Missed Musings and Mixed Messages
May 31st, 2006There are some issues I’ve failed to address and musings I missed. In the case of the FBI, I sent, I believe, mixed messages while in other cases I’ve been painfully absent. That changes with this post.
I never took an explicit stance on the FBI raid of Jefferson’s offices, although I did link to Hastert’s arguments (before promptly ridiculing him for his inconsistency although I do believe I implied agreement with his stance that the search was unwarranted). Bruce Reed’s lampooning of the Congress is an excellent read — “Not so long ago, conservatives went into politics because they believed there was no such thing as unreasonable search and seizure. In their world view, only a criminal-coddling liberal would cower behind trumped-up constitutional concerns, rather than stand with honest law enforcement officials who were just doing their job.” And not so long ago, Conservatives believed in balanced budgets and prudent foreign policies.
Truthfully, after reviewing the situation with Jefferson, I think the bipartisan brouhaha over the search is silly. There’s no reason to label a Congressman’s offices off-limit from a search simply because it’s a Congressman’s office. Sure, there can be an argument that there needs to be a “balance” and “separation of powers” so as to “avoid a police state” by keeping the executive from searching offices in an effort to intimidate Congressman, but that’s quite a stretch of an argument. The truth is, there’s sufficient check and balance in the current process: if the FBI wants to search Jefferson’s office, they have to go through the Judicial branch to do it. I can’t believe that Democrats — although I’m specifically looking at the the inimitably hopeless Nancy Pelosi — have missed this opportunity to stand up for the law and stand against the culture of corruption. Instead of taking that, they’ve decided to stand for special priveleges for Congressman. That’s a shame, and I’m sorry to see so many in Congress protecting the worst amongst them and refusing to accept the fact that they are not above the Law.
There are two things that I’ve missed — big things, in my view — that much of the media has missed as well. The first involves Puerto Rico, which has been bankrupted. I find it such a shame that a nation’s public schools and government offices would have to be shut down without the assistance of Newt Gingrich. I think the Federal Government should do something to assist these people — we’ve held onto them as a colony, after all, and they’ve voted as recently as the 1990s so as to remain our colony. If we can bail out crooked industries in the United States, we can bail out one of our territories. Puerto Rico needs help, and I urge you to write your Congressman and Senators as I’ve mine.
My second missed story today is the death of Lloyd Bentsen. First, I’d like to say that Bentsen was Conservative with fiscal policy, to be sure, but he was no more a “supply side Economist” than I am, and second, to dispute the idea that “Lloyd Bentsen” and Bentson-types could not be elected or even nominated by the Democratic Party, I refer you to Pennsylvania, where Bob Casey is ripping Rick Santorum apart. Who says that the Big Tent is dead — that moderation is done with? “The Republicans do” you say? What credibility have they?
Colin Powell isn’t a hero, in my eyes. I’ve never liked Colin Powell, and I never will. Hell, I can’t even claim to grudgingly respect him because I don’t. Powell appalls me for his role in covering up the My Lai Massacre and for his inability to stop being a “good soldier” even though he’s been retired for ages. This isn’t unnecessary background information, as it’s very important considering another news story that I missed: the massacre in Hadith, Iraq. The story goes that some Americans slaughtered Iraqi civilians, and if that’s true, it’s a shame. There’s nothing I find more dishonorable than that, and a cover up of it. The whole situation is awful, but let me end there. I hope that those responsible are brought to justice and court martialed, and I hope that there isn’t another man waiting to Powell the investigation.
Fred Kaplan yesterday showed me yet again why his column is so dear to me, writing about “Condi Rice’s Lame Advice”, which he leads into with this:
A couple of weeks ago, according to the New York Observer, Sen. John McCain stood in a small back room of Manhattan’s Regency Hotel and told a group of wealthy political donors, “One of the things I would do if I were president would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit.’” Someone in the room should have told McCain to do the same thing. Then again, McCain isn’t so different from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who made a special trip to Baghdad last month with Britain’s then-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for the purpose of telling the members of Iraq’s fractured leadership, “Start governing.” She made a similar plea on a second trip, a few weeks later, this time with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “The key now is to get the government up and running … and then go about the work of dealing with the security situation, dealing with the economic situation.”
It’s reminiscent of Ross Perot’s loopy run for the White House in 1992, when he told eager voters that he’d “just take a look under the hood and fix the problem”—as if politics were like making an engine run, when it’s more like deciding where the car should go. Does McCain really think that the disputes between Iraq’s Shiites and Sunnis—a complex of historical, social, tribal, cultural, religious, and economic fissures—amount to nothing deeper than “bullshit” that can be swept away by a session of sit-down and straight-talking?
It goes on to discuss the complexities of the situation, and I urge you to read it. I will add my own two cents and take this opportunity to say that this is why I detest John McCain like I do. He’s just like any other Republican — as simple as George Bush, as likeable as Bill Frist, as sophisticated as Newt Gingrich, and that’s not a compliment.