Last Tuesday I watched a mini-debate on PBS between Jared Bernstein (economic policy expert for Obama) and Nancy Pfotenhauer (economic policy adviser to McCain). Bernstein’s argument was economic fairness—a populist argument, in essence. He said Obama wants to restore balance at a time when the combination of windfall profits, huge subsidies and tax breaks to oil companies occurs while ordinary people are being squeezed economically.
Pfotenhauer argued the following: windfall profits tax increases don’t work, they punish domestic suppliers but not foreign suppliers, tax increases represent the policies of Herbert Hoover (!) and Jimmy Carter and (in case we missed it the first time) the 1970s, they cause higher unemployment (“no country has ever taxed its way out of unemployment”), they put us at a competitive disadvantage (she repeated this twice), they’re “a job-killer” (this was repeated three times), and will lead to a recession. She said McCain wants to lower the corporate tax rate, end earmarks (right), reduce pork-barrel spending & freeze non-defense discretionary spending for a year. For more on the implications of such policies, see Matt Iglesias’ 6/12 post on the subject
I found it particularly interesting that Pfotenhauer tried to tie Obama to the 1960s & 70s (Jimmy Carter in particular) but somehow neglected to mention the Clinton era. Had she done the latter, the falsity of her argument would have been immediately apparent. For taxes were higher during the Clinton administration, yet the economy grew much faster than it has under President Katrina. For one measure of the difference, see Ezra Klein's 6/13 post on job creation which includes a Paul Krugman chart that the GOP wishes it could magically disappear. In fact, the Clinton economy outperformed the Bush economy by a number of important measures (See this chart by the PPI and this one in Business Week, for example). Any way you slice it, there's no empirical basis for Pfotenhauer's/McCain's claim that lower taxes produce more jobs and vice versa.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Brain Food
Here are some really interesting blogs I've discovered recently:
ChangingSociety
Kathy G
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Take a look and let me know what you think!
ChangingSociety
Kathy G
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Take a look and let me know what you think!
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Coverup and Call to Action
Doubtless you already know that the Senate Intelligence Committee, now under Democratic control, has finally released the second part of its report on the Bush administration’s misuses of intelligence in the prelude to the Iraq war.
For those who haven’t followed the issue closely, Bush and his cronies set up an "alternative" intelligence outfit in the Pentagon (the Office of Special Plans, run by Douglas Feith) to provide the administration with phony “evidence” to back up a decision he arrived at beforehand. Like Alice in Wonderland, “first the sentence, then the evidence.”
Then, adding to the fun, when forced to set up a congressional investigation of government activities in the lead-up to the war, Bush and Cheney, working with their cronies in Congress, arranged to have the “investigation” split in two—the first part, dealing with intelligence failures, focused on the CIA and was completed before the 2004 election (the timing is crucial here). The second part, dealing with the activities of the White House, was delayed until after the 2004 election (again, timing is everything here). Then the Republicans in Congress dropped the second part altogether, which is why it’s taken until now for a Democratic Congress to finish and issue the report. Clever, yes/no? I believe the term that describes this whole process (except the last part, obviously) is “coverup.” Needless to say, even if there were enough Democrats willing to support impeachment (and a number of Dems representing conservative districts do not), it’s too late now for that.
Now add another piece to the puzzle. The obvious question when faced with all this is, why didn’t people organize massive protests, flood the media with letters, e-mails and phone calls, and generally raise a ruckus about this? Let me answer that by asking another question: Who was going to tell them? As you can see, the machinations undertaken by Bush and friends were pretty convoluted. It bears mentioning here that 80% of the public gets ALL of its news from television. Yet there were no arresting visuals to show on the evening news. There hasn’t been, until now, anything close to a smoking gun—just a steady stream of reports occurring outside the glare of MSN exposure (McClatchy newspapers were stellar, as were the National Journal and a number of lefty blogs). The result? Up until fairly recently, somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% of the public thought Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. Many thought Iraqis were among the 9/11 hijackers. In short, a news media devoted to entertainment in the chase for advertising dollars and cowed by the administration into docility provided no useful information for the American public to use in evaluating the situation. After all, it was only a story about the way this country was manipulated into backing the unprovoked invasion of another country, with its attendant loss of thousands, perhaps millions, of lives.
So here’s where we come in. Barack Obama, as we all know, is running on a platform of bringing change to the way Washington functions and the ways we think about what government can and should do. Part of that, obviously, involves ending the misbegotten war in Iraq. To do that, we need to educate the public about the reality of what’s been done by President Katrina and his cronies in our name. The starting point of that education, it seems to me, has to be alerting people to the coverup outlined above and then the reality that coverup was designed to obscure.
Please feel free to offer your observations in the Comments section below.
Links:
For an excellent collection of essays on the Iraq war by noted historians, see Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not to Learn from the Past, ed. Lloyd Gardner, Marilyn B. Young
emptywheel has a discussion of the politics around the release of Phase II of the report here:
See the Center for Public Integrity’s War Card for an exhaustive record of the entire history of manipulation.
John Dean on the Bush Administration’s manipulation of the Senate’s Iraq Commission
Republican Senate Intelligence Committee chair shifted blame from the White House
Rep. Jane Harmon charges House Intelligence Committee Republicans with refusing to investigate White House behavior prior to the war
NYT: Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Doubts
White House hid evidence of NIE doubts re claims made in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech
Cheney, Libby withheld key documents on Iraq war intelligence from Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004
NPR: Iraq War Intelligence Fact Check
For those who haven’t followed the issue closely, Bush and his cronies set up an "alternative" intelligence outfit in the Pentagon (the Office of Special Plans, run by Douglas Feith) to provide the administration with phony “evidence” to back up a decision he arrived at beforehand. Like Alice in Wonderland, “first the sentence, then the evidence.”
Then, adding to the fun, when forced to set up a congressional investigation of government activities in the lead-up to the war, Bush and Cheney, working with their cronies in Congress, arranged to have the “investigation” split in two—the first part, dealing with intelligence failures, focused on the CIA and was completed before the 2004 election (the timing is crucial here). The second part, dealing with the activities of the White House, was delayed until after the 2004 election (again, timing is everything here). Then the Republicans in Congress dropped the second part altogether, which is why it’s taken until now for a Democratic Congress to finish and issue the report. Clever, yes/no? I believe the term that describes this whole process (except the last part, obviously) is “coverup.” Needless to say, even if there were enough Democrats willing to support impeachment (and a number of Dems representing conservative districts do not), it’s too late now for that.
Now add another piece to the puzzle. The obvious question when faced with all this is, why didn’t people organize massive protests, flood the media with letters, e-mails and phone calls, and generally raise a ruckus about this? Let me answer that by asking another question: Who was going to tell them? As you can see, the machinations undertaken by Bush and friends were pretty convoluted. It bears mentioning here that 80% of the public gets ALL of its news from television. Yet there were no arresting visuals to show on the evening news. There hasn’t been, until now, anything close to a smoking gun—just a steady stream of reports occurring outside the glare of MSN exposure (McClatchy newspapers were stellar, as were the National Journal and a number of lefty blogs). The result? Up until fairly recently, somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% of the public thought Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. Many thought Iraqis were among the 9/11 hijackers. In short, a news media devoted to entertainment in the chase for advertising dollars and cowed by the administration into docility provided no useful information for the American public to use in evaluating the situation. After all, it was only a story about the way this country was manipulated into backing the unprovoked invasion of another country, with its attendant loss of thousands, perhaps millions, of lives.
So here’s where we come in. Barack Obama, as we all know, is running on a platform of bringing change to the way Washington functions and the ways we think about what government can and should do. Part of that, obviously, involves ending the misbegotten war in Iraq. To do that, we need to educate the public about the reality of what’s been done by President Katrina and his cronies in our name. The starting point of that education, it seems to me, has to be alerting people to the coverup outlined above and then the reality that coverup was designed to obscure.
Please feel free to offer your observations in the Comments section below.
Links:
For an excellent collection of essays on the Iraq war by noted historians, see Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not to Learn from the Past, ed. Lloyd Gardner, Marilyn B. Young
emptywheel has a discussion of the politics around the release of Phase II of the report here:
See the Center for Public Integrity’s War Card for an exhaustive record of the entire history of manipulation.
John Dean on the Bush Administration’s manipulation of the Senate’s Iraq Commission
Republican Senate Intelligence Committee chair shifted blame from the White House
Rep. Jane Harmon charges House Intelligence Committee Republicans with refusing to investigate White House behavior prior to the war
NYT: Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Doubts
White House hid evidence of NIE doubts re claims made in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech
Cheney, Libby withheld key documents on Iraq war intelligence from Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004
NPR: Iraq War Intelligence Fact Check
Sunday, June 1, 2008
More About Reflection
1. Clinton campaign position: Any result other than awarding 100% of Michigan delegates on the basis of actual recorded votes violates the core democratic principle of reflection—i.e., that delegates must be awarded in direct proportion to the vote results.
2. Problem: What do the recorded vote results in Michigan represent?
a. Michigan was penalized 100% by the Rules & Bylaws Committee for scheduling their primary between those of Iowa and New Hampshire. Ergo, the primary was not going to count.
b. Clinton & all other Democratic candidates agreed the primary would not count.
c. Obama and 4 other candidates withdrew their names from the ballot due to the Rules & Bylaws Committee decision above.
d. All withdrawn candidates were lumped together by the Michigan Democratic party in category “Undecided”.
e. Michigan rules say write-in votes are not counted unless candidates give prior written approval for them. None did, since the primary was not going to count.
Let’s say I’m a supporter of Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson or Joe Biden (none of whom appeared on the ballot in Michigan). I’m faced with the following choices:
a. Stay at home. After all, I’ve been informed that the vote is not going to count.
b. Vote for Undecided (What will that mean for my candidate? How would anyone determine which votes for Undecided were meant to be for my candidate among the several covered by that label?
c. If I haven’t been paying attention at all, write in the name of my candidate.
Question #1: Given the conditions listed above, to what extent can anyone say that my preference is “reflected” in the primary vote?
Let’s go further & suppose I’m a supporter of Hillary Clinton. I’ve been told, like the supporters of all the other candidates, that the primary vote is not going to count. The only difference in my situation is that my candidate’s name is on the ballot. I’m faced with the following choices:
a. Stay at home, for the same reason as noted above.
b. Vote for Hillary Clinton, knowing that the result won’t count.
Question #2: Given the conditions listed above, how can anyone say that the vote totals for my candidate (not to mention her opponents), were not significantly altered by the Rules & Bylaws Committee’s imposition of the 100% penalty?
Let’s try a contrafactual: Imagine that the 100% penalty had not been imposed; i.e., that the Rules & Bylaws Committee had never informed the Michigan Democrats that their primary would not count. In such circumstances, which of the following would have happened?
1. Democratic candidates removing their names from the ballot.
2. Democratic voters voting for “Undecided” rather than the candidate of their choice.
3. Democratic voters entering write-in votes.
4. Democratic voters staying home.
It seems obvious, therefore, that imposition of the 100% penalty inevitably yielded a result so flawed as to be impossible to consider usable in awarding delegates. How on earth can anyone argue with a straight face that the principle of reflection can be applied to such a mess?
Should the RBC have imposed a penalty on Michigan (or Florida, for that matter)? That’s a separate question. On one hand, I understand the institutional dynamics that led to the decision (see Mori Dinauer’s excellent backgrounder on this here. Also see emptywheel’s excellent discussion on the principle of reflection and details on the dispute here.). On the other hand, imposition of a penalty essentially penalized the voters of those two states for decisions made by those states’ GOP-dominated legislatures, which seems to me inherently unfair. Nonetheless, attempting to change the rules once the penalties and the affected primaries had taken place amounts to cheating, as noted yesterday by Donna Brazile. And it is especially hypocritical for people who originally supported imposition of the 100% penalty (such as Harold Ickes, Terry McCauliff & Hillary Clinton) to complain about the outcome after the fact.
2. Problem: What do the recorded vote results in Michigan represent?
a. Michigan was penalized 100% by the Rules & Bylaws Committee for scheduling their primary between those of Iowa and New Hampshire. Ergo, the primary was not going to count.
b. Clinton & all other Democratic candidates agreed the primary would not count.
c. Obama and 4 other candidates withdrew their names from the ballot due to the Rules & Bylaws Committee decision above.
d. All withdrawn candidates were lumped together by the Michigan Democratic party in category “Undecided”.
e. Michigan rules say write-in votes are not counted unless candidates give prior written approval for them. None did, since the primary was not going to count.
Let’s say I’m a supporter of Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson or Joe Biden (none of whom appeared on the ballot in Michigan). I’m faced with the following choices:
a. Stay at home. After all, I’ve been informed that the vote is not going to count.
b. Vote for Undecided (What will that mean for my candidate? How would anyone determine which votes for Undecided were meant to be for my candidate among the several covered by that label?
c. If I haven’t been paying attention at all, write in the name of my candidate.
Question #1: Given the conditions listed above, to what extent can anyone say that my preference is “reflected” in the primary vote?
Let’s go further & suppose I’m a supporter of Hillary Clinton. I’ve been told, like the supporters of all the other candidates, that the primary vote is not going to count. The only difference in my situation is that my candidate’s name is on the ballot. I’m faced with the following choices:
a. Stay at home, for the same reason as noted above.
b. Vote for Hillary Clinton, knowing that the result won’t count.
Question #2: Given the conditions listed above, how can anyone say that the vote totals for my candidate (not to mention her opponents), were not significantly altered by the Rules & Bylaws Committee’s imposition of the 100% penalty?
Let’s try a contrafactual: Imagine that the 100% penalty had not been imposed; i.e., that the Rules & Bylaws Committee had never informed the Michigan Democrats that their primary would not count. In such circumstances, which of the following would have happened?
1. Democratic candidates removing their names from the ballot.
2. Democratic voters voting for “Undecided” rather than the candidate of their choice.
3. Democratic voters entering write-in votes.
4. Democratic voters staying home.
It seems obvious, therefore, that imposition of the 100% penalty inevitably yielded a result so flawed as to be impossible to consider usable in awarding delegates. How on earth can anyone argue with a straight face that the principle of reflection can be applied to such a mess?
Should the RBC have imposed a penalty on Michigan (or Florida, for that matter)? That’s a separate question. On one hand, I understand the institutional dynamics that led to the decision (see Mori Dinauer’s excellent backgrounder on this here. Also see emptywheel’s excellent discussion on the principle of reflection and details on the dispute here.). On the other hand, imposition of a penalty essentially penalized the voters of those two states for decisions made by those states’ GOP-dominated legislatures, which seems to me inherently unfair. Nonetheless, attempting to change the rules once the penalties and the affected primaries had taken place amounts to cheating, as noted yesterday by Donna Brazile. And it is especially hypocritical for people who originally supported imposition of the 100% penalty (such as Harold Ickes, Terry McCauliff & Hillary Clinton) to complain about the outcome after the fact.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
DNC RBC Decision--Background
emptywheel (naturally) has a very good primer on the lead-up to the Florida and Michigan primary decisions here.
DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee Decisions
Tonight the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee made its decisions regarding the seating of Florida and Michigan delegates at the party’s convention in August.
The Florida delegation will be seated at full strength, but each delegate will have only half a vote. That represents a turnaround from the committee’s original decision to impose 100% exclusion, but is consistent with the committee’s stated rule that disobeying the rules will result in a reduction of voting strength to 50%. The Clinton camp had, of course, lobbied for a complete restoration of the Florida delegates with one vote per delegate while the Obama campaign had called for a 50-50 split. The committee’s vote seemed to split the difference and although the Clinton people opposed the decision, it was obvious they weren’t going to fight about it. There was first a motion to restore the Florida delegation to full strength, which failed, 15-12. The second vote was for the compromise and the many Clinton supporters on the committee voted for it, passing it unanimously. A peaceful resolution and unity seemed close at hand.
Michigan was another story entirely. A GOP-dominated state legislature had voted to schedule that state’s primary between those of Iowa and New Hampshire (as had the GOP-controlled Florida legislature). As punishment (and to ward off other states that also wanted to reschedule their primaries similarly), the Rules & Bylaws Committee imposed the 100% penalty on Michigan (as it had on Florida). Both states were told that their primaries would not count, the crucial difference between the two being that while neither Clinton nor Obama appeared on the Florida ballot, Clinton (who publicly stated at the time that the vote would not count) did leave her name on the Michigan ballot while Obama did not. Since Michigan went ahead with the primary regardless, all candidates whose names were not on the ballot were represented (if that’s the word for it) by the category “Undecided”. Adding to the confusion, Michigan has a law whereby write-in votes are not counted unless explicitly authorized by the candidate in question prior to the vote.
As it happens, Clinton won a majority of the (then) non-binding vote, while Undecided got about 40% of the vote. Approximately 30,000 write-in votes were cast, but for the reasons already mentioned, they were not counted.
All the candidates agreed at the time the penalties were imposed that the Florida and Michigan primaries would not count. Indeed, Harold Ickes and Terry McCaulliff were among the committee members who voted to exclude the results of both primaries. However, as Henry Adams once observed, “the vast majority of men choose interest when deciding morals,” a principle that certainly seems to apply to this controversy. Once Hillary Clinton’s campaign found the delegate requirement for the nomination slipping out of reach, they suddenly became ardent opponents of the “disenfranchisement” of Florida and Michigan voters, something the candidate herself recently compared to the situation in Zimbabwe and the 2000 fiasco in Florida.
In any event, the Rules and Bylaws Committee was presented with 3 proposals for resolution of the Michigan situation:
1. The Clinton campaign argued for complete restoration of the Michigan delegation with one vote per delegate.
2. The Obama campaign sought a 50-50 split with one vote per delegate.
3. The Michigan Democratic Party tried to split the difference, diviining an allocation of delegates based on a combination of the percentages of the actual votes plus the write-ins and undecided votes, based on the assumption that the latter two would have been for Obama had he left his name on the ballot.
The Clinton campaign objected to options 2 & 3 on the principle that an arbitrary split would violate the principle of reflection; i.e., that the apportionment of delegates would not mirror the relative percentages of the actual votes cast. The Obama campaign countered that the Michigan primary was a seriously flawed process; as such, there was no basis for the claim that the actual vote totals represented the will of the voters, since many who might have voted probably refrained after learning that the primary wouldn’t count, and since there’s no way of knowing how many write-ins and undecided votes would have been for Obama (or John Edwards, who also was not on the ballot).
In the end, the committee voted to restore the full complement of Michigan delegates, but apportioned according to option 3, and with half a vote per delegate. The vote was 19-8 in favor. Harold Ickes made an impassioned speech afterwards in which he decried what he termed the “hijacking” of the process, the loss of 4 delegates to Obama, and informed the committee that Hillary Clinton had authorized him to take the issue to the Credentials Committee. And that, folks, means they’ll fight on to the convention in August, general election be damned. Clinton supporters in the gallery began chanting “Denver, Denver, Denver.” We may be headed for a long, hot summer.
Here’s what puzzles me: Why did the Clinton campaign acquiesce in the Florida decision but declare holy war over Michigan? Both states are delegate-rich. The Rules Committee’s position with respect to the Clinton campaign’s arguments in re both state primaries was that, as Donna Brazile put it memorably, “my momma told me you don’t change the rules after the game is played.” So what’s the distinction between the two outcomes as far as the Clinton campaign is concerned? Is there a distinction between the two processes, or is it a matter of sequence—the second determining conclusively that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is over?
Please feel free to educate me on this in the Comments section.
The Florida delegation will be seated at full strength, but each delegate will have only half a vote. That represents a turnaround from the committee’s original decision to impose 100% exclusion, but is consistent with the committee’s stated rule that disobeying the rules will result in a reduction of voting strength to 50%. The Clinton camp had, of course, lobbied for a complete restoration of the Florida delegates with one vote per delegate while the Obama campaign had called for a 50-50 split. The committee’s vote seemed to split the difference and although the Clinton people opposed the decision, it was obvious they weren’t going to fight about it. There was first a motion to restore the Florida delegation to full strength, which failed, 15-12. The second vote was for the compromise and the many Clinton supporters on the committee voted for it, passing it unanimously. A peaceful resolution and unity seemed close at hand.
Michigan was another story entirely. A GOP-dominated state legislature had voted to schedule that state’s primary between those of Iowa and New Hampshire (as had the GOP-controlled Florida legislature). As punishment (and to ward off other states that also wanted to reschedule their primaries similarly), the Rules & Bylaws Committee imposed the 100% penalty on Michigan (as it had on Florida). Both states were told that their primaries would not count, the crucial difference between the two being that while neither Clinton nor Obama appeared on the Florida ballot, Clinton (who publicly stated at the time that the vote would not count) did leave her name on the Michigan ballot while Obama did not. Since Michigan went ahead with the primary regardless, all candidates whose names were not on the ballot were represented (if that’s the word for it) by the category “Undecided”. Adding to the confusion, Michigan has a law whereby write-in votes are not counted unless explicitly authorized by the candidate in question prior to the vote.
As it happens, Clinton won a majority of the (then) non-binding vote, while Undecided got about 40% of the vote. Approximately 30,000 write-in votes were cast, but for the reasons already mentioned, they were not counted.
All the candidates agreed at the time the penalties were imposed that the Florida and Michigan primaries would not count. Indeed, Harold Ickes and Terry McCaulliff were among the committee members who voted to exclude the results of both primaries. However, as Henry Adams once observed, “the vast majority of men choose interest when deciding morals,” a principle that certainly seems to apply to this controversy. Once Hillary Clinton’s campaign found the delegate requirement for the nomination slipping out of reach, they suddenly became ardent opponents of the “disenfranchisement” of Florida and Michigan voters, something the candidate herself recently compared to the situation in Zimbabwe and the 2000 fiasco in Florida.
In any event, the Rules and Bylaws Committee was presented with 3 proposals for resolution of the Michigan situation:
1. The Clinton campaign argued for complete restoration of the Michigan delegation with one vote per delegate.
2. The Obama campaign sought a 50-50 split with one vote per delegate.
3. The Michigan Democratic Party tried to split the difference, diviining an allocation of delegates based on a combination of the percentages of the actual votes plus the write-ins and undecided votes, based on the assumption that the latter two would have been for Obama had he left his name on the ballot.
The Clinton campaign objected to options 2 & 3 on the principle that an arbitrary split would violate the principle of reflection; i.e., that the apportionment of delegates would not mirror the relative percentages of the actual votes cast. The Obama campaign countered that the Michigan primary was a seriously flawed process; as such, there was no basis for the claim that the actual vote totals represented the will of the voters, since many who might have voted probably refrained after learning that the primary wouldn’t count, and since there’s no way of knowing how many write-ins and undecided votes would have been for Obama (or John Edwards, who also was not on the ballot).
In the end, the committee voted to restore the full complement of Michigan delegates, but apportioned according to option 3, and with half a vote per delegate. The vote was 19-8 in favor. Harold Ickes made an impassioned speech afterwards in which he decried what he termed the “hijacking” of the process, the loss of 4 delegates to Obama, and informed the committee that Hillary Clinton had authorized him to take the issue to the Credentials Committee. And that, folks, means they’ll fight on to the convention in August, general election be damned. Clinton supporters in the gallery began chanting “Denver, Denver, Denver.” We may be headed for a long, hot summer.
Here’s what puzzles me: Why did the Clinton campaign acquiesce in the Florida decision but declare holy war over Michigan? Both states are delegate-rich. The Rules Committee’s position with respect to the Clinton campaign’s arguments in re both state primaries was that, as Donna Brazile put it memorably, “my momma told me you don’t change the rules after the game is played.” So what’s the distinction between the two outcomes as far as the Clinton campaign is concerned? Is there a distinction between the two processes, or is it a matter of sequence—the second determining conclusively that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is over?
Please feel free to educate me on this in the Comments section.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Good Day for Rove Watchers
Majikthise has an exchange from today's This Week on ABC in which Karl Rove tries unsuccessfully to weasel away from identification as an unofficial advisor to the McCain campaign.
Meanwhile, TPM has a video clip from the same interview in which Rove bobs and weaves when pressed by George Stephanopolous on his role in the Siegelman prosecution.
Given that Rove has been subpoened by the House Judiciary Committee to testify on the latter, I wonder why he consented to this interview. Granted, he’s not under oath in this venue, but surely he must have expected to be asked about these issues. Is it that he’s so arrogant as to suppose that neither the media or Congress can touch him? Did he consent to the interview as a practice run for his congressional appearance, knowing there was no legal jeopardy for him in today’s appearance? Did he see the interview as an opportunity to feed a self-serving argument to his base? Or was it something else entirely?
Any thoughts on this?
Meanwhile, TPM has a video clip from the same interview in which Rove bobs and weaves when pressed by George Stephanopolous on his role in the Siegelman prosecution.
Given that Rove has been subpoened by the House Judiciary Committee to testify on the latter, I wonder why he consented to this interview. Granted, he’s not under oath in this venue, but surely he must have expected to be asked about these issues. Is it that he’s so arrogant as to suppose that neither the media or Congress can touch him? Did he consent to the interview as a practice run for his congressional appearance, knowing there was no legal jeopardy for him in today’s appearance? Did he see the interview as an opportunity to feed a self-serving argument to his base? Or was it something else entirely?
Any thoughts on this?
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