Posts by Steve Benen

Steve Benen is "blogger in chief" of the popular Washington Monthly online blog, Political Animal. His background includes publishing The Carpetbagger Report, and writing for a variety of publications, including Talking Points Memo, The American Prospect, the Huffington Post, and The Guardian. He has also appeared on NPR's "Talk of the Nation," MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show," Air America Radio's "Sam Seder Show," and XM Radio's "POTUS '08."

Harry Reid's "Gentle Pursuasion" Is Not Enough
Posted by Steve Benen on July 3, 2009 at 12:22 PM.

QUOTE OF THE DAY.... Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada.

Reid says he expects the tactic of gentle persuasion to work best, given the size of his Senate Democratic flock and the political divergences within it. "I don't dictate how people vote," he said in an interview this month. "If it's an important vote, I try to tell them how important it is to the Senate, the country, the president ... But I'm not very good at twisting arms. I try to be more verbal and non-threatening. So there are going to be -- I'm sure -- a number of opportunities for people who have different opinions not to vote the way that I think they should. But that's the way it is. I hold no grudges."

I don't doubt Reid is widely liked and admired within the caucus. But "gentle persuasion" is rarely a recipe for party discipline.

There have been plenty of Senate Majority Leaders in history who members feared and wouldn't dare cross. Reid isn't one of them.

John Bolton Won't Shut Up About Bombing Iran
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on July 2, 2009 at 4:31 PM.

A PATTERN EMERGES.... Time's Joe Klein notices that a certain former U.N. ambassador has a preoccupation with bombing a certain Middle Eastern country, and manages to keep finding major newspapers to publish his thoughts on the subject.

In the Washington Post today, screw-loose wingnut extraordinaire John Bolton has a column in which he advocates an Israeli strike against Iran. This would be shocking, except that...

On June 26, Bolton had an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times in which he advocated bombing Iran. And, well, er...

On June 12, he had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he advocated bombing Iran.

And that's just three op-eds in three weeks. We could go back a little further and find Bolton -- in op-eds, on Fox News -- advocating military attacks on Iran for years.

Indeed, as Adam Serwer noted, given Bolton's incessant rhetoric on the subject, "it's hard to take seriously his proposal that now is actually the opportune moment to bomb Iran."

I'd just add that it's interesting to consider the competing conservative messages on Iran. For the better part of June, the line was that the United States needed to do more to support Iranians. What we really needed to do, neocons said, was speak up and let the Iranian people know we're on their side. And yet, here's Bolton, arguing again that the one thing that's really needed is a bombing campaign on Iran.

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The Religious Right Strangely Silent on Sanford's Sordid Sex Drama
Posted by Steve Benen on July 2, 2009 at 6:01 AM.

THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT'S 'WALL OF SILENCE'.... Most of the relevant players have weighed in on South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's (R) personal and professional difficulties, but Dan Gilgoff reports there's one group whose silence stands out.

One week after Mark Sanford admitted to his affair with an Argentine woman -- and a day after he called his mistress his "soul mate" and acknowledged further indiscretions -- I'm struck by the total silence of pro-family groups.

The Family Research Council has been completely quiet on the South Carolina governor's affair. So has Concerned Women for America. Ditto for Focus on the Family.

The wall of silence is all the more striking given that 10 Palmetto State senators in Sanford's own party have called for him to step down. Does the pro-family movement burn up credibility if it looks the other way when Republican allies own up to extramarital affairs?

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Right-Wing Insanity: Former CIA Official Wishes for Terrorist Attack on U.S. (!)
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on July 1, 2009 at 10:29 AM.

WHAT AMERICANS REALLY NEED.... Former CIA official Michael Scheuer has taken some provocative policy positions over the years, but I never thought he'd go this far.

Talking with Fox News' Glenn Beck, Scheuer argues, "The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama Bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States --- because it's gonna take a grassroots, bottom up pressure -- because these politicians prize their offices, prize the praise of the media, and the Europeans. It's an absurd situation again, only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently and with as much violence as necessary."

The context of this is a plan to send National Guard volunteers to the southern U.S. border to address the drug trade.

Instead of saying, "That's completely insane," Glenn Beck nodded along, in apparent approval of his guest's ridiculous argument.

I was trying to think of how best to describe how spectacularly offensive this lunacy really is, but it looks like Adam Serwer beat me to it: "[U]nderstand, this is not unpatriotic. You can wish all manner of horrors on this country, but as long as these horrors might serve a specific political agenda, you're not being unpatriotic. Unpatriotic is a public health care plan. Unpatriotic is a judge modifying subprime mortgage loans to keep a roof over someone's head. Unpatriotic is phosphate free detergent. Patriotic is wishing for a terrorist attack on the United States."

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Are Sanford's Deeds Worse Because He's a Republican?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on June 27, 2009 at 3:00 PM.

Patrick Ruffini, a Republican strategist and blogger, had an interesting item Thursday on the GOP and adultery, and the apparent double-standard when it comes to the major political parties and infidelity.

At the core of the Sanford and Ensign episodes is the cloud of "hypocrisy" that hangs over any Republican who strays from the bonds of their marriage. (Quickly forgetting that all who commit adultery are hypocrites, having taken a solemn vow of marriage.) Because Democrats are perceived as more socially libertine, they get off easier.

This is a structural disadvantage that, on the margins, hurts Republican officeholders, forcing them into resignation or disgrace more easily than their equally adulterous Democratic counterparts.

Simply put, it is a strategic error to sanctify the idea that it's worse when Republicans cheat.

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Dan Froomkin, You Will Be Sorely Missed
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on June 26, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

Dan Froomkin's last Washington Post piece was, alas, published earlier today, and for all the reasons we talked about last week, it's a real shame to see him go.

But as TS reminded me, it's worth paying particular attention to Froomkin's last item, not just for sentiment, but because Froomkin goes out with the kind of pull-no-punches insights that made his work so valuable in the first place.

Froomkin reflects, for example, on his observations from the previous administration (links in the original):

When I look back on the Bush years, I think of the lies. There were so many. Lies about the war and lies to cover up the lies about the war. Lies about torture and surveillance. Lies about Valerie Plame. Vice President Dick Cheney's lies, criminally prosecutable but for his chief of staff Scooter Libby's lies. I also think about the extraordinary and fundamentally cancerous expansion of executive power that led to violations of our laws and our principles.

And while this wasn't as readily apparent until President Obama took office, it's now very clear that the Bush years were all about kicking the can down the road – either ignoring problems or, even worse, creating them and not solving them. This was true of a huge range of issues including the economy, energy, health care, global warming -- and of course Iraq and Afghanistan.

How did the media cover it all? Not well. Reading pretty much everything that was written about Bush on a daily basis, as I did, one could certainly see the major themes emerging. But by and large, mainstream-media journalism missed the real Bush story for way too long. The handful of people who did exceptional investigative reporting during this era really deserve our gratitude: People such as Ron Suskind, Seymour Hersh, Jane Mayer, Murray Waas, Michael Massing, Mark Danner, Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau (better late than never), Dana Priest, Walter Pincus, Charlie Savage and Philippe Sands; there was also some fine investigative blogging over at Talking Points Memo and by Marcy Wheeler. Notably not on this list: The likes of Bob Woodward and Tim Russert. Hopefully, the next time the nation faces a grave national security crisis, we will listen to the people who were right, not the people who were wrong, and heed those who reported the truth, not those who served as stenographers to liars.

Why am I going to miss Dan's column at the Post? This is why.

Conservatives Still Pushing for U.S. Meddling in Iran
Posted by Steve Benen on June 26, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

IT'S NOT JUST 1953.... Reader J.C. alerted me to this exchange on Fox News the other day, with the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes insisting that President Obama's rationale for not intervening in Iranian affairs is outdated.

BARNES: [T]he most pathetic thing is to say, 'Gee, well, we were involved in 1953.' 1953! This is an extremely young society. You think those demonstrators are thinking, 'Well, we hope the U.S. stays out because they were involved in 1953'? That's total nonsense.

KIRSTEN POWERS: I think there is a history there.

BARNES: 1953?

POWERS: They do remember the United States meddling.

BARNES: No, they don't.

This is absurd for a variety of reasons. Right off the bat, no one in the administration is pointing to 1953 as a rationale for the White House's current strategy relating to Iran. Barnes is convinced it's the principal basis for the United States steering clear of the ongoing developments in Iran, but that's "total nonsense."

What's more, Barnes assumes that contemporary Iranians couldn't care less that the United States helped overthrow Iran's democratically elected leadership 56 years ago. That's a debatable point, but it's worth noting that this is the kind of development that sticks with a populace. In fact, Chris Good had a very helpful item the other day, noting that Mossadeq, Barnes' assurances notwithstanding, remains very relevant to Iran's population today, with the former leader remaining a symbol for democracy.

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GOP: Champions of "Family Values" Become Party of Vice
Posted by Steve Benen on June 25, 2009 at 8:13 AM.

PERFIDY PARITY.... Way back in May 2003, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz had an item about then-West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise (D) admitting to an extramarital affair and apologizing to voters. Kurtz told readers at the time, "Just what the country needed: another Democrat who can't keep his zipper zipped."

I get the sense that, for quite a while, this was the accepted conventional wisdom. When it came to sex scandals, this was more a problem for Democrats than Republicans.

Can we finally put this notion to (ahem) bed?

To be sure, looking back over the last couple of decades, Dems have had plenty of high-profile controversies about illicit affairs. John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, and Jim McGreevey are some of the more recent ones. If we look back at the '90s, we can add Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, and Henry Cisneros to the list. Looking back even further, Gary Hart, JFK, and even FDR come to mind.

But Republicans have made great strides of late in closing the gap with Democrats, and by some measures, have taken the overall lead. Mark Sanford, John Ensign, David Vitter, Larry Craig, and Mark Foley are all pretty recent. If we look back just a little further, Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich obviously come to mind. And if we include the '90s, embarrassing adulterous admissions were made by Tim Hutchinson, Henry Hyde, Dan Burton, and Bob Livingston.

The point isn't that there are a lot of men in positions of power who are sleeping around -- though that seems to be a common problem -- the point is that neither party has a lock on virtue or vice.

The difference, of course, is that only one of these two parties presents itself as the champion of "family values," seeks to use government to impose its sense of morality through public policy, lectures Americans on the "sanctity of marriage," and blames gay couples for undermining Western civilization.

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The GOP Ratchets Up Insane Rhetoric on Iran
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on June 24, 2009 at 8:17 AM.

TURNING THE NUTTY TO 11.... I thought it was bad when John McCain, asked yesterday whether "there's any doubt what side President Obama is on" in Iran, replied, "I know what side I'm on. I'm on the side of the people. I'm not on Ahmadinejad's side or Mousavi. I'm on the side of the Iranian people and I'm on the right side of history."

Even for a politician whose descent into cheap hackery has been painful to watch, this kind of embarrassing chest-thumping is just ridiculous.

As it turns out, though, it wasn't even close to being the worst Republican rhetoric of the day regarding the administration and U.S. policy towards Iran. No, that prize goes to Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), who happens to be a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and who believes Iranian brutality is President Obama's fault.

The California Republican, appearing on MSNBC's The Ed Show, said that the president "ratcheted up the language a little bit" during his press conference on Tuesday. But, he added, "If [Obama] would have been talking even a little bit tougher a few days ago we might not have seen the violence and bloodshed of this repressive regime in Tehran in the last two days."

This is what it's come to. Senior Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee think Iranian bloodshed might have been diminished if Obama "had been talking ... a little bit tougher."

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Absurd: Hoekstra Continues to Compare GOP to Iranian Protesters
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on June 18, 2009 at 11:01 AM.

HOEKSTRA KEEPS DIGGING.... Rep. Pete Hoekstra's (R-Mich.) generated a fair amount of attention yesterday when he tweeted, "Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House."

It was, of course, a ridiculous thing to say, which in turn drew media attention and widespread online mockery.

Don't worry, though, Hoekstra's spokesperson can explain everything.

"Congressman Hoekstra did not compare the ongoing violence in Iran to when Democrats shut down the House chamber during the energy debate last summer," said spokesman Dave Yonkman. "The two situations do share the similarity of government leadership attempting to limit debate and deliberation, and the ability of new technologies to bypass their efforts and allow for direct communication. That's the only point that he was trying to make."

Hmm. Hoekstra wasn't comparing the two, he was just publicly noting the similarities the two situations share. It's good to have that cleared up.

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Republicans Suddenly Against War Spending?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on June 16, 2009 at 9:04 AM.

SUPPORTING THE TROOPS.... For several years, the Bush administration, congressional Republicans, and a whole lot of political reporters were shocked, just shocked, when Democrats would vote against war spending bills. How, Republicans asked rhetorically, could Democrats possibly claim to support the troops if they're not willing to vote for the spending measures in the midst of two wars.

Dems would try to explain their concerns -- giving Bush a blank check, for example, was a bad policy -- but to no avail. This was the single most frequently repeated GOP talking point when it came to the politics of military policy. Dems voted against the troops during a war, Republicans said whenever they were in proximity to a microphone.

It's interesting, then, that these very same Republicans are poised to do the one thing they said responsible, patriotic policymakers should never do.

House Republicans are preparing to vote en bloc against the $106 billion war-spending bill, a position once unthinkable for the party that characterized the money as support for the troops.

For years, Republicans portrayed the bills funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as matters of national security and accused Democrats who voted against them of voting against the troops.

In 2005, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) went so far as to say sending troops into battle and not paying for it would be an "immoral thing to do." And just last year, more House Republicans voted for the war supplemental bill than did Democrats, who opposed the legislation because it did little to wind down the military effort in Iraq.

But Republicans say this year is different. Democrats have included a $5 billion increase for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help aid nations affected by the global financial crisis.

Oh, I see. When Democrats raise policy objections to military spending bills, and withhold support because of details they find offensive, they're unpatriotic terrorist sympathizers who can't be trusted on national security issues. When Republicans raise different policy objections to military spending bills, they're just doing their duty.

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Absurd: Mitt Romney Blames Obama for Iran Election Fallout
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on June 15, 2009 at 5:24 AM.

WHEN IN DOUBT, BLAME OBAMA.... Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R) appeared on ABC's "This Week" -- no, I'm not sure why he was invited on either -- and was asked about developments in Iran. Naturally, the one-time presidential candidate said President Obama bears responsibility for what's transpired.

"[T]he comments by the president last week that there was a robust debate going on in Iran was obviously entirely wrong-headed. What has occurred is that the election is a fraud, the results are inaccurate, and you're seeing a brutal repression of the people as they protest.

"The president ought to come out and state exactly those words, indicate that this has been a terribly managed decision by the autocratic regime in Iran.

"It's very clear that the president's policies of going around the world and apologizing for America aren't working.... [J]ust sweet talk and criticizing America is not going to enhance freedom in the world."

Remember the time, a few years back, when credible political observers thought Mitt Romney was serious about policy, and would steer clear of becoming a clueless, partisan hack? Good times, good times.

Of course, it's not just Romney. Ali Frick noted this morning that neoconservatives Richard Perle and Frank Gaffney blamed the election results on the U.S. president.

Frick added, however, that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough struck a more reasonable note on "Meet the Press."

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This Week in God: Obama White House Meets with (Gasp!) Atheists
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on June 13, 2009 at 11:58 AM.

THIS WEEK IN GOD.... First up from the God Machine this week is an interesting meeting at the White House, which may have been a first.

Last week, the Secular Coalition for America, an atheist advocacy group, held its first-ever individual face-to-face with the White House. Ron Millar, the coalition's acting director, told POLITICO that he met with Paul Montero, Obama's religious liaison in the White House Office of Public Engagement.

Obama "is opening a little door to include us in, which we are very appreciative of," says Millar, who says he anticipates a number of additional such meetings with the administration.

Among the concerns Millar says he touched on was proselytizing in the U.S. military: "That is something we really want to follow up with this administration, because we have not seen much there."

There have been organizations representing atheists around for decades, but I don't recall ever hearing about one being invited to the White House for a chat.

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Joe Scarborough Keeps Getting Worse
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on June 12, 2009 at 9:28 AM.

Joe Scarborough's on-air commentary is nearly always disheartening, but this morning was especially frustrating.

I can appreciate why the former far-right Republican congressman is feeling a little sheepish right now. Yesterday, Media Matters released a video showing reactions from conservative media personalities in April to a report from the Department of Homeland Security, warning law enforcement about the potential for violence from fringe radicals. The clip montage shows Scarborough not only dismissing the DHS report, but laughing hysterically at the very idea behind the report. He told his national television audience that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano "has gone nuts."

Of course, in light of the recent killings at the hand of some of these right-wing extremists, Scarborough's laughter and dismissive attitude appears especially misguided now.

This morning, perhaps feeling a little embarrassed, Scarborough lashed out at Paul Krugman, and doubled down on his unjustified criticism of the DHS report from April.

On Krugman, Scarborough said:

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What if the George Tiller/Holocaust Memorial Museum Shooters Weren't White?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on June 11, 2009 at 12:02 PM.

Paul Campos, reflecting on the George Tiller Holocaust Memorial Museum shootings, raises a provocative point. (via Adam Serwer)

If radical Muslims had carried out terrorist attacks in Kansas and Washington DC over the past five days, we might be trying to pass legislation giving the president the legal authority to place people in preventive detention, and Daniel Pipes would be implying that we need to round up Arab-Americans (correction: Muslims) and put them in relocation camps.

But it was only a couple of old white guys, so our civil liberties remain unthreatened.

Indeed, it's not just the Kansas and DC shootings. Richard Poplawski, a right-wing extremist and white guy, allegedly gunned down three police officers in Pittsburgh in April, in part because he feared the non-existent "Obama gun ban." Jim David Adkisson, a right-wing extremist and white guy, allegedly opened fire in a Unitarian church in Tennessee last year, in part because of his "hatred of the liberal movement."

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