Category Archives: Politics: The Party of Sleaze

Our newspapers too often write in code. But sometimes the code is easy to crack. Take today. In the course of a write up of the stupid and inflammatory things said by Cong. Hostettler on the floor of the House (albeit not very different things from what you hear on hate radio or read in some blogs) the Washington Post's Mike Allen describes the scene in which the gentleman-by-courtesy had to eat his words:

GOP Congressman Calls Democrats Anti-Christian: Eventually, Hostettler rose and read a sentence that had been written out for him in large block letters by a young Republican floor aide: “Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the last sentence I spoke.”

Large. Block. Letters. (Written by a child!)

Incidentally, the name Hostettler may be familiar:

Hostettler was in the news last year when he took a registered Glock 9mm semiautomatic handgun to Louisville International Airport as he was preparing to board a flight to Washington. The congressman, who said he had forgotten he had placed the gun in the briefcase, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and received a suspended sentence.

As an academic, I'm very pro-Truth. I think trying to figure out what it is and then sharing it is a big part of my job. (Even if it's inherently an elusive sort of a concept. But there can be truths about that, too…)

Society, however, doesn't seem too excited about truth. Consider this depressing post by Digby at Hullabaloo:

During the campaign Bush repeatedly lied about the reasons for the Iraq war, even based upon the irrefutable public record, and as best I can tell the travelling press corp never bothered to comment upon it

Then he documents it at some length.

Depressed enough yet? Consider his next post about what the cable networks think is newsworthy. Hint: a lot involves someone named “Natalee Holloway”; not much involves the real issues of the day.

Update: The science version — for this administration reality is just an option….and not such an attractive one.

Just combine these two links please:

1) TPM explains the procedural (and moral) aspects of the so-called 'nuclear option' — in which a parliamentary device would be used to end-run a Senate rule that entrenches [requires a super-majority to change] the filibuster. Using the spurious claim that the filibuster is unconstitutional, Sen. Frist would try to overturn the rule by majority vote.

2) Senator Frist gets caught out by Sen. Schumer on the floor of the Senate:

SEN. SCHUMER: Isn't it correct that on March 8, 2000, my colleague [Sen. Frist] voted to uphold the filibuster of Judge Richard Paez?

Senator Frist's eloquent reply must be read in its entirety.

As for the underlying issues, as I've said before, I don't in principle much like the filibuster. It's anti-majoritarian, albeit in a way that might sometimes counterbalance the built-in tilt of the Senate towards large open spaces. Yes, there can be a value to mechanisms that respect the intensity of feelings of a minority; even so, the filibuster has an ugly pedigree.

I also don't have warm fuzzy feelings for entrenchment of rules regarding unequal democratic representation or apportionment (I'm ok with entrenching individual rights) — like for example the rule that entrenches two senators per state regardless of population disparity. Nevertheless — while I claim no expertise on this question — my gut reaction is that I don't think that entrenching a Senate rule is unconstitutional either.

One thing I am sure about: neither the advise and consent clause nor any other part of the constitution 'requires that a nominee be given an up or down vote'. Whether or not the filibuster is morally valid, or even beneficial in the long run, for my money it is undoubtedly constitutionally valid.

Further to House GOP Sinks to New Low, I see via the wonderful Carpetbagger site that, Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) has decided to revise his committee's records to remove the multiple inaccurate and slanderous descriptions of Democratic amendments.

(Example: an amendment to exclude bus and taxi drivers from criminal liability for transporting a child across state lines, on the theory that ordinarily they would be unaware of her destination was reported as a bill to “exempted sexual predators from prosecution if they are taxicab drivers, bus drivers, or others in the business of professional transport”.)

The act is gone; the stench lingers.

Hullabaloo:

I'm not kidding. The man who wrote Joe McCarthy's strongest supporter's newspaper column is now on the payroll of the corporation of public broadcasting as an ombudsman.

People do change and grow over time, so one's first job after college as a ghostwriter for a notorious anti-semitic pro-McCarthy radio broadcaster maybe shouldn't dog you forever. Trouble is, Digby also quotes from a 1997 interview that doesn't sound at all apologetic.

That was the Red Scare. What will they call this current round of national panic, I wonder?

Hard to believe, but insofar as one cares about truth, fair play, or honesty in government, the House GOP has now sunk to a new low: re-writing a House committee report to distort the intentions of Democrats offering amendments: amendments offered to protect family members and innocent bystanders were rewritten to and mis-characterized to make it look as if the Democrats had in fact proposed to give a free pass to various types of 'sexual predators'.

What's the right name for this sort of behavior? Dishonest seems too weak. Fascist seems too strong, but less so than it used to. In between there are so many words to choose from…

Will anyone rise in the House on a point of personal privilege and call them out? Move to censure or even expel the perpetrators (not that it has a chance of passing…)?

Meanwhile, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee, issued a great statement about this new perversion of the House Rules.

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