Archive for November, 2008

Washington Post: Is Jindal the GOP’s Obama?

The speculation continues.

Excerpt:

Jindal insists he is ignoring all the speculation. In Cedar Rapids, at a breakfast event devoted to addressing this beleaguered city’s efforts to rebound from its disastrous flood last summer, he avoided any reference to 2012, staying focused on explaining Louisiana’s methods for coping with hurricane floods in emergencies on his watch.

Meanwhile, others around the country were talking him up. No less an aspiring kingmaker than Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist of McCain’s failed presidential bid, sees Jindal as the Republican Party’s destiny. “The question is not whether he’ll be president, but when he’ll be president, because he will be elected someday.” The anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist believes, too, that Jindal is a certainty to occupy the White House, and conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh has described him as “the next Ronald Reagan.”

And:

Jindal is his own invention, in the mold of an Obama. Born in Louisiana as Piyush Jindal to highly educated immigrants from India, he decided as a young child to nickname himself “Bobby,” after his favorite character on the TV show “The Brady Bunch.” Raised as a Hindu, he converted to Catholicism while in college and later wrote a lengthy, intimate story that provided a window on his religious evolution, in a manner that fairly calls to mind Obama’s books about his own grappling with issues of self-identity. Success at Brown University and later at Oxford University during his Rhodes years led to high-profile attention in the power corridors of Louisiana and Washington.

The Louisiana governor at the time, Murphy J. “Mike” Foster Jr., turned to a 25-year-old Jindal to shore up Louisiana’s Medicaid program, which had fallen badly into debt. By the time Jindal finished, he had shut down some state hospitals and had the program running a surplus. “He had to close a hospital in my district, but he didn’t hesitate doing what he had to do,” remembers former Louisiana state senator Tony Perkins, now the leader of the Family Research Council. “He always knows what he wants to get done.”

Leonard Ford: “I bet none of your white coworkers were rejoicing over Obama’s historic win.”

Update: In all fairness, I suppose that if I criticize someone for not being precise enough with their word choice, I should at least be precise enough with mine. I respect Mr. Ford and appreciate his opinion on this issue, and I decided to excerpt it because I found it to be provocative, though not necessarily offensive. I should have been more clear and direct.

My disagreement with him is primarily an academic one: I don’t believe it’s productive to be exclusionary, but I understand the need to challenge all of us in recognizing the ways in which racial divisions still inform our political reality. I don’t think it has to be this way, and I share Mr. Ford’s belief that, when you look at the numbers, you can clearly see that Obama struggled with local whites, many of whom likely considered race as a factor.

That said, I think it’s equally important to also recognize that many people voted against Obama for purely ideological reasons; their support for McCain had nothing to do with the color of his skin or with the color of Mr. Obama’s skin.

For example, during the campaign, a family friend of mine made herself known as a huge McCain supporter– sign in her front lawn, daily e-mail updates, and probably a campaign contribution or two. She’d e-mail her friends and family about her fears of Obama’s economic plans, the notion of “redistribution,” etc., though, importantly, she never sent out those divisive, racist e-mails that others seemed to believe worthy of republication.

And I know that when Mr. Obama took the stage on November 4th, she wept tears of joy for her country. She spoke about how beautiful his family looked and how she would support her new President, critically but proudly. Before we speak in universal generalities about the white community or McCain supporters or local white racists, it’s important to remember that there are countless Americans (and Alexandrians) who, despite voting for McCain, are just like my friend, people who, more than anything else, want to see their country succeed.

Original post (with edits):

Leonard Ford, a serial letter writer to the local newspaper and now a columnist at the Cenla Light, offers a provocative assessment of Barack Obama’s victory in the most recent issue of Cenla Light. In a column entitled “Not a Mumbling Word Spoken on November 5th,” Mr. Ford, an African-American, offers the following observation:

With Barack Obama winning the U.S. presidency on Tuesday, Nov. 4, I bet that many of you went to work the next day to a solemn, quiet office. I bet none of your white co-workers were rejoicing over Obama’s historic win.

There probably wasn’t any hint of “did your candidate win” from them, as they knew right then and there, when they looked into your eyes, that your candidate, Obama, had won. They also knew it from that warm, sparkling glow illuminating on your face.

What we are hearing around this country, and even here in Alexandria, is that many whites, and, if I can be real here, don’t want a “n*****” in the White House. I read on the Internet about a white man in Butler County, Ohio, who said he was going to join the Ku Klux Klan. I’ve heard people say that Obama is the antichrist, and that the world is going to end in 2012.

Did we expect otherwise? Did we expect that white people in the South would graciously accept with open saying that it was black people, or those “n******” who elected him as president. They want so much to believe this that they are seriously overlooking the “big picture” and that is the fact that an overwhelming majority of whites elected Obama as president. They don’t want to believe that young whites, white women, and middle and upperclass whites had as much to do with him getting elected as blacks did.

To his credit, Mr. Ford, who I have always found to be an intelligent and kind person, does recognize that Mr. Obama’s victory had much more to do with his capacity of building a diverse coalition of support than it had to do with his ability to attract record African-American turn-out (which is, of course, important, inspirational, and historic, though Mr. Ford does need to consult electoral data, particularly when he implies that over half of Obama’s votes were from African-Americans).

But it’s difficult for me not to be perplexed by Mr. Ford’s opening thesis– the notion that white Americans and, particularly, white Alexandrians were not respectful or enthusiastic or even exuberant over Mr. Obama’s victory. Mr. Obama actually won Alexandria, and his victory in Alexandria, at least, was due to the combination of African-American and white support.

For me, it seems that Mr. Ford is overly generalizing the complex dynamics of Mr. Obama’s victory, which, in some ways, discredits the real political diversity of the white community, implying that, somehow, all Southern whites immediately resented Mr. Obama’s victory. To be fair, there is definitely some white, Southern resentment, a minority of voices who, quite frankly, only know how to consistently demonstrate their stupidity and ignorance.

We should begin this next chapter of American history as united as we can be, and we should reject anyone, who, for whatever reason, would attempt to make us appear more divisive and divided than we actually are.

Welcome to Shreveport

Earlier today, while browsing the Intertubes, I stumbled across a series of videos entitled “Welcome to Shreveport,” which, for some reason, I believed to be promotional videos for the City of Shreveport (and its film industry). So, being curious about how our neighbors to the North are using the new media to promote themselves, I pressed play.

Turns out: “Welcome to Shreveport” is not a series of dull commercials; it’s actually a highly-inventive, well-written, and slickly-produced comedy series that follows the exploits of two twenty-somethings (Rob Senska and Mindy Bledsoe) in their attempt to become famous movie makers, among other things. It’s similar to the great show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which, as you’ll see, is something the filmmakers seem to acknowledge.

I recommend, endorse, and think most of you will appreciate the series, particularly considering their ability to put all of this together on (what has to be) a very limited budget. And since, so far, the series has only been noticed by a couple of hundred people, I think those of us in the Great State should push up their viewership and help them get noticed.

My personal favorites: One, Two, Four, and Five.

Episode One:

Two:

Three:

Four:

Five:

Six:

And seven:

The Left Embracing the Shock Doctrine?

Louisiana native Erick Erickson (again, not to be confused with the famed psychoanalyst) owns and operates one of the most popular right-wing blogsites in the country, RedState.com, whose former front-page contributor and co-founder actually refused to vote for John McCain this year, instead writing in a vote for Governor Bobby Jindal).

It’s no surprise that the good people at RedState would begin to express their loyal opposition to President-elect Obama, well before he takes the oath of office. That, of course, is fair and expected.

But today, one of Erickson’s writers, Pejman Yousefzadeh, attempted to lamely reappropriate Naomi Klein’s thesis in The Shock Doctine in order to attack and criticize a statement made by Rahm Emanuel, bootstraping on a ridiculous post on the CATO Institute’s blog.

This is your “shock doctrine.” As is this. Now, if you want to write a book explaining how crises get used by ideologues to impose policy on the rest of us, you have a perfect excuse to do so. What’s more, your hypothetical book will bear a much greater relationship with reality than the one in which you misquoted and libeled Milton Friedman.

See? This works out for everyone!

Now, get cracking and write that book. Think of it as a way to salvage what’s left of your reputation.

With all due respect to Mr. Yousefzadeh, whose obscurity ensures that his “reputation” is not, currently, something in need of being “salvaged,” and the people who operate the CATO blog, have any of you actually read The Shock Doctrine?

Because it sure seems like you have absolutely no idea of what you’re talking about.

Of course, there is absolutely no evidence that Ms. Klein “misquoted and libeled” Mr. Yousefzadeh’s apparent hero, the late Milton Friedman; however, there is ample evidence that both the CATO blog and RedState have egregiously misappropriated the thesis of The Shock Doctrine in order to propound an intellectually dishonest argument that Rahm Emanuel (and, by extension, Barack Obama) would prefer to exploit the current economic crisis to legitimize a shock doctrine.

Uh, no.

Read the book.

It’s all about the propensity of certain ideologically-driven politicians to exploit a natural or economic disaster in order to enact Friedman/University of Chicago School economic policies. So when Rahm Emanuel says something like, “Hey, we can use this crisis to remind Americans of previous policy failures” (paraphrasing), it doesn’t mean that he’s in favor of employing the Shock Doctrine. (You see, the Shock Doctrine is married to a very specific economic agenda). And anyone who makes such an argument proves, to the entire world of literate people, their purposeful duplicity and intellectual dishonesty.

So, in short, we should all thank Mr. Yousefzadeh and the people at the CATO blog for demonstrating their lack of intelligent, honest, and insightful criticism and for proving, to anyone who has actually read Ms. Klein’s book, that her critics are more comfortable with unevenly disparaging a book they’ve never read (and in ironically attempting to use her thesis to buttress their own ideological agendas) than in the truth.

That said, I pledge to purchase copies of Ms. Klein’s book to any and all frontpage contributors to RedState.com. If you’re a frontpage contributor to RedState and you’d like a FREE copy of Naomi Klein’s book, send proof of authorship and your mailing address to lamarw at gmail dot com, and I’ll send you the book.

But, until you read the book, you probably shouldn’t write about it.

Testing… Testing… Hallelujah!

Testing some new polling software.

Which version do you prefer?

Leonard Cohen:

(Cohen wrote the song)

Rufus Wainwright:

Damien Rice:

Jeff Buckley:

CNN: Why is Bobby Jindal in Iowa?

Barack Obama hasn’t even taken the oath of office yet, and already, political commentators are heralding the beginning of the 2012 Presidential election. Yesterday, our Governor made the rounds in Iowa, signaling to many outside observers that Jindal may be laying the groundwork for a run at the White House in 2012.

CNN wants to know: Why is Bobby Jindal in Iowa?

It’s a good question, though, to be fair, Jindal actually announced his planned visit well in advance of this year’s Presidential election.

Mr. Jindal has been Governor of Louisiana for less than a year.

He was inaugurated on January 14, 2008.

He spent the first few months of his tenure negotiating with state legislators, among other things, hoping to exchange pay raises for his school vouchers agenda. In other words, he consented to exorbitant, immediate raises for state legislators, as long as they would help usher in his agenda on vouchers.

Then, of course, the whole thing blew up in his face. The public was livid, though at first, Jindal refused to directly intervene. He didn’t want to break his word.

But his base grew angry. Republicans, believe it or not, mounted a recall effort against Jindal in order to pressure him into vetoeing the pay raise bill. And Jindal eventually relented.

There’s no doubt the pay raise debacle will be remembered as the defining issue of Jindal’s first year as governor. At least for political observers here in Louisiana.

When the legislative session ended, Jindal, who hadn’t even been in office for six months, went back onto the campaign trail. He pushed hard for John McCain, and he was even considered a top contender for the Vice Presidential nomination. He cut a commercial for the failed Senatorial campaign of John N. Kennedy. And yesterday, he toured Iowa, offering him a first glimpse of the landscape in which he must compete if he wants to secure the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012.

We have a lot of work to be done in Louisiana. Remember, regardless of what you feel about him, when Bill Clinton ran for the Presidency in 1992, he ran on his record as Governor of Arkansas.

Mr. Jindal is not only a politician; he’s an executive. Less than a year after being sworn in (and inheriting a surplus), Jindal now must negotiate a State with a budget shortfall of over $1 billion.

Before anyone unconditionally praises the State’s response to Gustav (which was obviously not nearly as severe as Katrina or Rita), consider this: Widespread disorganization and pandemonium among the highest political appointees charged with supervising the response, bus drivers responsible for transporting evacuees not sure of where they needed to go, and shelters in shambles. It’s all too convenient to claim success when you’re comparing the damages inflicted by Category 2 Gustav with Category 4 Katrina and Category 3 Rita. But when you place the State’s response in context, there’s not much to brag about.

And all of those “lists” of which Mr. Jindal referenced when he was campaigning: Louisiana is STILL at the bottom. (Aside from our State’s improvement on a list on ethics, despite Jindal’s upturning and erosion of the State Ethics Board, his interpretation of executive privilege, and the lack of any substantive reforms on campaign finance).

Louisiana’s crime and poverty rates are still the subject of national scrutiny, showing no signs of improvement. And Louisiana Medicaid continues to struggle. (Governor Jindal’s proposal for Medicaid, which will be the subject of a future post, appears, at least in its current incarnation, to completely misunderstand the fundamental problems, viewing Medicaid as a business in need of restructuring and not as a service in need of solvency).

If Mr. Jindal wants to run for President in 2012, then he has three years to demonstrate substantial, post-partisan accomplishments. And if he wants to run for reelection as Governor in 2011, he’d better begin now.

Begich Wins Senate Race: His Louisiana Connections

Hale Boggs.

Disappearance and search

As Majority Leader, Boggs often campaigned for others. On October 16, 1972, he was aboard a twin engine Cessna 310 with Representative Nick Begich of Alaska, who was facing a possible tight race in the November 1972 general election against the Republican candidate Don Young, when it disappeared during a flight from Anchorage to Juneau. The only others on board were Begich’s aide, Russell Brown, and the pilot, Don Jonz;^[2] the four were heading to a campaign fundraiser for Begich. (Begich won the 1972 election posthumously with 56 percent to Young’s 44 percent, though Young would win the special election to replace Begich and has won every election to the seat since then.)

In the largest search ever mounted by the U.S. military,^{[citation needed]} Coast Guard, Navy, and Air Force planes searched for the party. On November 24, 1972, after 39 days, the search was abandoned. Neither the wreckage of the plane nor the pilot’s and passengers’ remains were ever found. The accident prompted Congress to pass a law mandating Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELT’s) in all U.S. civil aircraft.

Both Boggs and Begich were re-elected that November. House Resolution 1 of January 3, 1973 officially recognized Boggs’s presumed death and opened the way for a special election.

Speculation, suspicions, and theories

The events surrounding Boggs’ death have been the subject of much speculation, suspicion, and numerous conspiracy theories. These theories often center on his membership on the Warren Commission. Boggs dissented from the Warren Commission’s majority who supported the single bullet theory. Regarding the single bullet theory, Boggs commented, “I had strong doubts about it.”^[3] In the Robert Ludlum novel, The Matarese Circle, Boggs was killed to stop his investigation of the Kennedy assassination.

Some tie Boggs’ death to alleged corruption charges, or to his outspoken opposition to powerful Federal Bureau of Investigation director J. Edgar Hoover. Some people, including several of Begich’s children, have suggested that Richard Nixon had a hand in Boggs’ death in order to thwart the Watergate investigation. However, none of these theories has ever been proved, and one of Boggs’ children — journalist Cokie Roberts — has publicly stated that the rumors about Boggs’ wanting to reopen the Kennedy assassination case are completely false.^{[citation needed]} -

Nick Begich is Mark’s father.

And incidentally, Hale Boggs is Cokie Roberts’s father.

Politico: GOP Fights to Hold Onto Louisiana Seat

See this article in the Politico, which describes the dynamics in one of only two major elections still unfinished in the 2008 cycle, Louisiana House District 4 (the other one being the Georgia Senate race between Republican incumbent Saxsby Chambliss and Democratic challenger Jim Martin).

On December 6th, voters in LA-04 will decide between Democrat Paul Carmouche and Republican John Fleming. Carmouche is the respected, long-serving District Attorney of Caddo Parish, a socially and fiscally conservative Democrat, and Fleming is a medical doctor who believes in implementing the FairTax (a 23% national sales tax in lieu of other taxes) and asserts that Iraq should “pay us back” for the war. Fleming, as Politico points out, believes in putting Social Security into the stock market, though he’s recently attempted to flip-flop on this issue.

Quoting from Politico:

The DCCC has spent about $250,000 so far in its attempt to win the seat and has sent scores of field organizers into Louisiana. The committee is also on air, accusing Fleming of supporting Social Security privatization and backing a FairTax proposal that Democrats argue would raise taxes on the middle class.

But the harshest attack in the race has come from the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is accusing Carmouche of being soft on crime because a convicted felon, John Pilinski Jr., was released from prison during Carmouche’s tenure as district attorney.

The accusation has enraged the Carmouche campaign, which argues the ad is intentionally misleading: Carmouche said that he secured a 10-year sentence against Pilinski but that the Caddo Parish clerk’s office accidentally recorded the conviction as being for only a year. Pilinski was released from prison after one year; two weeks later, he was picked up by police after he allegedly attempted to steal an SUV.

“I don’t control the clerk of courts. This was a clerical error,” said Carmouche. “Everyone was surprised when we heard he got out.”

Read: Willie Horton and Lee Atwater. The game may change, but the playbook stays the same.

Fleming makes this personal, attempting to suggest that D.A. Carmouche has actually done a bad job and that he somehow exercises partisan loyalties over the interests of his district.

“If he’s not going to stand up to crime and criminals, how is he going to stand up to the liberal left wing in Congress?” Fleming said.

Shameless.

And also funny because yesterday I received a comment from Drew Nordgren (who wrote under the name CD4Truth) parroting the very same premise.

Drew, I hope the NRCC isn’t paying you, because your footprints, including your DC-based IP address, are everywhere, and instead of appearing to be an ordinary, interested citizen of LA-04, you’ve made it very clear that you’re simply a politically-connected blogger-for-hire. Readers, go ahead and Google his name.

Not much of a surprise, though. Nordgren used to blog for the National Taxpayers Union, which, like Dr. Fleming, advocates in favor of the “FairTax”:

The NTU favors either a Flat Tax or the FairTax (a national sales tax with rebate) for the United States, as opposed to the current income tax system now in use.^[2] The organization argues in favor of the line-item veto for the president. ^[3]

And as a side note to all of the struggling family farmers of District Four:

NTU generally opposes crop subsidies by the government (such as for sugar and ethanol).^[4]

The NTU footsoldiers are out in force for Fleming, and though they try to cover their tracks, they leave a telling imprint on the conversation.

Standing With Siegelman

The doors have been blown wide open in the appeal of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, a Democrat who appears to have been convicted of the crime of guilt-by-association in order to completely clear the field for the reelection of Republican Bob Riley. It’s a sensational story that goes all the way to the White House, and if it weren’t true, most people wouldn’t believe it could be true.

During the past year, Governor Siegelman has been on a crusade to clear his name and convince the American people that he is/was the victim of a coordinated political witch hunt orchestrated and executed by powerful Republicans intent on destroying his career.

It may all sound too conspiratorial, but consider this as a preface:

Siegelman was defeated for reelection in November 2002 by Representative Bob Riley by the narrowest margin in Alabama history: approximately 3,000 votes. The result was controversial, as on the night of the election, Siegelman was initially declared the winner by the Associated Press. Later, a voting machine malfunction in a single county was claimed to have produced the votes needed to give Siegelman the election. When the malfunction was claimed to have been corrected, Riley emerged the winner.^[11] The recount of that county’s votes was affirmed by the state’s Attorney General, Republican Bill Pryor. Largely as a result of this controversy, the Alabama Legislature amended the election code to provide for automatic, supervised recounts in close races.^[12]

That’s democracy, right? A single voting machine in a single county could have completely titled the election? Seems fishy. At least they decided to change the law. After the election.

And when Siegelman decided to run again, the Republicans pushed back even more.

Do any of you remember the company HealthSouth? It’s huge, one of the biggest and most important companies in the State of Alabama, and believe it or not, the company donated to politicians, including Siegelman.

And back in 2003, its CEO, Richard Scrushy, a man who Siegelman had appointed to a volunteer health care board (Scrushy had previously served in the same capacity under three different Republican Governors), had allowed its accountants to overstate the company’s value by over $1.4 billion (a ton of money, to be sure, but still only 10% of its real value).

The company was roundly chastised for this blatant misstatement, which allegedly cost shareholders tens of millions of dollars, and Scrushy, despite being found not guilty of violating Sarbanes-Oxley, was subsequently found guilty of bribing Siegelman (because he donated money to support a Siegelman-endorsed state lottery initiative, in order to provide for universal education) in exchange for maintaining a seat on the same health care board on which he had already, consistently served, a seat that was initially appointed to him during a previous Republican administration.

If this sounds absurd, flimsy, and ridiculous, it’s because it is absurd, flimsy, and ridiculous.

And after going after Scrushy, the Republicans went after Siegelman. The husband of the US Attorney initially assigned to the case just so happened to be a GOP operative and a friend of none other than Karl Rove. The US Attorney, Leura Canary, a Bush appointee, eventually handed over the prosecution to another attorney, but as we learned yesterday, she actually continued to be involved.

Siegelman was found guilty on seven of thirty-three counts and sentenced to seven years of jail and a $50,000 fine. It was an incredible and obvious miscarriage of justice, and after serving less than two years, Siegelman was set free in order to prepare his appeal.

I met Governor Siegelman only five months after his release, at the Democratic National Convention. I decided to introduce myself because I knew Siegelman had served his time in Oakdale, Louisiana, at the same facility as Governor Edwards, and to be honest, though I’d heard of his case before, I was, at the time, more interested in hearing his impressions of Edwards. According to Siegelman, by the way, Edwards is still physically and spiritually strong, though it obviously pained him to speak about how an overly politicized prosecution had forced a once-revered leader to live out his twilight years in redundancy and infamy.

Either way, yesterday, we learned of even more injustices in the Siegelman case. From Time Magazine:

The documents, obtained by TIME, include internal prosecution e-mails given to the Justice Department and Congress by a whistle-blower during the past 18 months. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which investigated the Siegelman case as part of a broader inquiry into alleged political interference in the hiring and firing of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush Justice Department, last week sent an eight-page letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey citing the new material.

Conyers says the evidence raises “serious questions” about the U.S. Attorney in the Siegelman case, who, documents show, continued to involve herself in the politically charged prosecution long after she had publicly withdrawn to avoid an alleged conflict of interest relating to her husband, a top GOP operative and close associate of Bush adviser Karl Rove. Conyers’ letter also cites evidence of numerous contacts between jurors and members of the Siegelman prosecution team that were never disclosed to the trial judge or defense counsel.

….

Siegelman was released on bail earlier this year after a federal court ruled that his appeal raises “substantial questions.” But the issue that turned the case into a national controversy was the allegation of political bias. Critics, including a bipartisan group of 52 state attorneys general, have raised numerous questions, including the allegation that Siegelman was prosecuted at the insistence of Bush-appointed officials at the Justice Department and Leura G. Canary, a U.S. Attorney in Montgomery whose husband was Alabama’s top Republican operative and who had worked closely with Rove for years.

When the House Judiciary Committee looked into the Siegelman affair earlier this year, the DOJ issued statements, placed in the Congressional Record, maintaining that the case had been handled only by career prosecutors, not political appointees, and that Canary had recused herself in 2002, “before any significant decisions … were made.”

But new documents furnished by DOJ staffer Tamarah T. Grimes tell a different story. A legal aide who worked in the Montgomery office that prosecuted Siegelman, Grimes first submitted her documents to DOJ watchdogs in 2007, and now finds herself in an employment dispute that could result in her dismissal. Grimes’ lawyer had no comment.

The documents — whose authenticity is not in dispute — include e-mails written by Canary, long after her recusal, offering legal advice to subordinates handling the case. At the time Canary wrote the e-mails, her husband — Alabama GOP operative William J. Canary — was a vocal booster of the state’s Republican governor, Bob Riley, who had defeated Siegelman for the office and against whom Siegelman was preparing to run again. Canary also received tens of thousands of dollars in fees from other political opponents of Siegelman.

In one of Leura Canary’s e-mails, dated Sept. 19, 2005, she forwarded a three-page political commentary by Siegelman to senior prosecutors on the case. Canary highlighted a single passage, which, she told her subordinates, “Ya’ll need to read, because he refers to a ‘survey’ which allegedly shows that 67% of Alabamans believe the investigation of him to be politically motivated.” Canary then suggested: “Perhaps [this is] grounds not to let [Siegelman] discuss court activities in the media!”

Prosecutors in the case seem to have followed Canary’s advice. A few months later they petitioned the court to prevent Siegelman from arguing that politics had any bearing on the case against him. After trial, they persuaded the judge to use Siegelman’s public statements about political bias — like the one Canary had flagged in her e-mail — as grounds for increasing his prison sentence. The judge’s action is now one target of next month’s appeal.

….

Beyond providing the e-mails, Grimes has given a written statement to the Department of Justice that Canary had “kept up with every detail of the [Siegelman] case.” If true, Conyers told Mukasey, this raises “serious concerns” because “it is difficult to imagine the reason for a recused [U.S. Attorney] to remain so involved in the day-to-day progress of the matter under recusal.”

Last year Grimes gave the DOJ additional e-mails detailing previously undisclosed contact between prosecutors and members of the Siegelman jury. In nine days of deliberation, jurors twice told the judge they were deadlocked and could not reach a decision. After the panel finally delivered a conviction, allegations emerged that jurors had discussed the case in e-mails among themselves and downloaded Internet material — serious breaches that could have invalidated the verdict. But the trial judge ruled that the jurors’ alleged misconduct was harmless.

….

A key prosecution e-mail describes how jurors repeatedly contacted the government’s legal team during the trial to express, among other things, one juror’s romantic interest in a member of the prosecution team. “The jurors kept sending out messages” via U.S. Marshals, the e-mail says, identifying a particular juror as “very interested” in a person who had sat at the prosecution table in court. The same juror was later described as reaching out to members of the prosecution team for personal advice about her career and educational plans. Conyers commented that the “risk of [jury] bias … is obvious.”

What’s more, when prosecutors conducted their own investigation of suspected improper conduct by jurors after the trial, two of them were interviewed, despite instructions from the judge that no contact with jurors should occur without his permission. Those interviews were not publicly disclosed until nearly two years later, when the head of the DOJ’s criminal division belatedly wrote all parties, including the appeals court in Atlanta, to inform them.

Further undisclosed evidence of prosecution team members speaking with jurors following the verdict emerges in Grimes’ written statement to the DOJ. In it, she says a member of the team prosecuting Siegelman had spoken with a juror suspected of improper conduct — apparently at the time the judge was due to question the juror about that conduct. Grimes quotes the lead prosecutor in the case as saying someone had “talked to her. She is just scared and afraid she is going to get in trouble.”

In his letter to Mukasey, Conyers calls this additional juror contact “important information,” noting, “It is startling to see such repeated instances of federal prosecutors failing to keep the defense apprised of key developments in an active criminal case.” He might have added that the judge was, in some instances, apparently not in on the secret either.

It’s disgusting and affront to a fair and honest democracy and a functional and equal judicial system.

I proudly stand by Governor Siegelman.

Poll: Carmouche Leads Fleming By Ten

H/t Swing State Project

This was an internal poll done on behalf of the Carmouche campaign by the Kitchens Group:

Paul Carmouche (D): 45
John Fleming (R): 35
(MoE: ±4.0%)

More:

Here it is — the first publicly-released poll of this race. Lots of undecideds here, but Carmouche begins the race with an edge, retaining a 53-16 favorable rating.

A strong field operation will be crucial in this race, as both sides expect that turnout will be poor. We can also expect a fierce air war here — Fleming is a wealthy physician and businessman, and surely he’ll be ponying up more of his own dough in the coming weeks. The NRCC also needs something to crow about, so they’ve reserved $330K in air time on Fleming’s behalf. No word yet on how heavy the DCCC plans to spend here, but they’ve already dropped $77,000 against Fleming over the weekend.

And, in an interesting development in LA-06, in case you missed it, Ryan’s got a smoking gun posted on his website– pictures of Michael Jackson and Bill Cassidy meeting on Friday at a Baton Rouge coffee shop.

Quote of the Week

Frank Rich in today’s New York Times:

The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place — in cities all over America.

A couple of other items of interest, in case you missed them.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu penned a wonderful letter to The Washington Post:

The Bush administration has riled people everywhere. Its bully-boy attitude has sadly polarized our world.

Against all this, the election of Barack Obama has turned America’s image on its head. My wife was crying with incredulity and joy as we watched a broadcast of the celebrations in Chicago. A newspaper here ran a picture of Obama from an earlier trip to one of our townships, where he was mobbed by youngsters. It was tacitly saying that we are proud he once visited us.

Today Africans walk taller than they did a week ago — just as they did when Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first black president in 1994. Not only Africans, but people everywhere who have been the victims of discrimination at the hands of white Westerners, have a new pride in who they are. If a dark-skinned person can become the leader of the world’s most powerful nation, what is to stop children everywhere from aiming for the stars? The fact that Obama’s Kenyan grandfather was a convert to Islam may — shamefully — have been controversial in parts of the United States, but elsewhere in the world, Obama’s multi-faith heritage is an inspiration.

There seems to be a belief that Obama, by virtue of his race and his background, represents a real global leader.

Also published in The Washington Post, an incredible, must-read story about the former butler at the White House, a man who served under every President from Truman to Reagan. H/to Adrastos.

This Defining Moment: Part II

I decided to break up the last post because it was ridiculously long, which made it a little meandering and unfocused. So, here is Part II:

Last year, many conservatives in Louisiana argued that Governor Jindal’s election represented a mandate, a contention with which I disagreed, not because of his margin of victory but because of the abysmal turn-out. I can only wonder if those same conservatives would now argue the same thing about an Obama mandate, which seems self-evident considering both his margin of victory and the record turn-out.

And please forgive me and my hubris, but it’s difficult for me not to take a special satisfaction in Mr. Obama’s victory.

I remained a steadfast supporter of his candidacy for the past two years. Actually, I was rooting for him well before he announced.

Why?

Simple.

Obama opposed the Iraqi War from the beginning. In hindsight, this may not appear to be a particularly bold position, knowing now what we should have known then. However, at the time, Obama was one of only a small handful of politicians willing to speak out.

It was a massive political risk. If we had arrived and had been greeted as liberators, if we had discovered huge caches of weapons of mass destruction, and if the whole war had only taken weeks and not years, Obama’s political career and his reputation would have been greatly diminished. His judgment and his patriotism would have been forever questioned.

But he recognized then what we all can clearly see now: The Iraq War was a huge miscalculation. It was a hastily-crafted decision, one that was sold to the American people on a body of lies and half-truths. It relied on our own collective emotional investment in seeking justice for the attacks of 9/11, and it was buttressed by an administration who played (masterfully) a paternalistic role– one that refused criticism and recklessly questioned loyalties.

For all the Monday morning analysis on how and why Obama won, there’s a critical point most seem to miss: It wasn’t just because of the economic crisis.

Obama also won because of his position on the War in Iraq. Two years ago, as he campaigned in the Iowan winter, Obama was the only candidate who could speak credibly about his position on the war. His record was consistent, as was his rhetoric, and in a country beleagured by two wars, a country yearning for a leader who could speak honestly and consistently, Obama resonated.

If Hillary Clinton had voted against the war resolution, it’s likely Obama would have not earned the nomination. But because of this critical difference and despite his inexperience, Obama could make a winning argument that it was judgment that mattered most.

This is the first major speech Obama delivered on the War in Iraq. Delivered on October 2, 2002:

Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.

The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don’t oppose all wars.

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.

I don’t oppose all wars.

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this Administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.

I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income — to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance, corruption and greed, poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not — we will not — travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.

Six years later, it’d be easy to call Obama prescient, but I believe he was simply being sensible.

Of the Democratic candidates for President, Obama and Kucinich were the only two candidates who had always opposed the decision to go to war with Iraq, but there was always a big difference between the two. Obama spoke in the parlance of hope. He consistently demonstrated his ability to speak to the best of America, and when he was critical, he refused to be cynical.

I first donated to his campaign in January of 2007, and for many months, I was, believe it or not, the only person in Central Louisiana who had contributed. For a while, I took a certain pride in being the first and only person from my neck of the woods who had given to Mr. Obama’s campaign. For whatever reason, I believed his nomination was inevitable, and more importantly, I believed (and continue to believe) that Mr. Obama represented our nation’s best and greatest hope for positive, monumental change.

And while I understood the passion behind the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, I never felt comfortable with a candidate who would force us to reopen the culture wars of the 1990s. Plus, Hillary voted to authorize force in Iraq, and instead of taking responsibility, she consistently deflected criticism of her vote back to President Bush. It seemed calculated. I thought John Edwards had a better answer for his vote: It was a mistake, and he regretted it.

Throughout the past two years, I encountered many other Central Louisianans who have contributed much more than I, and I commend their tenacity. This victory belongs to all of us.

Yes. We. Did.

This Defining Moment

Jed L. of The Jed Report and DailyKos put together this fantastic video, which chronicles the historic and incredible night of November 4, 2008, a night, as The New York Times said, in which the racial barrier to the highest office in our nation finally fell as Barack Obama was elected, by a wide margin, the 44th President of the United States.

It doesn’t matter if you voted for John McCain, Barack Obama, or a third party candidate; this election, as I stated before, proves something about America. It speaks to our collective ability to select its leader based on the content of his character and the power of his ideas, not the color of his skin.

The world will forever see America differently.

I’ve been reading a lot about the nature of this election and its national and international implications, and there are a few articles worth sharing:

Salon.com’s Rebecca Traister unpacks the meaning of Jesse Jackson’s tearful reaction to the election. In an article entitled “America Has Cracked Open,” Traister observes:

Watching him, you couldn’t help thinking of the kinds of generational tension that these two years of enormous change — so swift and sudden sometimes we haven’t even been able to properly record it, let alone comprehend it or credit it to those who built the groundwork for it — have evoked. During this year, in which like-minded groups of people were forced to compete with and among each other for a rare, unprecedented seat at the presidential table, there has been, among African-Americans, women, the young and the old in progressive America, far less hand-extending and hat-tipping than there has been finger-pointing and back-turning. And whatever Jackson may actually have been feeling in those first post-victory moments, it was not hard to see this pain written on his face.

But not 20 minutes after the news of Obama’s victory had begun to sink in, the cameras again panned to Jackson, and this time his cheeks were wet with tears, his hand at his mouth. He still looked anxious, and tense, as if he, like so many of the people around him wandering saucer-eyed and silent, were still wound tight with fear: Is this happening? Is it real? And if so, can I begin to weep?

But the tears — on Jackson’s face, and on many of our faces — are real, as is Obama’s victory, as perfect and imperfect, back-achingly difficult and mind-bendingly easy as it’s been. Here in Brooklyn, N.Y., there are fireworks down the street and people cheering as they run up the sidewalk; from the roof of my building, you can see that across the East River, the Empire State Building has been lit up blue. This is happening. America has cracked open.

While watching Jackson on Tuesday night, I also couldn’t help but wonder what was going through his mind. As Traister points out, Jackson is from a different generation of African-American leaders, and he’s been critical of and has been criticized by Obama throughout the course of the campaign season. That aside, I can’t help but think that Reverend Jackson wasn’t just crying tears of joy. There was also, subtly, an expression of sadness. Sadness, perhaps, for the civil rights champions who never lived to see this day, people like his mentor and friend Martin Luther King, Jr., who lost his life in the struggle for civil rights. Sadness, perhaps, that they will never truly know the way in which their life’s work paved the way for an America in which a man named Barack Obama could ascend to the Presidency, only forty years after Dr. King’s death.

Traister notes:

How could Jesse Jackson not cry, standing in that crowd, realizing that whatever hurt time and generational difference might have inflicted on his project and his legacy, he was witnessing the dawn of a world that his work made possible, but that he had not been able to make possible himself.

I recognize that some of my readers here in Central Louisiana don’t care too much for Reverend Jackson, but I’d hope they could put those personal feelings aside and marvel at the authenticity and the reality of that moment.

In another Salon piece by James Hannaham entitled “Our Biracial President,” we are reminded that Obama’s victory does not represent an end to racism or racial politics, “just a hopeful sign of the beginning of the end.”

As Obama gave his acceptance speech in Chicago, the media seemed to enjoy focusing on the elation of black communities in Harlem, in Kenya, and at Morehouse College, or on the tear-stained faces of Oprah and Jesse Jackson, as if black people had always been primarily invested in Obama’s triumph. But we can’t forget that the black political establishment and a big chunk of their constituency was initially very slow to warm to the candidate. (Well, except the Kenyans.) Here, he was the white man’s black candidate, carefully vetted before winning the trust everyone seemed to think black people would lavish upon him based solely on his race.

Obama’s Caucasian heritage has not evaporated just because he’s the first American president to be unashamed to have a shot of espresso in his vanilla latte. By voting for him, whites have shown their acceptance on a major level, but if everyone continues to interpret his presidency primarily in terms of race, we’re simply perpetuating the same old values. The Obama presidency gives us the opportunity to see more clearly into a future when the pain and injustice of the past, though it will not be forgotten, can be transformed into a shared purpose, and we can help the grand family squabble of American race relations to settle down. Like most American families, we’ll have our differences, but we will be able to sit down at the same table and show each other some respect.

This is a wise observation, though I would argue that President-elect Obama’s initial tepid support in the African-American community had more to do with Hillary Clinton’s institutional advantages and the reluctance to actually believe Obama had a chance with white Americans. I do not believe, as the writer suggests, that Obama was, initially, the white man’s black candidate. His early struggle in attracting African-American voters was more of a reflection of a (at-the-time) pragmatic assessment that a black man was still less likely to win than a white woman.

Still, I can’t argue with the writer’s basic conclusions: Interpreting or understanding his election and his administration merely through the lens of race is counterproductive.

To that end, the Los Angeles Times’s “Obama’s Post Racial Promise” by Shelby Steele seeks to unpack the dynamics of race in this election and the ways in which white Americans who supported Obama may unwittingly perpetuate racial politics (and not post-racial politics) by suggesting that they voted for Obama, in part, because of his race:

But there is an inherent contradiction in all this. When whites — especially today’s younger generation — proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation. They think and act racially, not post-racially. The point is that a post-racial society is a bargainer’s ploy: It seduces whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist could not be bargained with and would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally.

Although I understand what Professor Steele is attempting to articulate, I think he’s a little imprecise with his words: If white Americans voted for Obama out of a “racial motivation,” then it is most certainly not the type of motivation Professor Steele implies. Indeed, it’s actually the opposite: It’s an expression of a rejection of so-called racial loyalties. It is definitively post-racial. Continuing:

The torture of racial conflict in America periodically spits up a new faith that idealism can help us “overcome” — America’s favorite racial word. If we can just have the right inspiration, a heroic role model, a symbolism of hope, a new sense of possibility. It is an American cultural habit to endure our racial tensions by periodically alighting on little islands of fresh hope and idealism. But true reform, like the civil rights victories of the ’60s, never happens until people become exhausted with their suffering. Then they don’t care who the president is.

Presidents follow the culture; they don’t lead it. I hope for a competent president.

While I also hope for a competent President, I believe Professor Steele may be missing the point: This election was not typical. It represented a realignment, and while no one doubts the hard work has yet to be done, it’s difficult to deny that, on the issue of race in America, we have taken a giant leap forward.

Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman seems to understand. In today’s New York Times, Krugman wrote a piece entitled “The Obama Agenda,” arguing that Obama’s election doesn’t merely represent a profound moment in history, it also represents a real shift in politics:

About the political argument: Anyone who doubts that we’ve had a major political realignment should look at what’s happened to Congress. After the 2004 election, there were many declarations that we’d entered a long-term, perhaps permanent era of Republican dominance. Since then, Democrats have won back-to-back victories, picking up at least 12 Senate seats and more than 50 House seats. They now have bigger majorities in both houses than the G.O.P. ever achieved in its 12-year reign.

While many on the right continue to argue that this election somehow proves America is a “center right country,” the results of the election tell a different story. America is decidedly moving to the left. As Markos of the DailyKos pointed out today, only four states voted in higher numbers for the Republican ticket than they did in 2004. (Unfortunately, Louisiana was one of those states).

Put another way, forty six states had more Democratic votes in 2008 than in 2004.

Back to Krugman:

Helping the neediest in a time of crisis, through expanded health and unemployment benefits, is the morally right thing to do; it’s also a far more effective form of economic stimulus than cutting the capital gains tax. Providing aid to beleaguered state and local governments, so that they can sustain essential public services, is important for those who depend on those services; it’s also a way to avoid job losses and limit the depth of the economy’s slump.

So a serious progressive agenda — call it a new New Deal — isn’t just economically possible, it’s exactly what the economy needs.

The bottom line, then, is that Barack Obama shouldn’t listen to the people trying to scare him into being a do-nothing president. He has the political mandate; he has good economics on his side. You might say that the only thing he has to fear is fear itself.

It’s hard to argue with a man who won this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics on his prescription for our economy.