Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

“I think the difference between 2006 and 1994 is that people have gotten to know Santorum better. He is slick, he is personable; he is a better human being than his record would indicate. But his record and his wild statements create major obstacles for him. He has long tested the outer limits of acceptability for a Republican in Pennsylvania, and he has jumped off the cliff to please the right wing too many times. The maddening Democratic factionalism in Pennsylvania may yet elect him, but we have a good chance to defeat him precisely because he has made himself so well known. ”

-Representative Mark B. Cohen on Rick Santorum (from comments).

Representative Cohen makes more good points in this paragraph than most of us could hope to make in a week. His point on Democratic factionalism in Pennsylvania is spot on in that it, more than anything else, makes a third Santorum term possible. This may seem an odd point for me to highlight in that I’m not backing the consensus choice for Senator in the upcoming primary. So be it. The arguments and passions of a primary are vital to the strength of a party, but I think we are all interested in seeing the bar moved up for a change, regardless of who we may be supporting in the primary. I’m not planning to watch Santorum win again while I suck my thumb, waiting for the perfect Democrat.

I was somewhat surprised to see George Stephanopolous take it to Santorum this morning, as he’s been disappointingly tame since he took over ABC’s Sunday morning political show. While he’s a comfortable television presence, I don’t know that he’s well suited to conducting tough interviews and really putting people on the spot. Were I in charge of things, Stephanopolous would be spending the majority of his show talking about raw politics and raw political process - the things that brought him to public prominence in 1992 as a very young, but senior advisor to Bill Clinton.

Anyway, Stephanopolous did manage to get Santorum to froth at the mouth a little, and it certainly was sight for sore eyes. You can read the whole transcript here and watch the tape here. Enjoy.

As many of you probably know by now, the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) passed in the House last night. It was not, however, pushed through on strict party lines. In fact, one of the most ardent opponents is a previously vociferous Republican from North Carolina, Walter Jones. Yet another example of left/right interests converging to everyone’s benefit.

Then everybody’s favorite dog loving cream puff, Rick Santorum, is a man of his words.

WASHINGTON — Two days after saying he had no intention of running for president in 2008, Republican Sen. Rick Santorum said Wednesday there was a slight possibility he could run after all.

“There’s a remote chance that that could change, but that’s not my intention,” Santorum told The Associated Press between television rounds to promote his new book, “It Takes a Family.”

Why can’t I get the words “lying sack of shit” out of my head? Signs of impending breakdown I suppose. Anybody know the number of a good analyst?

My feet are rested but my soul is tired. I’m not up for writing this evening so I won’t, but if you have the means, I’d like you to go have a look at what Richard Cranium is up to and help out. I’m being overly vague, I know, but you bastards are lazy and I want at least two of you to click over out of sheer curiosity.

My job(s), however, have a strangle hold on thoughts both rational and otherwise. Just in case you were feeling good this morning, I thought I would point you towards this article in the Daily News discussing skyrocketing housing prices in Philadelphia.

If you are anything like me, making just enough on two incomes to live in a decent Center City apartment on a decent block, you too may be a placeholder. Just another schlep waiting for the day your landlord kicks you to curb so he can sell your apartment for $1,000,000 to some empty nesters from suburbia who are looking to add some spice to their lives. Ah, to be young and underpaid.

I am a typo machine, but you probably already knew that.

I hope the entire Pennsylvania Democratic establishment and grassroots just watched Rick Santorum’s interview with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show like I did. If they did, they would have seen what they are up against, and the picture isn’t at all pretty. Make all the cream puff, man on dog, drama queen jokes you like, but Santorum is a very seriously talented politician. If we allow ourselves any underestimation of his ability to win a general election, we will have our asses handed to us in the general.

I hope tonight’s show serves as a wake-up call to the people who feel as though they can throw a Valium like candidate, with good name recognition, at a major political talent and hope to come out on the better side of the deal. It’s not happening. No matter how totally fucked in the head Santorum’s world view may be, it’s just not happening. We can’t let ourselves be blinded by the insanity he spits out on a regular basis, as most voters will never hear about it. That’s the case no matter how loud we scream.

The kid is good. If you saw him tonight and really took it in, you know it. Everybody who wants to see him lose in 2006 should repeat it in the mirror every morning. The kid is good, and if we forget that, he’s already won. He makes the unpalpable seem charming, the out seem in, the harsh seem generous, the nasty seem kind, the weird seem sane. The kid is good. If you think the average voter is going to dig through the misdirections and read the play action, you are as out of your skull as he is.

Santorum is seriously outside Pennsylvania’a mainstream, but it doesn’t matter. Santorum was seriously outside of the mainstream when he won his first and second terms, and it didn’t matter then either. Get used to it. Work from there.

Political acumen trumps nuts every day of the week, and political acumen is the one thing, aside from home schooled kids, Santorum has in spades. You may have each and every one of his disgusting utterances pasted to your dartboard, but don’t think for a second he can’t deflect and smile his way out of it, all the while making himself sound like the most reasonable cat who ever walked the earth.

I do mean to sound the alarm. This cat needs to go down hard, and we need to do it. Let’s not go into this gun fight with a bottle of sedatives and false notions about easy wins.

…blanket immunity? I know you can.

I’m seriously doubtful that it will happen, but I’m actually a bit worried that it might actually fly if it did. Many have pointed out the possibility that the only reason the Plame story has any wings at all is that the Washington press corps got its collective chain yanked on this one. I wonder if there is enough institutional fortitude left within that cowed body to withstand a Republican congressional investigation into the alleged abuses of Fitzgerald. Could everybody really look the other way once Rove has congressional immunity and focus on something unrelated to the original issue, or would it backfire into the mother of all shitstorms?

Whatever. Just feeling a little paranoid this evening I suppose. That can be fun sometimes.

I guess it’s hard answering pointed questions, but selecting questions like “ I am reading your book right now and admire what you have done to help strengthen the family, especially inner city minority families. Can you give examples of programs you have supported in Pennsylvania that actually help minority families?” is truly embarrassing . Have a look at the Santorum online chat, which has now concluded, because it doesn’t get any better than that. Sad to say, but my senator is a cream puff and yes, he did get to pick his own questions.

He’s also a lying sack of shit, but you already knew that.

Everybody’s favorite dog loving drama queen, Rick Santorum, will be taking questions at 1:00 PM over on the Washington Post. I’m sure you bastards have some things you’d like to ask him so pop on over, so he can decline to answer your inquiries. Atrios has some helpful links if you’re feeling stumped. The Queen will also be appearing on the Daily Show this evening to promote his new book It Takes a Family. Since he’s a sitting senator I’m expecting softballs, but you never know.

Santorum Hatred™ Always a smart choice!

Update: The online chat is in progress and Santorum’s choice of questions to answer is so soft it’s funny. It reminds me of one of Bush’s town hall mettings from the election.

Update II: I can’t get the words “cream puff” out of my head. I wonder why?

If Roberts had just admitted to being a member of the Federalist Society and not gone out of his way to deny it, would anybody have cared? Somehow, I doubt it. What percentage of the population even knows that such a group exists, let alone know enough to form an opinion on whether a potential Supreme Court Justice should be a member? So why the parsing and denials? He actually called newspapers to refute the notion, and they dutifully ran corrections. Just weird.

Watching Russert conduct his roundtable on the Plame/Rove/Libbey/Fleischer scandal, I came away with impression that he was only slightly more comfortable than he would have been had he been forced to conduct an interview while having a colonoscopy. Since he has become part of the story this week and had to admit as much, albeit in the third person, I wonder if NBC News will feel the need to have him interviewed on air, ala Martha, before allowing him to touch this one again. It would strike me as the appropriate move and If they do, I hope he brings a cabbage.

Chris Bowers:

It is one thing to say you want to reform the Democratic Party. It is quite another thing to realize that you can just take it over because you realize very few people are participating within it. This is, indeed, something that we need to do, because a lack of a vibrant party structure has very real consequences at the ballot box.

In case you missed it, Chris Bowers announced on Friday that he’s running for Commiteeperson from in Ward 27, Division 23 and will be filing early this week. Even though Ward 27 is something like the tundra of Philadelphia ward politics, due to the transient nature of its population (read: Penn students), I’m excited nevertheless. If the Philadelphia Democratic Party is going to be reformed into a party that actually represents and serves this city in the best way possible, it’s likely going to happen at the ward level first. It can only help that somebody with a decent sized megaphone, like Chris Bowers, is throwing himself into the thick of it.

Clearly, there has been an unusual amount of interest in the ward structure of late, with Neighborhood Networks representing the most visible sign of the growing rumble. Replacing the current structure, where needed, would provide the progressive and reform minded the best way to get a seat at the table. A Commiteeperson, if effective, will have real and regular contact with the people who live within their district. They will go door to door discussing the mundane, but vital topics of potholes, trash pickup, police and fire service, nuisance bars, street lights, etc, and act as advocates with the ward leader or appropriate agency. If truly committed, they will develop a report with the citizens in the community, become a trusted source of information about candidates and issues, and become a small cog in making this big town a better place. In doing so, a committed, reform minded Committeeperson will go a long way in helping to build a Philadelphia Democratic Party we can be proud of.

A very tall order, I know. Lend Chris a hand if he needs it, and think about getting involved with Neighborhood Networks. There is no time like the present.

Update: While I share Chris’ first name, I do not share his last. This, among many other things, makes us different people.

This is almost everywhere, but it’s worth a look:

July 22 (Bloomberg) — Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.

Lewis “Scooter� Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn’t tell Libby of Plame’s identity, the person said.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame’s name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said.

These discrepancies may be important because Fitzgerald is investigating whether Libby, Rove or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation. The Plame case has its genesis in whether any administration officials violated a 1982 law making it illegal to knowingly reveal the name of a covert intelligence agent.

(Via all of humanity)

Billmon hits the nail on the head when he writes that the only realistic strategy for stopping the Roberts nomination would be for Senate Democrats to “bork him like nobody has ever been borked before”. That’s the only thing that would make the process even modestly uncomfortable for the Republicans, and it would require the mother of all shitstorms. Since Roberts has failed to produce much more than a yawn at this point, the pertinent questions are; would it work and will it happen? My answer is in the title.

Shortest Diversion Ever.

To all concerned about Bush’s recent nominee of judge Roberts: Please try to meet at City Hall tomorrow at 12 noon. As part of MoveOn’s urgent campaign for nationwide resistance, we will be gathering to collect petitions throughout Center City, and beyond if possible, to block the nomination. This will require only a few hours of your time, but the effects will be immesurable. Again, this request is being issued with the utmost urgency. Thank you.

http://www.moveonpac.org/event/RapidResponse/3400

Susie hits the nail on he head with this post and if I wasn’t so busy, I’d get into it a little. I’ve talked about this before with regards to Bob Casey’s run for Senate, but it’s something that really needs be addressed by all proponents of criminalizing abortion. What happens next? What will the punishments be, and is there any actual plan to deal with the fallout. Furthermore, is there any plan to actually reduce the number abortions, or is mere criminalization enough? The people pushing for criminalization are the ones who need come up with the answers.

Tim Grieve:

We’ve heard enough about Roberts’ honesty and integrity — and he’s such a nice, nice young man! — that we have a hard time believing that it’s the latter. If Roberts didn’t agree with what he wrote on behalf of the first Bush administration in 1990 — that Roe vs. Wade “was wrongly decided and should be overruled” — why didn’t he find someone else to sign off on that brief? Why did he come to the aid of Operation Rescue in another brief he wrote for the Bush administration three years later? Why did he continue to work in the solicitor general’s office until 1993? Why did he make a contribution to the Bush-Cheney campaign? And what do you suppose Judge Roberts talks about over the dinner table with his wife, who has had a leadership role in a group called Feminists for Life?

The right knows what it’s getting in John Roberts. “The president is a man of his word,” Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, told the New York Times Tuesday night. “He promised to nominate someone along the lines of a Scalia or a Thomas, and that is exactly what he has done.” It’s the rest of us who are supposed to refrain from prejudging, to keep an open mind, to nod approvingly when Roberts says he can’t talk about how he’d rule in future cases, and then to pretend that we don’t know what we already do.

Anybody getting that sinking feeling?

(via Susie)