive-by-doctoring-surprise-medical-bills.html ) Eye-opening tales that caution
us all to pay heed to what we sign when being admitted.
As, in 'No, thanks to that $20.00 box of Kleenex.'
By the way, just wondering...when links to stories are posted;
e.g., the NY Times—are most able to get to the story? Or only if you are a subscriber? Came across an article recently that I wanted to read on Forbes re p-HtM vs. w-HtM (poor-Hand-to-Mouth/ wealthy-Hand-to-Mouth) that I saw on www.cnbc.com, but was blocked when I clicked on the link. Tried what I thought might be a work-around to no avail.
PD,
"Have we had women in the political arena whose hanky-panky prevented them from running? If not, why not?"
Why not? I think because women are smarter. And more gun shy. Because they have to be.
My guess is that the nature of sexual politics (and the historical consequences of sexual dalliance for them) has given women an astuteness and a radar for trouble that too many men lack when it comes to extramarital hippity-hop.
That's not to say that some women, even in politics, wouldn't like it, or don't think about it. But the fact that men seem able to survive and thrive (look at assholes like that Sanford character, and Bill Clinton), and are, at worst, called cheaters and dogs, it's nothing compared to what happens to women found in the same position who are called whores and sluts, tags which even the most sympathetic Barbara Walters interview could not help them overcome.
Could Bill Clinton run again, if a third presidential term were legal today? Sure. No bets on whether he would win or not. But had it been Hillary who had been performing the prone polka with a young male intern, her chances of being elected to the local zoning board would register as a negative integer.
But maybe....if she found Jesus right after that....
Nah....a woman on death row in Texas tried that with George Bush. He killed her anyway, then made fun of her afterwards.
Oregon has a female candidate, a Republican, who was issued a restraining order for stalking an exlover. Not quite the same thing, but close enough. She'll lose come November but not because of the restraining order.
Yes indeed, all of this pubescent focus on the sex life of politicians and frogs. So retro! Actually, nobody has yet mentioned the large proportion of Republican "family values" frogs who have been caught in a wide stance in public bathroom stalls or their buddies, who have "stuff" going on with female staffers, lady lobbyists, etc. etc. etc. And how about all those Southern gentlemen who chuckle while making lewd remarks to the air (around any available women) and grope ladies in elevators? There is so much unsexy sex going on the the Halls of Congress that it would be impossible to document it all.
As for the women, I do not believe for one minute that there is not some extra-marital dilly dallying. However, let's face it: women are just a whole lot smarter than men when it comes to keeping their affairs in check. Testosterone really sends these silly men over the top, especially when combined with a 2-3 martini lunch!
Where, oh where is Helen Gurley Brown's counterpart?
There's a book just waiting to be written, pending title:
"Sex and the Not-so-Single Politician"
@PD Pepe "Have we hadwomen in the political arena whose hanky-panky prevented them from running?" Don't forget Nikki Haley of S. Carolina, who is alleged to have had an affair with Will Folks, "a political blogger and former campaign staffer" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/nikki-haley-affair-rumors_n_819824.html)
The affair allegations haven't prevented her from running for re-election (and in SC probably won't prevent her from winning; she is a Republican after all) but are probably have put a kibosh on any further political career that she might have had her eyes on. See e.g., http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/nikki-haley-south-carolina#1wmur72
I was quite taken by the last graf in the Guardian piece about the mayor of Peoria:
"It is not known whether [the mayor] now regrets his decision to send in the Swat team. One measure of its success is that there is no longer one parody feed ridiculing [him] on Twitter – there are 15."
In the small clip provided of the upcoming "60 Minutes" interview with Leon Panetta, a few points emerge. Panetta claims we left Iraq too soon, but - at least in the clip - does not acknowledge that Iraq refused to extend the Status of Forces agreement. He also claims that President Obama ignored his security team's advice to provide arms to rebel groups in Syria out of concern that the arms could fall into the wrong hands or that the rebels chosen were unreliable. When Scott Pelley brought up this legitimate point, Panetta's only response (that we see here) was "you have to start somewhere." That seems pretty reckless as an approach. If Panetta's assertion that the President resisted his advisors to adopt the course he felt in our best interests, that paints a picture of a strong leader, not a weak one. Sadly, the evildoers of ISIS figured out exactly how to push America's buttons: with a few beheadings. Cheap, and diabolical.
And so, after all the noble resisting of the President, we are drawn back in to the Middle East cesspool.