gang of perps

curry:	well, let's talk about the political fallout. first it's been a rough year for the right. let's list them: congressman mark foley, conservative pastor ted haggard, senator david vitter. all involved in scandals, accusing them of inappropriate conduct. so the question's gotta be asked, why do these kinds of scandals seem to be following republicans, lately?
scarborough:	what's with the republican party? and before that you can talk about duke cunningham apparently having poker parties where reports were that they were trading votes for sex. i don't know. you can talk about the closeted republican that votes like larry craig, that votes for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage or votes against protections for discriminating against gays in the workplace. perhaps they are more closeted, perhaps the republican party does not allow gay members to win their primaries. so maybe these guys have to live these secret lives where on the democratic side, you've got democrats — i think it, it comes down to hypocrisy. mainly where you have democrats that will support same-sex marriage or civil unions and will fight to stop discrimination in the workplace against gays and lesbians. because of that there are the issues of hypocrisy that follow republicans around, whether you're talking about david vitter or whether you're talking about larry craig or whether you're talking about mark foley.
curry:	well the question, i think is, you know, how does this specter of hypocrisy affect the party, especially as we're now moving into a very critical time for the republican party facing this presidential election year?
scarborough:	well it's, it's very simple. you know, last year people were talking about the war, they were talking about runaway deficit spending but the bottom-line is, with the republicans that i spoke to, after the mark foley scandal broke, they looked at each other and said, "well, that's it. we're gonna have a democratic senate and we're gonna have a democratic house and because of mark foley, nancy pelosi is gonna be speaker of the house." so, of course, you can't blame mark foley for everything but there were these scandals following jack abramoff, following duke cunningham. following —
curry:	point taken, joe, but what's the impact going to be if that's what happened after mark foley came, faced the scandal? what's going to happen now, regarding, after this senator's, what he's facing.
scarborough:	well — it's not, it's not a good impact. it's not gonna have a great impact on idaho. i think, you know, i just don't think a democrat can be elected for the u.s. senate in idaho but larry craig's career is probably over. the former 'singing senator' is gonna be singing alone in idaho, probably next year. but the bigger impact with the republican party in america will be like the tory party in great britain when they had one sex scandal after another. there is a sleaze, an element of sleaze that will hang over this party. because, again, we had the david vitter scandal a couple of months ago. the two sex scandals, this year, have involved republicans, conservative, pro-family, pro-life republicans.
curry:	it's also interesting to note, joe, that senator craig has been a co-liaison to the, in the senate, for the mitt romney campaign.
scarborough:	yeah.
curry:	so the question is, also, is this gonna spill over?
scarborough:	well you know, i don't think anybody would blame mitt romney for what larry craig did in a bathroom in minneapolis because of larry craig's, as he says, "unusually wide-stance." [touché, joe!] that he wasn't sending signals. but what this does bring up for mitt romney is a problem about his flip-flops. his flip-flops on abortion, his flip-flops on gun control and his flip-flop on gay rights. so, you have a guy like larry craig, who's on your campaign, at least for 24 hours in this news cycle, will raise questions. well, mitt romney do you support same-sex marriage this week or do you oppose same-sex marriage this week? and i suspect after that it'll all blow over. the biggest problem, though, again, has to do with hypocrisy and the republican party. and right now you've got larry craig linked with mark foley, linked with david vitter, linked with duke cunningham going, my gosh, i think every sex scandal in washington d.c., since bill clinton and monica lewinsky has involved a republican. and that has to have an impact and may break the republican party, again, just a little bit more away from its evangelical base.
curry:	and, and joe, i was gonna remind people, you are a republican. you are a former republican congressman, so those are very strong words and opinion from you. joe scarborough, thank you so much this morning.
scarborough:	always good to remind my republican friends, that yes i am a republican. doesn't sound like it. thanks a lot.

the g.o.p. most definitely have a big problem dogging them into the next election cycle, but hypocrisy on family values and gay issues is really just a small part of it. american voters can deal with hypocrisy. and like most other people, most homosexuals don't lurk in public bathrooms, so just being gay isn't a problem for republicans as long as it's on the down low.

no, the big problem for the gang of perps in washington is criminality. über-lobbyist jack abramoff is in prison for fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion. former ca. rep. duke cunningham is with him for bribery. former fla. rep. mark foley may be looking at charges for corrupting minors, under some of the same statutes he helped enact.

louisiana senator david vitter frequented prostitutes. florida state rep. bob allen is facing charges for solicitation of prostitution, while idaho senator larry craig plead guilty to disorderly conduct to avoid charges of lewd conduct.

scarborough tossed in the lewinsky affair in a feeble attempt for balance, but sex between consenting adults still isn't criminal behavior, so the gang of perps tried to hang clinton on perjury. but lewinsky did not create a problem for the democrats at the end of the clinton era — the democrats' own timidity under fire from the right-wing noise machine™ was what undermined them.

so it's the steady stream of arrests, trials and convictions that's killing the g.o.p. and it's the accompanying "sleaze" that's souring their brand for the voters. and as long as the gang of perps keep turning up on the wrong side of the law, the party that once boasted of a permanent majority will remain locked up as a permanent minority.

doubled down

(photo-edit by dave hill)

and meanwhile, brick by brick, the house that jack built continues to fall ... painfully.

new york times: a federal judge chastised the interior department's former no. 2 official and doubled his proposed prison term to 10 months tuesday for lying to senators in the jack abramoff lobbying scandal and making excuses about it in court. j. steven griles, who was the department's deputy secretary, had pleaded guilty to obstructing a congressional investigation, and a federal judge said he continued to make excuses about his lies. "even now you continue to minimize and try to excuse your conduct," u.s. district judge ellen segal huvelle told griles before doubling the five-month person prison term he and prosecutors had agreed on. griles admitted to lying to senate investigators about his relationship with abramoff, the central figure in a corruption investigation that has led to convictions of a former congressman, legislative aides, lobbyists and officials in the bush administration. griles had asked to be spared prison time. under his plea deal with prosecutors, the justice department recommended he serve five months in prison and five months in a halfway house or under house arrest.

asks atrios @ eschaton:

remind me how many clinton administration officials were convicted for acts they committed while in office?

dominoes

it's been an eventful week ...

(photo-edit by dave hill)

deputy secretary of state randall tobias resigns ... one day after confirming to abc news that he had been a customer of a washington, d.c. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation. the married tobias had used his diplomatic perch as a vocal international proponent of abstinence and monogamy as well as anti-prostitution over condoms ... deputy chief of staff robert coughlin of the justice department's criminal division resigns ... after coming under scrutiny in the department’s expanding investigation of convicted super-lobbyist jack abramoff. former justice department director of public affairs monica goodling subpoenaed ... by the house judiciary committee and offered immunity for her testimony into the u.s. attorney scandal. according to dismissed new mexico u.s. attorney david iglesias, goodling holds, as the doj liaison to the white house (see: rove, karl), "the keys to the kingdom." rep. john doolittle (r-ca) resigns from the house appropriations committee ... after fbi agents raided his house as part of a congressional influence-peddling investigation (see: cunningham, duke et abramoff, jack). just three days earlier former doolittle aide kevin ring resigned from his lobbying firm. "ring seems poised to follow the path of other aides who've pled guilty in the abramoff scandal — pleading guilty to lesser charges in return for delivering their former bosses to investigators."

it doesn't get any better than this

or in other words, it can only get worse.

and it will.

josh marshall: bright side for the white house: it can only get worse. [emphasis his] ... when you think about this coming election, and the stakes for the white house, you need to figure that that's all come about without any independent, let alone antagonistic or hostile, investigations into the key issues that have led to this souring view of the president. would the president look better after a new look at the iraq intel bamboozlement that wasn't controlled by sen. roberts? how about an investigation into the executive branch side of the abramoff scandal? what about a look into the plame affair? what about the folks in rumsfeld's office who knew about duke's corruption but looked the other way? [emphases mine]

the predicament faced by the white house is really quite amazing from a purely clinical aspect, though, like a cancer diagnosis, what it reveals at the same time is thoroughly horrifying.

this administration, chiefly characterized by its pathological stubbornness, has lashed itself to the wheel. bush is resolved to "stay the course", not only in iraq, but in all his policies and programs, none of which actually work for the majority of the electorate, if anyone besides halliburton and exxon. his predicament is that any attempt to change gears, in any meaningful sense, one that is not purely cosmetic and one that will benefit the country, also brings with it the greater risk of exposure of his malfeasance and maladministration, which leads to probes and trials, and we can't have any of that now, can we?

so things won't get any better than this. the country's problems will inevitably grow worse. and the worse those problems become, the worse dear leader looks. but so long as bush has his way, he will not change course. so he's screwed. and he's criminally lashed us to the wheel right with him, on his good ship titanic.

washington post: a variety of bush advisers suggested that the president is not interested in altering his major decisions or philosophy, but that he recognizes he needs to do a better job communicating in washington and beyond. "the president's message and vision are firmly in place and are not going to change," mckinnon said. "but it still helps to have a new messenger. it helps to wipe the slate clean."

the logic is inescapable: things will continue to get worse before they can possibly get better. as long as this administration remains in place, things will never get better.

karl rove: super-genius

(cross-posted at daily kos)

i've noticed commenters throughout the blogosphere claim that portgate is actually another brilliant behind-the-scenes rovian masterstroke designed to help the republicans distance themselves from the white house in time for the midterm elections and move cheney's embarrasing shooting cover-up off the front page.

curiously, during the media storm following the shooting i also noticed commenters claim that the cover-up was another brilliant behind-the-scenes rovian masterstroke designed to help the republicans distance themselves from the white house and move the wiretapping hearings off the front page ... and who also had previously claimed that those hearings were arranged to move the abramoff mess off the front page, which in turn was arranged to move the libby/delay indictments off the front page ... ad nauseum.

buried within this "karl rove: super-genius" meme lies a not-very-subtle scandal fatigue, a defeatism and resignation to the idea that rove in his god-like omniscience will always be just one step ahead of us dullards, that the latest counterfeit-scandal is really just a trap, artfully designed to make his gullible attackers look foolish, having taken their eyes off the ball, while ever-boosting the mojo of the republicans. what rot.

juan cole: "i think they get up in the morning and they face a set of situations in iraq and they try to develop policies to deal with those situations, and they get up the next day and there's a new set of situations and they develop policies to deal with those. i think it's reactive. i think it's ad hoc. i don't think there's a big picture. i think they're hoping that they can ultimately muddle through, that things will settle down enough so that they can get out of it with some dignity. i think it's probably a forlorn hope."

portgate and its handling was no more or better planned than was the shooting cover-up or its handling. once again they got caught with their pants down and their bloody red hands in the cookie jar full of cash for their cronies. since a number of our port affairs are already handled by foreigners, they obviously did not expect the public to suddenly notice or care, and are again not prepared to deal with the blowback from such attention — blowback they set themselves up for after five years of stoking their supporters' jingoism and xenophobia.

after having twice delivered the white house to the unlikely george bush, i can see why some would call him a genius. there's no doubt that he's a very sleazy smart operator when it comes to running election campaigns. so sleazy smart in fact that he got himself booted off george sr.'s campaign team.

but genius in one area does not translate to genius in another, and it is of course possible for otherwise apparently smart people to make horrifically bad decisions. nor are they immune to bad luck. while bushCo™ seems to have a talent for electioneering, they display none whatsoever for governing. it could even be argued that they have no real interest in governing, as opposed to ruling — with a big stick, a short leash and piles of treasure to shower on the court cronies and toadies.

just look at bushCo™'s poll numbers: <snark>you'd think a super-genius could keep the sheeple happy while ruthlessly fleecing them.</snark> clinton's numbers remained in the 60s throughout the worst of his pummeling. (presiding over a boom and a surplus obviously helps.) bushCo™ has been reeling from a different new crisis every week and has been badly hemorrhaging supporters since fallujah.

i find it impossible to believe that rove (or any other supposed intelligent being, for that matter) would think that any strategery that would worsen the administration's deathly poll numbers and inflame not just his congressional opponents, but also his apologists and the last of his die-hard public supporters could possibly be a good one. what kind of genuis tries to put out a fire in one room of his house by repeatedly setting new fires in another? a super-genius, no doubt.