"I'm not a folksy tough guy, but I play one on TV"

by folkbum

I'm not following the Democratic primary all that closely, because, frankly, I think I will be happy to support any of the top three or five candidates as they stand right now. There are things I like more or less about each candidate, but on balance, they are people I can get behind and who, I think, are eminently electable.

The Republican primary, on the other hand--now that's where the show is. It's fascinating not for who will necessarily come out on top, but rather because it offers a good window into the messy apartment that is the Republican base.

This whole Fred Thompson phenomenon is a good example of it. While it's true that some Democrats keep holding out for Clark to get in the race (there is, for example, a near-daily "My Wesley will come for me!" diary at dKos), and many pollsters are still including Al Gore in their polls, I think the Dem field is set. And we like our candidates.

But for Republicans, something was missing. As much as their top-tier candidates have tried to out-Jack-Bauer each other, all of them had some fatal flaw: Giuliani wasn't pro-life enough, McCain wasn't anti-immigration enough, Romney wasn't Christian enough. So enter Fred Thompson who, in fact, seems to have all three of those flaws (abortion, immigration, religion). But, you know, he was the one everyone demanded.

And I can't, for the life of me, understand why. (Well, I can, but I need a minute to get there.) Aside from one term in the US Senate, Thompson has had three careers: attorney, lobbyist, and Hollywood actor. These are not occupations that necessarily win praise from conservatives. Thompson is reputed to be "folksy," but it's just the accent, I think, since he certainly hasn't shown himself to be anything like you or me--whether it's renting a pick-up truck as a prop while driving a luxury sedan or sleeping through the starlets in search of a trophy wife. "Folksy" is a character he plays on TV, not who he is.

Ben Brothers imagines what would happen if Thompson were a Democrat, and concludes that a Dem-equivalent Draft Thompson movement would show us in utter disarray. But that kind of hypocrisy is par for the course. The "pick-up truck" link above takes you to a Jamison Foser essay at Media Matters where he notes that John Edwards gets reamed for being Edwards:

The rich trial lawyer/lobbyist who rents a red pickup, not to drive, but to use as a prop? The media tell us he's folksy and authentic. And the rich former trial lawyer who doesn't hide his good fortune? He's a phony.

More important, though is what Glenn Greenwald points out:

This folksy, down-home, regular guy has spent his entire adult life as a lawyer and lobbyist in Washington, except when he was an actor in Hollywood.

And -- like the vast, vast majority of Republican "tough guys" who play-act the role so arousingly for our media stars, from Rudy Giuliani to Newt Gingrich -- Thompson has no military service despite having been of prime fighting age during the Vietnam War (Thompson turned 20 in 1962, Gingrich in 1963, Giuliani in 1964). He was active in Republican politics as early as the mid-1960s, which means he almost certainly supported the war in which he did not fight. [. . .]

The only thing that makes Thompson a "tough guy" is that he pretends to be one; he play-acts as one. There is nothing real about it. But in the same way that George Bush's ranch and fighter pilot costumes (along with his war advocacy) sent media stars swooning over his masculinity and "toughness," [. . .] the Bush followers in need of a new authoritarian Leader[] are so intensely hungry for this faux masculine power that the illusion, the absurd play-acting, is infinitely more valuable to them than any reality, than any genuine attributes of "toughness."

In other words, the Republicans see Thompson as the only one who can provide real strength, real leadership. And it's entirely because he does that on TV.

I said before, the other candidates were trying to out-Jack-Bauer each other (Romeny, for example, wants to double the size of Guantanamo Bay). But Thompson's already played that kind of role. Heck, he's already been president. On TV. The Republicans want to elect a fictional man to be our President.
*****I have another theory about what's going on with the Republican primary, and I think it fits in with the Thompson angle. I've been wondering if Bush isn't actively trying to upset the base right now. Digby caught an MSNBC chyron that read, "Just how liberal is President Bush?" The right answer, of course, is "not at all." But on immigration, and, last week, global warming, Bush seems to be offering positions further away from the far right and closer to--though not really near--the center.

I can't help but think that Bush is trying to give the current candidates the opening they need to run against him and his 28% support--by running to Bush's right. To those of us who actually are liberals, this is both amusing and a disturbing continuation of the tendency of the right to define the center as the left, and views held by majorities as fringe.

There is, of course, one issue for which Bush is not leaving openings to his right: Iraq. And ten of the now-eleven candidates have done nothing but pledge to keep up what Bush has begun there, including Fred Thompson. Some, like our own Tommy!, talk around the issue in different language, but Ron Paul seems to be the only one who assesses Iraq with any kind of rational basis in reality. In fact, one question I've had about Fred Thompson is which side of what I would call the Ron Paul Line he falls. We know Thompson's answer about what he would do differently in Iraq (which is nothing). But does Thompson have anything like a more realistic picture of the world and why we are in the situation we're in than do his counterparts? I don't know.

Regardless, the White House seems to be playing a strategy that allows all the candidates, including Thompson, a chance to run against Bush. Indeed, Thompson is even now wowing audiences and xenophobic bloggers with his tough-guy, anti-Bush immigration talk.

However, if 2006 is any guide, this is a losing strategy. Conservatives like to think that they lost in 2006 because they abandoned core conservative values, but they did not (kudos to Michael King on this excellent essay yesterday). The hard-right base voted for Republicans as they usually do; moserates did not. I think there's a reason that, despite his flaws, Rudy Giuliani is still winning the Republican primary polls. It's not because, as some pundits point out, because Rudy looked tough on 9/11. It's because Rudy's not a hard-right conservative.

Rudy's moderateness will not help him win the primary in the end, as any primary favors candidates who play to the base. But as pollsters ask Republicans in general whom they could vote for, Giuliani is the one who appeals to them the most. I imagine that if Rudy were to cross to the Ron Paul side of the Ron Paul Line, he could walk away with the general election. But because the Republican base is looking for someone to Bush's right, but who still conveys the same image of a though-guy commander in chief, a candidate like Fred Thompson--or, rather, the candidate he plays on TV--will win the primary.

photo by Greg at The Talent Show

I didn't watch the debate

by folkbum

I've been grading papers, getting ready for the last two weeks of school.

But I' can guess how the debate went based on this cool graphic from the Dodd people.


Question: Why is Wolf Blitzer talking more than most of the candidates? Who's more important here?

The frustrating thing

Now that I have all the widgets--as they call 'em for the "new" Blogger--set up with all the data (blogrolls, scripts, whatnot), it hit me that I can't transfer the contents of the widgets!

So here it is, what the new blog will look like. But actually making the transition at the real place will be a bit of a bear.

Grr.

But I really like the label cloud. Just wait 'til that hits the real blog!

A Good Day to Have a GoogleNews Alert for "Jay Bullock"

Because not only am I featured in Wiggy's column (where I co-star with Cindy Sheehan, of all people), it turns out that I also transport autos around Europe:

One of the most unusual and highly specialised fleets in the UK has taken delivery of four new Euro 5 compliant Volvo FH-440 4x2 tractor units - part of a total order for six.

CARS, the initials stand for Classic Automotive Relocation Services, store, transport and arrange shipping for some of the most valuable and collectable cars in the world. [. . .]

CARS Director Jay Bullock says that the company chose Volvo and Euro 5 for safety and environmental reasons and the fact that Volvo had Euro 5 compliant engines readily available to order. Presenting a high-quality company image is also vital to the operation, he says. “Not normal is our business! Our customers demand very high quality service and the image of our vehicles is very important.”

“The Euro 5 Volvo’s are state-of-the-art and we have good personal service from the Dealer. If one of our customers asks us to collect a three million dollar car at a certain time, we have to be there. These trucks could be meeting an Antonov cargo plane at Stansted one day to unload the cars belonging to the competitors returning from the Beijing to Paris rally and delivering a unique, classic car to a collector in Barcelona for a film shoot the next. We need top class trucks with best in the business back-up. That’s why we chose Volvo.”

I am looking for a new car. I'd be happy with a Volvo . . .

(Two things about Wiggy's column: He tries to make this blog a year older than it is. And I may respond more later, but I'm under deadline for my own column . . .)

McIlheran Watch: I think I'm owed an apology

by folkbum (UPDATED below)

I'd like to see Patrick McIlheran spin his way out of this:

An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003. [. . .]

The unclassified summary of Plame's employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, "Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."

Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, "engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business." The report says, "she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times." When overseas Plame traveled undercover, "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA."

McIlheran's not the only one, of course, who sputtered and blustered for the last three years that Valerie Plame was not covert, and, therefore, Scotter Libby was railroaded. But his bluster was plenty loud, and loaded with falsehoods (and how!).

He seemed bothered that I insisted on accuracy. But I do, and when last we left the matter, he not only seemed convinced that Scooter Libby did nothing wrong (though Libby admitted to giving Plame's name to reporters), but that Plame wasn't really all that covert. Let's see if he corrects the record.

UPDATE: I should add this:

Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has made it clearer than ever that he was hot on the trail of a coordinated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame until that line of investigation was cut off by the repeated lies from Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. [. . .]

Despite all the public interest in the case, Fitzgerald has repeatedly asserted that grand-jury secrecy rules prohibit him from being more forthcoming about either the course of his investigation or any findings beyond those he disclosed to make the case against Libby. But when his motives have been attacked during court proceedings, Fitzgerald has occasionally shown flashes of anger -- and has hinted that he and his investigative team suspected more malfeasance at higher levels of government than they were able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

In Friday's eminently readable court filing, Fitzgerald quotes the Libby defense calling his prosecution "unwarranted, unjust, and motivated by politics." In responding to that charge, the special counsel evidently felt obliged to put Libby's crime in context. And that context is Dick Cheney.

Libby's lies, Fitzgerald wrote, "made impossible an accurate evaluation of the role that Mr. Libby and those with whom he worked played in the disclosure of information regarding Ms. Wilson's CIA employment and about the motivations for their actions." [. . .]

Not clear on the concept yet? Fitzgerald adds: "To accept the argument that Mr. Libby's prosecution is the inappropriate product of an investigation that should have been closed at an early stage, one must accept the proposition that the investigation should have been closed after at least three high-ranking government officials were identified as having disclosed to reporters classified information about covert agent Valerie Wilson, where the account of one of them was directly contradicted by other witnesses, where there was reason to believe that some of the relevant activity may have been coordinated, and where there was an indication from Mr. Libby himself that his disclosures to the press may have been personally sanctioned by the Vice President."

McIlheran and his ilk have been insisting for three years that the Libby case, the whole investigation into who leaked a CIA agent's name to the press and why, has been pointless. But here it is clear both that the investigation was necessary and that Libby's obstruction made it more difficult (as obstruction often does) for FItzgerald to get to the bottom of what happened. To suggest now that he was a scapegoat, or that he should be pardoned, is ridiculous.

It's not a happy blogoversary

So I've been at this four years, today. Woo.

I'm in one of my periodic what's-the-point-of-blogging slumps, which is a big part of why this space has been quiet for a few days. That, and work in and out of the house, car shopping, quality time with my charcoal grill . . .

But it's also Memorial Day, and it's mind-boggling to me that, since this day last year, we have nearly 1000 new American dead to remember. How can a blogoversary compare to that?

We have, it seems, a whole mess of Republicans running for president intent not just on killing thousands more in this damned war, but in fully buying into the lies that got us here. How can I celebrate that?

We're learning this Memorial Day even more about just how outrage-inducing indeed these memorials truly are, how utterly unnecessary each and every one of the thousands of deaths. And for four years, this blog has been a witness. It's not something to be proud of, to be happy for, to be excited over.

This Memorial Day, every American should be ashamed of where we are, how far we've come, and what price we've paid these four years.

Hence, the silence.