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Inspector Bush
By Matt Bivens
The Bush-Cheney campaign website has been decrying Senator John Kerry as an "unprincipled" politician "brought to you by the special interests."
Perhaps. But it's worth noting that, according to campaign finance records examined by Public Citizen, George W. Bush accepted more lobbyist cash in one year than has Kerry in fifteen.
So if, in the worst-case scenario, it came down to a choice between two "special interest candidates," one of which could be further described as a glutton of special interest money and a hypocrite, well ... that's not a tough call.
(0) CommentsFebruary 18, 2004
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Little Miss Treason
By Matt Bivens
We'll get to the loathsome likes of Little Miss Treason shortly, but first let's look at the man she has libeled: Max Cleland.
Cleland lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, wounds that could have destroyed a lesser man. Instead, he not only kept his life together, he made it all the way to the United States Senate. In the fall of 2002, control of Congress hinged on his seat, and the GOP leadership poured its black heart into his defeat. President George Bush visited Georgia five times to campaign against him, and a Republican ad campaign likened Cleland to -- of course -- Osama bin Laden. Old-school Republicans like John McCain and Chuck Hagel, who both served in Vietnam, were appalled. But the new-school Bushies, morals all a-AWOL, were pleased to do whatever it took to pick up Cleland's seat.
Fast-forward 18 months. Today, George W. Bush is scrambling to put a good face on how he spent the Vietnam war. (To recap: States-side, in a cush gig brokered by his daddy just 12 days before he'd have again been eligible for the draft, he learned at taxpayer expense to fly a fighter jet, then announced he wanted to campaign for an Alabama pal of Richard Nixon's, stopped showing up, then declined to provide that embarrassing urine sample and so lost his flight status, then "arranged it with the military" to leave early to go get an M.B.A. Mission accomplished!)
(0) CommentsFebruary 17, 2004
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Personal Responsibility Republicans
By Matt Bivens
Try this on: You notice that a rival at work is away from his desk. You sneak in and make secret copies of all of his private files -- with the intention of passing off some of his ideas as your own, and sabotaging the others. You enjoy doing so for several months, until you get caught. By way of a defense, you blame your rival: He ignorantly left his computer running with the password logged in, he didn't lock his office door, he didn't lock his office filing cabinet. It was just "sheer luck" that you "found" his files.
As alibis go, this is equivalent to a burglar protesting his innocence on grounds that he'd "found," by "sheer luck," a spare key recklessly left under the welcome mat. Only the morally retarded could offer it.
So meet the Bush Republicans. Caught sneaking into the files of Democratic colleagues in the Senate, they have blamed ... the Democrats. (When are those awful Democrats going to take personal responsibility for their actions?)
(0) CommentsFebruary 13, 2004
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Offshoring Jobs
By Matt Bivens
"Three million jobs destroyed on their watch, and now they want to export more of our jobs overseas. What in the world are they thinking?" says Senator John Kerry.
"This is actually now the position of the White House that they support 'outsourcing' of jobs -- jobs going abroad -- saying that that's good for our country," says Senator Tom Daschle. "Well, you tell that to the 9 million Americans who are out of work."
"These people, what planet do they live on? They are so out of touch," says Senator John Edwards.
(0) CommentsFebruary 13, 2004
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'The President Recalls Serving'
By Matt Bivens
Without further ado, I commend to you a partial transcript of today's White House press briefing. Press Secretary Scott McClellan doggedly insists, based upon the sudden discovery of "additional records" showing that George W. Bush was paid for his service, that the case is now closed on whether our President ever dodged duty in the National Guard. (Which would be kind of redundant, since duty in the guard in those days was often about dodging duty in Vietnam.) But pay stubs aside, no one can account for Bush physically being present, even as some of his commanding officers have said -- in person and in writing back in the day -- that he was a no-show.
Perhaps we should expand this discussion from whether he was AWOL to whether he was AWOL and fraudulently accepting government pay?
For those who want just the summary: Under questioning from increasingly vexed reporters, it becomes clear the White House's pay stubs and other papers aren't terribly convincing proof of anything -- except that these lame scraps of evidence demonstrate a three-month gap -- a period in which now apparently even the White House tacitly admits Guardsman Bush was absent without leave, off working on a Senator's campaign in another state. (Remember, even 31 days of AWOL meets the army's internal administrative standard for " desertion"). The White House also does not dispute that Guardsmen Bush lost his flying status -- status he earned at American expense -- by failing to submit to an army medical examination. And it offers no explanation for why a hard-partying mediocrity like George W. Bush circa 1972 might have been afraid to show up for that.
(0) CommentsFebruary 10, 2004
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Islamic Republic of Iraq?
By Matt Bivens
The interview of George W. Bush on "Meet the Press" produced many a revealing incoherency. For example, do you think it's possible the President was coached to try to shoe-horn the word "danger" or "dangerous" in whenever he could?
President Bush: "Saddam Hussein was dangerous with weapons. Saddam Hussein was dangerous with the ability to make weapons. He was a dangerous man in the dangerous part of the world."
Hmm. Was he "dangerous with weapons" even if he didn't have any? Was the second sentence actually a correction of the first? Would it be most accurate to say that "Saddam Hussein was dangerous with the ability to partake of weapons of mass destruction program-related activities?"
(0) CommentsFebruary 9, 2004
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God and the President
By Matt Bivens
In his late 30s, soon after an evening of talks with evangelist Billy Graham, George W. Bush declared himself a born-again Christian.
Does he therefore believe -- as born-again Christians often do -- that even good and kind people are doomed to Hell, unless they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior?
Does he believe that Jews and Muslims are ultimately damned? If he doesn't believe that, then is he saying one can reject Jesus Christ -- yet still go to Heaven? If he does believe that, then does the inevitable damnation of the majority of humanity ever enter into his Earthly calculations?
(0) CommentsFebruary 6, 2004
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Another Zealot for the Courts
By Matt Bivens
William G. Myers has never been a judge, never participated in a jury trial, never been a law professor, rarely written a law review article; he in fact so rarely appeared or participated in any court-room forum that he apparently had trouble responding to the Senate's boilerplate question of "the ten most significant litigated matters which you personally handled": In three of the cases he listed, his name doesn't appear on the briefs and he never appeared in court.
What, then, qualifies such a man for a lifetime seat on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals -- a court that reviews most of the federal cases involving conservation of our public lands -- a court just one step below that of the Supreme Court?
Could it be his many loyal years of lobbying and corporate lawyering for mining, grazing and cattle companies?
(0) CommentsFebruary 5, 2004
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'Bagpipes Bush'
By Matt Bivens
"Americans have had enough of politicians who are fire fighter's best friends when the bagpipes are wailing but walk away when the flags return to full staff." -- John Kerry, back in September, accepting the endorsement of our largest union of fire fighters.
That's our President in a nutshell: Bagpipes Bush. More than happy to come to New York city and throw his arm around a fire fighter for the cameras; but when it comes time to actually do something, he again goes AWOL.
The President recently published his budget proposal for next year, and its Banana- Republic-of-Enron approach is drawing lots of fire. So the White House has hastily put together a fiscal responsibility dog-and-pony show, and this week unveiled a grand list of 128 areas where it will cut spending. All told, these cuts bring a savings next year of less than $5 billion -- pocket change for a budget that the White House's own rosy projections say will next year indulge in $521 billion in deficit spending.
(0) CommentsFebruary 4, 2004
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A Million Thanks!
By Matt Bivens
Public Citizen is calling for an investigation of Billy Tauzin, the Republican Congressman from Louisiana, who had a key role in writing the Medicare prescription drug law -- and now that he's done with that, got a big thank-you in the form of a sweet offer to lobby in Washington for the pharmaceutical industry. The compensation package, rumored to be somewhere from $1 million to $2.5 million a year, would be "likely the largest compensation package on record for anyone at a trade association," Public Citizen says. Tauzin hasn't said yet whether he'll accept it; he seems to have been given pause by the drumbeat of indignation that's risen at the idea.
"The record size of the [drug industry] contract and the fact that the offer became public less than two months after the drug industry scored a major victory with this legislation raises serious questions about whether Representative Tauzin's actions were tainted," says Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen's president. "While Rep. Tauzin was writing the bill, he put out the word that he was retiring from Congress and looking for new work. This doesn't pass the smell test."
Tauzin is not the only politician who seems to be cashing in his chips with the drug industry. Tom Scully, the White House point person on the Medicare bill, recently quit government to go work for law firms that represent pharmaceutical interests. "So we have a situation where the lead administration person on the bill and the lead manager on the bill in the House of Representatives are going to work for the pharmaceutical companies," Pelosi says. "I think it would be important to the American people to know when the negotiations for these positions began."
(0) CommentsFebruary 2, 2004
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