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A weakened president knows what he's getting

Bob Shrum blogs: "I'm convinced Bush clearly understood what he was doing -- and it's liberals and moderates who should be worried as the Judiciary Committee hearings approach.  At least, they should be joining the dissident right wingers in demanding that Miers tell the Senate and the nation what Bush already knows -- where she stands on critical Constitutional doctrines."

October 5, 2005 | 11:46 a.m. ET

A weakened president knows what he's getting (Bob Shrum)

MSNBC TV

Pat Buchanan, Bill Kristol, David Frum and assorted others, a rare amalgam of the old right and the neo-conservatives, are attacking President Bush because they were spoiling for a culture war over the confirmation of the next Supreme Court nominee.  I believe Bush himself cared more about getting a cultural warrior on the Court without a protracted, divisive struggle that could inflict more damage or even outright repudiation on his suddenly fragile presidency.  Made weak by a time of hurricanes and burgeoning Republican scandals and by the fate of his Iraq policy, he turned to a stealth nominee; and then on Tuesday, with a straight face instead of his characteristic smirk, called her the best qualified candidate for the job.

The toughest criticism so far has come from the President's own so-called base.  He must be wondering -- what's a guy got to do to earn their trust?  Harriet Miers is not just "a gracious lady" as Pat describes her.  She may be "a pit bull in size 6 shoes," as Bush describes her.  In fairness, she is an accomplished corporate lawyer, and in private practice the trusted counsel who figured out how to conceal then-Governor Bush's post-DUI conviction.  But in the context of a Supreme Court appointment, what she is about all else is a Constitutional cipher.  She'll be lucky, if confirmed, that each justice has bright, young law clerks to write opinions; she'll need them.  And before her confirmation hearings, she'll need to cram for her Con Law exam; she'll stonewall a host of questions, but she at least has to look like she knows what she's talking about. 

The Judiciary Committee should push her to state her views on the big questions like Roe v. Wade.  The President already knows her answers; he's sat with her as they sorted through reams of potential judicial nominees; it's simply incredible that they've never discussed the right to privacy, civil rights and affirmative action, and the right to choose.  Bush says he "can't recall" whether they talked about abortion.  That's the legalistic formula people use to insulate themselves from testifying truthfully to a Congressional committee or a grand jury.  In this situation, when the President says "can't recall," what he means is did ask, but not gonna tell.  So in more than one way, Harriet Miers is certainly not a John Roberts; Bush could plausibly claim he and Roberts never uttered a single word to each other about Roe.  But with Miers, the Senate, in exercising its power to advise and consent, properly has a right to know what Bush already does.

To that extent, I'm on the same side as Buchanan, Kristol and Frum.  But in honesty, I don't know why the right wing is flapping so furiously.  Miers is likely to be the anti-Souter, a nearly anonymous choice who slips onto the Court and then hews the Scalia-Thomas line.  Her statement when Bush picked her was drafted carefully to fire off buzz words like "strictly interpret" and hit the bull's-eye of "original intent," the odd notion that the Constitution is not a living document, but a parchment frozen in amber.  She donated to a right to life group and led an effort to reverse the American Bar Association's support for Roe v. Wade.  (The Republican research machine was putting out that information and Cheney as fast as possible.)

I know, there are a few tea leaves floating on the other side: she was once a Democrat; once donated to a long ago Gore campaign; and when she was running for citywide office in Dallas, filled out a questionnaire saying that gays ought to be treated equally and AIDS ought to be treated and prevented.  To the extent this rocks the right wing, I'm left with the question: To be conservative, do you have to be cruel?

If against all the odds, Miers turns out to be a Souter, that will be what Bush and Rove wanted: to keep the social issues without seeing the Court overturn decisions like Roe, which would alienate mainstream voters and could cast the Republicans from power in 2008.  The indisputable point is that Bush knows what he's getting; as he said at his press conference, [Meirs] "knows exactly what kind of judge I'm looking for."

To get this one, he tapped not only a Constitutional cipher, but a crony.  I've heard the argument that Rehnquist didn't have any judicial experience either, but no one doubted his knowledge of the Constitution and the Court; and Richard Nixon, the President who chose him, was so casually aware of him that on the tapes, he kept referring to him as "Renchburg."

The Bushes, father and son, now hold a joint place in history: They have called the two most meagerly qualified Supreme Court nominees in decades the "most qualified" they could find for the job.  It is tempting to respond that they weren't looking very hard.  But I'm convinced Bush clearly understood what he was doing -- and it's liberals and moderates who should be worried as the Judiciary Committee hearings approach.  At least, they should be joining the dissident right wingers in demanding that Miers tell the Senate and the nation what Bush already knows -- where she stands on critical Constitutional doctrines. 

Otherwise, all my side will be left with is the faint hope that Harriet Miers, who apparently called President Bush the "most brilliant" person she's known, will decide that Justice Stephen Breyer is the second most brilliant.  But I'm not betting on it.  Buchanan's wrong again: The Meirs appointment isn't about "diversity;" it's about a weakened President trying to have his way without making too many waves.  Bush just didn't see the riptide coming from the right.

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October 3, 2005 | 3:53 p.m. ET

Bush recoils from greatness (Pat Buchanan)

MSNBC TV

Handed a once-in-a-generation opportunity to return the Supreme Court to constitutionalism, George W. Bush passed over a dozen of the finest jurists of his day -- to name his personal lawyer.

In a decision deeply disheartening to those who invested such hopes in him, Bush may have tossed away his and our last chance to roll back the social revolution imposed upon us by our judicial dictatorship since the days of Earl Warren.

This is not to disparage Harriet Miers.  From all accounts, she is a gracious lady who has spent decades in the law and served ably as Bush’s lawyer in Texas and, for a year, as White House counsel.

But her qualifications for the Supreme Court are non-existent.  She is not a brilliant jurist, indeed, has never been a judge.  She is not a scholar of the law.  Researchers are hard-pressed to dig up an opinion.  She has not had a brilliant career in politics, the academy, the corporate world or public forum.  Were she not a friend of Bush, and female, she would never have even been considered.  

What commended her to the White House, in the phrase of the hour, is that she “has no paper trail.”  So far as one can see, this is Harriet Miers’ principal qualification for the U.S. Supreme Court.

What is depressing here is not what the nomination tells us of her, but what it tells us of the president who appointed her.  For in selecting her, Bush capitulated to the diversity-mongers, used a critical Supreme Court seat to reward a crony, and revealed that he lacks the desire to engage the Senate in fierce combat to carry out his now-suspect commitment to remake the court in the image of Scalia and Thomas.  In picking her, Bush ran from a fight.  The conservative movement has been had -- and not for the first time by a president by the name of Bush.

Choosing Miers, the president passed over outstanding judges and proven constitutionalists like Michael Luttig of the 4th Circuit and Sam Alito of the 3rd.  And if he could not take the heat from the First Lady, and had to name a woman, what was wrong with U.S. appellate court judges Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owens and Edith Jones?

What must these jurists think today about their president today?  How does Bush explain to his people why Brown, Owens and Jones were passed over for Miers?  

Where was Karl Rove in all of this?  Is he so distracted by the Valerie Plame investigation he could not warn the president against what he would be doing to his reputation and coalition?

Reshaping the Supreme Court is an issue that unites Republicans and conservatives   And with his White House and party on the defensive for months over Cindy Sheehan and Katrina, Iraq and New Orleans, Delay and Frist, gas prices and immigration, here was the great opportunity to draw all together for a battle of philosophies, by throwing the gauntlet down to the Left, sending up the name of a Luttig, and declaring, “Go ahead and do your worst.  We shall do our best.”

Do the Bushites not understand that “conservative judges” is one of those issues where the national majority is still with them?

What does it tell us that White House, in selling her to the party and press, is pointing out that Miers “has no paper trial.”  What does that mean, other than that she is not a Rehnquist, a Bork, a Scalia or a Thomas?

Conservatives cherish justices and judges who have paper trails.  For that means these men and women have articulated and defended their convictions.  They have written in magazines and law journals about what is wrong with the courts and how to make it right.  They had stood up to the prevailing winds.  They have argued for the Constitution as the firm and fixed document the Founding Fathers wrote, not some thing of wax.

A paper trail is the mark of a lawyer, a scholar or a judge who has shared the action and passion of his or her time, taken a stand on the great questions, accepted public abuse for articulating convictions.

Why is a judicial cipher like Harriet Miers to be preferred to a judicial conservative like Edith Jones?

One reason: Because the White House fears nominees “with a paper trail” will be rejected by the Senate, and this White House fears, above all else, losing.  So, it has chosen not to fight. 

Bush had a chance for greatness in remaking the Supreme Court, a chance to succeed where his Republican predecessors from Nixon to his father all failed.  He instinctively recoiled from it.  He blew it.  His only hope now is that Harriet Miers, if confirmed, will not vote like the lady she replaced, or, worse, like his father’s choice who also had “no paper trail,” David Souter.

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September  30, 2005 |

Ignore call for culture war (Bob Shrum)

MSNBC TV

You've got to give Pat credit for consistency. He tells the battered Bush, the indicted DeLay, and the investigated Frist to save themselves by launching a culture war.  It's the same advice Pat gave the first President Bush after he lost a primary challenge to him in 1992.  Actually, he forced the advice on him, turning the first night of the Houston Convention into an anti-choice, anti-gay celebration of intolerance that drove Ronald Reagan out of prime time and drove Papa Bush's poll ratings even deeper into the ground. As a Democrat, maybe I should hope this Bush heeds Pat's counsel. A protracted battled over a Bush Supreme Court nominee far out of the mainstream might consolidate the hard line base — by the way, where else do they have to go? But it will leave Bush more isolated than ever in the right wing's amen corner while a rising tide of disaffection overtops the weakened levees of this Administration.

I don't assume Pat actually cares about Bush.  He just thinks that maybe on the way down and out, Bush will jerk the Court to the right, so that over time it will subvert individual rights and social progress with the same ideological fervor that led it to steal the 2,000 Presidential election.  A far right Supreme Court nominee is Pat's nostrum for every affliction that ails this Administration.  Read his recent blogs. The Iraq War is a quagmire; Hurricane Katrina hits; top Republicans in Congress are caught in scandals along with an assortment of ex-aides, k Street lobbyists and friends — in every case, Pat's solution is the same: Give me an extremist Justice. 

For the sake of the country, the Constitution and his own presidency, maybe Bush will heed his earthly father's advice and ignore Pat's clarion call to a culture war.

But Pat's latest blog is right about one thing: the DeLays and the Frists may be in too deep to get out.  I'm not sure Pat cares much about them either, but he does sideswipe the case against DeLay by repeating the standard Republican line that he was indicted by a "partisan prosecutor."  But the prosecutors only come in two types, Republicans and Democrats.  Do conservatives think only Republicans should investigate Republicans?  I can see why: with one party controlling both houses of Congress, the investigative process has been reduced to a game of partisan patty-cake.  The only exception is John McCain (sorry, senator, I don't really want to get you in trouble by complimenting you.)

I don't know whether Tom DeLay will be convicted or Bill Frist will go the way of Martha Stewart, who was prosecuted, or persecuted, on what may prove to be far flimsier evidence of insider trading. But I do know that history doesn't offer much comfort to Congressional leaders once they fall off the ethical ledge. Democrats Tony Coehlo and Jim Wright, Republicans Newt Gingrich and Bob Livingston all learned that once the walls start closing in, the only way out is out.

Things, of course, could get even worse for the White House and the Republicans. But don't worry. If Karl Rove or Cheney Chief of Staff Libby have to face the legal music, Pat Buchanan will have the solution: Nominate a far right-winger to the Supreme Court.

Court.Questions/Comments?  Email Hardblogger@msnbc.com

September  29, 2005 | 3:13 p.m. ET

Broken Hammer? (Pat Buchanan)

MSNBC TV

With the indictment of Majority Leader Tom Delay and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist under investigation by the SEC for possible insider trading, the GOP has taken a punishing one-two punch this week.

The charges against Delay -- that he conspired to raise corporate cash in Texas, "soft money" that can't go to candidates, then had it sent to the RNC, and got in return "hard money" for Texas state legislative races, was brought by a partisan prosecutor whom most agree has it in for Delay.  If that D.A., Ronnie Earle, has smeared Delay and ruined his career as an act of retribution for Delay's triumphs in Texas politics, he, not Tom Delay, belongs in jail.  We will have to wait to discover what evidence Earle has for his charge.  

But there is no denying that given The Hammer's ethics problems -- three citations from the House Ethics Committee amid reports of many miles of first-class travel in the company of and courtesy of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, it is hard to see how Delay can again be the leader of House Republicans.  And given his reputation as a sometimes ruthless straw boss, not a few House Republicans commiserating with Tom in caucus are probably silently relishing his fall.

Frist's case is a simple but deadly serious one.  The sole question is:

Was he alerted by any member of his family, who also dumped shares of HCA, that a bad earnings report was probably coming in?   Frist has emphatically denied it.  Thus his integrity and credibility, not to mention career, are on the line.  He will need a clean bill of health from federal investigators to remain viable as a presidential candidate.

Neither President Bush nor his party needed all this.  The President already had ethics clouds swirling about his White House, with the Valerie Plame investigation about to wrap up, the Pentagon-AIPAC spy trial soon to begin, the procurement chief at the White House, David Safavian having just been arrested in connection with a land deal involving Abramoff, and charges of cronyism in naming "Brownie" and the boys to FEMA and in selecting the 36-year-old niece of General Myers to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  ICE is lodged under Homeland Security and Julie Myers is betrothed to the chief of staff to Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security.  All in the family.

Ethics clouds, cronyism, nepotism aside, Bush's approval rating is at the lowest of his presidency, his Social Security reform appears dead, by 2-1 Americans disapprove of him as war president, and half the American people think Iraq was a mistake and we ought to start drawing down troops if not pull out altogether. And the President is still playing catch-up on Katrina.

He needs to change the subject, select a field of battle where he has the high ground, and, as the Corleones used to say, "go to the mattresses."  As soon as John Roberts is approved as Chief Justice, Bush should go right in the face of his chortling enemies and name a visible Scalia-Thomas strict constructionist to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, and let Leahy, Biden, Kennedy and Clinton fulminate all they wish.  A national brawl over a Supreme Court nominee, with conservatives and the GOP behind Bush would be the kind of battle to rekindle faith in him as the strong decisive leader of post-9/11.  If Bush's nominee reeks of cronyism, or affirmative action for purposes of "diversity," or mushy moderation, it is hard to see when, where or how, he recovers the lost magic.

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September  23, 2005 |

Hunkering down in Beaumont ( David Shuster)

They have tried to move some of the equipment from the first-responders to areas that are high enough, so the storm surge won’t get them.  The refineries have been turned off.  And the evacuation here has now ended.  Even though 250,000 people live in this county, the fire and police say that, if you’re still here, that’s it.  They estimate as many as 10 percent may have decided to go ahead and stay and ride out the storm. 

But, earlier today, it was just a bizarre picture at the Beaumont Airport, when the last group of people to be evacuated was a group of elderly and infirm, some bed-ridden who were actually taken out on baggage-handling trolleys from the terminal to the C-130 military transport plane.  They were lined up like golf clubs would be on these trolleys.  Then, the people were put aboard these military aircraft.

The reason that the military aircraft were brought in is because this entire area was only under an optional evacuation just a couple of days ago.  Then, two days ago, they made it mandatory when it was clear that the storm was headed north.  They realized that a lot of equipment, the ambulances, the buses that would normally take the infirm and bed-ridden out of here had already been sent to south Texas.

So, they called the military in to come in and help.  And they have evacuated a couple hundred people through these military aircraft.  Approximately 25,000 to 30,000 people may have remained in this county, where they expect a bulls-eye to come ashore – a very big concern.

You have got some 200 plants that are either chemical plants or oil refineries along the coast in this particular area; 30 percent of the nation’s jet fuel comes from this particular county, you have got economic concerns, but then you also have huge environmental concerns, because remember what happened in Louisiana…. 

When the refineries were split open, it caused huge swathes of land to be uninhabitable for people there.  As a result, there are very great concerns that some people may in fact not be able to return if there are huge problems with some of these refineries, as far as the storm surge coming and taking them out. 

E-mail: DShuster@msnbc.com

September 22, 2005 | 1:02 p.m. ET

A divided house addresses Katrina
(Mike Viqueira, NBC News correspondent)

One look at the inaugural hearing of the House Select Committee on Katrina tells you all you need to know about the state of politics in your U.S. House.

If the committee room were an airplane, the captain would be on the overhead speakers asking passengers to please redistribute themselves throughout the cabin so that things would be more in balance. There are 11 House Republicans who dutifully showed up for the 10 a.m. start, along with a couple of dozen staffers. All of them are gathered on the west side of the room.

But Democrats, led by their leader Nancy Pelosi, have refused to participate, labeling the proceeding a "sham" and a "whitewash." They of course favor an independent, 9-11 style commission, not one that has majority Republicans in charge of investigating an administration run by one their own. Their side of the room is empty.

But wait! Two Democrats have shown up - at the invitation of Chairman Tom Davis (R-Va.) - even though they have not officially been named as members. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), who lost his home on Mississippi's gulf coast, and Charlie Melancon, D-La., whose southeast Louisiana congressional district is pretty much in ruins. Republicans are counting on their participation to give legitimacy to the proceedings and to put Pelosi in a tough spot: If the committee is good enough for these two with all they have seen and been through, then why isn't it good enough for Nancy Pelosi?

Both Taylor and Melancon are toward the middle of the spectrum, and it is therefore symbolically appropriate that they are seated immediately next to the Republican chairman.

"When you are pulling people out of the water and off of rooftops, there are no Republicans and no Democrats," says Melancon.

For their part, Republicans are emphasizing the role of state and local authorities in the Katrina debacle. "The weather service can lead officials to information, but they can't make them think," says Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.)

Questions/Comments? Email Hardblogger@msnbc.com

September 22, 2005 | 10:21 a.m. ET

No 'there' there in left's Roberts bashing (Ed Rogers)

The biggest problem Democrats have with John Roberts is that they have no problem with him, in truth.  There is no there there when it comes to the Left's portrayal of Roberts as reactionary-activist thug in strict-constructionist clothing, and everybody -- especially the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee -- knows it.  It was no surprise when the Democratic senators' questioning of Roberts devolved immediately to an exercise in homage to the activist groups on the Left who want to kill Roberts' nomination for one simple reason: he was nominated by a president they loathe.
 
All of official Washington is in on the joke. There is no Democratic insider in town who isn't laughing at the theatrics half daytime soap, half Shakespearian tragedy of the Democratic senators and the liberal special interest groups.

Senator Edward Kennedy became a caricature of himself during the hearings as he called Roberts clueless, mean-spirited, a beyond-the-fringe extremist, even as he became a symbol of the Democrats empty posturing on Roberts. The Left knows that their attacks on Roberts record and personal beliefs have no basis in reality, so they've gone for quantity of imprecation over quality of questioning.
 
Last week Howard Dean said, "This is a time for justice tempered with mercy and understanding.  There is no evidence of either in Judge Roberts' career. The president should be denied this nomination."
 
There is no evidence of cruelty or bigotry in Roberts' career, of course, but that won't make Ralph Neas happy. So Dean and his allies use reverse psychology to imply that there is. The old-fashioned term for this is lying.

But in what may be the best single omen for Roberts, the mainstream media is in mourning for his inevitable confirmation.
 
Barring the revelation of an outrageous scandal, Judge John Roberts is about to become the next chief justice of the United States, the Boston Globe reported with equal amounts of wistfulness and hope this week. The bottom line is that barring some last minute photo of John Roberts popping out of a cake at a KKK rally smoking crack, he's going to be confirmed, columnist Ellen Goodman wrote sadly, but not before allowing for the possibility that he could still be magically derailed.
 
Magically derailed? Goodman's despondent wish sums up the Democrats fondest dream. But it would take a supernatural feat to slime the man. And as with all magic tricks, the real action in the confirmation hearings took place behind the scenes. Pull back the curtain in the Judiciary committee room, and you'd find Ralph Neas, frantically trying to find a rabbit for Joe Biden or Chuck Schumer to pull out of a hat. 

It is a fine irony that John Roberts did not rise to the senators' bait, and that he was universally described as unflappable and understated in his testimony. Ultimately, it was the Left's failed fishing expedition for an ideologue where there was none that showed the country that John Roberts will be a chief justice who responds only to the Constitution, and not to any low dramatics.

Even Senator Leahy has decided to vote for the confirmation of John Roberts.  Maybe Leahy should find Ralph Neas and Senator Kennedy somewhere in the halls of the senate and pass on Vice President Cheney's now infamous admonition.

Ed Rogers is a Republican strategist and former aide to the first President Bush.

Questions/Comments? Email Hardblogger@msnbc.com

September  21, 2005 |

Real world Vs. Bush's world (Mike Barnicle)

I am in aisle three of the supermarket, watching a woman choose between a box of store brand Frosted Flakes and the real deal sold by Kellogg. She is holding a child, maybe four years old, with one hand and a cereal box with her left.  And she is about to do something that Bush the president is either incapable of doing or figures isn’t necessary: make a budget decision based on common sense and economics.

The President clearly believes everything is possible. We can hemorrhage billions in Iraq, spend billions more to rebuild New Orleans and resurrect our very own Gulf, trim taxes and throw it all on a credit card someone else – our kids – will pay in the decades ahead. This guy, smiling in his rolled up shirtsleeves, has obviously never had to sweat while signing a check for college tuition, sneakers, groceries or to bail out a basement filled with water.

His fiftyish face is nearly wrinkle free because he has been blessed with a fortunate life and a “thanks dad” existence. He is charming and friendly, isolated and uncurious about the world that has come crashing down around him - not the political world. The real one; the universe filled with disasters large and small that ordinary folks navigate on a daily basis.

So, Katrina might be to George W. Bush what Tet was to the last president from Texas, Lyndon Johnson. In February 1968, the pictures from Vietnam resulted in LBJ’s administration joining the casualty list despite the fact that the North Vietnamese suffered a true military defeat. Yet it reality didn’t matter. Impressions won the day.

And the technology of television in the 21st Century brought something into living rooms that has long been ignored: poor people and bureaucratic incompetence. That combination, seen clearly on MSNBC and other venues, shocked and embarrassed Americans who have been fed a steady electronic diet of car chases and celebrity.

The TV shots were like a national MRI, exposing cultural symptoms – poverty, race and class – that have been pushed to our back pages by terrorism and affluence and the desire by both networks and newspapers alike to reach the home delivery, I-Pod listening, cable-ready, suburban living, disposable income spending set.

And the event itself – a hurricane – was something that not even Karl Rove could spin. The White House couldn’t dodge and weave behind information leaked from intelligence briefings because everyone is familiar with rain, wind and storm damage.

And anyone who works for a living, pays taxes, has kids, a mortgage or rent due at the end of each month knows with a solid certainty that a broken or bloated budget means potential family disaster. You don’t have to be Alan Greenspan to figure out that – in the real world where George W. Bush does not live – even the future can be foreclosed by a few wrong choices.

Maybe that’s why the woman in aisle three went for the store brand Frosted Flakes at a savings of .89 cents. It all adds up and choices have to be made.

Questions/Comments?  Email Hardblogger@msnbc.com

September  20, 2005 |

Bush:  Ideology and incompetence (Bob Shrum)

MSNBC TV

Pat and I both believe in the power of speeches because, after all, we’ve each written so many of them. But sometimes speeches are of little avail against the tide of events. In 1968, Lyndon Johnson couldn’t overcome the reality of a deepening quagmire in Vietnam no matter what he said or how well he said it; what were Americans going to believe – Lyndon Johnson’s words or what they were seeing with their own eyes every night on television? So it was with Richard Nixon and Watergate; we heard the tapes, and it didn’t matter that he said: “I’m not a crook.” (Pat, did you write that line?) No speech could undo the damage.

So it is with George W. Bush now.  What Pat in effect describes as “not a great speech” but an adequate one, was eerily lit by White House Advance men who got their giant generators to New Orleans far faster than FEMA delivered food, water and rescue to those trapped in the disaster. The Bush tableau couldn’t erase or make up for the images – and the reality—that shocked the nation and the world. Katrina blew away the facade of compassionate conservatism and the false front of the Bush Administration’s competence.

First in Iraq and now in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast, the Bushies have manifested a lethal combination of ideology and incompetence. Ideology led them to fight the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Incompetence led to failures in diplomacy, planning, and provision for our troops that have left us stuck chin deep in the big muddy of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Ideology led the Bush Administration to downgrade FEMA and turn it into a parking lot for political hacks.

The President was right, but not in the way he meant it, when he said, in a line that will probably make it into the next edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations: “Brownie, you’re doing a  heck of a job.” The truth is it was a hell of a job, bungled on a historic scale, proving that those who are ideologically anti-government don’t do very well at running government.  Look at the unforgettable images, day after day, of the carnage in New Orleans, much of it due to the incompetence of our own government. The Bush Administration promised to bring democracy to Baghdad and succeeded in bringing Baghdad to the United States.

The President offered a solution in his night-time sermonette –massive federal spending
He also gave people in need a hotline number to call; when they dialed it, it was jammed. The Bush Administration couldn’t even answer the phone. A lot of the spending Bush wants reflects an impulse to use Katrina as an excuse to advance right-wing rostrums like school vouchers. But they’ll spend on public works on a scale we haven’t seen since the New Deal. George W. Bush is desperate to salvage something, not just of New Orleans but of his water-logged Presidency; even with Karl Rove overseeing the effort (what has he ever run but campaigns?), public relations won’t be enough. In desperation, the Administration has been driven to big, federal programs and investment in infrastructure –previously reserved for Iraq.

Ironically, under George W. Bush, the era of small government is over.

What Pat obviously hopes to salvage is a Supreme Court that will roll back fundamental rights and overturn Roe v. Wade. If that happens, red states will turn blue and the era of Republican competitiveness in national politics will be over.

Compounding Bush’s problems, as Pat acknowledges, is that other area of ideology and incompetence – Iraq. It could, as he admits, destroy this Presidency and generate a Category 5 defeat for the Republicans in the 2006 election. So Pat, isn’t it time for George W. Bush to do what he finally and grudgingly did after Katrina: admit he was wrong, take responsibility, and change course?

Questions/Comments?  Email Hardblogger@msnbc.com

September  19, 2005 |

Bush at low tide (Pat Buchanan)

MSNBC TV

As the petty carping from Senators Reid and Kerry indicates, President Bush’s speech from Jackson Square was a success.  Again, he accepted responsibility for the torpid response of federal authorities.  He showed empathy for the victims and recognition the poor had borne the brunt of the New Orleans disaster.

He came prepared with a credible agenda of action.  And the biblical allusions fit well with Southern and religious folks, black and white.  Not a great speech, but Gersen did the job, put the President out front and center as Big Boss in the rebuilding of New Orleans.

Also, New Orleans and Louisiana officials, Democrats though they may be, are unlikely to keep attacking a fellow who is going to decide how $65 billion is spend in their back yard.  After mishandling the crisis, the president has been on top and out front for two weeks.  While the memory of his stumbling and bumbling will be part of his legacy, the worst is behind him, the story now gets better with the recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans, a story Americans will like. 

Media and Democrats who continue to snipe will soon appear to be what many are: inveterate Bush-baiters and Bush-bashers. Nevertheless, there is no denying that George W. Bush is now at the nadir of his presidency.  The aura of 9/11 is gone.  His approval is at 40%.  Iraq appears an insoluble mess with the real potential for a strategic and economic disaster.  Gas prices are biting.  The immigration situation—and the president’s inexplicable refusal to protect the border—is killing him with his populist base. 

While the Roberts appointment was a coup, the Scalia constitutionalists will still have, when he becomes Chief Justice, only three solid votes of nine.  It is difficult to exaggerate the criticality of the nominee to replace Sandra Day O’Connor.  It has to be a nominee who will rally the Republican-conservative base -- or Bush’s strongest supporters will start leaving the stadium. Those imploring Bush to name a “centrist” to the court, to avoid a bloody brawl, the “Can’t-we-all-just-get-along-crowd?” -- should have their pundit’s licenses pulled for malpractice. 

But those, like my friend E. J. Dionne, who wrote, “The Bush era is over,” are expressing hopes, not describing reality.  Bush holds the most powerful office on earth -- and will for the next three years and four months.  He draws up a federal budget of $2.4 trillion, can veto bills, appoint Supreme Court Justices, attend summits, negotiate treaties, go on national TV virtually at will, and pull out or send in troops to Iraq. 

Ask the Syrians if they think, “The Bush era is over.”  The people writing Bush off today were calling him a success six weeks ago when he got CAFTA and the highway and energy bills.  He is going through a rough patch, but nothing like Iran-Contra in Reagan’s second term or Hurricane Monica in Clinton’s.  Moreover, he is eternally blessed in his opposition.  Jackson, Sharpton, Pelosi & Reid is not an all-pro Front Four.

The real problem for the President -- and for us -- is Iraq.  How do we pull out of there without having it collapse in chaos or a civil war that could draw in Turks, Iranians and Sunni volunteers.  And if we can’t get out, how does the president continue to take casualties fighting a war that a majority of Americans now believe should never have been begun and should be ended. 

Like Prometheus, Bush is chained to the rock with the vulture gnawing at his liver.  His presidency is riding as much on Iraq as LBJ’s was on Vietnam. As for the GOP, it would be facing a Category 5 election in 2006 if the opposition were not a portrait of mediocrity.

Questions/Comments?  Email Hardblogger@msnbc.com

September  16, 2005 |

Reading Roberts: Notes from the Roberts Hearings (Pete Williams)

Before the hearings for John Roberts began, staff aides to senators from both parties predicted a party-line vote of approval from the Judiciary Committee.  But after listening to Roberts for a third day, two committee Democrats said -- surprisingly -- they hadn't made up their minds.

"I, for one, have woken up in the middle of the night thinking about it, being unsure how to vote," said Senator Charles Schumer of New York.  Added Diane Feinstein of California, "I don't really know what I'm going to do with respect to voting for you or voting against you."

Two factors appear to have produced their hesitation to opposing President Bush's first Supreme Court nominee: no one on the committee questions that John Roberts has the intellectual ability to handle the job, and he has come across as less of a doctrinaire conservative than his Reagan-era memos made him appear.

His answers on Wednesday suggest he does not share the judicial philosophies of the court's most conservative members, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.  He said, for example, that he believes the Constitution provides a right to privacy, and he agreed with the Supreme Court's application of the privacy right in cases striking down state laws against contraceptives. 

Those rulings form part of the foundation of Roe v Wade.

He also said he finds it useful to review legislative history in interpreting ambiguous laws, and he said he was not an "originalist" in reading the Constitution.

"I depart from the views of original intent in the sense that some people view it as meaning just the conditions" at the time provisions in the Constitution were adopted. "I think you need to look at the words they used, and if the words adopt a broader principle, it applies more broadly," he said.

On Thursday, Roberts was repeatedly pressed about what kind of justice he would be.

"Would you restrict freedom in America, or would you expand it?" asked Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.

To find the answer, Roberts said, "look at what kind of judge I've been," by reading the 50 opinions he wrote on the federal appeals court in Washington, DC.

"I don't think you can read those opinions and say these are the opinions of an ideologue."
Roberts was careful not to tip his hand on how he would vote on potential cases involving abortion, civil rights, and the other issues he discussed in his memos as a Reagan administration lawyer.

But, says Prof. Steven Wermeil of American University's Washington College of Law, "He did convey the sense that he's not going to show up at the Supreme Court with a copy of Reagan-Bush political agenda in his jacket pocket."

Questions/Comments?  Email Hardblogger@msnbc.com

September  15, 2005 |

Contempt of Congress
(Steve McMahon, Democratic Strategist and Longtime Dean Advisor)

The most stunning revelation of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s recent hearings on the John Roberts nomination is how utterly meaningless and irrelevant these hearings have become in recent years.

In the course of four days of hearings, the American public has learned almost nothing new about Judge Roberts’s views, or how he would interpret the constitution.  Democrats who promised to grill Judge Roberts about those views have been essentially filibustered or largely ignored.  And the White House, which never really regarded the “advice and consent” clause of the constitution as anything more than a minor irritant, has been rewarded once again for its arrogance-arrogance amply demonstrated by its refusal to provide committee Democrats with legal documents, written by John Roberts, in which he actually did what he would be asked to do on the highest court in the land: interpret and apply the law.

But rather than provide those documents, what the White House provided instead was a careful, calibrated, and calculated display of John Roberts as the judicial equivalent of a “Stepford Wife.”  Legitimate questions about his views on women’s rights, voting rights, civil rights, or access to America’s courts, were largely ignored.  What senators were treated to instead was a nominee for the High Court who gamely played along with the White House wish that he say as little as possible, in as many ways as possible, without really saying anything at all.  It’s a game that will continue until the senators run out of time, tire of asking questions that will never be answered, or simply give up and go home.

And the irony isn’t just that the White House will get away with it.  The painful political reality is that at the conclusion of the hearings, with little or no new information, Democratic Senators will have a difficult choice to make: They can vote for a man they know very little about, which would likely please the majority of voters who believe Judge Roberts should be confirmed-absent a new revelation that the White House has ensured will never come.  Or they can cast a vote in opposition, which would please a Democratic political base that is becoming increasingly hostile to the President and his agenda, and increasingly vocal in expressing its frustration with Democrats who don’t oppose everything the President is for. 

Such is the new world Democrats increasingly find themselves in: caught between partisan activists who fund the party, determine party (and presidential) nominees, and make the party work, and a larger bloc of voters who aren’t particularly partisan but determine who wins and loses on election day. 

It’s a tough place for Democrats to be. But if the president’s recent approval ratings are any indication, there’s never been a better time to take this president on.

Questions/Comments?  Email Hardblogger@msnbc.com

September  13, 2005 |

Small steps towards progress (David Shuster)

The numbers now coming in reflect the search-and-recovery teams that are able to go back to some of the locations where they first identified bodies, but could not retrieve.  The bodies are now being retrieved and processed as the New Orleans area dries out.

As for the town itself, if you take Canal Street all the way towards the lake, there, off to the side streets, there is still a little bit of water.  But, for the most part, it is drying out.  The water line up to the first level, five or six feet, is just decaying.  This rotted wood is not going to be able to be replaced.  People are going to have to essentially build from scratch in some of these spots just in part because of the decomposition.

The Military has tried to secure the downtown area, the financial district and the tourist district.  But they have also taken a major step in that direction by opening the airport today: Three flights came in; two flights went out.  On one of the flights out, they only had two passengers.  But, nonetheless, even supervisor of the airport declares this a very symbolic day.  They are sending a message that businesses are going to be welcomed back in New Orleans,  that there is going to be something for people to return to in this city. 

E-mail: DShuster@msnbc.com

September  13, 2005 | 4:36 p.m. ET

Let’s play Hardball, not baseball! (Chip Reid)

NBC's Chip Reid
NBC's Chip Reid

It was an awkward moment, but believe it or not "Hardball" got a plug at the Roberts hearings today -- sort of.  Democrat Joe Biden of Delaware started off his questioning by saying "As Chris Matthews says 'let's play baseball.'"  Oops.  He meant Hardball and, in fact, he was the toughest questioner of the day (with Kennedy a close second.)

Biden tried to pin Roberts down on where he stands on Roe v. Wade -- whether he'll vote to overturn the case that established a constitutional right to abortion.  As everyone predicted, Roberts refused to say, arguing that he was following the "Ginsburg rule" -- referring to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's refusal at her Supreme Court hearings to gave hints about how she would rule on specific issues.  He wouldn't go any farther than to say that (1) there is a right to privacy in the constitution, and (2) Roe is settled precedent. 

That refusal to answer got Biden worked up (which is not hard to do), and he repeatedly interrupted Roberts, sometimes sarcastically, at one point saying Roberts could continue to not answer the question.  Chairman Specter, who's a stickler for treating witnesses with respect (some would say with the exception of Anita Hill) chastised Biden for interrupting, to which Biden blurted out that he had a right to interrupt -- because Roberts' answers were misleading.  Specter replied that his answers may be misleading, but they're his answers, and he should be allowed to speak. 

Biden quieted down and Roberts continued.  But the frustration on the part of Biden -- and other Democrats -- was evident.  In fact, I've been told by Democratic committee staffers that if Roberts refuses to avoid direct answers on big issues like abortion, all eight committee Democrats might vote against him.

Questions/comments:  hardblogger@msnbc.com


September 12, 2005 | 12:36 p.m. ET

Same old song and dance (Joe Solmonese, Guest blogger)

Courtesy Human Rights Campaign

I wish the Bush Administration would put on a new record. John Roberts' pending Supreme Court hearing, like so many major debates over the course of the last six years, will likely feature the same old song and dance by the White House. With its refusal to release information and tell us the full story, the progressive community has to evaluate those documents we have at hand.  And the evidence is clear: this is a nomination we must oppose. 

While there are scores of documents this administration continues to keep hidden, common sense should guide our way.  Do we seriously think that these hidden documents would make Roberts more or less palatable to the American people?  Employing some old fashioned common sense makes that an easy question to answer.

A few weeks ago, the Human Rights Campaign joined the growing chorus of those speaking out in opposition to the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts. For those Americans who believe that our highest court in the land is the place where every citizen should have a chance to argue for freedom and liberty, opposing Judge Roberts' nomination was the only option.  Now, after learning that he would join the court as its Chief Justice we feel even more resolute in our belief that John Roberts is the wrong person for the job.

After researching more than 20 years of judicial opinions, writings and speeches it became crystal clear that President Bush was making good on the promise he made to his right-wing base in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Judge Roberts would be a Chief Justice in the image of Justices Scalia and Thomas -- two of President Bush's "favorites."

Roberts' judicial philosophy -- evident in the documents released from the Reagan administration as well as the decisions he made as a federal judge - is one that has such a narrow view of what the Constitution can and should do for the American people it's amazing he even wants the job. That philosophy translates into a big problem for every fair-minded American. 

A close look at his record reveals:
-- He dismisses the "so-called right to privacy" and by doing so not only threatens reproductive freedoms but also threatens the legal underpinnings to Lawrence v. Texas, which overturned laws that effectively labeled gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans as criminals
--He believes that court-stripping bills that would deny millions of Americans their day in court are constitutional;
-- He questions Congress's authority to enact laws that would protects us from employment discrimination and hate crimes;
-- And he urged President Reagan not to tell the American people that children couldn't spread HIV through casual contact -- contradicting centers for disease control guidelines on the subject.

It is up to Roberts to refute this troubling record--unlike the right to privacy, which we know is fundamental to every American and protected in our Constitution, there is no "right" to become Chief Justice of the United States. 

Yet, after all of this, some continue to call for restraint and tell us that we should withhold our opposition until after the Senate hearings.  I disagree. I believe when civil rights are in jeopardy, there can be no delay in standing up for the freedom of the American people. 

It's time for us to stand up and say: enough is enough. This is no time to give the benefit of the doubt to an administration that has attempted to write discrimination into our Constitution. Others might call it restraint. I call it fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Joe Solmonese is the president of the Human Rights Campaign, America's largest gay and lesbian organization.


Questions/comments:  hardblogger@msnbc.com

September 12, 2005 | 12:29 p.m. ET

"Senatorial Consistency" -- an oxymoron? (Ben Ginsberg, Guest blogger)

Courtesy Ben Ginsberg

My, aren't the Democratic Senators in an interesting place.  Especially the ones on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  And aren't they placing their fellow Democratic Senators, especially the ones from Red States, in an even more interesting position?

Here's what I mean.  The liberal special interest groups are in a frenzy to show their relevance and try to stop John Roberts -- especially since his elevation to Chief Justice nominee -- by saying whatever they have to.  And truth be told, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are far more liberal than Senate Democrats as a whole - and, therefore, the most likely to heed the siren song from the Left. 

That means several things.  First, the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Judge Roberts is likely to be close (shut your eyes and imagine Senators Schumer, Kennedy, Biden, Leahy, Kohl, Feingold, Feinstein and Durbin backing a Bush Supreme Court nominee without kicking and screaming).  Second, the liberal special interest groups expect those Democratic Senators to listen to them -- no matter how well qualified the Senators might admit in their private moments John Roberts is to be on the Supreme Court.  Third, the rhetoric and inconsistency by Judiciary Committee Democrats is going to make a lot of other Democratic Senators feel just a tad uncomfortable.  And fourth, look at the way even those Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats are having to, uhm, "revise and extend" what they've said in prior Supreme Court confirmation proceedings.

My friends at Progress for America continue to find great examples of that Senatorial Consistency.

"The Gins will set you free"  - "Part Deux"
Additional research reveals that Justice Breyer received the same fair treatment as Ginsburg.

As in the case of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer was advised to avoid prejudging by Senators from both sides of political spectrum.

Judiciary Chairman Joe Biden (D-Del.) informed Breyer that "I'm not looking for you to give me an answer how you'd rule in any one case." Similarly, Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) instructed Breyer that "...if there are any that you feel it would be improper to answer, well, you say so." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 7/12/94)

Justice Breyer responded by declining to answer questions related to a myriad of issues, including abortion, the separation of powers, home schooling, religious freedom, and equal protection. Breyer was confirmed by a vote of 87 to 9 in the U.S. Senate on July 29th, 1994 - 76 days after his nomination.

Breyer's Refusal to Prejudge is Noted by the Media

--"Harmony, not rancor, dominated the hearing, even when the nominee declined to provide much insight into his views on issues such as abortion or the death penalty. Any jostling over philosophy between Judge Breyer and committee members was friendly and typically accompanied by bipartisan expressions of support for [Breyer]." (Steve McGonigle, "Opening Day Of Hearing Goes Well For Breyer," The Dallas Morning News, 7/13/94)

--"Breyer politely but firmly declined to give his personal views on most of the issues he was asked about." (Tony Mauro, "Breyer Uses His Head To Talk About His Heart And Soul," USA Today, 7/14/94)

--"Breyer repeatedly declined to answer questions on specific cases ... saying he did not want to prejudice future decisions." (Marc Sandalow, "Despite His Best Efforts, Breyer Sounds Brainy," The San Francisco Chronicle, 7/14/94)

Example: Judge Breyer Declined To Comment On Abortion:

SEN. THURMOND: "Judge Breyer, it is likely that Justice Blackmun is most widely known to the public as the author of Roe v. Wade. What was your impression of his majority opinion in that landmark decision? In particular give us your thoughts on where he draws the line at different points during pregnancy as it relates to the state's interest in the regulation of abortion-related services. For instance, do you agree that the first trimester of pregnancy is distinctive and that the state should not be able to prohibit abortion during that period?"

JUDGE BREYER: "You're asking questions, Senator, that I know are matters of enormous controversy. The case of Roe v. Wade has been the law --"

SEN. THURMOND: "Speak a little bit louder -"

JUDGE BREYER: "Oh, yes. The case of Roe v. Wade has been the law for 21 years, or more, and it was recently affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Casey. That is the law. The questions that you're putting to me are matters of how that basic right applies, where it applies, under what circumstances. And I don't think I should go into those, for the reason that those are likely to be the subject of litigation in front of the Court." (Committee On The Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Hearing, 7/12/94)

But what is Chuck Schumer saying now, as the head of the Democratic Senatorial Committee tries to mollify his fundraising base on the Left?  ''Apparently "prejudging" has a different definition if its a Republican Presidents nominee: -- Washington Post

"If Judge Roberts repeatedly resorts to the so-called 'Ginsburg Precedent,' it will sound less like a principled refusal to answer and more like a variation on the Fifth Amendment: 'I refuse to answer that question on the ground that it may incriminate me. Answering may reveal my actual views about constitutional law and cause me to lose votes."

It's getting fun now.  Will the Democratic Senators follow the precedent they established for their President's nominees?  Or will they follow the shrill dictates from the People for American Way, Alliance for Justice and MoveOn (which had a NARAL moment this week over an ad they were apparently about to air) and throw consistency out the window?  And if you're a Democrat Senator from a Red State, how uncomfortable are you with your party's public voices on the Judiciary Committee?

Stay tuned.

Progress for America advisor Benjamin L. Ginsberg was Bush/Cheney 2000 and 2004 National Counsel and regular MSNBC Commentator.

Questions/comments: hardblogger@msnbc.com

September 12, 2005 | 8:21 a.m. ET

John Roberts -- A fight for the majority (Hilary Rosen, guest blogger)

Courtesy Hilary Rosen

The White House and Republican response to discontent with John Roberts is basically “too bad, we won so we can nominate anyone we want.”  What an arrogant and completely bogus analysis for a responsibility as important as the nomination of a Supreme Court Justice.

In evaluating John Roberts, it shouldn’t matter who won. The President, whether he chooses to accept it or not is the President of all the people. And a majority of the people, Democrats and Republicans alike believe that the radical Christian right wing has too much political power. And they do not want to see this country turned upside down to satisfy this movement’s growing demands:  MAKE ABORTION ILLEGAL IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES EVEN IF A WOMAN”S LIFE IS IN DANGER; KEEP THE GAY PEOPLE AT BAY BY DEHUMANIZING THEIR FAMILIES AND UNDERMINGING THEIR PATRIOTISM; PROTECT WHITE GUY JOBS BY MAKING SURE WOMEN AND MINORITIES HAVE NO EQUAL ACCESS IN THE WORKPLACE; IGNORE MEDICAL SCIENCE AND HAVE CRISTIANITY RULE OUR REGULATORS ON RESEARCH AND DRUG APPROVALS; AND MAKE SURE YOUR RUN THE SENATE UNDER RULES THAT FAVOR OUR WAY OF DOING THINGS REGARDLESS OF CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES.

The American people want balance on the important social issues of the day. In every poll on the above issues they come out in favor of balance. In favor of fairness. In favor of individual rights. That is why Sandra Day O’Connor was popular. People actually believed she cared about the impact of her decisions, not that she was there on some political mission after pledging fealty to “one side”.  Pat Robertson’s lawyer, Jay Sekolow and others have been giving such assurances to the radical right wing for almost a year now about John Roberts. When right wingers like Pat Robertson, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Jerry Falwell all praised him THE DAY HIS NOMINATION IS ANNOUNCED even though his record was little known to the rest of the public, you can be sure that they were given plenty of upfront assurances that the above agenda would be held true by this nominee.

Polls show the President has significantly less than a majority of Americans supporting his Presidency.  It has taken a long time for it to register with most of the American people that the men running policy in this country are not the friends of the majority rather they are the friends of the minority. A minority of radical conservatives, a minority of selfish business interests, and a minority of arrogant politicians. The majority of politicians in Washington, Democrats and Republicans by the way think that these folks have too much power but they don’t really want to talk about it.

Well I understand why the Republicans don’t want to talk about it, but my Democratic friends, now it’s your turn.

Former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, a great friend, coined that term the “Teflon President” for Ronald Reagan.  Technology improves so for a while we have had the completely impermeable “All Clad” version of Teflon covering our current President.

It is time for Democrats in Washington to lead instead of trying to figure out new and inventive ways to message their way out of taking a tough stand on controversial issues.

And finally my friends, there is no reason to be so afraid. The Teflon is cracking.

This President is not impermeable. His top aides are under investigation, the war in Iraq is proving to be an unnecessary disaster, gas prices are at an all time high (as are oil industry profits) his social security plan died on the vine, and we have an unfortunate crisis in the south of our own country that only highlights how the President and the agendas of his friends have drained the resources of the American people.

Unmasking is possible. Start with the hearings.  These hearings are a teaching moment for America. Use regular language. Avoid playing to the lawyers in the crowd. Through your questions highlight the issues before the Supreme Court that affect everyday lives and American families. The people do not want the right wing controlling the government or the Courts and did not believe that President Bush would take this country backwards. These hearings must demonstrate that he has and will continue to do so unless the people speak.

The President has not offered another nominee for the O’Connor seat. This confirmation should be a package deal. It is not enough to say that we have a conservative replacing a conservative. Until we know that the balance of the Court will be honored, John Roberts can and should be opposed and you can do it with grace, determination and the support of the American people.  And YES, why not oppose as many nominees as it takes to hold this president accountable -- finally.

Hilary Rosen is a regular contributor to MSNBC’s Hardball. She is the former Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America and serves as a media consultant and Democratic political pundit. She has a column in Capitol File Magazine and on TheHuffingtonPost.com

Questions/comments:  hardblogger@msnbc.com

September 9, 2005 | 11:41 a.m. ET

Thank Katrina for Roberts' ascension (Bob Shrum)

MSNBC TV

Pat says that with the Roberts nomination, George W. Bush is moving "to put his personal stamp on the Supreme Court." The truth is that, in acting so fast, before Chief Justice Rehnquist was even buried, the President was trying to remove his personal stamp from the slow and shameful response to Hurricane Katrina.  He will be permanently identified with the inattentiveness, the incompetence, and the indifference -- the manmade disaster -- of a government that made the natural disaster of an historic storm far worse.  So when Bush got his first chance to distract the nation's attention last weekend, he took it.  Maybe the press and the public would re-focus, at least a little, on his elevation of Roberts rather than his choice of the fired head of the Arabian Horse Association -- "Brownie," as Bush calls him - to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

Thus John Roberts became the first Chief Justice ever to be appointed by a hurricane.
Pat's probably right that if he's confirmed, Roberts for Rehnquist won't re-weigh the juris prudential balance of the Supreme Court.  But there was a lot wrong with Rehnquist despite his defense of the judiciary's independence.  He was an activist, results-oriented judge who, if he had his way, would have rolled back the right to privacy, blocked efforts to achieve racial equality, and upheld the execution of 16-year olds.  Too often, he did have his way, leading to Court, for example, to limit the rights of the disabled.  But history will remember him most of the judicial coup that stole the 2000 Presidential election from the voters -- and Al Gore -- and handed it to George Bush.  Pat says Rehnquist "had a good sense of humor."  So does Pat Buchanan, but I wouldn't put him on the Supreme Court.

I don't harbor a lot of hope in that selecting his next nominee, Bush will look to the broader interests and unity of the country instead of his hard-line base, the religious right and the fervent majority of Americans who believe in Pat's "culture wars."  Pat declared that war at the 1992 Republican Convention, and helped to sink the first Bush Presidency.  This Bush, unfortunately, isn't up for re-election anymore or he'd be beaten, too.  Now Pat proposes that he make the Supreme Court all right wing all the time.  But a stubborn, ideological course - on Court appointments or in Iraq - now threatens to leave the post-Katrina Bush administration floundering in its own failures, ineffective and incompetent.

Pat quotes a Master of Balliol College at Oxford counseling those about to inherit the British Empire: "Never complain, never explain, just do it -- and let them howl."  Soon there was no empire to inherit -- and if this President takes Pat's advice, the Bush administration will inherit the wind.  But if Pat gets his way on the culture war, as he writes, "who cares?"  After all, it's just another Bush Presidency. 

Questions/comments:  hardblogger@msnbc.com

September 8, 2005 |

Guard units go door-to-door (David Shuster)

Today I tagged along with the U.S. Army National Guard.  They went door-to-door in a light-armored vehicle trying to convince remaining New Orleans residents to leave. 

A unit that is based in Lincoln, Nebraska actually got the order to come out here five days after the hurricane hit.   Nonetheless, as part of their preparations, each day starts with Black Hawk helicopters taking to the skies over New Orleans and then essentially taking pictures that are then brought down and shown to various commanders.

This morning, for example, a lieutenant briefed the crew.  Then he would brief the firefighters that would go along and the New Orleans Police, because the New Orleans Police know the streets better than these guys from Lincoln, Nebraska.  So, in any case, they go through the preparations. 

The sweep went through an area of east New Orleans where they haven’t had many rescue vehicles go so far.  There was an initial sweep-through last week, but the idea today was that they would go into an area that was covered with water where they thought there might be some elderly and disabled folks who might be hanging out or haven’t been able to reach people. 

This particular unit is useful because their light armored vehicle can take water up to six or seven feet.  Cars or large chunks of debris underneath the surface level pose many obstacle sin terms of maneuvering. 

After going through this particular neighborhood for a couple of hours, they did not find anybody home or alive.  They didn’t find anybody who wanted to be rescued or even visible.  So, on the way back, the unit picked up some people on the highway.  

E-mail: DShuster@msnbc.com

September 8, 2005 | 12:14 p.m. ET

Don’t expect confirmation fireworks (Chip Reid)

NBC's Chip Reid
NBC's Chip Reid

August is a quiet, lazy time on Capitol Hill -- unless you have the misfortune of being a lawyer (there are dozens of them) with the Senate Judiciary Committee. For them, this August was a time of wishing they had taken that Evelyn Wood speed-reading course, the better to wade through thousands of tedious pages by and about John Roberts. And most frustrating for Democratic staffers: no smoking gun. Yes, lots of fodder for tough questions (his reference to a “so-called” right to privacy; his angling to the right of other conservative Reagan Administration lawyers on issues like voting rights and affirmative action.) But for Democratic researchers hoping for that “eureka” moment, hoping to find that incriminating needle in the haystack -- it never happened.

Recently, with the hearings about to begin, the press was briefed by committee staff-- first by Democratic staffers, then Republicans. The superficial differences were so stereotypical they were almost comical. The Republicans started right on time; they dressed in suits, with ties tied tight; one even aggressively chomped on a fat unlit stogie, like some chairman of the board; their tone was business-like, the pace was fast. The Democrats on the other hand started late; dressed in jeans, no ties; the tone was casual and friendly; and no cigars.

But on some key points the R’s and D’s were in lock-step. For example, that there’s no reason to postpone the hearings. So, is there any reason they should be? Well, maybe, if you buy into the argument that a key function of these hearings is to educate not just the Senate, but the American people on who John Roberts is, and what he believes in. If the devastation from Hurricane Katrina continues to get the amount of ink and airtime it’s getting now, the Roberts hearings could get buried -- seriously diminishing the educational value of the hearings.

But both Republican and Democratic aides simply shrugged their shoulders at the question of postponement. Republicans, perhaps because of the enormous pressure they’re under (from the White House) to get Roberts confirmed in time for the Court’s new term (first Monday in October). And Democrats because they can’t control the schedule anyway -- it’s up to Chairman Arlen Specter.

Speaking of Specter, he’s going to be one of the most interesting people to watch. Fiercely independent -- a Republican who supports abortion rights, and who has driven the White House and conservative Republican Senators batty in the past. Specter has already sent letters to Roberts warning him he’ll be asking tough questions about what Specter believes is conservative judicial activism by the Rehnquist Court.

Other Senators to keep an eye on:

--Dems Schumer and Kennedy, who are likely to (loudly) take the straight liberal line -- probably demanding specific answers on issues like abortion;

--Dems Biden and Feingold, positioning themselves for 2008;

--Repub Graham, easily one of the Senate’s most brilliant questioners -- never dull;

--Repubs Brownback and Coburn, both extremely conservative, both ardently opposed to abortion. Might one or both join liberal Dems in trying to pin Roberts down on abortion?

Of course Roberts himself will be the star -- and that’s part of the problem, if you’re looking for fireworks. If you’ve read transcripts of any of his oral arguments, or his testimony before the Judiciary Committee in 2003 (when he was up for the federal court of appeals), you know he’s cool, composed, unruffled, never strident, extreme or obnoxious. No, if you’re looking fireworks, fuggedaboutit. About the most you can hope for is a repeat of that fine moment at the 2003 hearings -- when Sen. Schumer pressed Roberts for specific answers, prompting Sen. Orrin Hatch to accuse Schumer of asking “dumb-ass questions.”

Questions/comments:  hardblogger@msnbc.com

September 6, 2005 | 10:44 a.m. ET

With next pick, Bush must be conservative (Pat Buchanan)

MSNBC TV

With his nomination of John Roberts as Chief Justice, passing over Antonin Scalia, President Bush has moved to put his personal stamp on the Supreme Court.  He wants the court for the next three decades to be known as the Roberts Court, a creation of George W. Bush. 

But a critical question is as yet unanswered.  Will Bush's legacy be a Roberts Court, or a court dominated by switch-hitters like Tony Kennedy where John Roberts is in the minority. This is what liberals are praying for -- at last those few who do not believe prayer should be outlawed.  

First, a personal note.  Bill Rehnquist was a friend, a gentleman, a scholar and a principled conservative who comported himself for more than thirty years on the bench with dignity.  He had a fine sense of humor.  He has been a credit to the court since the day a partisan Senate confirmed him after his appointment by Richard Nixon.  Reagan made an inspired decision the day he elevated Rehnquist to be Chief Justice and filled his empty chair with Antonin Scalia.  

Some of us hoped Bush would name Scalia as Chief Justice on the grounds of brilliance and his proven philosophy of judicial restraint.  But presidents get to make those calls and Bush believes his nomination of Roberts has already proven wise and politically astute.
However, even if -- as almost all believe -- Roberts is confirmed as Chief Justice, the strict constructionist bloc on the court will have, at most, three members: Roberts, Scalia and Thomas.  And the President now faces an even more important choice than Roberts: whom to name to fill the seat being vacated by Sandra Day O'Connor. For without two more nominees of the same judicial philosophy as Roberts, there will never be a Roberts Court.  Even with Roberts' confirmation, we are still two seats away from victory -- the O'Connor seat, and one more.

Mr. Bush is being admonished by editorialists (see Financial Times) to name a "centrist" to replace O'Connor in the wake of the trauma of Katrina.  '"Bring us together!" the liberals are pleading.  "Can't we all just get along?"  These same individuals are even now preparing to use Katrina to break the Bush presidency.

But naming a centrist means betraying the President's commitment to remake the court into a constitionalist institution, selling out his most devoted followers, and dishing the Christian conservatives, so the court can remain the last bastion able to impose a repudiated liberalism, without the consent of the people. 

For Bush to do this would be political folly and politically fatal.  He would get a grudging nod from Ralph Neas or Shrummy, but would pay with the lost esteem of millions of his supporters.  Bush should await the confirmation of Roberts before naming a successor to O'Connor, then name an Edith Jones or Michael Luttig.  This is what he has pledged to do, and he needs a fight to rally his constituency.  Will the liberal pundits, pols and special interests rail against him?  Sure.  But who cares?  As the late Master of Balliol used to admonish his pupils who were to inherit the empire, "Never complain, never explain, just do it -- and let them howl!"

Questions/comments:  hardblogger@msnbc.com

September 5, 2005 |

Vet's precious papers survive flood (David Shuster)

In the shadow of Keesler Air Force Base, his entire identity, including papers, proving his status as a 25-year veteran who served in Vietnam, have been washed away. 

Rockwell said they were left in a briefcase.  He was hopeful any wet documents could be dried out for safe-keeping.

So we invited Rockwell to ride with us to his home for a look.  At his house, a simple trailer, he pointed to his Katrina escape route.  

As his home flooded, he kicked out a window to swim through, scrapping himself on broken glass on the way to safety.  Rockwell grabbed onto a plastic swing set sticking out of the water.  He clung onto this perch for three hours.  He couldn‘t see much out of his glasses because they were covered in mud.  When the water finally receded, a neighbor invited Rockwell over to stay.  He took shelter for there two nights with six other people and a dog. 

Inside his trailer we saw the floating couch that kept Rockwell above the storm surge.  The crew and I helped him look for the missing briefcase storing the precious papers.

We finally found the briefcase among the wreckage, covered in mud and water.  The documents will make rebuilding George Rockwell‘s life a little easier.  Now with his briefcase, this survivor is moving on and looking ahead.

E-mail: DShuster@msnbc.com

September 2, 2005 | 2:14 p.m. ET

Wanting more than a visit from the president (David Shuster)

BILOXI, Miss. — The president's motorcade came by here just a few minutes ago. He spoke to reporters in Biloxi's Point neighborhood, which was the most impoverished and hardest hit of the entire area by Hurricane Katrina. All of the homes there were completely leveled, so if he was looking to get an eyeful, he certainly did by touring that neighborhood.

A few miles away from where the president spoke today, one of Biloxi's largest shelters is actually at a junior high school. We went over there this morning and we were told by a police officer providing security at the shelter that in the fifth day that people have been living at the shelter, nobody has seen a single government official or representative of any disaster relief agency.

They do have supplies now, food, water and even laundry detergent. But all of this was brought in by private organizations -- the Red Cross, churches, groups in Florida who saw the devastation and decided to come here on their own. So today, when we informed many people in the shelter who don't have electricity that the president was in town, they were not exactly thrilled to hear that that the Commander and Chief was here, when they had not actually seen any government officials to this point at their shelter. It is safe to suggest that the anger runs deep at the shelter.

In addition to all the debate over relief efforts and the debate over whether relief has been fast enough, we are now getting some grim news about casualty figures here. According to law enforcement and medical technicians who have been involved, they now expect that the casualty number here in Biloxi will reach over 1,000.  The reason they say the current number -- which right now is about 150 -- is much lower than that is that the coroner's office is completely overwhelmed.

E-mail me at DShuster@msnbc.com

September 1, 2005 |

Relief efforts get started - finally! (David Shuster)

BILOXI, Miss. — Well, tonight, a police officer says that the death toll here in Biloxi is going to be in the hundreds and that the reason the official tally is well behind that is because the coroner here is so overloaded.

Bodies, as they’re being found, are simply being left there, with the idea that medical technicians will get the bodies in a couple of days. In the meantime, as far as the survivors are concerned, this day was something of a milestone, something of a breakthrough, because people here are now starting to taste and see the concern of their fellow Americans.

Today in Biloxi, the aid trucks started arriving and the distribution began. For many of these residents, the delivery could not come soon enough.

Here on Division Street in Biloxi, we visited at one of the main distribution centers in Biloxi, and all these folks tell us, this is the first aid that they’ve been getting since the storm. They’re getting water. They’re getting ice. Eventually, they’re going to get some food.

The relief effort already involves volunteers from more than a dozen states, outsiders who are helping to clear away debris, unload ice, or provide security. One man drove his truck through the night from Orlando.

The country is also behind the grim effort to recover the dead. One task force came from Indiana, more than 30 Hoosier volunteers searching the massive debris fields.

As survivors start to see their basic needs being met, there is a new concern tonight. Medical experts warn that debris fields such as the one being searched by the group from Indiana, which stretch for miles and miles, that these may be a biohazard. Medical experts are warning anybody who works down here, whether it’s a rescue worker, a member of the media, or even residents, to be awfully careful with what you pick up from the ground and that you absolutely wash your hands with soap and water before you eat anything. And that, of course, assumes that residents have actually soap and aware.

The story is not evolving here, the way it is evolving in New Orleans. I mean, clearly, it is a problem when people go a couple of days without food and water, but at least it is starting to come in. There’s still an effort, of course, to try to find people who may not have the needs or are so injured that they can’t get to the distribution centers.

But it is not the sort of mass chaos or fluid situation that you have in New Orleans. Here, they’re starting to try to clear up the debris. At least they’re trying to make a dent in it. They’re able to get food to the shelters. People that we talked to today, when we went to a shelter and when we walked around some of the streets, they said at least we’re starting to get things and we know that more is on the way. And we can build on that.

But there’s not the sort of anger, the sort of fury that we have seen in some of those pictures from New Orleans. I think what is so crucial about Biloxi and the Gulfport area is that they’ve been able to clear the roads. I mean, remember, the water receded a couple of days ago. So, since then, the challenge has been, well, let’s just get the debris off the road, so we can get to these people. And that, of course, was a huge task, but they did it, whereas, in New Orleans, they still can’t get to a lot of those people. And I think thats the crucial difference.

E-mail me at DShuster@msnbc.com

August 31, 2005 | 8:21 p.m. ET

New landscape, new worries (David Shuster)

BILOXI, Miss. — What makes this so sad is that one of the poorest parts of Biloxi got hit the hardest. It’s a neighborhood known as the Point.  Every home in this neighborhood was totally destroyed.  If you look around, it’s total devastation.

Ironically, where I’m standing now, is the parking lot of what used to be the Salvation Army.  In fact, a brown building, the main center, is the only thing left standing on the lot.  There may have been a house nearby.  But the biggest change is that the Grand Casino was a half-mile away, pointed in the other direction.  You couldn’t see it from here. But the storm surge lifted it up and brought it across the highway and dropped it here.  The landscape has totally changed.

We’ve also heard a number of stories of people who couldn’t afford to leave.  This is an impoverished area, people get their check on the 1st and the 3rd week of the month.  With the hurricane striking when it did, people were already out of money and couldn’t spare the $30 or $40 to fill up their cars with gas and get out of here.  There are lot of fatalities of the people who tried to ride it out and use their money to buy batteries.

Outside of this particular neighborhood, people in other areas that still have roofs over their head, seemed to be at the local Biloxi Walmart today.  The line stretched from the front to the side and all the way to the back, people waiting to try and buy bare necessities.

Now, a couple days after the hurricane hit, people are running out of supplies.  The good news is that supplies are on the way.  Unlike, New Orleans, the situation here seems settled, trucks are able to get in with supplies.

The big problem now is that they don’t know where some bodies are because there is so much debris and so little indication of who stayed.  They don’t know where to begin to look for people.  They do have cadaver dogs out to help.  But it’s a grim situation here tonight.

E-mail: DShuster@msnbc.com

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Damage destruction and a logistical nightmare (David Shuster)

But even when you go, say, four miles away, inland, either from both the bay and from the Gulf, then you still have extensive water damage, because you have so many creeks and rivers, where they just totally overflowed and caused damage that way.

And then on top of that, you just have wind damage, literally within the bottom 70 miles of the state, there's just incredible wind damage.

What was so spooky about this debris that you see that everywhere there was water damage — from clothes and garbage and what-not is that as the waters receded, a lot of the debris got stuck in the trees.  We have seen this sort of debris five miles away from here inland, simply from the creeks and the rivers that overflowed.  And never mind the storm surge that reached pretty far, maybe a half a mile to a mile from the Gulf.

Governor Haley Barbour compared the damage to Hiroshima. That is not precise, certainly, as far as casualties, because they're still expecting maybe a couple of hundred when they can get under the debris.

But I think what he's getting at is the idea as far as the logistical headache that they have right now.  No power, no running water, no electricity, spotty cell phone service.  We have seen people almost battling with one another over bottles of water.  The Red Cross can't get in because some of the major roads are still blocked because of debris over them.
There are still concerns that because of the gas lines that have been ruptured in so many places that there could be explosions, or they're worried about that.  So it's just a logistical nightmare.

Because so many people evacuated from this Gulf Coast region north, all of the hotels that any rescue workers might want to stay in — they're already filled with people.  They don't have any power, they don't have any running water, in many cases, but they already have people in the rooms, because those are people whose homes have all been destroyed and took the Governor's advice to leave.

It's just a huge logistical nightmare.  I think to that extent it is a catastrophe of almost biblical proportions, according to the people who live here.

E-mail me at DShuster@msnbc.com

August 30, 2005 |

Many feared dead in Biloxi (David Shuster)

BILOXI, Miss. — Now I'm about a quarter-mile from the beach.  Everything from here back down to shore is utter destruction.  All the beachside houses are destroyed. There’s nothing left. The people in this neighborhood who did survive did so because they were on the second story or on rooftops of buildings that were farther inland.

But we did have an opportunity this morning to drive around.  You could just see the total destruction of cars and parking lots smashed into one another, houses destroyed, trees uprooted, power-lines down — just a scene of utter devastation.

Because of the storm surge, it went not only here, close to the beach, but as far as a half mile in.  You had a storm surge of 25 feet, with waves on top of that of 15 to 20 feet.  So even houses that we saw a half-mile inland were destroyed.

One of the most horrifying stories in Biloxi is with an apartment building along the beach.  This morning, I talked to a homeowner whose house was right next door to the complex.  The homeowner came back and saw that his house was totally destroyed.  He says the people in the complex tried to ride out the storm and haven’t been heard from again.

E-mail me at DShuster@msnbc.com

August 29, 2005 |

Tracking Katrina: Mississippi coast submerged (David Shuster)

BILOXI, Miss. — Today was insane. The power went out, all the power-lines snapped.  You started seeing signs in mall areas coming apart.  The wind was kicking up and you couldn't go outside. 

We are four miles away from the Gulf, the beach essentially.  But so much water was pushed up from the streams, the rivers and the creeks that it flooded parking lots.  Cars are buried and it will be a while before anybody can get them out.

That was the case along the entire Gulf Coast.  Earlier today, we had the opportunity to drive.  A couple of hours after the eye of the hurricane went through, we drove through a town called D'Ivervillee.  It has about 6,000 people and it's about two miles away from the beach. 

D'Ivervillee was under water today: six feet of water in the main intersections; most homes are flooded; the gas stations are flooded; there was even a motor boat that was pushed up two miles along the beach all the way to a gas station.  For D'Ivervillee High School, which has been in school for the last two weeks, it will be a while before students can return. 

Even as we were touring around, you couldn't even get to Biloxi where there are approximately 25,000 to 30,000 people who were riding out the storm.  No cell communication.  No communications with Biloxi except for second, or third hand accounts.  The problem is that in Biloxi there's no real information as to how bad the damage is because you can't get there; the roads to Biloxi are either underwater or the main highway is blocked with power-lines and debris.  So, you only get a sketch of the full damage.

The damage that we could see in D'Ivervillee was just horrendous.  City officials say they think most people got out.  But D'Ivervillee is one of those cities that everyone thought would be okay.  And look what happened — it's totally underwater.

Questions/comments:  DShuster@msnbc.com

Tracking Katrina:  The coastline has moved (David Shuster)

What’s so remarkable is that the water apparently now has nowhere to go and you’re seeing the waves lap up against some of these buildings. We’re two miles from where the coast was yesterday, so apparently here, the storm surge has been enormous and the water just continues to flood the creeks, the rivers and you have much less ground now between what used to be the coastline and the rivers.

It was probably a stupid mistake on our part to leave the hotel. We’re parked on Interstate 10 and you can feel all kinds of garbage blowing past us. Lots of paper, clothes. When you look down from Interstate 10, you see what looked like the Gulf yesterday, except there used to be buildings and roadways. It looks as if you took the Gulf, moved it in two miles and dropped in some signs and some stores into the middle of it.

Questions/comments:  DShuster@msnbc.com

Tracking Katrina:  10:00 p.m. Preparing in Biloxi (David Shuster)

Today, along the beach it felt like the opening of a scary movie.  Seas which had been calm started to churn, clouds darkened, the wind picked up, lightning started, and thunder could be heard every few minutes.  If you didn't know better you would think Freddy Kruger would

come crawling out of the water with a chain saw.  By the way, my apologies to you Freddy fanatics.

In all seriousness, nobody is really certain what will happen to this region in the next 24 hours.  We talked to 2 people that will be riding out this storm in their home about 9 miles inland. They say anybody a few miles in should be okay. I hope that is true but with this storm all bets are off.  The major concern inland remains the threat of tornadoes and heavy wind and rain.  What you can bet on is that power lines will snap, transformers will blow and roofs will be taken off.

Both while driving from New Orleans to Biloxi and again in making our way to this hotel we saw businesses and homes that were boarded up but that in all likelihood will look quite different a day from now. 

Just a few minutes ago on the radio, I heard someone who works with the Mississippi Gaming Commission say it was not likely that there will be a casino industry in the area by this time tomorrow.  As you can see by driving down Interstate 90, many of the casinos are built on barges but with storm surges reported to reach 25 feet they'll have to be really lucky to survive this hurricane.  Hotels are a little further back from the beach and are built to sustain winds of 150 mph.  But the big question is which buildings will be standing if winds do exceed that 150 mph mark.

Our NBC team is at the hotel trying to figure out where to park the satellite truck.  The satellite truck has a dish that transmits our video so you can see it at home.  The truck operators say this dish will not be able to transmit if it faces winds in excess of 60 mph.  Obviously, we will shield the truck but it you see me reporting from a phone you'll know we had a few "technical difficulties".

I'll keep blogging as dawn, and Katrina, get closer.

Watch MSNBC TV for our continuing on-air coverage.

Questions/comments:  DShuster@msnbc.com

Tracking Katrina:  4:00 p.m. Getting out-of-town

EN ROUTE TO BILOXI, Miss. —  Hello from the Louisiana and Mississippi border along Interstate 10.  I've been in a rental car for the last 3 1/2 hours joining hundreds of thousands of people evacuating New Orleans.  A short time ago I heard Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi pleading with all residents along the coast do get out because the storm surge could be 30 feet high.  I just hope the NBC camera post is at least 40 feet high!

Let me back up for just a minute.  I got a call on Friday night asking me to help cover Hurricane Katrina.  I am excited to be able to bring you the story but, like others who have to deal with a situation they have never dealt with before, it makes me a little anxious too. 

On my flight into New Orleans this morning I talked to some guys from the Army National Reserves who were dispatched by the Pentagon.  They were told to be prepared to help with everything from evacuations by boat, to help distribute aid, or even to help direct traffic after Katrina has passed.

Conditions at the New Orleans airport were chaotic.  All the employees had been told to evacuate as well so no one was working at the car rental counters, taxi stands, or the bus terminal.  So, you may be wondering how it is that I could get a rental car?  Well, luckily I hitched a ride to the off-site rental office where there was still one person working.  I managed to get one of the last cars before the office closed completely.

I then made my way out of the airport, which is west of the city, and became traveling east.   I noticed most of the gas stations and convenience stores were closed.  I stopped at one that was still open and found a line out the door as people tried to buy water for their long trip out of the city by car.

For the last 2 1/2 hours I have been on Interstate 10 in, literally, bumper-to-bumper traffic.  Because of where New Orleans is situated, you have go first travel east or west before being able to finally move north.  At this point, the temperature is about 85 degrees with overcast skies, big clouds rolling in and about winds of about 15 mph.

Hopefully, I will get to my location by late afternoon.  I'll be blogging on Katrina throughout today and for the next few days.  Check in here and I'll let you know what it is like covering this incredible storm of truly biblical proportions.

You may be wondering how I can blog and drive at the same time.  Well, that's a trade secret I'll have to fill you on on later.  But for now I am practicing my multi-tasking skills I expect will come in handy as I report to you while trying to stay grounded in hurricane force winds.

Watch MSNBC TV for our continuing on-air coverage.

Questions/comments:  DShuster@msnbc.com

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Pat Robertson's un-Christian Coalition (Bob Shrum)

MSNBC TV

There are a lot of reasons why Pat Robertson ought to rename his organization the Un-Christian Coalition. He’s said, “feminism encourages women to kill their children.”  He agreed with Jerry Falwell, that other paragon of televised intolerance, that 9/11 was God’s answer to the “pagans, abortionists, feminists, lesbians, the ACLU and the liberal group People for the American Way.” After a public outcry, Robertson backed down, saying he hadn’t understood Falwell, which, given the fact that Falwell doesn’t know nuance or use big words, is itself quite a feat. But Robertson then followed up two years later with his own subtle suggestion about the State Department: “If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that’s the answer.”

Pat, are these your allies in the “cultural war” that you declared at the 1992 Republican Convention? Are you proud of them? And what do you think of Pat Robertson’s latest excursion into the neither regions of the public dialogue — his call for the United States to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez?

The statement was miraculous, in a sense; for the first time ever, it brought Donald Rumsfeld and Fidel Castro together as they both condemned it.

But most of the Religious Right has been silent; ready to pronounce an anathema almost any day against almost anyone who disagrees with their extremist views, these self-proclaimed agents of righteousness were too busy, the New York Times reported to rebuke brother Robertson.

But the person we should have heard from right away is George Bush. His closeness to the Religious Right is the reason why Robertson’s outburst became an international scandal. Robertson and his ilk preached and campaigned for Bush, and he follows them on abortion, stem cell research, and the teaching of evolution — so why not Venezuela?

If Bill Clinton were still president, Robertson’s words would be dismissed as the foolish ravings of a demagogue in clerical disguise.  But not now: it was Robertson who helped put Bush in the Oval Office. So maybe Rumsfeld didn’t check with the White House before he commented, and maybe Bush can now escape Robertson’s amen corner, now that the preacher has apologized.

But the words were said and extricating his foot from his mouth won’t undo the damage that Robertson’s inflicted on America’s national interests and its ideals.

Hugo Chavez is no friend of the United States. But Venezuela sells us more oil than any other country — and Robertson has strengthened Chavez’s grip by providing grist for his propaganda mill, with its steady drumbeat of charges that we’re trying to overthrow him. It doesn’t help that we did try, in 2002, when the Bush Administration welcomed a tin pot coup that failed in a matter of hours. Maybe Robertson is actually working for Castro, providing fuel and credibility for anti-U.S. feelings across Latin America.

The United States doesn’t assassinate foreign leaders: it’s wrong and it would invite other nations to pay us back in kind. And if we did do it, we certainly wouldn’t advertise it on the 700 Club. Pat, I’ve heard the argument that we should have dispatched a hit squad to take out Hitler before he started World War II. That’s as compelling a case as I can imagine, but it just proves that the hardest cases make bad law and worse foreign policy. Whatever else he is, Hugo Chavez isn’t Hitler — and judged by his own words over the years, Pat Robertson isn’t much of a Christian.

One conservative evangelical leader didn’t duck the press calls; he immediately assumed Robertson’s summons to assassinate Chavez. The televangelist, he said, should “apologize, retract his statement and clarify what the Bible and Christianity teach about the permissibility of taking human life outside the law.”  I don’t think that reproach is what made Robertson back off. Maybe he got a call from Ralph Reed or someone in Karl Rove’s shop. But the real scandal here is that Robertson believes he has President Bush in his back pocket. He also thinks he talks to God, which we all try to do when we pray; but, unlike the rest of us, Robertson assumes God talks back to him. Remember when the reverend revealed that hurricanes would descend on Orlando because Disney World dared to host a few “gay days”? I wonder if Robertson was rooting for the hurricanes?

Come on, Pat. Join in calling Robertson to account.  Rumsfeld, Castro and Buchanan: it has a nice ring to it.

(*Note: Pat is on vacation but you can bet he'll respond next week)

Questions/comments:  hardblogger@msnbc.com

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Incredible story, inspirational film (David Shuster)

This is the time of year when 9-11 memorial events start taking shape.  Some of those events, of course, will be on television.  And today, I had an opportunity to preview a documentary that will air on public broadcasting called "For the Love of Their Brother." 

The film tells the story of the struggles and triumphs of the Siller family.  On 9-11, New York firefighter Stephen Siller was on his way home to Staten Island when he heard over the radio that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.  Siller turned around his truck and drove to the Brooklyn battery tunnel (which leads to Manhattan.)  The tunnel, however, was blocked.  So he took 75 pounds of equipment out of his truck, strapped it onto his back, and ran through the tunnel -- a distance of nearly two miles.  On the other side, he hitched a ride with an emergency vehicle going to Ground Zero.  Stephen Siller jumped out of the vehicle and ran into the 2nd tower.  He was inside when the building collapsed.

While the death of every 9-11 victim was tragic, Stephen Siller's passing was especially harsh.  He was married and had five kids under the age of ten.

The film, produced by Frederick, Md.-based Three Roads Communications, chronicles Stephen Siller's life story and his heroism.  But it also shows the heroism of his six much older brothers and sisters.  Thirty years ago, they were all working or in college when their parents died.  The baby brother, Stephen Siller, was only ten.  Yes, Stephen Siller was an orphan at the age of ten.  His brothers and sisters raised him through school, the difficult adolescent years, and his first post graduation jobs.  Eventually, Stephen became a firefighter, a job he said he loved.

In the wake of 9-11, Stephen Siller's family faced a choice that may sound familiar to anybody who loses an extremely close loved one:  Allow grief to ruin your life, or use it as a catalyst to help the lives of others.  As the film shows, the Siller family chose the latter.  They started by asking the City of New York to help organize a memorial run each year through the battery tunnel.

Through the years, the run has become a huge success.  At each race, 343 firefighters line the inside of the tunnel with an American flag and the photo of a firefighter killed on 9-11.  The city and local businesses all pitch in and contribute equipment and support.  And already, millions of dollars have been raised by run participants for orphans, 9-11 families, and the children of servicemen and women killed overseas.

This year's run will take place on Sunday September 25th. (For more info, go to  http://www.tunneltotowersrun.org)

I recently had an opportunity to interview Russ Hodge, the executive producer who pulled together this incredible documentary.  Russ is also a cousin of Stephen Siller.  The film's message, he points out, is actually fairly simple:  "Life does go on.  And it can be beautiful and it can be wonderful.  And damn it, sometimes it really does hurt and sometimes it's really awful too.  But you can find the silver lining too."

The Siller family has found their silver lining... and all of us who see their story are better for it.  I urge you to check your local listings in September and make time to watch "For the Love of Their Brother." 

Questions/comments:  DShuster@msnbc.com

August 25, 2005 |

It's Iraq's constitution and America's war (Pat Buchanan)

MSNBC TV

Brother reads like something one would expect from the last speaker at an all-night teach-in at Camp Casey -- who has just been told to cut it short

As for where I stood and stand on the war, I opposed it daily on 'Buchanan & Press' on MSNBC and wrote that it would prove the greatest foreign policy blunder of my lifetime.  But as I read the most recent bulletin from my old high school, Gonzaga, I also saw pictures of Gonzaga grads, in Iraq, who are putting their lives on the line and believe in their cause. 

Yes, this is Bush's war, but it is also America's war, our war, because a Democratic Senate authorized President Bush to take us in. 

And while American soldiers have not lost a single battle, we are not winning the war.  But this, it seems to me, is not cause for gloating or mockery of the president.  The question is: What do we do now?  How do we bring our troops home with honor, and leave behind in Iraq something that does not dishonor their sacrifice.  If running for the exit ramp would do that, I would favor it, but I do not believe it.  

Undeniably, our huge troop presence in Iraq is the principal cause of the insurgency, but our huge troop presence in Iraq is also the only thing that prevents the insurgency from succeeding.  As Dean Rusk used to say, "We are there and we are committed," thanks to Bush and Cheney, and Kerry and Edwards.

On the Iraqi constitution, I have already written that a country creates a constitution.  No written constitution can create a country that does not exist in the hearts of its people.  The Iraqis are trying to find a way to incorporate the Koran as a primary source of law and permit as much federalism as they can sustain without Iraq coming apart.  I hope they succeed.  They may fail, but these negotiators are putting their lives on the line, and deserve more than ridicule and mockery even if they fail.

Right now, the President's idea, of training Iraqis and turning over the destiny and custody of the country to them, as expeditiously as we can, seems to me the least risky of the options we have.

And before following the tried-and-true liberal formula of cut-and-run, we should consider: If Iraq breaks up in civil war, and the Sunni triangle turns into a terrorist haven and training camp, and America is perceived by her enemies across that region to have been defeated, the consequences will be devastating -- for us and for the people who put themselves on the line for us in Iraq.  For the Arab friends who have stood beside us in Iraq and the Middle East, the consequences could be the same as they were for the Cambodians and Vietnamese we left behind.  Or have you forgotten, Bob?

Speaking of Vietnam, in 1973, when Richard Nixon ended the U.S. involvement, every provincial capital was in South Vietnamese hands and our POWs were on the way home.  The war Kennedy, Johnson and the Best and Brightest had marched us in to, and could not win or end, was over.  The Communists did not prevail until 1975, when Hanoi sent 12 divisions south to overrun a South Vietnam that had been denied by a radical liberal Congress of the weapons to defend themselves.  That was the great betrayal, Bob.  And the reason liberals no longer call themselves liberals is because the term came to be associated in the public mind with cut-and-run retreat-and-defeat.

And as you are probably more influential with Kerry, Edwards, Biden and Clinton, then with Bush, why don't you start admonishing them by name and denouncing them for not adopting the Shrum-Sheehan Plan.

Questions/comments:  hardblogger@msnbc.com

August 24, 2005|

Iraqi constitution hardly progress (Bob Shrum)

MSNBC TV

So now we have an Iraqi constitution, do we?

The drafters missed last week's deadline, so they were then given until yesterday to iron out their differences. It looks more like the divided Iraqis may have to shoot it out, with American troops caught in the crossfire. To spare George Bush embarrassment, what was issued yesterday was a faux Iraqi Constitution, with some of the most difficult issues still undecided.   It was more a press release than a stable political settlement.  The document hasn't been voted on by the National Assembly and even the chief of the committee responsible for the drafting says the Sunnis can't be won over in the now-scheduled three days time.

Shiites in Najaf are dancing in the streets; Sunnis elsewhere in Iraq are threatening to barricade the streets. The Shiites have their armed militias; the Sunnis are the seedbed of an insurgency that will put down deeper roots and deploy more fighters if a constitution is imposed on them. The Kurds, meanwhile, are agreeable, because if things go wrong, they think they can just go their own way -- which would produce an overt civil war and perhaps even intervention from Turkey.

From notorious charade of "mission accomplished" to the start-up of the provisional government to the January elections and this so-called constitution, we've had so many contrived turning points in Iraq, but we're just spinning in place, digging ourselves deeper into the quagmire. Americans have been to this bad movie before. As Pat may recall, for years we had new elections, new constitutions, and a series of changing governments in Vietnam. Unless and until we have security and order on the ground in Iraq, a contrived piece of paper will just tell the insurgents which cabinet ministers to target, and Americans will continue to be killed.  As long as the road from the airport to central Baghdad is a free-fire zone, the road to an Iraqi Constitution will be just another milestone on the path of continuing violence.

The President is on the road, too, finally acknowledging the causalities -- none of whose funerals he's deigned to attend. And he's in such trouble that he's been forced to take his road show only to the deep red states. He stubbornly recycles the same lines and the same scripts, instead of addressing the hard realities. Why doesn't Bush respond to the general who commanded Australian forces in Iraq until last June who now says that the presence of foreign troops is fuel for insurgent recruitment?

Setting a deadline for withdrawal could put the Iraqis on notice that we're not standing by, as an eternal safety net, while they squabble -- that they have to get their act together. And Pat's argument, echoing the President's, that a timeline would just encourage the insurgents to wait and attack later, is absurd; they are attacking now, and the death toll is mounting everyday. Is there any evidence the President has a strategy to "win" -- or is his answer to failure just more of the same?

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel says we're not winning. Democratic leaders who voted for the war resolution ought to admit they made a mistake if that's what they now believe. They were misled; the country was mislead; even Colin Powell says he was misled: and it's time to change course. In his tender solicitude for Democrats, Pat suggests that calling for a timetable is bad politics; but it's right conscience to stop temporizing with a policy that's dooming more and more Americans -- and innocent Iraqis -- to die for a mistake. And in any case, the people of this country are far ahead of the politicians in seeing and saying the truth about Iraq.

So Pat, were you really for this war, which is the fruit of the poisoned tree of fraudulent intelligence? How do you think it can be won? And what do you think of the proposed Iraqi Constitution, in which one of the suggested compromises was that only four of the nine Supreme Court Justices could be clerics? I call it the Jerry Falwell solution and Bush could apply it here: Forget Scalia, Thomas and the Roberts nominations; remove the middlemen; and let the religious right rule from the bench.

If this is progress, then Pat Buchanan's a progressive.

Questions/comments:  hardblogger@msnbc.com

   

August 24, 2005 |

Pat Robertson apologizes (David Shuster)

As you probably know by now, religious leader Pat Robertson, who has a nightly television audience of more than a million people, has now apologized for calling for the assassination of Venezuela's democratically elected President Hugo Chavez.  On Monday, Robertson created a firestorm by saying, "We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong armed dictator.  It's a whole lot easier to have a whole bunch of covert operatives do the job."

Robertson has been forced to issue apologies before.  After all, this is the same Pat Robertson who in the wake of 9/11 sat with Jerry Falwell and blamed the attacks in part on the ACLU and the Supreme Court.  It was the same Pat Robertson who said, two years later, that the State Department should be blown up with a nuclear weapon.  And it was the same Pat Robertson who said that feminism encourages women "to practice withcraft... and become lesbians."

But the issue with Hugo Chavez is an interesting one and America's history with assassinations is informative as well.

The issue with Hugo Chavez is that he has been a major Bush administration headache.  He is one of our president's most outspoken critics.  Venezuela is a crucial supplier of oil to the United States.  And according to Pat Robertson, Hugo Chavez wants to use that as leverage in disputes with the U.S. and allow Venezuela to become a launching pad for communists and Muslim extremists.

Once upon a time in our nation's history, that kind of threat (assuming we thought it was true) might have been enough for the U.S. Government to actually try and assassinate a foreign leader.  But in the 1970s, many officials in the U.S. Government were convinced that the assassination of our 35th President, John F. Kennedy, was the result of Cubans and Russians angry at our efforts years earlier to assassinate Cuba's Fidel Castro.  So in 1975, Congress created a "select committee on intelligence," to review, among other things, U.S. policies on assassination in the 1950s and '60s.  The committee was chaired by Senator Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho.

After two months of hearings and a review of tens of thousands of pages of classified and unclassified government documents, the committee found that the U.S. Government had tried to assassinate five different foreign leaders.  One of the leaders, Cuba's Fidel Castro, was targeted on eight separate occasions.  [U.S. operatives tried to get him to smoke an exploding cigar, swim using a wetsuit lined with bacteria, and down a drink spiked with poison, among other attempts].  The Church committee concluded that the actions were, "incompatible with American principle, international order... and the moral precepts fundamental to our way of life."

The Church committee report also spoke of the difficulty of killing a foreign leader (ie. Castro), the instability it might cause and the possibility that a successor would be even more hostile to the United States.

In the wake of the Church committee's findings, President Gerald Ford issued an executive order banning assassinations.  Every U.S. President has since supported that order.

Over the years, the issue has still come up.  During President Reagan's 2nd term, Libyan agents bombed a disco in Germany filled with U.S. servicemen.  And American warplanes, in turn, bombed the capitol of Libya, narrowly missing leader Mohammar Khadafi.  And since then, the U.S. has drawn a distinction between peacetime assassinations and efforts during war time.  Remember the beginning of the Iraq war?  U.S. intelligence suggested Saddam was in a house outside of Baghdad.  So, President Bush authorized commanders to launch 40 cruise missiles at the target. 

It could be argued that Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez becomes a "war time target" if he cuts off the oil and turns his nation into a launching pad for terrorists.  But in that case, the assassination wouldn't need to be done "covertly" as Pat Robertson suggests.

On Tuesday night's broadcast of "the 700 Club," Pat Robertson said he wasn't talking about an assassination of any kind on the previous broadcast.  Robertson argued, "I didn't say assassination.  I said our special forces should take him out.  Take him out can be a number of things including kidnapping.  There are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him.  I was misinterpreted."  

Misinterpreted?  According to Robertson's own transcript of his Monday night show he said of Chavez, "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it."

Today, Pat Robertson acknowledged a mistake.  In a written statement he said, "Is it right to call for assassination?  No, and I apologize for that statement."

End of story?  You tell me...DShuster@msnbc.com

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Bush's war without end? An antiwar Democrat can emerge with the majority
(Bob Shrum
)

MSNBC TV

One thing stands out in the Buchanan blog:  While crying crocodile tears for a Democratic Party which, he predicts, will be split down the middle over the Iraq War, he says nothing at all about his own position on the war.  Does he think that the invasion was a mistake or not, that the cost is lives and treasure is worth paying, that President Bush is right that somehow, someday a failed policy will succeed?  Pat’s right that “the bottom is falling out of support for Bush as Commander-in-Chief.”  And since he’s not notably shy about dispensing opinions, why can’t he tell us what the country should do next?  (Bush we know will just keep on keeping on; for him, failure appears to be a rationale for its own perpetuation.)

The Iraqis can’t finish writing a Constitution.  But even if they do, we’ll find out that “Constitution Accomplished” doesn’t mean much more than “Mission Accomplished” as long as the road from the Baghdad Airport to the city is a terrorist shooting gallery.  Since Pat mentioned Nixon, it seems fair to point out that there is an analogy to Vietnam here. While U.S. officials continue to find one turning point after another, from the fall of Saddam’s statue, to the provisional government of a now forgotten American appointed Prime Minister, to the election last January, to a piece of stitched together Constitutional paper, the realities on the ground are as bad or worse than ever; more of our troops die everyday; and the Iraqis we want to liberate are left unprotected against the car bombings that slaughtered 43 of them just yesterday.  Four more of our own soldiers were killed Thursday morning.  The mother of an earlier casualty, Cindy Sheehan, has become a symbol of protest against a war we were led and lied into by neo-cons who have sent other people’s sons and daughters off to war.  Pat is right about her iconic role; he’s wrong about what it portends for the Democratic Party.

First, the voters -- and not just Democrats, but 61 percent of Americans -- are ahead of the politicians in their opposition to Bush’s war policy.  That was true as well in the 1960s -- except that the anti-war opposition is greater now than it was then; in fact, it’s almost a super-majority.  If the realities don’t change in Iraq, the politicians will catch up with the people.  In the end, they always do.  Why even Pat’s boss, Richard Nixon, felt compelled to mislead the electorate in 1968 by leaving the impression that he had “a secret plan for peace” in Vietnam.

Second, Pat’s wrong that political leaders who voted for the Iraq war resolution can’t campaign now to end a failing policy.  Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy supported the Vietnam War, than later said they were wrong and ran against an incumbent President of their own party.

Third, Pat’s wrong again when he assumes that an anti-war candidate would split the Democratic Party and lose the general election.  If Robert Kennedy hadn’t been shot down, we almost certainly would have been spared the dark Presidency of Richard Nixon who, on Election Day, barely squeezed by the hapless Hubert Humphrey.

Pat concludes by arguing that Vietnam did more damage to Democrats than Republicans.  Well, the first casualty of war is not a political party; human beings, including too many young Americans, died in Vietnam and are dying today in Iraq.  Beyond that, maybe Pat’s forgotten that little Republican catastrophe known as Watergate, which was a direct outgrowth of Nixon’s law, breaking obsession with the anti-war movement.  The party of Bush may end up as shattered as the party of Nixon was in 1974. 

A national Democratic leader will break with the conventional caution and speak out unequivocally.  And he or she may just find themselves speaking for a majority of Americans as the next President of the United States.

And Pat, what about you? Do you agree with Bush’s war without end? Amen.

Questions/comments:  hardblogger@msnbc.com


Cindy Sheehan: Bush's problem today; Democrats problem tomorrow
(Pat )

may be George Bush’s problem today, but she and her movement pose a far greater problem for the Democratic Party tomorrow.
   
As a Gold Star mother of a soldier son slain in Iraq, Cindy has authenticity and moral authority.  Wedded to the passion of her protest, these have made her a magnet for the White House press corps encamped in Crawford.  She is becoming a household name.  More than that, for this August at least, Sheehan’s is the face and voice of the antiwar movement in America.

The purity of her protest has been diluted by her association with the far Left, the extravagance of her language, and the arrival of the “Democratic operatives” to manipulate and manage her message.

Nevertheless, in a slow news month, Sheehan has helped turn the focus of national debate back to the war at a moment of vulnerability for the President.  According to Newsweek, support for Bush’s handling of the war has fallen below 40%, to 34%, with 61% now disapproving of his leadership.  Put bluntly, the bottom is falling out of support for Bush as Commander-in-Chief.  September could see the coalescing of an antiwar movement on the campuses and in public protests.

Why is this not good news for the Democratic Party?

Here’s why.  Cindy Sheehan clearly has the courage of the liberal Democrats’ convictions.  In their hearts, many of them never believed in this war in Iraq, though their leaders voted for it.  

But now that Cindy Sheehan has put a face on the antiwar movement and given it a voice, liberal activists will demand to know where Hillary, Biden, Edwards, Kerry and Warner are, and why they are standing with Bush in support of the war and not standing beside Cindy Sheehan.

Why is no leader in the Democratic Party giving voice to the antiwar cause with the perseverance and passion of Cindy Sheehan?  Why are they all hiding in the tall grass, or making statements about how they support the war and the troops, but just disagree with how Bush has managed it.  If polls are to be believed, half the nation now agrees with Cindy Sheehan. 

She is temporarily filling a vacuum in American politics that been unfilled since the Iowa caucuses, 18 months ago, when the wheels came off a Dean campaign most pundits thought would take him to the nomination.  

The problem for the Democrats is this: All their potential nominees -- Hillary, Biden, Kerry, Edwards, Warner -- supported the war in 2002.  All support the war today.  One day soon, a national Democrat, a Gene McCarthy, is going to break publicly with the DLC crowd and the party establishment on the Hill, stand up and say, “Enough! It’s time to bring the troops home.”

When that happens, the antiwar movement and its new leader will split the Democratic Party right down the middle between “Stay-the-course!” hawks and “Bring-the-boys-home!” doves, just as it did during Vietnam.  And if memory serves, Vietnam eventually did far more damage to the Democratic Party than it ever did to the Party of Nixon, Reagan and Bush.

NOTE: Come back tomorrow to read Bob Shrum's take on the Cindy Sheehan factor

Questions/comments:  hardblogger@msnbc.com

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Similarities between Bush and Truman (David Shuster)

If you've been watching Hardball, you've seen some of our reports that dip into the vast NBC archives to put current political events in perspective with previous presidents, lawmakers, and etc.  I'm excited to tell you that we are going to offer some of those same stories here on our blog.  For example, for Hardball I've been working on a report that compares the challenges President Bush is facing with those of Harry S. Truman.  

Truman was our 33rd President.  He took over following the death in 1944 of President Roosevelt and had to deal immediately with a host of foreign policy issues.  The video we have is remarkable.  There was the conclusion of the war in Europe, the Potsdam conference when allied leaders (Truman, Churchill, Stalin...) decided how to handle a defeated Germany, and the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan.  Three years later, in 1948, Truman held on to the Presidency by just four percentage points.  Last fall, after four years dominated by 9-11, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq... President Bush held on to his presidency by three points.  Like President Bush's critics, Harry Truman's considered him not up to the job of President.  Truman was a folksy man who popularized simple phrases (i.e. "The buck stops here.")  President Bush is a folksy man who tends to see the world in black and white.

There are other similarities as well...  Despite a growing economy and job growth, President Bush's approval rating is falling because of problems in Iraq.  President Truman's approval fell even lower because of the war in Korea.  President Bush felt the sting of allegations that his White House leaked classified information.  President Truman was hurt by allegations that his State Department was riddled with communists.

Today, historians regard Harry Truman as one of our nation's best Presidents.  His huge U.S. investment in rebuilding post-war Japan and Germany paid off... and Truman's policy of containing Soviet expansionism was a role model throughout the cold war.  The question with President Bush, of course, is whether his huge war on terror investment in Iraq will pay off and whether history judges him to be a treasured President like Truman or somebody regarded far less. 

How do you think history will judge President Bush? 

Questions/comments:  DShuster@msnbc.com

• August

Bolton: Consensus builder?  (Chris Matthews)

You have a contradiction here. Here we are at war over extending democracy in the world.  What we’re trying to sell in Iraq is consensus, consensus among the warring factions and democratic systems. Yet, here we have someone going to the United Nations to make that case, who didn’t pass muster with the opposition in the U.S. Senate, who wasn’t accepted by Condoleezza Rice as her number two person at the State Department and who clearly isn’t a consensus type individual. It is a contradiction, but that said, he’s the president’s man, he’s the vice-president’s man, and he definitely shares the type of thinking that took the U.S. into the war in Iraq. He is the man who emblemizes the war in Iraq better than anyone could.

I’m not sure if any of us in journalism know how he got picked. He doesn’t seem to be the logical candidate. He’s not a charmer. He’s not a diplomat, either by profession or temperament. He’s a hard-line hawk. He is a man involved in arms control. That puts him right on the cutting edge of the reason we went to war, a nuclear threat from Iraq.  He is hardly a consensus candidate. It’s not clear how the president came to this decision, he may have taken the advice and consent not of the Senate, but of Vice President Dick Cheney.

All presidents make recess appointments. Clinton did it when he put an African-American into a Fourth Circuit Court appointment, an appointment that Clinton definitely wanted filled by an African American. So it’s not extraordinary. In this case we’re picking someone for the title. Catch the job description, “permanent representative to the United Nations from America”. Well, he’s only going to serve, in this case, for a little more than a year -- he’s certainly more like a temp than a permanent representative. It’s an appointment that can’t be re-upped. He can only serve until the beginning of the next session of Congress so it certainly puts him in a position of not really being able to do the job. For better or worse he’s a good representative of the thinking of this administration in terms of foreign policy. He is not, however, a consensus builder, that’s going to be clear. 

Email us at Hardblogger@msnbc.com

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Victimized by horror (Chris Matthews)

When you get on an airplane, there's tremendous scrutiny of people.  From the selected passengers to those who buy one-way trips at the last minute, you have to take you shoes off, your bags gets thoroughly checked all while getting firsked.

Not so at at New York's Penn Station.  During the rush hour, thousands and thousands of people rush down escalators every night, every rush hour — just like in London.  On the railways, no one's checking your bag, no one's scanning you and no one's even watching you.  All kinds of baggage could be taken aboard. 

That's a big vulnerability when you're up against a highly sophisticated group like Al-Qaida — rumored to be responsible for the attacks.  They knew what they were doing; the timed rush-hour blitz all occurred in a matter of minutes — a strategic move alongside the British-hosted G8 summit and after just winning the 2012 Olympic bid.  All this comes together at the perfect time with a national and international audience as these fireworks go off. 

We feel terribly victimized by these kinds of horrors — and we are.  In any objective way, by any objective standard, we're the victims.  But politically in the world, people root for the third world against the big first world — and it isn't so simple in terms of world opinion. 

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The White House spin cycle (David Shuster)

I don't know if things are getting better or worse in Iraq.  But I do know, from a close friend who works at the White House, that the Bush administration is now panicked over the erosion of public support for the occupation.   One can see that by reviewing the President's radio address and looking at the comments made recently by other administration officials.

First, the president's radio address:  On Saturday President Bush defended the war in Iraq saying, "We went to war because we were attacked."  Huh?  In September 2003, the President himself stated, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th attacks."   (For the record, the 9/11 Commission is on the side of the Sept. 2003 President Bush — The commission found there was "no collaborative relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.")

On Sunday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said criticism of the handling of the war isn't justified because "The administration, I think, has said to the American people that it is a generational commitment to Iraq."  What?  That was said... but it came from Senators pouring cold water on the administration's optimistic pre-war predictions.  What were those predictions?  Vice President Cheney (March 16, 2003) said, "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators... I think it will go relatively quickly... in weeks rather than months."  Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld on Feb. 7, 2003 said, "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last.  It could last six days, six weeks.  I doubt six months."  Former Budget director Mitch Daniels (March 28, 2003) stated, "The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid." 

Iraq will not require sustained aid?   Hmmm.  Today, Congress voted to send the Pentagon another $45 billion for operations in Iraq.  That brings the total amount appropriated so far, for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to $322.40 billion.

The administration seems to think that by shifting the justification for the war or changing what administration officials said 3 years ago, the president's poll numbers will magically turn around.  The pretzel shaped logic of this strategy is mind-boggling.  And one begins to wonder if the gang that helped President Bush win a 2nd term has been stuffed into a closet. 

The math on this is simple.  If the war was going well, the public would support the occupation of Iraq, regardless of whatever reasons the administration gave for the invasion.  The problem is, according to republican Senator Chuck Hagel, "The White House is completely disconnected from reality.  It's like they're just making it up as they go along."

And now, the public is tired of this deadly trip through fantasyland — a place where White House P.R. strategies seem to matter more than holding anybody accountable for the war's mistakes and mismanagement.

Questions/comments:  DShuster@msnbc.com

June 15, 2005 |

“Far between sundown's finish and midnight's broken toll”
(Greg Ebben, Hardball Associate Producer)

An excerpt from Greg's essay on racial relations progress in America:
...The prejudice and outright racism that stemmed from the emancipation of the slaves was bitterly tough for African-Americans, which lasted for decades and still remains in some pockets of our country.  It took years for blacks to be able to vote, eat in the same restaurants as whites, sit anywhere on the bus, and attend certain schools.  And lynchings, most prevalent in the South, were just another incredible hurdle to climb over.  If you have ever seen one of the black and white photographs of a young black man hanging from a tree by a homemade noose, don't look at the dead body -- look into the eyes of the white faces of those standing with pride under the dead man's feet.  That's the real unfortunate story of it all.

The warped mindset that permeated whites in the South decades ago was even recalled by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in her interview last evening with Chris Matthews on "Hardball."  She spoke about her grandfather when one day he thought he would be lynched in Alabama. "I remember as a kid the stories about lynchings," said Rice.  "Everybody's family had at least one story in that regard.  You know, my grandfather, who ran away from home at 13 because he'd gotten into an altercation with a white man over something that happened with his sister, and he was pretty sure that if he hung around, that's what was going to happen."  Words from our very own Secretary of State, a black woman from Alabama.  Look how far we've come even with some road yet to travel...

Read the entire essay here.