Democrats

Bush in Skirts

Debates
Clinton's statements about the war, allowing her to get away with making the astounding claim that "we are safer now than we were" before 9/11.

On the other hand

Have a look at how Clinton handled it when that knucklehead Wolf Blitzer -- who seemed to think the debate was about him and his silly show-of-hands antics -- consistently tried to divide the Democratic candidates.
"Everybody on this stage, we are all united, Wolf. We all believe that we need to try to end this war. In two nights you’re going to have the Republican candidates here. They all support the war. They all support the president. They all supported the escalation. Each of us is trying in our own way to bring the war to an end. . . ."And I think it’s important particularly to point out; This is George Bush’s war. He is responsible for this war. He started the war. He mismanaged the war. He escalated the war. And he refuses to end the war."And what we are trying to do, whether it’s by speaking out from the outside or working and casting votes that actually make a difference from the inside, we are trying to end the war. . . ."The differences among us are minor. The differences between us and the Republicans are major. And I don’t want anyone in America to be confused."
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Are Media Out to Get John Edwards? By Jeff Cohen
Give me a break about John Edwards's pricey haircut, mansion, lecture fees, and the rest. The focus on these topics tells us two things about corporate media: One, we've long known - that they elevate personal stuff above issues; the other is now becoming clear - that they have a special animosity towards Edwards.
Is it hypocritical for the former senator to base a presidential campaign on alleviating poverty while building himself a sprawling mansion? Perhaps. But isn't that preferable to all the millionaire candidates who neither talk about nor care about the poor? Elite media seem more comfortable with millionaire politicians who identify with their class - and half of all US senators are millionaires.
Trust me when I say I don't know many millionaires. Of course, I don't know many presidential candidates either (except my friend Dennis Kucinich, whose net worth in 2004 was reported to be below $32,000).
But I'm growing quite suspicious about the media barrage against Edwards, who got his wealth as a trial lawyer suing hospitals and corporations. Among "top-tier" presidential candidates, Edwards is alone in convincingly criticizing corporate-drafted trade treaties, and talking about workers' rights and the poor and higher taxes on the rich. He's the candidate who set up a university research center on poverty. Of the front-runners in presidential polls, he's pushing the hardest to withdraw from Iraq, and pushing the hardest on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to follow suit.
Given a national media elite that worships "free trade" and disparages Democrats for catering to "extremists" like MoveOn.org on Iraq withdrawal, the media's rather obsessive focus on Edwards's alleged hypocrisy should not surprise us.
Nor should it surprise us that we've been shown aerial pictures of Edwards's mansion in North Carolina - but not of the mansions of the other well-off candidates.
Or that a snob like Brit Hume of Fox News is chortling, "What would Jesus do with John Edwards's mansion?"
Or that we've heard so much about Edwards's connection to one Wall Street firm, but relatively little about the fact that other candidates, including Democrats, are so heavily-funded by Wall Street interests.
Or that Juan Williams and NPR this weekend teed off on Edwards for saying he's "so concerned about poverty" while pocketing hedge fund profits and $55,000 for a lecture at the University of California, Davis. NPR emphasized that the Davis fee was for a "speech on poverty" - but didn't mention that Davis paid other politicians the same or more for lectures. Or that Rudy Giuliani gets many times as much for speeches.
You see, those other pols aren't hypocrites: They don't lecture about poverty.
What's really behind the media's animus towards Edwards is his "all-out courting of the liberal left-wing base" (ABC News) or his "looking for some steam from the left" (CNN).
One of the wise men of mainstream punditry, Stuart Rothenberg, said it clearest in a "Roll Call" column complaining of Edwards's "class warfare message" and his "seeming insatiable desire to run to the left"; the column pointed fingers of blame at Edwards's progressive campaign co-chair David Bonior, consultant Joe Trippi, groups like Democrats.com and Democracy for America, and a bring-our-troops-home message "imitating either Jimmy Stewart or Cindy Sheehan."
Leave it to Fox's Bill O'Reilly to take the mainstream current over the cliff, bellowing on Tuesday that Edwards has "sold his soul to the far left.... MoveOn's running him.... His support on the Internet is coming from the far left, which is telling him what to do."
What seems to worry pundits - whether centrist or rightist - is that Edwards is leading the polls in Iowa, where the first caucuses vote next January.
Indeed, current media coverage of Edwards bears an eerie resemblance to the scary reporting on the Democratic frontrunner four years ago, Howard Dean. If Edwards is still ahead as the Iowa balloting nears, expect coverage to get far nastier. The media barrage against Dean in the weeks before Iowa - "too far left" and "unelectable" with a high "unfavorable" rating - helped defeat him. (I write those words as someone who was with Kucinich at the time.)
Today, elite media are doing their best to raise Edwards's unfavorable rating. But the independent media and the Netroots are four years stronger - and have more clout vis-a-vis corporate media - than during Dean's rise and fall.
And it's hard for mainstream pundits to paint Edwards as "unelectable." Polls suggest he has wide appeal to non-liberals and swing voters.
After years of pontificating about how Southern white candidates are the most electable Democrats for president, it would be ironic for even nimble Beltway pundits to flip-flop and declare that this particular white Southerner is a bad bet simply because he talks about class issues.
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Iraq Erodes Democrats' Approval
According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, the Democrats in Congress "have lost much of the leadership edge they carried out of the 2006 midterm election, with the lack of progress in Iraq being the leading cause. Their only solace: President Bush and the Republicans aren't doing any better.""Six weeks ago the Democrats held a 24-point lead over Bush as the stronger leadership force in Washington; today that's collapsed to a dead heat. The Democrats' overall job approval rating likewise has dropped, from a 54 percent majority to 44 percent now -- with the decline occurring almost exclusively among strong opponents of the Iraq War."Other key finding: "Seventy-three percent now say the country's off on the wrong track, the most in just over a decade."

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On Global Warming, ExxonMobil's CEO Channels Rumsfeld
By David Sirota
I attended the ExxonMobil shareholder meeting this week down in Dallas as part of some reporting I am doing for my next book, due out in 2008. When the issue of global warming and climate change came up at the meeting, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson pulled what was a pretty hilarious Don Rumsfeld impression - even though he probably didn't even realize it.
You may recall that on 2/12/02, Rumsfeld was asked how he was so sure "Iraq has attempted to or is willing to supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction?" In an answer that would become fodder for late night comedy jokes, he actually said:


"There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."


Well, 5 years later, here's what ExxonMobil's Tillerson said on 5/30/07 to the annual shareholders meeting when asked why the company has funded groups that deny global warming is a real problem in the face of scientific consensus that says it is:


"There's much we know and can agree on around the climate change issue, and there's much that we just don't believe we do know...and we want to have a debate about the things we know and understand, the things we know about that we don't understand very well, and the things we don't even know about around this very complex issue of climate science. So that is what will continue to be our position."
Got that?