Obsidian Wings

Open Thread: The Return Of The Living Dead

by hilzoy

Ralph Nader apparently feels the need to save us from our corporate overlords, just like he did in 2000. Feel free to discuss this or whatever else strikes your fancy.

Signifying Nothing

by publius

MacBeth V.v

[I]t is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Let me second Hilzoy’s post on the latest howl from the moron-o’sphere. I did, though, want to draw everyone’s attention to this hilarious line from a clearly-annoyed Jake Tapper:

I might suggest those on the blogosphere upset about this story would be better suited directing their ire at those responsible for this problem, which is certainly not new.

Good one, Jake – and best of luck to you on that. The futures market looks pretty grim on that particular outcome though.

Like the Terminator, they’ll be back. The thing about the Malkin/Aces/Reynolds wing of the blogosphere is that wrongness is no obstacle to writing. In fact, it just makes them double down. If anything, the number of words they devote to a topic is directly proportional to their demonstrable wrongness. So no, they’re not going to learn anything – I think S-CHIP taught us that. Tapper is peddling false hopes.

There should, however, be some consequences for ongoing ridiculousness like this. I don’t expect the Malkinites to reform themselves, or to engage in some self-reflection about the underlying cognitive dissonance that’s driving this rage.

What I do hope happens, though, is that the mainstream media takes notice of their non-credibility. The mere fact that a critical mass of these people is squawking should not – ipso facto – guarantee a spot in mainstream news coverage. They have proven themselves unreliable again and again. And just like the mainstream papers don’t report everything that comes out in the National Enquirer (Mickey Kaus excepted), neither should they feel bullied into a writing a story about whatever Michelle Malkin happens to be screeching about that day.

Honor

by hilzoy

Last night, in the Austin debate, Barack Obama said this:

"I heard from a Army captain, who was the head of a rifle platoon, supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon. Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24, because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq. And as a consequence, they didn't have enough ammunition; they didn't have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief. Now that's a consequence of bad judgment, and you know, the question is on the critical issues that we face right now who's going to show the judgment to lead."

A number of bloggers on the right went ballistic. Couldn't be true. No how. No way. Curt at Flopping Aces: "I’m gonna call shenanigans (codeword for he is lying through his teeth)". The (cough) Astute Pundit: "Obama at Texas Debate: Liar, Dupe, Or Enemy Propagandist?" (I'll take 'Enemy Propagandist' for five, Alex...)

While this was going on, Jake Tapper (yes, I know) actually spoke to the Captain in question, who confirmed the story. Later, NBC did so as well. And Phil Carter adds:

"In light of my experience in Iraq, Sen. Obama’s comments last night are eminently believable. Sen. Obama is also absolutely right to use this anecdote as a critique of the administration's decision to go to war in Iraq. It is incontrovertible that the war in Iraq diverted scarce military resources (manpower, equipment, etc.) from Afghanistan to Iraq. The cost for that diversion was paid by America's sons and daughters, and our Afghan brethren, who continue to fight in Afghanistan against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. We owe our troops better."

In light of this, the best response would seem to be Tom Maguire's: "As a proud member of the Right Wing Noise Machine (or are we now the Freak Show?) I can only say "Ouch"." Curiously, Tom hasn't had a lot of company. Rusty Schackleford's take is more common among the conservative blogs I've read:

"Tapper called the "Captain" and asked him to verify his own story.

How, exactly, is it "verifying" anything by simply asking the same source if his story is true? This isn't the testimony of one source verifying the testimony of another source. This is two people reporting the testimony of a single source!

No one is accusing Obama of making the story up. We are accusing the "Captain" of making stuff up---or, at the very least, using selective pieces of information in order to lend credence to the bad war/good war theory. Obama then uses an untrue story to further the narrative which he hopes will get him elected."

Curt at Flopping Aces again:

"Of course with the “Captain” remaining anonymous its hard to come right out and say the man is lying since the Pentagon doesn’t have the particulars such as the dates, units, and other important info. With him remaining in the shadows its easier for Barack and his pal Tapper to just say “believe us” because well, just because."

To which I can only say: wow. Or, as John Cole put it:

"Now granted, Phil Carter has some military knowledge, so I would take this a grain of salt when you compare it to the vault of information these bloggers have procured over a lifetime of arranging GI Joe dolls while watching betamax copies of Uncommon Valor in the basement apartment they rent from their parents. I know it is a tough call, but I am gonna go with Obama, Tapper, and Phil Carter on this."

But besides that, consider two things. First, the bloggers I quoted above are accusing this unnamed Captain of lying. It's not exactly clear why they think the Captain lied, or why he would go on lying to various TV networks, but that's what Curt, Rusty, and the gang seem to think. And why do they think this? For the most part*, they cite claims like this (from Ace): "Milbloggers say the platoon is the basic organic unit of the army, and troops are never picked out of a platoon to serve elsewhere", or this (from one of Steve Spruiell's correspondents): "units as small as platoons are not pulled apart like that." That is: claims that the sorts of things the Captain described never happen.

I think that any claim of the form "X never, ever happens" are generally dubious when made about an organization as large as the US Army. They are especially dubious when made about the Army in wartime. Sometimes you can dismiss them out of hand. If, for instance, some Captain were to say that when he was in iraq, the troops under his command would turn into little bunny rabbits and scamper away into the shrubbery, skepticism would be in order. But when someone who has served in combat says something like: my platoon was stripped of some of its men, or: we were short of ammunition, that's really not something you can just assume is a lie in the absence of any further evidence at all.

I have no particular investment in the idea that this soldier is telling the truth. I don't see any good reason to doubt him, but some people lie, and for all I know, he might be one of them. I do, however, care a lot about the idea that we should not impugn someone's honor absent a good reason to do so. And that's what Rusty Shackleford, Ace, et al have done. They are willing to trash someone's good name because what he says doesn't fit their political narrative. And that's despicable.

Rick Renzi Indicted

by hilzoy

Reuters:

"Republican Rep. Richard Renzi of Arizona was indicted on 35 criminal counts, including conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and official extortion stemming from land deals in his state, Justice Department officials said on Friday."

The indictment, if true, is pretty damning. Paul Kiel at TPMMuckraker summarizes the charges:

"The charges boil down to this, basically. Renzi (who's already said he won't seek re-election) is charged with doing everything he can as a congressman to strong-arm others into buying land from his buddy James Sandlin -- Sandlin then allegedly kicked back sizable chunks of cash back to Renzi in a series of complicated financial transactions (thus the money laundering charge). The main details of these charges were reported by the Arizona papers and The Wall Street Journal last year.

Update: Yikes. In a completely separate matter, the indictment charges Renzi with a conspiracy to "embezzle and misappropriate client premiums [from his insurance company] to fund his congressional campaign.""

According to the indictment, the extortion connected with the land swap was pretty blatant: at one point, Renzi told one of the companies he was trying to pressure into buying a property from his friend (Sandlin): "No Sandlin property, no bill." I don't think it gets more obvious than that. (I should note here that I love legal language: the indictment describes this as being, among other things, "a scheme or artifice to defraud the United States of its intangible right to the honest services of RENZI, free from deceit, bias, self-dealing, and concealment".)

The misappropriation of insurance premiums also seems pretty appalling, according to the indictment: Renzi basically took over $400,000 in premiums without bothering to actually buy any insurance with them. (The money seems to have gone to his Congressional campaign.) When the people he had supposedly insured got cancellation notices, the indictment claims that he sent them fake insurance certificates from another company, a company that did not, in fact, issue insurance policies. (He says this was a clerical error.) The indictment also notes (p. 21, 61 e, f) that Renzi mailed two checks to people he had insured, one listed as "Donation Towards Claim Expenses" and the other as "Donation Towards Claim Settlement". That suggests that he might have been paying out claims to the people he had insured.

All in all, it's pretty astounding. If the allegations are true, I hope he has a nice long time to reflect on conscience, integrity, and the meaning of public service from his very own cell.

***

As Paul Kiel reminds us, the US Attorney who oversaw this investigation was Paul Charlton, one of the Attorneys fired in the, um, US Attorney firing scandal. From the WSJ:

"People briefed on the case said investigators in Arizona asked Washington for clearance -- among other tools -- for a wiretap of Mr. Renzi's telephones, a highly unusual step against a sitting member of Congress, months before Election Day. The wiretap eventually was approved, and was in place by late October, these people said.

On Oct. 26, just days before the election, two political Web sites carried the first public word of the probe. In subsequent news accounts, an unidentified Washington law-enforcement official described the matter as "preliminary." Few details emerged, but the leak disrupted prosecutors' wiretap.

Meanwhile, Mr. Renzi, first elected to Congress in 2002, was fighting to hold on to his seat. In September, President Bush hosted a fund-raiser in Scottsdale on his behalf. About the same time Mr. Charlton was added to a list of prosecutors "we should now consider pushing out," wrote Mr. Gonzales's then-chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, in a Sept. 13, 2006, email to then-White House counsel Harriet Miers."

What an unfortunate series of coincidences. Stranger still, when the investigation was made public, one of Renzi's aides called Charlton to ask about it; Charlton reported that contact to the DoJ, as required, but oddly enough, the DoJ report of that contact was left out of the document dumps the DOJ made in response to various Congressional requests.

Visions of a Democratic FCC

by publius

On the telecom front, the most excellent Ed Markey (future Senator, I hope, when Kennedy retires) recently introduced a new net neutrality bill. (Markey is the Chair of the House Telecom Subcommittee and Dingell generally outsources that stuff to him). At first glance, the bill seems timid – it’s simply codifies a policy statement that the Internet should be open without actually requiring net neutrality. But appearances can be deceiving.

As usual, Harold Feld is on the case. He persuasively argues that this bill has some real bite. The catch, Feld notes, is that Markey is laying the groundwork for a Democratic FCC (mmm… sweet, delicious Democratic FCC… ). In this sense, he -- sorta like Mark Penn -- is looking a few moves ahead on the chess board.

To give you some background, one ongoing fear is that the FCC lacks the authority to impose network neutrality requirements under the Communications Act. For somewhat complicated administrative law reasons, adding the policy statement gives the FCC a much firmer legal foundation if it is so inclined to act. Right now, it’s not so inclined because Republicans have a majority. But that may well change in a year.

That leads to a more general question I’ve been noodling on lately – how would the world look under a Democratic FCC? What would be different? Feld is much better qualified to answer that question than I. But off the top of my head, I think you’d see a lot more scrutiny of mergers – not so much denials, but much stronger conditions and more divestitures. Relatedly, it would be more hostile to media consolidation, and more receptive to minority ownership. We’d also have a more sympathetic audience for net neutrality. For instance, the open access conditions in the 700 MHz spectrum auction would have been stronger with a group of 3 Dems rather than 2 Dems plus Martin (though Martin deserves some credit). But as far as big-picture policy, it’s a question I'll have to think about. Or even better, wait for Harold to tell me.

But these are questions worth asking. In particular, it’s important to be thinking early on about who the progressive community might want as a Commissioner. There’s a real opportunity here to influence the debate and to avoid a lemon -- after all, there are plenty of Bell hacks with (D)s by their name. For instance, if Lessig doesn’t run for Congress, why not FCC Commissioner?

Best Cartoon Ever

by publius

Via Ezra Klein:

The Other McCain Story

by hilzoy

A few days ago I wrote about a loan John McCain had taken out, in which he tried to use his future eligibility for federal matching funds as collateral. Presumably, he did this in order to get the money he needed to keep his campaign afloat without using the matching finds themselves as collateral. And the reason it was important not to use those funds as collateral was that according to the FEC, doing so would constitute "accepting " those funds, and thus subjecting himself and his campaign to the limitations that go with it.

I am not a lawyer, and thus have no opinion about whether McCain's loan violates the, um, McCain Feingold Act, or any other provision of federal law. But I did think that this was a pretty transparent attempt to violate its spirit. Campaign finance laws ask candidates to make a choice: either you take federal money, in which case you are subject to a number of restrictions, or else you don't take it, in which case you are not. Getting a loan by using the matching funds you have not yet received as collateral is a way of trying to have it both ways: essentially, you get to spend your matching funds now, but because the money did not literally come from the government, you can delay a decision about whether or not to accept the restrictions that go with them until later. If you can leverage the money into enough wins to generate contributions, you can pay back the loan and duck the restrictions; if not, you've lost anyways, so you might as well abide by them. That's exactly what campaign finance laws do not want candidates to be able to do.

McCain tried to be tricky about this: he didn't use the matching funds he had qualified for as collateral, but he did use the fact that he could qualify for them at any time. That's why he had to give away his legal right to withdraw from the campaign if he lost: to satisfy his lenders, he had to promise to stay in long enough to actually get the matching funds he qualified for, and to give them first dibs on those funds. Whether or not this violates the law -- a law McCain authored -- I have no idea, but it is certainly an attempt to wriggle out of its requirements, and it ought to put paid, once and for all, to the idea of McCain as a straight-talking man of principle.

Apparently, the FEC has the same questions I had about McCain's loan. The AP reports (h/t TPM):

"The government's top campaign finance regulator says John McCain can't drop out of the primary election's public financing system until he answers questions about a loan he obtained to kickstart his once faltering presidential campaign.

Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason, in a letter to McCain this week, said the all-but-certain Republican nominee needs to assure the commission that he did not use the promise of public money to help secure a $4 million line of credit he obtained in November.

McCain's lawyer, Trevor Potter, said Wednesday evening that McCain has withdrawn from the system and that the FEC can't stop him. Potter said the campaign did not encumber the public funds in any way. (...)

By accepting the public money, McCain would be limited to spending about $54 million for the primaries, a ceiling his campaign is near. That would significantly hinder his ability to finance his campaign between now and the Republican National Convention in September."

The FEC's letter to McCain is here (pdf); the amount McCain has already spent during the primaries is $49,650,185.36; the exact FEC limits on primary spending are not yet available, but if this were 2007, they would have been $40.89 million, which is considerably less than McCain has already spent. I assume that the AP got its figure of "about $54 million" from the FEC; if so, then McCain has about four and a half million dollars to spend between now and the Convention in September.

One further problem:

"Complicating the dispute is the FEC's current lack of a quorum. The six-member commission has four vacancies and Senate Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads over how to fill them.

In his letter, Mason told McCain he would need the votes of four commissioners to accept his withdrawal from the system.

"The commission will consider your request at such a time as it has a quorum," Mason wrote.

Without action by the Senate, McCain could be waiting indefinitely. (...)

Potter [McCain's lawyer] said McCain will continue with his campaign and not adhere to the public financing system's limits on spending. Without a full commission, Mason has little enforcement power. Likewise, without an FEC, McCain has no way to appeal Mason's conclusion."

The FEC thinks it needs a quorum in order to approve McCain's withdrawal. But it also needs a quorum in order to enforce its decisions. And as Mark Schmitt said about McCain, "it's pretty clear that his attitude toward the Federal Election Commission on this question is, "Come and get me!""

McCain

by publius

Gotta say, I’m underwhelmed by the NYT’s McCain bombshell. The whole thing just seems so odd that I wasn’t sure what to say about it. But anyway, here are some tentative thoughts:

First, without more, the NYT story seems extremely reckless. Rich Lowry is right – this story is about the affair. The remainder is padding. If you’re going to come out and say that a presidential nominee had an affair, you need to bring the goods. Them goods, though, ain’t yet been brought. If there’s nothing more (a key assumption), McCain is right to be pissed.

Second, I’ve got to think there’s more to come. Josh Marshall’s analysis seems spot on – the NYT must have more than they’re publishing at this point. This article wasn’t some rush job – they’ve been mulling it for months. More to the point, they knew exactly the type of conservative firestorm that the article would produce.

It’s hard to imagine the NYT (after institutional deliberation) going forward with such an explosive article with such a thin foundation. In this respect, the sheer recklessness is, in a weird way, perhaps the most frightening thing for the McCain campaign. Maybe the paper has the goods and is trying to tie down one loose end or something. Who knows. They’ve either got the goods or it’s one of the stupidest things in the history of journalism.

Third, if McCain “goes to war,” he better be right. The McCain camp has little choice but to launch an assault on the NYT. However, if the NYT turns out to be right, then all these denials will essentially sink McCain’s candidacy. The Bush camp, remember, never engaged in frontal war with Fitzpatrick – largely, I think, because they feared what he could leak. That said, if McCain did have an affair, he probably has no shot anyway – so maybe there’s nothing to lose. (On an aside, if it's true, it would bump the Titanic for the world’s most perfect metaphor – sex with a Big Telecom lobbyist).

Finally, complaints about timing seem overblown. If anything, the NYT leaked it at the best possible time. If they leak it earlier, it looks like they’re trying to knock McCain out. If they leak it later, it looks like they’re trying to influence the general. Now, however, is the best time, both because the general is a long time away and because it theoretically lets the GOP select a new nominee if these stories hold up.

More to come, I’m sure.

January Fundraising

by hilzoy

Earlier tonight, I went to the FEC's website to check out the January fundraising reports for Clinton, Obama, and McCain. Matt Stoller wonders whether the McCain campaign is broke, based on the fact that its liabilities exceed its assets. They do, but on the other hand, most of those liabilities are McCain's bank loan, whose due date seems to be in May, so he has time to drum up the money. (On the other hand, I had no idea it was possible to run up $720,164.57 on one's AmEx card. Not something I want to try at home.)

I was somewhat puzzled by Clinton's statement, though. On the one hand, her campaign clearly took in considerably less than it paid out. About nine million dollars less. And that can hardly be good news. Moreover, she has a mass of debt: $7,576,700.48 worth, to be precise (not including the loan she made to herself.) Moreover, while some of it is large sums (over $2million owed to Mark Penn, for instance), there are a lot of pretty small unpaid bills to places throughout Iowa and New Hampshire. (Honestly, why not pay the $500.12 they owe to Premier Pizza in Algonquin, Iowa? Or the $615.25 they owe Depot Deli of Shenandoah, Iowa? Your average pizzeria or deli is not made of money, after all.)

The puzzling part, though, was that despite all this debt, the Clinton campaign has tons of cash on hand. Nearly $38 million at the beginning of January; a little over $29 million at the end of the month. That seemed odd, especially in light of those news stories about their being broke after Iowa. As I was scratching my head about this, I came across a story in Politico that explained everything:

"According to the reports, Clinton raised about $20 million in January, including her loan. She spent nearly $29 million during the month.

She reported a cash balance of $29 million. But more than $20 million of that is money dedicated to the general election. Her personal loan accounts for more than half of the remaining approximately $9 million, leaving just about $4 million in cash raised from donors. (...)

Clinton’s strapped financial situation in late January meant she couldn’t invest in all of the Super Tuesday states, particularly the expensive ground operations required in caucus states.

Obama won every one of those caucus contests on Feb. 5, opening up a critical lead among pledged delegates."

That's the fact I didn't know: that these forms include money restricted to the general election. Which changes everything.

If Clinton's receipts and spending for February match her receipts and spending for January, she will have blown through all the cash she has available for the primaries by the end of the month. Question: does anyone think that she will take in as much in February as she did in January? I don't. For one thing, January included both the period after she lost in Iowa and the period after she won New Hampshire, either of which might have prompted people to send money. But by February, losses were no longer a shock, and for most of the month, there weren't any victories. People want to back someone they think has a decent shot at winning, and after Maine, at least, Clinton's donors have to have been wondering whether she can pull it out. Besides that, February has also been a month full of stories about the Clinton campaign's ineptitude. If I were a donor, I'd think twice about giving to a campaign that had burned through so much money with so little to show for it, or that had declared Texas a must-win state without bothering to figure out its delegate selection rules.

I assume that the Clinton campaign has cut back its expenses. But there are limits to how far you can cut back expenses without seriously affecting your chances of winning, and if donations drop considerably, the Clinton campaign will reach those limits. Clinton can always make another loan to her campaign, but I imagine there are limits to the Clintons' willingness to finance the campaign themselves. Which means that at some point, they are going to have to make some tough decisions. In their shoes, if I didn't dramatically turn things around in Texas and Ohio, I would think long and hard before continuing to Pennsylvania.

Obama doesn't have to make those choices: he has plenty of cash on hand, and took in over $6 million more than he paid out last month. And Greg Sargent reports that he's on track to raise more money this month than he did last month. But Clinton will, I think, and soon.

Dear Chris Matthews: Please Do Your Job

by hilzoy

Last night, Texas State Senator Kirk Watson, an Obama supporter, was embarrassed on national TV when he couldn't name any of Obama's legislative achievements. (He wrote what I think is a pretty decent and disarming account of it here.) David Kurtz, for whom I normally have enormous respect, writes:

"I suspect this is a bit of a Rorschach test. Depending on your perspective, it's proof that Obama is a lightweight, just goes to show what a gasbag Matthews is, or appeals to the same voyeuristic instinct that makes you slow down and gawk at a car accident."

I think it's only a Rorschach test for people who don't bother to find whether or not Obama actually has any actual legislative achievements. If he does, then of course this just shows that this one supporter didn't know what they are. If he doesn't, it might show something more, e.g. that Obama is a lightweight. As it happens, Obama does have substantive legislative achievements. I have written more about them here. A few highlights, all of which became law:

* Ethics Reform: Obama was the Senate's point person on ethics reform, and sponsored or co-sponsored the bills that made up what the Washington Post called "the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress yet." I'm also a fan of this bill, which I think of as the Journalists, Bloggers, and Citizens' Muckraking Empowerment Act: it creates a searchable database of recipients of federal grants and contracts.

* The Lugar-Obama initiative to strengthen the Nunn-Luger framework for securing loose nukes, and to extend it to securing and destroying stockpiles of conventional arms. (For instance, shoulder-fired missiles that could be used against passenger airlines, fired at our forces, or used to make any number of ongoing conflicts more deadly.)

* Various bills concerning the response to Hurricane Katrina, including an amendment putting strict limits on the use of no-bid contracts after disasters, requiring planning for the evacuation of people with special needs and senior citizens, creating a National Emergency Family Locator System, etc.

There are also a lot of good bills he worked on that did not make it, including the compromise immigration bill and a proposal to create an independent Congressional Ethics Enforcement Commission, and some that are on the Senate calendar now, like a bill to criminalize various deceptive election tactics, like deceptive robocalls, providing misleading information about where to vote or what conditions you have to meet to be eligible to vote, etc.

There's a lot more. Honestly, there is. I wrote a summary here (and an earlier one here), and provided lists (1, 2, 3) of all the bills and amendments sponsored or co-sponsored by Clinton and Obama in the 109th and 110th Congresses, just so it would be as easy as possible for people to see for themselves. (Fun fact about each side's legislative records: during the 109th and 110th Congresses (which is to say, the time that both Obama and Clinton have been in the Senate), only one sponsored a substantive bill that became law. Guess who it was? Hint: the bill concerns the ongoing conflict in the Congo.) Which brings me to my larger point:

I did this because I had heard one too many people like Chris Matthews talking about Obama's alleged lack of substance, and I thought: I know that's not true, since I have read about Obama's work on non-proliferation, avian flu, and a few other issues. And if people are saying he lacks substance, then surely I, as a citizen, should try to find out whether I just hallucinated all this interesting legislation, or whether this talking point was, in fact, completely wrong. So I sat down with Google and Thomas and tried to find out.

But I'm just an amateur. I have a full-time job doing something else. Chris Matthews, by contrast, is paid large sums of money to provide political commentary and insight. I assume he has research assistants at his disposal. He could have done this work a lot more easily than I did. But he didn't. He was more interested in gotcha moments than in actually enlightening the American people.

So here's a challenge for Chris Matthews, or anyone else in the media who wants to take it up. Go over Clinton and Obama's actual legislative records. Find the genuine legislative accomplishments that each has to his or her name. Report to the American people on what you find. Until you do, don't accept statements from either side about who has substance and who does not, or who traffics in "speeches" and who offers "solutions". That's lazy, unprofessional, and a disservice to your audience.

Do your jobs. Don't leave it to bloggers like me to do it for you.