Can Anchorage work on renaming the Ted Stevens International Airport now?
Month: October 2008
Ted Stevens Guilty of Felony Corruption Charges
Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has been convicted of lying about free home renovations and other gifts he received from a wealthy oil contractor.
The Senate’s longest-serving Republican, Stevens was found guilty on all seven counts of making false statements on Senate financial documents.
The verdict throws the upcoming election into disarray. Stevens is fighting off a challenge from Democrat Mark Begich and must now either drop out or continue campaigning as a convicted felon.
The trial hinged on the testimony of Stevens’ longtime friend, who testified that his employees dramatically remodeled the senator’s home.
Stevens faces up to five years in prison on each count but, under federal sentencing guidelines, will likely receive much less prison time, if any.
It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy…
Stevens name is on the Alaska ballot for good, though I doubt he would step down. Stevens will not lose his spot in the Senate for the remainder of his term unless the Senate reconvenes to vote him out of office. He can still be reelected (!!!), but would likely face a vote in the Senate to oust him.
I’d say convicted felon Ted Stevens is in real trouble in the closing days of the election. Hopefully the conviction will propel Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich into the Senate with ease.
(Disclosure: I was Mark Begich’s Online Communications Director until mid-September.)
Spinning Away From the Mandate
David Sirota writes on a subject I’ve been thinking a lot about lately:
The Village freakout continues, this time in the form of Peter Wehner’s op-ed in the Washington Post today. With most Republican candidates explicitly running on a platform promising a revival of Reagan conservatism and berating the supposed “socialism” of Democrats, this former Bush hack writes that “it is a mistake to assume that significant GOP losses, should they occur, are a referendum on conservatism.”
It’s hard to overstate how absurd this is. Let me repeat: In the stretch run of this campaign, the Republican Party has decided to make this an ideological contest between Reagan conservatism and supposed wild-eyed liberalism/socialism – and now, sensing a potentially huge loss, conservatives are now arguing that despite their decision to make this an ideological contest, “an Obama victory would be a partisan, rather than an ideological, win.”
Obviously, the Right understands what’s really going on in America – and is working to reinterpret that reality.
Having doubled-down on Reaganism, they know that a loss under these circumstances would be not just a momentary electoral set back, but a huge repudiation of conservative ideology, and a huge mandate for progressivism. And so conservatives are already trying to revise history to pretend these last few months of the campaign never happened.
All the stories we’ve seen about voter fraud, ACORN, too much influence by Obama’s small dollar contributors, and hoaxes like Ashley Todd serve one purpose: to undermine the validity of Obama’s election and define down the importance of the mandate it will reflect for progressivism.
FiveThirtyEight.com is projecting an Obama win with upwards of 370 electoral votes and over 52% of the popular vote. We will undoubtedly see Obama win more votes than any presidential candidate in American history, with nationwide turnout at record levels. Recall that in 2004, Bush won reelection with 50.7% of the population vote and smallest margin of a winning candidate in history, yet the results were universally declared by Republicans and media figures alike to be a mandate for rule. Bush’s small and questionable margin were, in fact, no real mandate handed over by the voters, but let’s concede that the outcome of the election is a reflection of the extent that the public is giving a mandate to a candidate, that candidate’s party, and the agenda that the candidate ran on. Naturally we can expect voters to deliver a massive mandate for change to Barack Obama next week.
The GOP is now trying to define away the coming election, in advance, by fiat. We’ll see them continue to step up the pre-buttal of the results and their meaning between now and the 4th. And come November 5th, the GOP will be in full-court press to make the media – and subsequently the public – think that these results don’t mean what we think they mean. It’s hard to envision a more bogus political move than this. As Sirota writes, the GOP is revising history and pretending that the McCain campaign, and really the failed Bush presidency, did not happen.
The simple fact is that for eight years George W. Bush and the Republican Party were given every single thing they asked for in executive and legislative policy (save for privatizing Social Security). Every single thing Bush and the Republicans have done has been a failure. These failures are a reflection of the fundamental failures of conservative’s governing philosophies. They had carte blanche, they used it, and the country is inarguably worse off as a result. Voters see this and are poised to do the expected thing: vote these people out of power and give Democratic policies and politicians an opportunity to turn the country around. Any argument being put forth that suggests otherwise is willfully denying reality and forgetting eight years that most Americans would likely to be glad to forget.
In this final move of the Bush-Cheney Republican edifice, a final defining characteristic manifests itself: the pathological unwillingness for Republicans to take responsibility for their actions. Even when America is poised to hold them accountable for their failures, they seek to deny culpability and ignore the consequences they are suffering as a result of their actions in power. Of course, this is the Republican Party that we know all too well. It’s not a surprise, but this should be yet another nail in the coffin of the GOP as they head towards status as a regional political force with limited impact outside of the South.
I Get Quoted
Well, a tweet I wrote about the Ashley Todd hoax gets quoted by Sarah Lai Stirland at Wired’s Threat Level blog:
Todd was one of the members of a group called 50 College Republicans that has been publicizing its activities through a blog and Twitter feed on a website called Life in the Field. The volunteers’ tweets carried the hashtag “#litf08.”
On Friday, commenters started using the tag to broadcast their disgust, causing the sarcastic tweets to be automatically displayed on the Republican site.
“Anyone know which Rove protege is responsible for #litf08? Because they lack the execution skills of the man himself,” tweeted Matt Browner-Hamlin, a former blogger for Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.’s presidential campaign.
Thanks to Marisa for sending this my way.
Dalai Lama Walks Away from “Middle Path”
Dalai Lama says he has given up on China talks
The Dalai Lama said Saturday he has given up on efforts to convince Beijing to allow greater autonomy for Tibet under Chinese rule.
By ASHWINI BHATIA
Associated Press
DHARMSALA, India —The Dalai Lama said Saturday he has given up on efforts to convince Beijing to allow greater autonomy for Tibet under Chinese rule.
The Tibetan spiritual leader said he would now ask the Tibetan people to decide how to take the dialogue forward.
China has repeatedly accused the Dalai Lama of leading a campaign to split Tibet from the rest of the country. The Dalai Lama has denied the allegations, saying he is only seeking greater autonomy for the Himalayan region to protect its unique Buddhist culture – a policy he calls the “middle way.”
“I have been sincerely pursuing the middle way approach in dealing with China for a long time now but there hasn’t been any positive response from the Chinese side,” he said in Tibetan at a public function Saturday in Dharmsala, the north Indian town that is home to Tibet’s government-in-exile.
“As far as I’m concerned I have given up,” he said in an unusually blunt statement.
“The issue of Tibet is not the issue of the Dalai Lama alone. It is the issue of 6 million Tibetans. I have asked the Tibetan government-in-exile, as a true democracy in exile, to decide in consultation with the Tibetan people the future course of action,” the Dalai Lama said.
His speech was translated by his spokesman, Tenzin Takhla.
The spiritual leader’s comments come ahead of a new round of talks between his envoys and Chinese government officials at the end of October. Those talks are still on track, according to Chhime R. Chhoekyapa, another spokesman for the Dalai Lama.
In my view this is a good thing. The Dalai Lama and Tibetan Government in Exile have spent over 30 years pursuing the “Middle Path” of autonomy. Not once has the Chinese government shown a desire to end the Tibet question peacefully or in line with the Middle Path. New voices should be given strength in the TGIE – voices advocating rangzen (independence) that have been somewhat marginalized need to be given a major place in policy moving forward. Tibetans inside and outside of Tibet have never stopped striving for independence. Now is the time for HHDL and the TGIE to make those views central to their stance on Sino-Tibetan relations.
10/25/02
Paul Wellstone died six years ago today. The video above was made by Senate Democrats last year.
I’m not going to add much to the tribute above, other than to say that Paul Wellstone remains one of my few real role models in Democratic politics. He’s still teaching me, six years after his death, through his books, stories about him, friends of mine who worked on his campaigns. He is missed.
Wassup 2008
Simply genius.
Hu Jia
This is a day late, but my most sincere congratulations to Hu Jia, a Chinese dissident who advocates for human rights and democracy, for winning the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Hu was up for the Nobel Peace Prize and I was very disappointed he didn’t win it this year, but this is still a great honor.
Last year, Mr. Hu testified via video link before a hearing of the European Parliament about China’s human rights situation. Weeks later, he was jailed and later sentenced to three and a half years in prison for subversion based on his writings criticizing Communist Party rule.
Hu Jia remains in jail and will not be able to accept his award in person. Meanwhile the Chinese government is throwing a fit that the European Parliament would have the temerity to honor someone who seeks to expand freedom and the rule of law in China. Their anti-human rights behavior and unfailing panic at criticism speaks volumes about where China is today, while belying any notion that Beijing is liberalizing.
Hopefully the Sakharov Prize will bring greater global attention to Hu Jia’s work, his ongoing imprisonment, and the Chinese government’s continued resistance to democratizing efforts within their borders.
More Perspective
You’d think that Nick Kristof’s conversation with a friend from Beijing would give him perspective on the underlying ethnic tensions and prejudices in China and not, you know, merely an opportunity to wax poetic about the bounty to come from Obama’s election. Seriously. Kristof is the Times’ biggest Sinophile and he can’t even identify the big point when he’s writing about it.
Here’s the conversation Kristof relays in today’s column:
She: Obama? But he’s the black man, isn’t he?
Me: Yes, exactly.
She: But surely a black man couldn’t become president of the United States?
Me: It looks as if he’ll be elected.
She: But president? That’s such an important job! In America, I thought blacks were janitors and laborers.
Me: No, blacks have all kinds of jobs.
She: What do white people think about that, about getting a black president? Are they upset? Are they angry?
Me: No, of course not! If Obama is elected, it’ll be because white people voted for him.
[Long pause.]
She: Really? Unbelievable! What an amazing country!
I read this conversation as one that informs his readers about China, not the US. Substitute “non-Han Chinese” with black and “Han Chinese” with white and you’ll get some perspective on Han chauvinism in modern China. Not that Kristof notices it.
Sarah Palin & Anti-Intellectualism
Ilan Goldberg has an important post on Sarah Palin’s lack of understanding of a basic foreign policy term, “precondition.” In short, Goldberg makes a convincing case that Palin doesn’t know what the word “precondition” means, as evidenced by her interview with Brian Williams this week.
Josh Schrei takes the Things Palin Doesn’t Know game a step further and writes a post about the perspective he’s gaining by being in Florence, Italy now while watching the election. Schrei starts his post with a note*:
authors note: for the purposes of this blog post, I have marked with an asterisk any fact or reference that I believe — out of pure conjecture — that Sarah Palin does not know or would not get.
He then begins:
Im sitting in Florence, Italy as I write this. I came over to Zurich to visit my Mom for her 60th birthday, and as Ive never been to Italy and with everything being so close here in Europe, I decided to take a couple of days to visit this beautiful country that Ive wanted to see for so many years.
Florence is an amazing place. According to UNESCO*, this one city contains roughly a third of the important art in the entire world* including Michelangelos David*, Botticellis Venus*, and countless other masterpieces. Florence, for many years was the center of Western civilization*. The birthplace of the Renaissance,* it is where — literally and figuratively, human beings gained… perspective*.
Literally because this is where Brunelleschi* — in addition to constructing what must be the most beautiful building in the world* — with the help of his mathmetician pals* built on the work of his predecessors and completed the transormation of human figures from flat two dimensional objects whose only purpose in art — and life — was to serve God in submission into living, breathing, three dimensional beings. Figuratively because after centuries of living in fear and darkness and illiteracy, this is where we entered an era in which thoughts, intellect, individuality, artistic expression, and the human being as a whole became paramount.
Its interesting to be here in the cradle of human enlightenment in the midst of our current debacle of a Presidential race, because, to be frank, it really puts things in… perspective.
As for my perspective, this is an effective way of bringing out the underlying anti-intellectualism in Sarah Palin’s life. We’ve repeatedly seen a lack of intellectual curiousity and outright dismissiveness of those who do show interest in the wide world from Palin. From Iraq, to foreign policy, to reading the news, Palin just won’t be bothered to know what’s going on in the world around her. Schrei’s speculation about how deep Palin’s ignorance goes provides real insight into what her world might be like.
Andrew Sullivan says Palin is “burying [conservatism] as an intellectual tradition.” He notes:
Here’s one way to look at the question [of How Anti-Intellectual Is Palin?]: how has Palin brought up her own kids? Her eldest son is a high-school drop-out. Her eldest daughter has had, so far as one can tell from press reports, very uneven attendance in high school, and no plans for college. Her other daughters seem to spend a lot of time traveling the country with their mom at tax-payers’ expense. I’ve seen them at several rallies with the Palins this fall. Are they not in school?
The least one can say is that none of her children seems to have been brought up thinking that college is something to aspire to. And her new son-in-law just dropped out of high school as well.
Am I piling on in this post? Sure, because Palin’s brand of willful ignorance as is dangerous a force as any other that exists in the United States today. Willful ignorance, anti-intellectualism, and the tribalization of these forces against those who seek betterment through education are the shortest paths to the decline of the US as a great nation. If we want a strong economy, we need education. If we want to be a respect player in the global community, we need to understand foreign cultures. If we want to be safe from terrorist threats, we need to understand the root causes that drive people to hate us and discover new ways to stop them from being successful.
America is a diverse country and people here believe many different things, some of which are demonstrably wrong. I don’t have a problem with that. But there’s a big difference between teach people to open their eyes and learn about the world, whether they like what they see or not, and teaching ignorance and anti-intellectualism. Sarah Palin represents a dangerous trend in American life. I’m glad to see the voting public is on the verge of rejecting it in an unprecedented scale.
*One thing to note, as Josh is writing on an Italian keyboard, punctuation isn’t perfect. I think it’s a technical hurdle, not an intimation of Palin’s typing accumen.
Hold Fast 