The Nation

Zig Zag Zell

Katrina vanden Heuvel on September 1, 2004 - 3:21 PM ET

Zell Miller has hypocrite stamped all over his forehead. It's hard to imagine anyone more Janus-faced than the Democratic Senator from Georgia. In 1992, Miller nominated Bill Clinton at the Democratic convention. At a 2001 Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in Georgia, Miller described John Kerry as "a good friend,""one of this nation's authentic heroes," and "one of this party's…greatest leaders."

But Miller's a cheap date. Earlier this year, the aptly dubbed "Zig Zag Zell" published A National Party No More, a book blandishing blurbs from Sean Hannity, Robert Novak and Newt Gingrich, which characterizes the Democratic Party as a fringe organization. Employing one-liners in place of logic, Miller wrote, "If this is a national party, sushi is our national dish. If this is a national party, surfing has become our national pastime." The Washington Monthlycalled it "a rather dreadful [book]"; a "toxic combination of corny folkisms" and "over-the-top jeremiads against fellow Democrats."

Miller's ideology is simplistic, and hubristic. He recently argued in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the struggle for the modern Democratic Party has been won by "Hollywood sleazemaker" Michael Moore and other assorted "Bush-bashers." Miller complained that America Coming Together was hiring ex-felons to help with its get-out-the-vote campaign, and that Democrats were joining forces with criminals everywhere. In Miller's opinion, radicals dominate party ranks, and moderates have zero influence. (He apparently doesn't know that in his own backyard, Inez Tenenbaum--the Democratic candidate for South Carolina's Senate seat-- is touting family values and supports the amendment banning gay marriage.)

When Miller delivers the keynote at the Republican convention Wednesday, he will bash his "good friend" Kerry and highlight his organization, Democrats for Bush. "Before it's all over, I think you're going to see a very impressive group of Democrats from around the nation supporting the Bush-Cheney team," Miller declared at a kick-off press conference in March. It's in large part a sham organization. According to the group's web site, the only other truly prominent Democrat in the group is former New York Mayor Ed Koch. The "Democrats for Bush" Steering Committee includes the not exactly household names Paul Berube (a pastor in New Hampshire), and Robert Allen Blankenship, (a retired sheriff in Arkansas.)

While the press lavishes attention on Miller, a more important story is being ignored; the Republicans who are deserting Bush in droves. US servicemen and women, senior diplomats, libertarians and social moderates are attacking Bush's foreign and domestic agendas.

*Numerous Republicans who served in high diplomatic and military positions under Reagan and Bush's father, for example, have formed Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change. As William Harrop, Ambassador to Israel under Bush's father, put it: I really am essentially a Republican. I voted for George Bush's father and I voted for George Bush. But what we got was not the George Bush we voted for." In the official statement, the group argues that the Bush Administration has weakened our security, and that it is time for a change."

* Nebraska Republican Congressman Doug Bereuter. Vice chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, this Midwestern conservative just two weeks ago told constituents that Bush's invasion of Iraq was "a mistake." (Click here to read John Nichols' online article about Bereuter's letter.)

*Conservative commentators like Pat Buchanan have argued that, "if prudence is the mark of a conservative, Mr. Bush has ceased to be a conservative."

*Bush's lying about Iraq, argues Ron Reagan, in this month's Esquire, has alienated Reagan Republicans along with many moderates who served under Bush's father. (Bush is still waiting for the Log Cabin Republicans to endorse his campaign and the GOP's anti-gay rights, anti-abortion agenda.)

*The Republican animosity towards Bush is also powerfully expressed in MoveOn.org's Real People ads highlighting ordinary Republicans who are voting for Kerry. (Click here to see the series.)

Like theDemocrats for Bush organization he leads, Miller is more a sideshow than a force to be reckoned with. (Or as Ben Jones, a former Georgia congressman, challenging Miller to a debate, summed it up: " I think that the devil has got into Zell Miller, and he needs a exorcist." He has convinced few important Democrats, if any, to join his quixotic crusade. Miller will be feted at this week's convention, but the GOP will be pinning their hopes on an empty vessel.

Arnold and Laura: It's the War, Stupid

David Corn on September 1, 2004 - 2:00 AM ET

The official theme of Night Two of GOPalooza was "People of Compassion." But the real message of the evening was, Safety First. The key moments of the evening were designed to depict George W. Bush as the decisive leader who by launching the war in Iraq has protected, well, you and, of course, your loved ones. The convention has demonstrated that the no retreat/no surrender Bush campaign actually wants this election to be about Big Daddy's war.

In the early part of the program, speakers did praise Bush's policies on education, health care and home ownership. But the talk did little to jazz the crowd. When Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist hailed Bush for advocating health savings accounts and for passing a (rather limited) Medicare prescription drug benefit, the delegates politely applauded. In the Bush family box, George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush chatted with friends, barely paying attention to Frist. But then Frist blasted trial attorneys. Barbara Bush immediately jumped to her feet and began applauding enthusiastically. Her husband joined in. So did Commerce Secretary Don Evans and C. Boyden Gray, a corporate lawyer and longtime Bush family friend. Health savings account--no big deal. Beating up on trial attorneys--that rang their bells.

But the big bang of the night came when California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger certified Bush a genuine action hero. In a crisply-written and well-delivered speech chockfull of good lines, Schwarzenegger retold his own coming-to-America tale to celebrate the American dream. He portrayed the United States as the force for freedom and liberty in the world. But his uber-goal was to present Bush as the best darn protector-in-chief in the world:

"The president didn't go into Iraq because the polls told him it was popular. As a matter of fact, the polls said just the opposite. But leadership isn't about polls. It's about making decisions you think are right and then standing behind those decisions. That's why America is safer with George W. Bush."

By the time of the invasion, Americans were supportive of a war in Iraq to deal with the supposed WMD threat. But that didn't stop the delegates from cheering wildly for Schwarzenegger. They ate up his bright, shining rhetoric about America:

"We're the America that fights not for imperialism but for human rights and democracy....When that lone, young Chinese man stood in front of those tanks in Tiananmen Square, America's hopes stood with him. And when Nelson Mandela smiled in an election victory after all those years in prison, America celebrated, too."

This was Hallmarkian history. Schwarzenegger neglected to mention that not too long after the Tiananmen Square massacre Bush the Elder moved to improve ties with the butchers of Beijing and that Ronald Reagan--hero to Schwarzenegger and every other Republican in the room--supported the racist regime that had imprisoned Mandela (and that a congressman named Dick Cheney had opposed imposing sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa). But why ruin a good story with reality? Schwarzenegger comes from a Hollywood obsessed with happy endings. He'll probably make a version of Moby Dick someday in which he plays Ahab and actually catches and kills (single-handedly) that damn white whale.

Schwarzenegger put his scriptwriters at the service of Constable Bush. We must "terminate terrorism," he declared. He recalled how an American GI who had lost a leg in Iraq had told him he planned to return to Iraq, vowing "Arnold...I'll be back." And, Schwarzenegger noted, "America is back"--back from recession, back from the 9/11 attacks--because of one man: George W. Bush.

Schwarzenegger had little to say about compassion. His was a war speech. He breezed by his sharp differences with the party on social issues. Still, there's an obvious, but irresistible, point to make: the Republican Party that opposes abortion rights and gay rights--with no wiggle room in its platform--goes gaga over a fellow who believes it's perfectly fine if women destroy their babies and people engage in immoral and perverse sexual relations. (Don't write to complain; I'm using their terms for effect.) On the convention floor, I asked several delegates whether they could reconcile the apparent contradiction between assailing abortion as an abomination and embracing a man who supports abortion rights. Susan Stephens, a grandmother from Alabama, told me that while she considers abortion mass murder, she still can cheer for Schwarzenegger. "I know it sounds like I'm a sell-out," she remarked. "I'd like to talk to Arnold. I believe I can change his mind." And when Alan Keyes, a fundamentalist and fervent abortion foe now running for Senate in Illinois, walked by, I asked if he thought it was appropriate for the GOP to spotlight a Republican who says it is okay to engage in what Keyes has called one of the greatest evils of all time. Keyes was uncharacteristically restrained: "It's not the sort of thing I would do. But the task of making sure George W. Bush gets elected belongs to them. We have to hope and pray it works."

Tactics over principles? I never thought I would hear Keyes endorse such relativist means. But if Schwarzenegger could transfer some of his silver-screen swagger to Bush, then even Keyes was not going to complain.

When Laura Bush addressed the delegates, she too skipped over the compassion stuff. She noted that she could talk about education, about health care, about home ownership, "about the fact that my husband is the first president to provide federal funding for stem cell research," but such matters were not foremost on her mind (or the minds of the campaign strategists). "I want to talk about the issue," she said, "that I believe is most important for my own daughters, for all of our families, and for our future: George's work to protect our country and defeat terror so that all children can grow up in a more peaceful world." (In her brief reference to stem cells, Laura Bush disingenuously described her husband's policy, for she failed to say that he imposed limits on stem cell research that, according to most biotech experts, prevent the development of an effective research program.)

"My husband didn't want to go to war," Laura Bush maintained, "but he knew the safety and security of America and the world depended upon it."

And that is the essence of the Bush campaign's sales pitch. Safety is job one. Everything else? Sure, we can debate the No Child Left Behind Act, tax cuts, and health care. But what trumps it all is Bush's willingness to do whatever must be done to protect the United States. Even though polls show a majority of Americans now believe the war in Iraq was a mistake, Bush is not backing off. His campaign refuses to treat the war as a problem. Instead, it presents the war in Iraq as Exhibit A for the case that Bush has the cojones to defend America. This may well make strategic sense. After all, if you have a messy war (sold to the public with falsehoods and fibs) on your hands, you may as well make as much of it as possible. And how do you turn a liability into an asset? Just say it is, over and over. It helps if you have a movie-star hero leading the chorus. In the first two days of the convention, the Bush campaign has clearly revealed its credo: It's the war, stupid.

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Read about my adventures in partying with conservatives by clicking here. And see my report on the problem shared by gay GOPers and fundamentalist Republicans. Or check out my review of McCain's speech.*********

When you're done reading this article,visit David Corn's WEBLOG at www.davidcorn.com. Read back entries on the Swift vets and other matters.

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The Man in Black Bloc

John Nichols on August 31, 2004 - 11:27 PM ET

NEW YORK -- It was a lot like a Johnny Cash song.

On one side of the street, wearing their suits and gowns, were the rich and powerful celebrating the renominations of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

On the other side of the street, dressed in black, were the not-so-rich and not-so-powerful folks who didn't see much to celebrate in the news from this week's Republican National Convention.

There was a partisan divide, to be sure, outside the Sotheby's auction house Tuesday. But the real divide was over the legacy of Cash, the legendary country singer who died last year at the age of 71.

The American Gas Association and the Nissan Motor Co. had arranged a swank party to honor Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander and his state's delegation to the Republican convention. And, since the event was being held at Sotheby's, which will be auctioning Cash memorabilia in mid-September, it was decided to make the event a "tribute" to the singer.

To a lot of Cash fans, however, that sounded like claiming that the Man in Black was a Republican.

And those were fighting words for folks who recall that it was Cash who sang: "I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down/ Livin' in the hopeless hungry side of town/I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime/But is there because he's a victim of his times."

The notion that the man who wrote those words would be used to promote the reelection of a Republican president did not sit well with Erin Siegel, a 22-year-old art student from Brooklyn, who urged Cash fans to gather across from Sotheby's Tuesday afternoon. "A lot of his political songs really represented issues the Republicans don't really seem to care about very much," she explained.

"I find this really offensive, for his name or his memory to be used like this," Siegel added.

Cash's daughter, singer Rosanne Cash, seemed to agree. She issued a statement declaring that the family wanted everyone to know that the event should "NOT be seen as a show of support for the Republican agenda."

Siegel and Rosanne Cash were not alone. Urged on by the www.defendjohnnycash.org website--with a manifesto declaring, "Johnny Cash spoke for the poor and under-represented. This administration speaks for the rich," and "The RNC has no right to tarnish the memory of Johnny Cash. We will rise up to defend an American hero"--hundreds of Cash fans showed up to protest outside Sotheby's.

They wore black and they carried guitars, a sea of New York cowboys and cowgirls singing, "I Walk the Line" and "Ring of Fire" and, of course, "Man In Black."

The Republican delegates attending the Sotheby's event were unimpressed. They hustled quickly into the auction house, some of them scowling at the critics--especially when the crowd in black started chanting "graverobbers" and "Bush out of NYC. Cash hated prisons and so do we."

As it happened, protest outside Sotheby's did not grow the prison population much. While hundreds of activists were arrested Tuesday as part of direct action protests against the Republicans, the men and women in black tended more toward loud recitations of Cash's anti-Vietnam war lines from "Man in Black," as well as the singer's observation that "things need changin' everywhere you go."

So which side of the street would Cash have chosen?

New Yorker Sander Hicks, a book publisher who wore his black with pride, had no doubt.

"Johnny Cash knew which side he was on," said Hicks, a fierce Bush critic. "So do we."

The Rubble

Katrina vanden Heuvel on August 31, 2004 - 2:08 PM ET

As speaker after speaker Monday night invoked the iconic image of President Bush standing amidst the rubble of Ground Zero in the days after 9/11, I had a different image--of the rubble we all stand atop today.Yes, in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Americans experienced a quickening of the national spirit.

As The Nation wrote about those days, "The extraordinary heroism of the firefighters, police and others in coping with death and destruction rebuked the mood of 'infectious greed' generated by this era of market dominance. Civil servants and soldiers, even government itself, were accorded new respect in the face of real danger and collective greed. These developments contained a hopeful thread of reconstructing our frayed democracy."

But three years later, our frayed democracy is under siege and we live amidst the rubble created not by terrorists but by an Administration that has pursued a faith-based, messianic and militarist foreign policy. It is rubble created by a White House that has violated the most essential trust in a democracy, killing close to a thousand Americans in a reckless and unnecessary war based on manipulated intelligence and the persistent exploitation of fear.

It is rubble in which lies about the links between the war on terror and the war on Iraq--masterfully exploited by Bush's surrogate character witnesses (or, more accurately, attack dogs) John McCain and Rudy Giuliani on Monday night--have grown roots. And it is rubble strewn with the lives of the millions of Americans who have lost jobs, who lack health insurance and who live in poverty.

And now we live under the rubble and garbage of a campaign of character assassination fomented and financed by Bush surrogates. For those GOP speakers this week who remind us of those days of unity and shared sacrifice amidst the rubble of 9/11, remind them of the rubble created by a President who has ruled through division and fear.

McCain v. Moore

John Nichols on August 31, 2004 - 3:24 AM ET

NEW YORK -- When US Senator John McCain took a shot at film maker Michael Moore in his speech to the Republican National Convention Monday night, he had no reason to know that the man who made the controversial documentary "Fahrenheit 9-11" was just a few hundred feet away from him.

But Moore was in Madison Square Garden with McCain and thousands of Republicans who, it would be fair to say, do not rank "Fahrenheit 9-11" high on their list of favorite films.

That was made obvious by the response of the delegates to McCain's unprecedented targeting of Moore in his prime-time address to the convention.

In a speech that was at once a spirited defense of the war with Iraq and a reminder that he is still available for consideration as a 2008 presidential nominee, McCain earned his biggest applause when he rejected any and all criticism of the Bush administration's decision to launch a preemptive war against the Middle Eastern country.

"Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and a graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our political opponents," the Arizona Republican said, as the crowd began to roar its approval. "And certainly not, certainly not, a disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace, when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children inside their walls."

Moore, who was seated in the press gallery of Madison Square Garden, pumped his fists in the air and tipped his hat to the McCain and the hooting delegates. As the crowd chanted "Four More Years," Moore used his hand to form an "L" sign to suggest that President Bush would lose in November.

Moore also held up two fingers, recalling a constant theme of the filmmaker this week: That George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have only two more months to go before they are voted out of office.

Everyone in the hall, including McCain and Moore, realized that a rare moment in American politics was playing out. It's not often, outside the context of a debate, that such charges and countercharges fly in close proximity. Nor is it all that often that a film achieves the level of public awareness that leads a prominent politician to attack its maker in a primetime convention speech. And it is certainly not common for the filmmaker to be in a position to respond in real time.

But Moore was there, and he did respond.

The Academy Award-winning documentary maker pointed out that "Fahrenheit 9-11" did not argue that Iraq was an oasis of peace. Instead, Moore noted, his film suggested that the Bush Administration stretched the truth when it argued that regime change had to be forced upon Iraq in order to avert the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction that have yet to be found.

Still, Moore was not complaining too loudly.

"To bring up the film in the speech tonight, it's not good for the Republican Party," he explained. "It's just going to make more people say: 'I'd better go see this movie.' And when people see it, they don't feel much like voting Republican."

Moore's documentary, which challenges the Bush Administration's pre-war claims about those weapons of mass destruction and about supposed links between Iraq and the al-Queda network terrorists who attacked the country on Sept. 11, 2001, was a hit. But Moore knows there are still plenty of Americans who haven't seen it.

While what he got from McCain was not exactly a plug, the film maker predicted many of those who had not bought a ticket might do so now. And that, he said, could turn McCain's jab into a problem for President Bush's reelection prospects in a closely contested November vote.

"A Republican pollster told me that, when they do surveys, 80 percent of the people going into the theaters are Kerry voters. But 100 percent of the people coming out are Kerry voters -- or at least they are open to voting for Kerry," Moore said. "The pollster told me that they couldn't find anyone who sees the film and then says they are definitely voting for Bush."

So what was the man who made a film designed to undo a Republican president doing at the Republican National Convention?

Moore's attended the convention on an assignment from USA Today, which has asked him to write a column about the gathering that will renominate two of favorite targets, President Bush and Vice President Cheney. While he had all the press credentials that were required for entry into the hall, Moore was held up for the better part of an hour by Madison Square Garden security and New York City police officers.

Moore was finally allowed to enter and took his place to the right of the podium at a table with other writers for USA Today. Photographers actually turned their cameras from the podium to snap shots of Moore and legions of reporters crowded around him. But, by the time McCain's primetime speech came, Moore was listening intently and taking notes.

That did not mean, however, that he was an impartial reporter.

His observations about the convention were every bit as barbed as the themes he hit in "Fahrenheit 9-11." Noting that most of the primetime speakers at the convention were "gay rights advocates and abortion rights advocates" who are at odds with the party's platform and the positions taken by the Bush administration, such as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who spoke last night, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will speak tonight. "There's no way the Republicans can win if they are really themselves," argued Moore.

A number of Republicans were themselves when they saw Moore had crashed their party.

"I got no use for the man at all -- he's the scum of the earth," said Jimmy Gilbert, an alternate delegate from Lenoir, North Carolina, who followed Moore through the hallways of Madison Square Garden with a "Vive Bush" sign.

Diane Francis, a Texas Republican decked out in full jean shirt and cowboy hat regalia, grumbled about Moore's movie and said, "I hope he's got security. He could get killed in here."

But Moore insisted that he did not feel threatened. "I saw (conservative commentator) Sean Hannity on the floor at the Democratic convention. He was treated well. I'm sure they'll treat me well here. You don't think the Republicans are more mean-spirited than the Democrats, do you?" asked Moore, barely concealing a grin.

Besides, he said, "This is a celebration."

Referring to the coming election, Moore said, "I'm here to celebrate the fact that the Republicans only have a couple of months left. I'm here to celebrate the end of the Republican era. They've had four years. It's been rough, but it's almost over."

The McCain Fizzle

David Corn on August 31, 2004 - 1:42 AM ET

The world is your playground/And you want to win.

So sang the frontman for a little-known and unimpressive rock band named Dexter Freebish at the opening night of the GOP convention. Was he sending a subtle message? Nah, he looked much too happy providing a generic backbeat for delegates who moments earlier had cheered a film tribute to Gerald Ford (it was a short film). And conventions are not the place for subtle messages.

Ask John McCain. In 2000, he was the victim of one of the dirtiest assaults in modern politics. Bush-backers circulated vile rumors about the man, and the Bush campaign refused to condemn this hit job. George W. Bush campaigned with the leader of a marginal veterans outfit who falsely accused McCain of betraying veterans, and the Bush administration would later reward this scoundrel with a job. Yet McCain played the loyal soldier at the 2000 convention, where he delivered a weird and robotic speech in which he endorsed Bush and did little to promote the reform-minded message of his own campaign.

Four years later, McCain, the former Navy pilot and POW, again agreed to fly wing for the fellow who skipped out of his Air National Guard service. For weeks, McCain has been stumping with Bush (even while he has defended Kerry's Vietnam record), and some have asked, why is he cheek-to-jowl with Bush? Not too long ago McCain seemed to entertain--if only for a moment--the notion of running as John Kerry's second. And how could he not bear a grudge against Bush for 2000? When I asked a Republican strategist close to McCain why McCain finally took a seat on the Bush Express, he replied. "He's a Republican." Does he want to be veep, should Dick Cheney take a powder? "He's a Republican," I was told. Is he positioning himself for a run in 2008, when he will be 72 years old? "He's a Republican." Does he want to be Secretary of Defense after Bush throws Donald Rumsfeld overboard? "He's a Republican."

Hey, maybe the reason is that he's a Republican. Washington is a binary culture. You either are a D or a R. And if you're an R you are expected to answer the call when it comes. So there was McCain, the first prominent speaker of the 2004 Republican convention, and this much-ballyhooed gig ended a flop.

McCain may be BMOC in Washington. But he hardly received a hero's welcome from the less-than-capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden. (Reminder to McCain fans, myself included: McCain was rejected by his party in 2000.) When McCain took the stage, the big-screen television showed Cheney clapping rather unenthusiastically. And McCain's speech did little to rouse the delegates.

Keeping with the skip-the-nuances M.O. of most conventions, McCain delivered a set of obvious nostrums, as he supported Bush's prosecution of the so-called war on terrorism and defended the war in Iraq: right makes might, love is stronger than hate. His rhetoric hardly soared: "But we must fight. We must." McCain issued a heartfelt call for reviving the national unity that appeared to exist in the days after the September 11 attacks: "We were not Democrats or Republican, liberal or conservative. We were not two countries. We're Americans." He noted that Democrats, like Republicans, are committed to winning the war against terrorism. "I don't doubt their sincerity." He praised Bush, though his actual endorsement had an odd ring:

"While this war has many components, we can't make victory on the battlefield harder to achieve so that our diplomacy is easier to conduct. That is not just an expression of our strength. It's a measure of our wisdom. That's why I commend to my country the reelection of President Bush, and the steady, experienced, public-spirited man who serves as our vice president, Dick Cheney."

I commend the reelection? Were we in the House of Lords? This was not a kick-ass call for Americans to swing behind the commander-in-chief. The crowd did respond with shouts of "four more years." But the delegates were not entranced by McCain's can't-we-get-along plea. What popped their cork, though, was a swipe McCain took at filmmaker Michael Moore (who was in the hall, as an accredited columnist for USA Today). Defending the war in Iraq, McCain said,

"Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war. It was between war and graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our critics abroad. Not our political opponents. And certainly not a disingenuous filmmaker who--"

Now the delegates went wild. It was the first signs of life in the audience. When the jeers died down, McCain continued:

"--who would have us believe Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves, and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children held inside their walls."

McCain, a war hero, fretting over Michael Moore? He was only elevating Moore's status. It was red meat, but McCain looked smaller for hurling it to the delegates. He then returned to his pitch for unity:

"We have nothing to fear from each other. We are arguing over the means to better secure our freedom, and promote the general welfare. But it should remain an argument among friends who share an unshaken belief in our great cause, and in the goodness of each other. We are Americans first, Americans last, Americans always....We're Americans, and we'll never surrender."

McCain then left the stage in what seemed record-time. He had failed to sway the crowd, for soon after the delegates were roaring with delight when Rudy Giuliani spoke and sarcastically derided John Kerry for being a flip-flopper. This was an all-out attack on Kerry's sincerity. Giuliani, like McCain, voiced a yearning for the good ol' post-9/11 days when Americans came together, when Chicago cops traveled to New York to help out, when a fan at a Red Sox-Yankees game held up a sign that proclaimed, "Boston Loves New York," when Republicans stood hand in hand with Democrats. But Giuliani gleefully bashed Kerry as a man without principles. That's not the way to foment unity. (How Republicans can assail Kerry for being a knee-jerk liberal and, at the same time, accuse him of being nothing but a finger-in-the-wind, ever-shifting pol remains an impressive acrobatic feat.)

Guess who went over better with the Repubs? Though Giuliani speech was much too long--delegates started streaming out before it was done--the GOPers cheered him on much more than McCain. It appears the Republicans enjoy calls for unity when the are coupled with in-your-face attacks. (Which probably could be said of Democratic partisans as well.) McCain was upstaged by Guiliani. His speech--skipped by the broadcast networks--barely registered. Yet the Bush campaign has gotten what it wanted: McCain's submission. He has become a prop of the Bush campaign. Given McCain's genuine streak of independence--on campaign reform, on global warming, on tax cuts--that is a sad development. But that's the price this good soldier pays for being a Republican.

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Read about my adventures in partying with conservatives by clicking here. And see my report on the problem shared by gay GOPers and fundamentalist Republicans.

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When you're done reading this article, check out David Corn's WEBLOG at www.davidcorn.com. Read back entries on the Swift vets and other matters.

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For more information and a sample, go to www.davidcorn.com.

RNC Has Extreme Makeover

Katrina vanden Heuvel on August 30, 2004 - 7:16 PM ET

Remember the incessant media punditry during the Democratic National Convention--particularly pervasive on Fox and CNN--which echoed GOP claims that what viewers were seeing wasn't the true face of the party? (As Paul Krugman put it in response: "Apparently all those admirals, generals and decorated veterans were ringers.")

Well, it's going to be a lot easier to make the case that the GOP has had an extreme makeover when the party sends out its array of sort-of-moderate, pro-choice speakers while keeping neanderthals like Tom DeLay, Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback under wraps. But maybe it's only fair that GOP moderates dominate the prime slots at the convention. After all, if Bush is elected in November they will not be seen or heard from again for four more years.

Bush's Flip-Flop

Katrina vanden Heuvel on August 30, 2004 - 6:52 PM ET

Now that the damage has been done to Kerry's campaign by the Swift Boat Veterans, Bush is trying to play the good guy. After the demonstrably false charges against Kerry has made news for weeks--abetted by cable news shows which have effectively provided free campaign advertising for his attackers--Bush now wants to drop the debate over their respective wartime service. See the story buried on page A23 in the August 28 Los Angeles Times. (Unfortunately the paper's website makes it impossible to link to its articles.)

Bush's flip-flop came shortly after a video resurfaced on the Internet showing former Speaker of the Texas House Ben Barnes describing--and apologizing for--the sleazy way in which he personally pulled strings to get Bush into the National Guard.

On the video, Barnes states: "My name's Ben Barnes. I was Speaker of the Texas House when George W. Bush went into the National Guard. He got preferential treatment. I know. I gave it to him. His family sent a representative to my office and asked me to move their son up on the waiting list. And I did. It was wrong. He was jumped over hundreds of others in line. Some of them went off to Vietnam and died. I made a mistake supporting that war. And as other, less-privileged kids were going off to be killed, I helped the son of a congressman avoid combat. I wish I had not. But I think it's time people know. And it's time for George W. Bush to stop attacking the people who did serve."

I don't think the debate about Bush's service should be dropped. Why? Because this posturing flip-flopper of a President continues to needlessly send American troops to their deaths while campaigning as a resolute war president. Just watch the convention script this week.

We also still need answers to the unresolved questions surrounding Bush's stint in the Texas National Guard from 1968 to 1973. Specifically, what explains the gap in Bush's Guard service between April 1972 and September 1973, a 17-month period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay was issued though Bush was allegedly on duty in Alabama.

The White House has released hundreds of documents--after Bush said in a TV interview in February that he would make all his military records available. But the files released so far haven't answered those questions, and some documents have yet to be made public. And since February, the White House spin-machine has banned all Guard and military commanders outside the Pentagon from commenting on Bush's military record. At least a half-dozen news organizations have filed requests for Bush's files under the Freedom of Information Act, but judging from this White House's systematic clampdown on information--including blocking the scheduled release of presidential papers from Bush I's period--it seems unlikely that the relevant documents will see the light of day--at least until after the election.

A Tale of Two GOPs

David Corn on August 30, 2004 - 2:54 PM ET

From the hard right to the mushy right--within minutes you can experience both in New York, as each extreme fights for a piece of a tent that's not so big. While religious right fanatics confronted anti-Bush demonstrators on the city's avenues, GOPers pushing for gay rights sipped cocktails at a lovely reception off Bryant Park. In language, in look, in priorities, the two bands had little in common. But both are disappointed by Bush. And Bush probably has each in his pocket.

As hundreds of thousands of progressives marched past an empty Madison Square Garden on Sunday, a hundred or so counter-protesters screamed at them: "Kerry loves communists, Kerry loves terrorists." And they held up signs decrying abortion. Leading this brigade was Randall Terry, the longtime abortion foe famous for having led the so-called Operation Rescue years ago (and for being tossed out of his church for infidelity). An unabashed Christian fundamentalist who used to advocate stoning as punishment for unruly children, Terry once tried to deliver a fetus in a jar to Bill Clinton. He ran for Congress in upstate New York in the mid-1990s as a Republican and lost. In recent years, he has devoted much time to battling gay marriage and gay rights. Not long ago, his adopted son came out of the closet and denounced Terry. (Terry's adopted daughter also blasted him publicly.)

As Terry's troops tussled with the marchers, Terry spared me a few minutes. He noted that Bush has been "disappointing" for doing little to criminalize abortion. "If he gets to appoint a Supreme Court justice, he better not make his dad's mistake. His dad gave us [Justice David] Souter." Souter, of course, has supported abortion rights. Why do you think it is, I asked Terry, that people who tend to oppose abortion rights support the war in Iraq? '"There's an ethical connection," he replied. "Either you believe in fixed principles of justice or you are swayed by the emotional arguments of the moment. Truth and justice are eternal. Saddam Hussein needed to be killed." But wasn't Bush's talk about weapons of mass destruction the "emotional argument of the moment?" No, said Terry: "I think they had WMDs and just moved them." And, he added, "if we pull out of Iraq, the terrorists will be running the country in six months." He had a final point to make: "All you need to know is that Islam has never once converted a country peacefully." (I missed the part where Saddam Hussein's regime was an Islamic government.) "Jesus died to start Christianity," Terry continued. "Mohammed killed to start Islam."

As Terry returned his attention to the ongoing shoutfest between his comrades and the demonstrators, I asked about his family troubles. "It's still painful, and it has gotten worse," he said and offered no details. And why was his group not brandishing graphic pictures of aborted fetuses? Where was the fetus in the jar? "Oh," he answered, "this is not a day for that, and I've mellowed a bit."

While Terry was yelling at the protesters, ten blocks away in a toney restaurant off Bryant Park, the Log Cabin Republicans (that is, the gay and lesbian Republicans) were listening to Senator Arlen Specter declare that supporting gay rights--whether or not it wins a candidate any votes--is the right thing to do. In an April primary election, Specter, who was endorsed by the Log Cabinites, had beaten back a conservative GOP challenger who had tried to cash in on Republican anger over Specter's support for gay rights and abortion rights. "There's a lot of muscle...behind the gay and lesbian community," Specter told the assembled. He noted that several years ago he had been the only Republican senator to support hate crimes legislation but that recently seventeen GOP senators voted for such a bill. The crowd of several hundred well-dressed people--mostly men--applauded. Some were wearing buttons proclaiming, "Inclusion Wins!" Many in the room backed abortion rights.

The audience cheered louder when William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts, took credit for the advent of gay marriage in the Bay State. Judges he had appointed had supported the court decision that led to gay weddings. Weld then explained his opposition to the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage: "I've been invited to oppose it on states' rights. I prefer to oppose it on substantive grounds." The Loggers shouted out their approval, and Weld went on: "The recognition of gay marriage...is the conservative point of view....I'm surprised this is not a more broadly held position....You're not going to repeal biology in the US Senate or the House, no matter what you do." He added, "I'm glad the Log Cabin has decided to stay in the Republican Party. The Republic Party is grounded in the notion of liberty."

Neither Specter or Weld discussed what the Log Cabin gang should do about Bush. The president's embrace of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage has presented queer Republicans with a challenge. How do you support a fellow who would deny your most basic aspirations? On this warmest of hot-button issues, Bush has sided with the Terryish fundamentalist wing over the cosmopolitans of the Log Cabin. But the Republicans in this restaurant want to be part of the GOP action. "I'm very upset with the president," Scott Schmidt, the communications director of the California Log Cabins told me. "How he approached the gay marriage amendment was very divisive. It was not in the spirit of how he campaigned in 2000. It was very offensive to the gay community." Well, Bush in 2000 did welcome the support of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in 2000, and used the religious right to squash Senator John McCain's presidential effort. But history aside, it did seem that Schmidt was being generous to Bush by complaining about how Bush has supported the gay marriage amendment rather than Bush's support for the anti-gay measure.

More importantly, Schmidt, like others in the room, was quick to point out that neither John Kerry nor John Edwards have endorsed gay marriage. This is the lifeline for gay Republicans. Since there's no difference between the parties on this contentious issue, they argue, why shouldn't we stick with the party that represents our views on tax cuts, the war in Iraq and other matters? "As far as gays and marriage are concerned, you're screwed either way," said Carla Halbrook, a national board member of the group and a self-professed heterosexual. "The country is not ready for gay marriage. So I'm going to vote for a president that keeps me safe."

The Log Cabin reception was something of a denial zone. It is true that Kerry and Edwards--and Hillary Clinton and other leading Democrats--run screaming from gay marriage as political and policy matters. But it is also clear that the Democrats do not abuse the issue in demagogic fashion and are not explicitly fueling and exploiting the obsessions of gay-bashers to win elections. The folks in this fancy restaurant are smart enough to recognize such a difference. They choose not to acknowledge it.

There has been some speculation that the Log Cabin Republicans might withhold their endorsement of Bush. That would likely not be much of a blow to the Bush campaign. But the mood at the reception seemed to be one of resigned acceptance. The gay marriage amendment "has generated a lot of passion within the group," Bill Browson, the chairman of the board of the Log Cabin Republicans, said. "We have people at both ends of the spectrum," he said, "and [Bush's support of the amendment] is a deal-killer for many." Yet there was no discernible outrage in the room, and the safe bet appeared to be that these GOPers would hang on dearly to the no-difference-between-the-two excuse, swallow hard, and go with Bush. "We see there's no distinction on the gay marriage issue," Schmidt explained. "So I have to get over that....If we abandon the party, it will never come around on gay rights. " [UPDATE: The day after the Log Cabin reception, the group unveiled a television ad that criticized the GOP's support of the gay marriage amendment--but only implicitly. It asks, "Will we [the Republican Party] unite on the things that matter most ,like winning the war on terror? Or will we divide the American family with the politics of intolerance and fear that lead to hate?" The ad, it should be noted, was a question, not a declaration.]

Oh to put the Randall Terry squad and the Loggers in the same room. Each group feels let down by Bush (though Terry has less to complain about than Schmidt). Both claim they are going to triumph eventually. "There is no question in my mind we're going to win," Terry said, "because at the end of the day even you know it's a human life that's being killed." Before the Log Cabin group, Specter said, "In the long sweep of history, those who favor gay rights are on the right side." But each wing cannot be right in its prediction. Yet that does not matter at the moment. The fundamentalist can hope (and pray) for an end to abortion rights and gay rights. The liberal Republicans can patiently await a social reformation. In the meantime, the GOP's tent holds for yet another election cycle, and Bush benefits.

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Read about my adventures in partying with conservatives by clicking here.

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Less Than La Guardia; Less Than Lindsay

John Nichols on August 30, 2004 - 2:26 AM ET

Forty years ago, when Republicans suffered their worst presidential election defeat of the post-World War II era, roughly 800,000 New Yorkers voted for the party's nominee, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.

Four years ago, when Republicans secured the White House in one of the closest presidential elections in the nation's history, roughly 300,000 New Yorkers voted for the party's nominee, Texas Governor George W. Bush.

Like most urban areas, New York City has become dramatically more Democratic in recent decades. Yet, unlike Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Boston and so many other American cities, New York still elects Republicans to serve as mayor. Of the last six mayors of New York City, three have been elected as Republicans: John Lindsay, Rudy Giuliani and the current occupant of City Hall, Mike Bloomberg. And it should be remembered that the man many believe to have been the city's greatest mayor, Fiorello La Guardia, was also affiliated with the Grand Old Party.

To be sure, New York Republicans are a different breed from, say, Texas Republicans. They get elected by arguing that they will manage the city more competently, not that they will turn it into Houston on the Hudson. New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a wealthy publisher who was a generous contributor to Democratic campaigns before he bought the Republican nomination and was elected mayor in 2001, backs abortion rights, gay rights and new taxes. And he has grudgingly welcomed anti-Bush protesters to the city.

But Bloomberg, like Giuliani before him, is a tepid version of the New York Republicans of old. Perhaps by the Republican standards of today, he can still be called a "liberal." But he is no fighting liberal, as has been evident in the weeks leading up to the second Bush coronation.

Instead of challenging conservative orthodoxies -- on everything from the right to dissent to the right to choose -- Bloomberg has placated the Bush administration and its rightwing allies in the leadership of what was once a Grand Old Party.

Don't expect any fireworks today, when Bloomberg delivers a perfunctory welcome to the Republican National Convention delegates who are gathering in the city for the first time in the party's 150-year history.

At the most scripted convention in the history of American politics, Bloomberg will, like every other speaker this week, color within the lines drawn by the Bush-Cheney '04 reelection campaign -- which has effectively remade the party in its image. In so doing, Bloomberg will abandon the historic responsibility of New York Republicans, which was to pull a kicking and screaming Republican Party as far to the left as politically possible.

One of the great tragedies of the contemporary Republican Party is that what is left of its liberal wing is so wimped out as to be completely inconsequential.

Once upon a time, Republican mayors of New York would have picked up on the themes of the anti-war and anti-corporate protests that are filling this city's streets this week.

Had La Guardia been asked to welcome a Republican National Convention to New York City, he would never have agreed to read from the script distributed by the Tories who have taken charge of the party. He would have torn the script up and told the party to defend the interests of the poor against the rich, of labor unions against business interests, of consumers against corporations.

Lindsay would have lectured the delegates from Idaho and Iowa about the importance of funding urban programs. The passionate defender of civil liberties -- who Nat Hentoff said "wielded the Bill of Rights against its enemies" -- would not have hesitated to condemn the Patriot Act. And, in a time of illicit and ill-advised warmaking, he would have suggested that solutions to problems at home could be found by redirecting U.S. policies abroad.

That's exactly what Lindsay did in 1968, when he told the Republican Party's platform committee that, "The course we have been following in Vietnam, I submit, has not been one of a great nation." Lindsay told fellow Republicans that staying the course in Vietnam would prevent the United States from becoming a great nation. "For the truth, I'm afraid, is that we cannot achieve either the cities or the society we would like as long as we continue the war in Vietnam," the mayor explained. "We cannot spend more than $24 billion a year in Vietnam and still rebuild our cities. We cannot speak of non-violence at home when we are displacing, maiming, and killing thousands of Asians for the professed purpose of protecting the peace in a land half way across the world."

Four decades later, the Republican Party could stand to hear the mayor of New York deliver a similar message -- with only the name Iraq replacing that of Vietnam. Unfortunately, while New York has a Republican mayor, it does not have a La Guardia or a Lindsay.