Recently in Failed Leadership Category

And I am the dumbest politician in the whole wide world.



If he is going to talk like Forest Gump, he could at least make an effort to improve his impersonation. Because, really, he makes Forest look like an intellectual.

And yes, I am aware Forest Gump is a fictional character. I happen to believe it is appropriate to compare the two, because for all intensive purposes, Rudy Giuliani is a fictional leader.

StarTribune.com

How much is a noble idea worth? A new state law prohibits cities, counties, the state and other "public employers" from buying uniforms or safety equipment made outside the United States. The idea, said the man behind the measure, Rep. Tom Rukavina, is to send a message about protecting American jobs and revenue. An admirable goal, say city officials and the League of Minnesota Cities, but the problem is that cash-strapped local governments have never been in a worse position to devote scarce resources to a philosophical ideal, even if they agree with it.

A law that should have been passed back when NAFTA was first implemented.

Hot Dish Politics

Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann stopped by the state Capitol on Monday to pitch some proposed ground rules for the national debate over health care reform.

 

At a news conference, Bachmann unveiled the "Declaration of Health Care Independence," which will be formally released Wednesday.

 

"We are rejecting politics as usual in Washington D.C. in dealing with this health care issue," said Bachmann, a Republican.

Proposing ground rules at this point in health care reform is like the refs showing up for the game after the clock has run out.

Sometimes there's crazy, which makes sense in a headline grabbing sort of way. Then there is the above move by Bachmann, which is just plain stupid. Dumb ass stupid.

Be very afraid.

God, I am so glad this man is no longer in charge. For eight years all George W. Bush did was cry "Be Afraid." Give him a national microphone, and he resorts right back to crying "Be Afraid."

I agree with the Heritage Foundation: President Obama should call Miserable Failure and ask his advice. Then do exactly the opposite of what MF suggests. No doubt there will be complete and utter success.

(Salon.com) While I'm loath to write a top-10 list, if only for fear of falling short of Dave Letterman's legendary bit, I'm making an exception in this first week of 2010 -- a moment when we get to not only make New Year's resolutions, but resolutions for the new decade. As we make those prospective pledges, let's take a moment to look back at the top 10 quotations from the last 10 years -- the ones telling us some painful truths about our country, society and worldview; the ones that might inform us of what we need to do as we move forward.

10. "They frankly own the place." -- Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., in 2009 admitting the taboo about banks' influence in Congress.

9. "Haven't we already given money to rich people ... Shouldn't we be giving money to the middle?" -- President George W. Bush in November 2002, acknowledging to advisors that he knew his tax cuts were giveaways to the super-wealthy.

8. "Keep your government hands off my Medicare." -- Anti-healthcare protester at an August 2009 congressional town hall meeting in South Carolina -- the single most succinct sign that our country has become an idiocracy.

7. "We did this for the show." -- Falcon Heene on Oct. 15, 2009, telling CNN that the Balloon Boy chase was a hoax. The declaration demonstrated that the media's 24-7 knee-jerk sensationalism is irresponsible and proved that America's culture of celebrity aspiration is completely out of control.

6. "As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know they're some things we do not know. But there're also unknown unknowns; the ones we don't know we don't know." -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Feb. 12, 2002, effectively telling us that the government had no idea what it was doing by invading Iraq.

5. "Bring 'em on." -- President George Bush on July 2, 2003, daring al-Qaida to attack U.S. troops -- yet more proof that the elite defines "toughness" as politicians flippantly sacrificing young American lives for Washington's hubristic ideologies.

4. "The investment community feels very put-upon. They feel there is no reason why they shouldn't earn $1 million to $200 million a year, and they don't want to be held responsible for the global financial meltdown." -- Daniel Fass, chairman of Obama's financial-industry fundraising party on Oct. 19, 2009, insisting that despite wrecking the economy and then being handed trillions of bailout dollars, Wall Street is a victim.

3. "$500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus." -- Wall Street compensation consultant James Reda on Feb. 3, 2009, giving the New York Times a good example of just how totally out of touch the super-rich really are.

2. "I didn't campaign on the public option." -- President Obama on Dec. 22, 2009, expecting the public to forget that his presidential campaign platform explicitly promised to pass healthcare legislation giving all Americans "the opportunity to enroll in (a) new public plan."

1. "It doesn't matter." -- Vice President Dick Cheney on Nov. 5, 2006, referring to polls repeatedly showing the majority of Americans oppose the Iraq war -- a sign the ruling class truly does not care about the demands of the public.

These epigrams expose a nation that has internalized and accepted the forces of avarice, corruption, dishonesty, incompetence and insensitivity. Some of them are darkly funny, some of them are gut-wrenchingly sad -- but all of them are warnings. Whether we listen to them or not will be the difference between repeating the last decade's folly or learning from it.

Here's to resolutions for the new decade that finally choose the latter.

First, the Republicans shot themselves in the foot with their pro-rape vote. Then, thinking they were being clever, instead opened the door to forcing a strong, well-written public option for the health care reform bill.

Honestly, do these guys have a complete lack of intelligence? I mean, they gave Senator Franken a wide open door, and of course he stepped through.

Seems that the 30 pro-rape Republicans are whining about being called pro-rape Republicans because they voted against Al Franken's amendment which would prevent companies from getting federal contracts if they force their employees to use arbitration to settle sexual harassment, abuse, and discrimination cases instead of the courts. You know, denying them their constitutional rights.

Honestly, I am not going to feel sorry for them. These are the same group of Republicans that made no effort to rebuke the statement when one Senator called Al a clown.

These two post really suggest to me that we are seeing a swing in the mindset of our nation. We are moving away from fear, and starting to recognize a need for personal bravery in our everyday life.

About 10 years ago -- before the day that everything changed -- at an AA meeting I said our children are far stronger than we give them credit. I was personally attacked by several of the members that day for having the audacity to trust the safety and well-being of my children. I shook my head in amazement and left it alone, believing they would eventually learn to move away from fear. Little did I know that this was simply a symptom of the fear and cowardice that has already inflicted our nation.

Without the attacks on September 11, 2001, George W. Bush would have been a one-term president, just like his father. But after decades of fear-mongering by the conservatives in the Republican party, and a lack of personal bravery by the conservatives in the Democratic party, the attacks only strengthened the already perceived danger of life. Fear became an overwhelming force in this country. Where rational thought once was the hallmark of facing life, it was wholeheartedly abandoned that day, and our hopes and desires for safety were handed to a man completely unprepared for leadership during unremarkable times, let alone extraordinary times.

However, in terms of fear being a motivational force in electoral outcomes, George W. Bush was the pinnacle of success. Today, the majority of people will simply not vote out of fear. As a populous, I think we have learned our lessons in that regard. Like it or not, the idea of Iraq as a mistake is more or less established, with only hair-brained future conspiracy theorists making any claim to the opposite; dead-enders hanging on to that last little hope of re-establishing relevance and power through belief in fear and cowardice, a legacy of failure handed to them by their elders.

Now, the Hullabaloo post is an example of the media pinnacle of success. At least for Fox News. In more ways than I can really due justice in describing, Glenn Beck's show is a self-parody of the Fox News mind-set. It is paranoid schizophrenic thinking laid bare for all to see. If there is one thing to be grateful about, it is that this is occurring mostly in the media, and not on the floor of the congress, as happened in the 1950s with McCarthy. None-the-less, Glenn Beck is pulling on the last, lingering, strings of fear that are entwined around a small, but extremely vocal, percentage of the populous; elders of the hair-brained future conspiracy theorists. 

The Republican candidate who was running for NY-23, Scozzafav, dropped out of the race today. All the way around; this is not a good sign for either the Republican party or the conservatives. While the Democratic party has often aired it's dirty laundry in public, and rarely hid infighting, in the end a consensus was build, and the party moved forward. But the Republicans are not infighting. What we are witnessing is disintegration.

The extremists have taken the title of conservatism and pushed out those who are truly conservative. In the process, they have divided the Republican party. The demands of lock-step unity the party pursued during the first 5 and a half years of the Bush presidency prevented the honest airing of policy differences and prevented compromise, creating a buildup of toxic animosity and vitriol.

This is a party that lost any ability to look within itself and see its mistakes and to accept the failures of their ideology. Instead, they cling harder to what they believed is the only way and now walk down a political blind alley. As such, they are not likely to adjust their stance to the prevailing political will of the people.

Instead of seeing politics as simple leadership, they have developed a mindset of their party as a way of life. And at this time in history, they see their way of life as needing to eradicate liberalism. Unfortunately, in their desire to destroy liberalism they have taken to destroying themselves.

You know, considering trends were apparent like 30 years ago that minority plurality was increasing while "white" majority status was decreasing, you would think the GOP would have done some long-term planning about how to include them in their base. Obviously not.

Eww! They eat their own.

Right-wing bloggers have recently attacked Newt Gingrich for endorsing Republican Dede Scozzafava over Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the special election to fill Army Secretary John McHugh's (R-NY) vacated congressional seat. On her blog, Michelle Malkin said "no thanks" to the possibility of a Gingrich 2012 presidential run, noting that he is the "most prominent GOP endorser of [the] radical leftist NY-23 congressional candidate," while at RedState.com, Erick Erickson reportedly wrote -- before removing the post -- that Gingrich "stands athwart history and pees on the legacy of 1994."

I have to say, I take some small satisfaction in seeing Gingrich suffer the slings and arrows he inflicted on the Democrats and Clinton back in the 1990s.

The problem with monsters is that they turn on their masters.

Oh man! 20%?!?!?! That has got to hurt.

NOT!

(NYT) WASHINGTON -- Thousands of pages of internal e-mail and once-secret Congressional testimony showed Tuesday that Karl Rove and other senior aides in the Bush White House played an earlier and more active role than was previously known in the 2006 firings of a number of United States attorneys.

Like anyone who has been paying attention for the last eight and a half years didn't already know this.

Oh, and previously known? How about; than Karl Rove publicly testified before congress.

Can the Legacy Media be any more gutless?

MN Progressive Project has a post up about Minnesota Republican infighting that has gotten ugly. It is the usual personal attacks on character that we have come to expect from today's Republican party. It is reminiscent of the attack George W. Bush's campaign made against John McCain back in 2000

Now, don't get me wrong. I have no doubt that Democrats of days gone by have engaged in the same personal attacks and will do so in the future. Currently, though, it appears to be a Republican trait. If anyone has done any reading on Karl Rove's past, you learn that he started his dirty, character assassination tricks at a young age, and at a local level.

I know, for myself, that in the past I never paid attention to these kind of low brow political attacks. I considered myself above them, or just felt it was not important enough for me to take into consideration. But I have come to learn that it is important these types of antics be exposed and brought to the attention of the electorate, and at a local level. Just imagine a world where Karl Rove's sleazy campaigning were exposed when he first started out, and had not been at the helm of George W. Bush's campaign, and by extension, his administration.

Eight years of George W. Bush in the White House has taught me that all politics is local. Any and all personal attacks, whisper campaigns, and other Lee Atwater dirty trick antics, whether by Republicans or Democrats, must be exposed early on at the local level, or else we can look forward once again to an incompetent and immoral presidency.

Then listen to the son, and co-founder, of the man who helped build the modern conservative christian movement.

This is what Sarah Palin meant when she said it:

I've been struck by this since the beginning. If it is the case that the president can designate an Office of Legal Counsel functionary to immunize government officials and employees against criminal behavior, then it is true, to all intents and purposes that "if the president does it it's not illegal."

And, from this article, we also learn that Cheney, who developed his executive beliefs and values from the Nixon White House, ordered the CIA to not inform Congress about the secret wiretapping programs.

(NYT)The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

Next week sure is going to be an interesting news week.

Carl, over at Unpopular Ideas reminds us that the introduction of Sarah Palin as the GOP VP selection was a "Hail Mary" pass. In keeping with this metaphor; a reminder that most Hail Mary passes are incomplete. Her resignation from the Governorship of Alaska - that she is leaving with an incomplete term - completes the metaphor.

It's getting to the point where you can count the number of Republicans who aren't bed-hopping hypocrites on one finger. We won't discuss which finger to use. I'll leave it up to you to decide. But it's becoming so commonplace that the Washington Times felt the need to make a comment.

Extramarital affairs, gambling, alcohol abuse, prostitution and sexual pursuit of minors have taken a toll on the GOP.

Now, I'm not sure that alcohol abuse has really been part of the toll. It's been the fall back position to excuse, justify, or otherwise cover up the other problems. Which brings me to my next point; how far our politics have devolved that the once reprehensible, sinful behavior of consuming alcohol beyond socially acceptable limits is now perceived as a viable excuse.

My, how the mighty have fallen.

If it weren't for other blogs, well, I'd never discover the true depth of conservative stupidity.

(TPM) According to Hill reporter Alexander Bolton, "This has prompted some Republicans to muse privately about whether Sotomayor is suggesting that distinctive Puerto Rican cuisine such as patitas de cerdo con garbanzo -- pigs' tongue and ears -- would somehow, in some small way influence her verdicts from the bench."

Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative-leaning advocacy group, said he wasn't certain whether Sotomayor had claimed her palate would color her view of legal facts but he said that President Obama's Supreme Court nominee clearly touts her subjective approach to the law.

Slightly gobsmacked, I called Bolton earlier today and asked him whether this was for real--whether any conservatives were genuinely raising this issue. He confirmed, saying, "a source I spoke to said people were discussing that her [speech] had brought attention...she intimates that what she eats somehow helps her decide cases better."

Bolton said the source was drawing, "a deductive link," between Sotomayor's thoughts on Puerto Rican food and her other statements. And I guess the chain goes something like this: 1). Sotomayor implied that her Latina identity informs her jurisprudence, 2). She also implied that Puerto Rican cuisine is a crucial part of her Latina identity, 3). Ergo, her gastronomical proclivities will be a non-negligible factor for her when she's considering cases before the Supreme Court.

Got it? Good. This is the conservative opposition to Sotomayor.

See, what's nice about other blogs is that I don't have to wallow through an entire article of standard batshit crazy just to get to this phenomenally stupid conservative talking point. In this particular case, I was able to cull the above piece of "wtf" from TPM by way of Mustang Bobby. The end result, I don't have to wipe up the green discharge of my brain leaking out of my ears.

Oh, and what is it about the people with the last name of Bolton? Are they all naturally insane, or is it a curse that comes with the name?

(TPM) Because if it turns out the President didn't get the full story from Cheney and the torture memos were after-the fact justifications, not explorations of policy options, we are looking at something far, far greater than we realized a week ago.

Now Josh, being Josh, is a bit hesitant to paint Bush as out of the loop by claiming it's really not salient, but at least agrees there are new dimensions to the story. Personally, I see Dick Cheney protesting too much and throwing paranoia into the mix because he knows it all leads back to him. What we are witnessing is the behavior of a guilty man.

What is really interesting is the suggestion the DOJ memos on torture came out after waterboarding and other "harsh interrogation" methods were used. Now, I remember reading somewhere that apparently then Vice-president Cheney requested waterboarding be used. Of course, now I can't find the blog. However, I do know it's become common knowledge that torture was used extensively to force an acknowledgment of connection between Iraq and al-Qaida.

Now, if that's the case, with the memos an effort to give Cheney cover after the fact, we are back to the age old political controversy of cover-up. It's never the crime that does in politicians, it's the cover-up.

Honestly, have our conservative brethren deteriorated to a state of second childhood? This age old cry of "tattle tail" is right out of noon recess at the local grade school playground.

Smith: Some of the critics are really labeling this 'Abu Ghraib Part II.'

Herridge: Well, you remember that after Abu Ghraib there was worldwide condemnation for these images of humiliation. And I learned in my research today that there was also a military report in 2008 that concluded that there is a connection between these images and also suicide bombers. Forty-eight bombers, or potential bombers, were interviewed, and they said that these images were a big factor, a big motivating factor, in the decision to become a suicide bomber.

The suggestion by Herridge is that by releasing the photos, we are endangering the service members of our armed forces. However, I think David Neiwert makes the more intelligent, more mature, point:

If anyone thought that photos from those centers would not eventually leak out to the public -- or at the bare minimum, be forced out eventually by the inevitable lawsuits, as was the case here -- they were fooling themselves. Or at least gambling that they'd be out of office by then and could lay the whole mess in the laps of whoever had the misfortune to succeed them.

Indeed, the Obama critics are now out in force shouting that the pending release of these photos will hurt soldiers in the field, including Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham. Bill Kristol is claiming that "this would be a gratuitous assault on the well-being and the reputation of our fighting men and women."

Imagine my surprise when I see the names of Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, and Bill Kristol leading the battle cry from the playground. For Christ's sake, they're supposedly grown men. Instead, we are subjected to hearing excuses I expect from a 4th grader.

President Bush allowed torture to occur under his watch. Torture of which the Great Republican/Conservative God Ronald Reagan himself strongly rejected, as proven by his signing the Geneva treaty banning torture. Now, we are reaping the benefits of torture. Well, actually, al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations are reaping the benefits of torture.

The Bush administration lied about the rational for invading Iraq, then tortured terrorists to acquire proof of a tie between al-Qaida and Iraq (which failed miserably) and now we are faced with this misbegotten horror of a news story.

Some days, I really don't like the human race.

To be fair, the folder is pretty.

Update: Just when I thought I'd only get one laugh for the day, I found myself chuckling over these balloons.

Update II: And now another hearty laugh.

Politico

Erickson, the Coleman campaign spokesman, said Monday that the senator has raised $25 million -- only a small portion of which came from online contributions -- since Nov. 4 to pay for his bills during the hand recount. That should be enough to keep the lawyers paid and the litigation brewing.

"I want to do all I can to help him," said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who said he had maxed out his donations to Coleman.

It's all they know how to do. We already have seen their inability to actually govern.

Hat tip: Minnesota Independent.

In my training back in the day, Dr. Anderson of the Hazelden Foundation was a guest lecturer. He told a story of some research they did on Antabuse. Antabuse, or Disulfiram, is a drug that causes a severe physical reaction when alcohol is consumed. It causes extreme intestinal distress to the point of vomiting, possible swelling of the body, and even an extreme reddening of the skin.

It was a controlled experiment with the usual control group, etc. But all the test subjects received their Antabuse in a yellow cup. From what I remembered, the experiment proved that overall, Antabuse was less effective than other forms of treatment.

However, what stood out in my mind was a comment from one of the test subjects given during a followup interview after the experiment. When asked what he learned from the experience, he replied "Never to drink from a yellow cup."

What, pray tell, does this little story have to do with me and politics? Oh, I know you're curious, admit it.

Well, it turns out my Driver's License is suspended. Why? Because, after having paid my fine, and taking the time to drive up to St. Paul to give the Dept of Motor Vehicles a copy of the receipt, they failed to input it into the system. Hence, my suspension.

I know, I know, it still does not explain my Yellow Cup story. Patience, my few blog readers, patience.

See, it all comes down to the claim of government as the problem. Personally, I never prescribed to that particular idiom. However, after 3 decades of Republicans chanting this little Reagan wit and wisdom, they managed to get into power, and set out to prove their little ideological idiom. Now, this incompetence has filtered down into the bureaucratic layers of government.

My little story, of course, it nothing compared to the wondrous examples of Republican efforts at proving their idiom; Katrina and the Iraqi rebuilding efforts are 2 glaring exhibits. However, considering recent polls regarding the Republican party, like the drunks of Hazelden's research who learned not to drink from yellow cups, Americans seemed to have learned not to vote Republican.