Recently in Politics and Policy Category

Digby is right: this is a "very, very very important observation" by Devilstower at Dkos:

Don't forget the naughts, because this decade, no matter what anyone on the right might say, was conservatism on trial. You want less taxes? You got less taxes. You want less regulation? You got less regulation. Open markets? Wide open. An illusuion of security in place of rights? Hey, presto. You want unlimited power given to military contractors so they can kick butt and take names? Man, we handed out boots and pencils by the thousands. Everything, everything, that ever showed up on a drooled-over right wing wish list got implemented -- with a side order of Freedom Fries.

They will try to disown it, and God knows if I was responsible for this mess I'd be disowning it, too. But the truth is that the conservatives got everything they wanted in the decade just past, everything that they've claimed for forty years would make America "great again". They didn't fart around with any "red dog Republicans." They rolled over their moderates and implemented a conservative dream.

What did we get for it? We got an economy in ruins, a government in massive debt, unending war, and the repudiation of the world. There's no doubt that Republicans want you to forget the last decade, because if you remember... if you remember when you went down to the water hole and were jumped by every lunacy that ever emerged from the wet dreams of Grover Norquist and Dick Cheney, well, it's not likely that you'd give them a chance to do it again.

Because they will. Given half a chance -- less than half -- they'll do it again, only worse. Because that's the way conservatism works. Remember when the only answer to every economic problem was "cut taxes?" We have a surplus. Good, let's cut taxes. We have a deficit. Hey, cut taxes even more! That little motto was unchanging even when was clear that the tax cuts were increasing the burden on everyone but a wealthy few. That's just a subset of the great conservative battle whine which is now and forever "we didn't go far enough." If deregulation led to a crash, it's because we didn't deregulate enough. If the wars aren't won, it's because we haven't started enough wars. If there are people still clinging to their rights, it's because we haven't done enough to make them afraid.

Forget the naughts, and you'll forget that conservatives had another chance to prove all their ideas, and that their ideas utterly and completely failed. Again.

The naughts were the apotheosis of radical conservatism. So, our radical conservative friends have every incentive to rewrite that history. Such attempts have already begun. They must be opposed every time it is tried and with all the strength we can muster.

They have lectured to us about accountability moments. We really must make sure they have one.

Frameshop's Jeffrey Feldman has made his predictions of the 10 phrases that could shape political debate this year.

It appears the Bush Administration is keeping is faith in deregulation despite the economic collapse its deregulation pushes in the financial markets created. As the Washington Post's R. Jeffrey Smith reports:

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.

Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis.

"They want these rules to continue to have an impact long after they leave office," said Matthew Madia, a regulatory expert at OMB Watch, a nonprofit group critical of what it calls the Bush administration's penchant for deregulating in areas where industry wants more freedom. He called the coming deluge "a last-minute assault on the public . . . happening on multiple fronts."

Presidents matter. Even when only about a quarter of the American people still approve of their extremist actions.

Rick Pearlstein has written a major post examining the huge impact reaction to the open housing law debate had on the Election of 1966, and particularly, Senator Paul Douglas' loss to Charles Percy in Illinois that year.

As a fellow Bowdoin College alumnus, I have often found myself reading with interest articles about the famed liberal Senator from Illinois. As Pearlstein writes, Douglas' 1966 reelection loss was part of an election that would redefine politics for two generations.

And in 1966, a teenager answering a job ad walked over the border from Chicago into the all-white city of Cicero, and for that sin and no other was beaten to death. That was what Martin Luther King came to fight in Chicago.

At the Chicago History Museum, the Douglas collection covers seven hundred "linear feet"—archivsts' metric for how big a collection would be if you stacked the papers one atop another. And somehow, somewhere, I stumbled upon Box 722, which contained all the letters Senator Paul Douglas received about open housing and Martin Luther King's presence in Chicago. I quote many of them in a section of NIXONLAND of which I'm most proud, the one with the most original research and historical insights: the one on how "open housing" opened up the conservative backlash that inaugurated the Republican dominance of the politics of our own generation. I've always wanted to do a post printing, for the historical record, all the letters I put down in my research notes.

That's what I'm about to do. They comprise an unmatched emotional history on how the white middle class built by the New Deal learned to vote Republican. And an unmatched marker of how far this nation has come, now that this same city has given us our first African American presidential nominee.

This post is a must-read for anyone interested in peering into the political alignment of the past 40 years. It is also a reminder that I need to get Pearlstein's book, Nixonland, much higher on the stack of books I need to read.

These new Center for American Progress television ads are a good start. It is about time that progressives -- and liberals -- start retaking the political language after decades of letting radical conservatives define the debate.

Executive branch expert Paul Light makes an observation about Vice President Cheney that should bother anyone who cares about our Constitutional system:

"What didn't he touch? It's almost like there was almost nothing too trivial for the vice president to handle," said New York University professor Paul Light, an expert in the bureaucracy of the executive branch.

"The details suggest Cheney was almost a deputy president with a shadow operation. He had his own source of advice. He had his own source of access. He was making his own decisions," Light said.

Sometimes the pathetic job the Bush Administration does with the task of governing still surprises even me.

My friend JR sent me a link to this Salon story that outlines the inaccuracies and seemingly ideologically slanted questions on the new pilot citizenship test. Steven Lubet goes through the questions, and outlines the worst offenders.

So far, we have mentioned only approved answers that are incomplete or imprecise, but pilot question No. 33 takes the inaccuracies to another level. Its only allowable answer is just plain wrong, and anyone who gave the right answer would no doubt have it marked incorrect.

Question: The president must be born in what country?

Answer: The United States (or, alternatively, America).

The correct answer, however, is that the president may be born in any country whatsoever, or no country at all (at sea or in a plane). The Constitution requires only that the president be a "natural born citizen," and that status is achieved either by birth in the United States or by birth to parents who are both U.S. citizens, the latter potentially living and reproducing absolutely anywhere in the world.

That fah-lunking noise you hear is the sound of the citizenship door slamming shut in the face of the best-informed test takers.

Could that be the point?

It's worth watching the short ad to see this entire story. It's only about citizenship of this great nation. The Bush Administration, alas, apparently did not feel the need to ensure the test writers could actually pass a high school history class.

Crooks and Liars provides an example of what happens when theocrats gain too much power.

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.'"

Just a little. I hope the new Democratic majorities in Congress can put a dent in the ongoing Republican war against science.

I may not have been blogging this past week, but I cannot pass up the opportunity to celebrate Keith Olbermann's masterful editorial comment attacking Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's outrageous remarks earlier this week.

Every person who cares about the promise of the United States of America should read Olbermann's remarks and let their import sink in. The Bush Administration may try to govern through fear and stifling questions about their actions. It is unacceptable. And more people should stand up and say so. Here's Olbermann:

Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.

And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?

In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?

The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.

But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.

The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.

Gary Hart looks back through history and finds some unsettling comparisons between the United States today, and the years when the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire.

For those of us who believe history holds valuable lessons, there is instruction to be had from the experience of other great powers. In the particular case of the American Republic it is important to consider the history of other republics. Not the least of these examples is the demise of the ancient Roman Republic and its transition to the Roman Empire.

That history is well known. The civil wars of the mid-first century BC led to the acquisition of dictatorial power by Julius Caesar lasting from about 49 BC until his assassination on the Ides of March 44 BC. Further unrest if not chaos ensued until, in 27 BC, Caesar’s adopted son Octavianus became the first Roman emperor as the first Augustus.

So much for the dates and names. The question is how Augustus became emperor. How did he go about finally ending a republic founded in 510 BC?

As Daniel Gross points out, D.C.'s corporate lobbyists are showing which way they think the political winds are blowing this year by suddenly remembering (drumroll...) that they can actually hire Democrats.

Atrios is right: this would explain a lot. Alas, I do not think we can let ourselves off the hook for our current government's failures.

(If you don't get the reference, click here.)

For months now, Americablog's John in DC has been screaming at Democratic Party leaders to take up the privacy issue and champion it. It's another one of those "right thing to do, great politics" ideas.

So far, you can hear the crickets in the background.

Will Democrats realize how important this issue is now that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has become an identity theft victim? Will they now see how important it is? How voters care about it?

The Rockridge Institute's George Lakoff, Marc Ettlinger and Sam Ferguson make an important argument:

Progressives have fallen into a trap. Emboldened by President Bush’s plummeting approval ratings, progressives increasingly point to Bush’s “failures” and label him and his administration as incompetent. Self-satisfying as this criticism may be, it misses the bigger point. Bush’s disasters — Katrina, the Iraq War, the budget deficit — are not so much a testament to his incompetence or a failure of execution. Rather, they are the natural, even inevitable result of his conservative governing philosophy. It is conservatism itself, carried out according to plan, that is at fault.

We should not overlook the fact that conservatives have been trying to destroy government for decades. The government is the enemy. Starve the beast.

Is Bush incompetent? Or is what we are seeing today the logical result of the conservative anti-government philosophy?

Rockridge does us all a service by asking that we look at the bigger picture.