Bill's Big Diamond Blog

Voter Integrity, Texas-Style

Ever wonder what’s up with those legislators who are more concerned with knocking criminals off the voting rolls and making sure voters all carry ID’s than they are with making sure everyone eligible can actually vote?

Here’s a video that was sent to me today. It should help us all understand the double-standard of legislators who are preoccupied with keeping our integrity levels so high…

Fred Thompson "Reconsidered"... is He Really Republican "Red Meat" Material?

Upon finishing Jo Becker’s valentine to Fred Thompson in today’s Times, I wonder anew about his potential to win the Republican nomination. He seems less interested in the religious/social issues that motivate GOP activists than is necessary for victory— and only intermittently committed to the sort of reform agenda that might pry loose some of Giuliani’s more 'moderate' base. Despite Becker’s sympathetic read on Thompson’s character, the article does little to shore up the candidate’s credentials as a spear-carrier for the hard-right voters who can be counted on to get to the polls in a primary battle.

Thompson’s appetite for anti-abortion and pro-gun legislation seems not to match his grand rhetoric on the red meat issues of the party faithful. Instead, Becker portrays him as more focused on budget and constitutional issues, favoring congressional oversight of the Executive and reduced mandates to the states. These aren’t the kind of issues that will inspire jingles or passionate followers.

Or maybe the old fox just spent his interview hour with a New York Times reporter chatting about the kind of topics that make him look reasonable and moderate— for a publication his party doesn’t trust anyway. It’s hard to tell what’s behind this ‘reconsideration’ piece. It certainly won’t hurt him with insiders in Washington and it likely has little effect outside of the Beltway.

It will be interesting to see whether Thompson can get traction with current Romney followers, or begin to push out some of the far-right splinter candidates by grabbing away their supporters. And, you have to wonder whether he can do that without turning into a cartoon version of his crusty codger DA from “Law and Order.”

Diamond Back in Playing Condition as Sox Clinch, Times, Yankees Choke

…finally back from a particularly grueling road trip, to find that all is now right with the world. The Boston Red Sox have clinched the American League East title, with a loss by the Yankees— and the NY Times has retracted a particularly nasty anti-union statement (albeit in a small “Editor’s Note” instead of the page 1 heading in which the first article ran) it made about health benefits being too generous for UAW workers own good.

Now we can settle back in at home on the Big Diamond and watch the upcoming playoffs on the actual diamond. Hope you missed the usual scintillating commentary here over the past week. We’ll do our best to scour the world and make up for lost time by pontificating twice as much.

Gone-zo, But Not Forgotten?

I know it’s been a little slow in coming, but here’s an appropriate tribute to the tenure of one Alberto Gonzales, who’s last day in office was this past Friday. Wherever you go, keep the cards and letters coming, Bert-o!

Click here to connect to media through Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars.

Hagel on Hiding Behind the General

Chuck Hagel has some choice words for the decision to have General Petraeus defend the Administration’s policy in Iraq. The idea that a military officer would be in charge of telling the Congress what our foreign policy should be is more of an affront to democracy than it is to the military itself— and it’s left a bad enough taste in the mouths of many career officers.

Hagel’s discussion with Bill Maher is direct on this point and on others.

Thanks to Damozel at Buck Naked Politics for this video catch.

Keeping Up Congressional Pressure on Iraq

The Times runs Frank Rich's column today, posing the hard question Congress needs to face— how to keep the pressure on the White House to change course in Iraq?

Democratic strategy to gain Republican Senate votes for the Webb Amendment is a decent start, but Congress needs to hold constant follow-up hearings over the Petraeus Report and alternative military opinions on a daily basis.

Rich writes:

They should summon the new chief of central
command (and General Petraeus's boss), Adm.
William Fallon, for tough questioning; he is
reportedly concerned about our lapsed military
readiness should trouble strike beyond Iraq. And
why not grill the Joint Chiefs and those half-
dozen or so generals who turned down the
White House post of "war czar" last fall? The
war should be front and center in Congress
every day.

Mr. Bush, confident that he got away with
repackaging the same bankrupt policies with a
nonsensical new slogan ("Return on Success")
Thursday night, is counting on the public's
continued apathy as he kicks the can down the
road and bides his time until Jan. 20, 2009; he,
after all, has nothing more to lose. The job for
real leaders is to wake up America to the urgent
reality. We can't afford to punt until
Inauguration Day in a war that each day drains
America of resources and will. Our national
security can't be held hostage indefinitely to a
president's narcissistic need to compound his
errors rather than admit them.

Antiwar Protest Rocks the Capitol

The WaPo reports that the Capitol was a setting today for “hundreds sprawled on the ground in a symbolic "die-in." Police arrested 189 people, including 10 who organizers said were veterans of the war.”

The kind of protest not seen since the Vietnam War took Washington by surprise as the Answer Coalition and Code Pink launched an aggressive act of civil disobedience near the legislative center of the nation. For the first time since half a million people jammed the streets of New York City in advance of the invasion of Iraq, the mainstream media began to cover the antiwar movement as a major force in American politics, beyond the impact it has on the electoral strategies of the Democratic Party.

It seems clear that the theater of the Petraeus Report and a Presidential speech to the nation have not quieted the sentiment of opponents of the occupation of Iraq.

Mos Def and Cornel West on Terror

This is great stuff— and it puts the obsession with terror-as-an-ism into a clear context many folks in less privileged America can understand...

Many thanks and a h/t to Blue Girl for this viewing tip.

The President Speaks on Iraq

Is it really a troop cut when all the President and his General are promising to do is to let the additional 30,000 troops in the escalation go home when their 15-month tour of duty ends? For crying out loud, he didn't even promise that!

And what “success,” exactly, is this a “return” on? Oy. Spining straw into gold here, aren’t we?

NPR afterwards included some discussion about whether having Petraeus speak without the President would have been better received. Couldn't have done any worse. Someone had to say, "Well, he is the President of the United States. He can speak to the country when he sees fit."

The only thing he can no longer do is expect to be believed.

Hoping This Isn't Still True...

"A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel."

— Robert Frost

(h/t to Quote DB and Ed Fitzgerald)