Friday, May 29, 2009

Friday Night in the Beserker Lounge

Now that Karl Rove picked up the Cardozo item as the first Hispanic, let me change that and say Cardozo was the first Ibero-American nominee. Also,I'll take the Obama White House word that Sotomayor is pro-choice, even though I still have some doubts.

With gubernatorial elections coming up in Texas and Florida, conservatives have chosen a perfect time to go anti-Hispanic. What political genius had Tom Tancredo, Mr. Anti-immigrant, appear to denounce Sotomayor's involvement with La Raza as a "KKK without hoods?" Unfortunately for them, La Raza backed Fredo Gonzalez for Attorney General and earlier had written a moving tribute to Ronald Reagan on his death. And, of course, leading RINO John McCain, Spanish-American war veteran, appears, addressing the La Raza conference in the summer of 2008. La Raza immediately released point-by-point rebuttals of all the criticism they have received.

Republican attacks on Sotomayor are already creating backlash in the party itself. Texas Senator Cornyn criticized Rush Limbaugh and New Gingrich's charges that Sotomayor was "racist". Even Charles Krauthammer, who appears to be suffering from distemper these days, today walked back his dog to say, after making a statement about her judiciary theory, she must be confirmed.

In the YouTube world, the Fox attacks and those of Gingrich,Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh dissolve rather quickly. On Empathy, first President Bush, standing in front of his Kennebunkport home, endorses Clarence Thomas for his "empathy and good humor". On your background affecting your judicial judgment, Sam Alito tells the Senate he takes his background into account because of the discrimination his family faced as immigrants. On the Appeals Court making law and policy, we have the godfather of judicial conservatism, Tony Scalia lectures on the subject and points this out clearly in his court opinions.

William Gheen, the President of an organization known as Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, claiming 25,000 members,called Sotomayor a "Hispanic Supremacist" , who would define the law according to race. Gheen and others subscribe to the views that La Raza backs La Reconquista or the recapture of southwest United States for Mexico. If you want a reference how this idea came about, consult David Niewert's The Eliminationists, who provide the background on the ideology of the militia movement and these ideas.

You will notice creeping across the television screen a few random Reaganites, who are sounding the call for the New Right to back off. Ed Rollins in his avuncular way explained on CNN when you have very little political capital don't blow it on a battle you can not win. He called Sotomayor a great choice who's liberal because she's chosen by Barack Obama , who has the right to make the choice. He told the Republicans to back off. Peggy Noonan, whose state of mind should worry anyone, called on Republicans to play grown up and said Sotomayor was a brilliant choice. "Politically she's like a beautiful doll containing a canister of poison gas: Break her and you die."

Nate Silver at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/ has an interesting analysis on "Operation Gringo" or can Republicans win without the Hispanic vote. Worth a read. Basically, the answer is yes if they don't lose any more constituents and embrace some form of protectionist policies toward NAFTA, the latter will never happen. What is clear is that the electoral map for Republicans becomes further restricted.

I expect it will anyway because Barack Obama is holding on June 6th a White House meeting with Congressional leaders on Immigration Reform. My bet is that something very similar to the Kennedy-McCain bill supported by George W. Bush will be embraced and passed. And I also believe that the Republican base will be mobilized again to try and stop in to their permanent damage.

Recent convert to the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church, Newt Gingrich has e-mailed his fans that this summer is the war on health care reform. I'm sure we will be treated to the Obama as socialist meme that has proved so successful and convincing. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, was asked yesterday about Republican plans on health care reform. He said he had consulted with his House colleagues and surveyed the Senate and he said,"The Republicans have no plans." Instead we are being treated to a barrage of attack ads by the lobbyists for the medical industry, warning about a public option.

Michael Steele sent out an e-mail asking us to "Ride the Wave to Victory" or previously to be like Ronald Reagan and get on the horse and gallop. It's interesting to note that there are two body-surfing Presidents--President Reagan and President Obama--which is a good omen for the Obama Presidency. While telling Republicans to chill out over Sotomayor,almost two days after attacking her, Steele and the RNC are auctioning off a lunch for future Fuehrer Newt Gingrich. Not to be outdone, Mitt Romney is scheduled to appear soon with a major speech on national security.

Dick Cheney continues his Death Tour--this time criticizing President Obama's economic program without admitting culpability in the collapse of the world's economic system. Applauding the "tea parties"--which aimed its ire at the TARP program his administration created, Cheney didn't remind listeners that he told Senate Republicans when Paulson demanded $750 billion without strings that this "is your Herbert Hoover moment." Larry Kudlow, trying to make hay on Cheney's criticism of Obama, interviewed a number of CEOs and bank executives, who have been working with the Obama Administration, who had nothing but praise for the president's team and their approach.

Democratic Senator Carl Levin, speaking at the Foreign Policy Association yesterday, said in few words that Dick Cheney was a liar on the issue of just "a few sadistic prison guards being responsible at Abu Ghraib, that "enhanced interrogation was not torture", and that the two memos Cheney claims vindicates his position do not reveal any evidence to that fact. Previously, Senator Feingold has testified he had read both memos and that they do not prove that torture prevented attacks on the United States.

I am amazed that after these months that Republicans and the conservative movement can sustain a high-decibel 24/7 attack on this administration. There is no let up and there has not been any evidence that Republicans are reflecting on any significant issues facing the country. While talk radio and Fox News provide the available media to mount this effort, there is also no evidence that any of the conservative think tanks are formulating any policy alternatives to the Democrats. The Republicans and the conservatives are simply brain-dead.

To understand where Republicans are at or more precisely where the so-called base is coming from, I recommend Allan J. Lichtman White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement, Grove Press, 2008. This study was nominated as a finalist in the National Book Critics Circle Award. For getting an approximation of where we are today, the most useful period to study in the book is "Crying in the Wilderness 1929-1936", where the right adopted strategies with the collapse of our economic system and the reforms put into place by FDR. A few months back you could hear some of the conservative riffs on Obama being lifted from the anti-FDR playbook. The emergence of blatant racism has its parallels in the Right's embrace in the 1920s and `1930s of the Ku Klux Klan, which was a national organization and not simply in the old states of the confederacy. And the right's radio announcer was Father Charles Coughlin, who once had the same size audience as Rush Limbaugh. What's instructive is how some of the right morphed into pro-fascist groups just prior to WWII. And you are seeing some of that beginning to happen today.





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