September 2007 - Posts
"Hardball" host Chris Matthews gives his take on the day's top political headlines.
Obama has bucks, needs ballots
Barack Obama's campaign is saying it has 75,000 brand-new contributors which is almost as many people lining up with money as all the Republican candidates put together. However, Obama's biggest challenge is tonight. He has to take all that excitement and show it in the debate. He's the guy who has to put his mouth where his money is.
Biden’s Iraq plan passes
A couple of other Democrats just got some good news and some bad news. Today, the U.S. Senate resolved by a vote of 75 to 23 that Iraq should be split up into three parts: Sunni, Shia and Kurd, in a loose federal system rather than the tight, centralized government of Saddam Hussein. Joe Biden sponsored the bill along with Republican candidate Sam Brownback and the bill won the "aye" vote of Hillary Clinton.
In other Biden news, the senator is putting everything he has into a strong showing in that first big test in Iowa this January. He's said it's make-or-break for him. If he doesn't make it in the top three, he's getting out.
Union snubs Edwards
Meanwhile, a big blow to John Edwards today. The SEIU, one of the most politically powerful unions, has decided to hold off endorsing a candidate for 2008. Edwards has been courting the service employees aggressively.
Buying time with Bill
Finally, Bill Clinton thinks he's the best company money can buy. The former president sent out this e-mail invitation to supporters: "Hillary's campaign will pick three people, each invited with a guest to watch one of the upcoming presidential debates with me. We'll sit down in front of a big TV with a big bowl of chips, watch the debate, and talk about the race."
Maybe this is how to get an interview with him, along with some potato chips.
"Hardball" host Chris Matthews gives his take on the day's top political headlines.
Sen. Larry Craig’s judgment day
Larry Craig is facing Judgment Day. Politically, that is. He's going before a judge in Minnesota who will decide whether to let him withdraw his guilty plea for "disorderly conduct." Late today, the prosecutor in the Craig case filed a memo to the court in which he wrote, “Denial of the Defendant's motion prevents further politicking and game playing on the part of the Defendant in relation to his plea."
If he gets his way, he's got a chance to withdraw his promise to resign from the senate. If that happens, look out! The Republicans, especially Republican senate leader Mitch McConnell, want this guy out of sight, out of mind. You can bet they want it forgotten by the time they hold their convention in Minneapolis-St.Paul next September. It will be downright fascinating to watch how this plays out.
Ford for governor?
Speaking of fascinating, Harold Ford, Junior, who lost a hard-fought race for the U.S. Senate from Tennessee last November is apparently thinking about running for governor. A close advisor of Ford's is meeting with Democrats in the state about a Ford run in 2010. Given his graceful concession after a tough election campaign, voters might just give him a chance.
Bayh-ing into Hillary
In other news, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. I've been thinking that Bayh has a good shot at being Hillary's pick for Vice President because of the following: He's from the Midwest, which could be the battleground next November and he voted for the war resolution that led to the Iraq war. Bayh would not be to Hillary's left on the whole war issue. In fact, he would be to her right, which would help her hold the political center. And finally, he would not outshine her. He is a moderate, soft-spoken politician successful at winning in the most pro-Republican state in the Midwest.
Rudy’s phone-y interruption
At the NRA presidential event last week, Rudy Giuliani received this phone call while he was speaking at the podium. Now you might chalk that up to an oversight. You might think that he simply, in the rush of things, forgot he'd left his cell phone on during an important speech. Well, unfortunately, it's not the first time he's let this happen. In June he interrupted a speech to 200 people to take another call from his darling.
Call me old-fashioned but when you invite people to go to the trouble to come to an event and listen to what you have to say, you give them your first attention, you don't operate a switchboard of anyone who feels like interrupting. If this thing happens again, and people aren't openly offended by it, that's their fault. Cute once, maybe. Not cute twice. Not cool if it happens again.
"Hardball" host Chris Matthews gives his take on the day's top political headlines.
Junkets for Hillary’s crowd
Junket time! Usually you have to win the election to get the free junkets. Not in the case of the Hillary Clinton crowd. The L.A. Times reports that fugitive businessman Norman Shue who raised tons of money for her has thrown in some nice bennies for her roadies. He flew Hillary's campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle and some other Hillarites out to the Mandalay Bay Hotel and casino, threw in a handful of show tickets and dinner comps. The trouble with taking gifts from strangers, as the Clintons ought to know, is they're... strangers. Politics is packed with odd, lonely characters looking to build a social life -- and a little prestige -- by giving big money to politicians. The trouble is you get them along with their money.
Thompson’s easy street
Speaking of easy street, Fred Thompson is playing into the hands of critics who think he ought to be advertising La-Z-boy recliners. The late-arriving Tennessean, who already has the lightest campaign schedule of any of the candidates, has a big public schedule this week... nothing!
Moveon.org strikes back
The urban warfare, meanwhile, is escalating for 2008. Rudy took a deadly shot at his cross-town rival Hillary last week and at the anti-war group MoveOn.org for its "Petreaus Betray-us." Today, MoveOn shot back.
Romney tags Iran’s president
Now, a story that reeks of desperation. Mitt Romney apparently doesn't know that the United Nations isn't a U.S. property. He's threatening the U.N. to not let the president of Iran speak to the general assembly. He threatens to quit the U.N. if they let him speak. Somebody should explain to the guy that we don't get to say who speaks at the U.N. It's an "international"organization, Mr. Former Governor.
ACLU backs Larry Craig
And, since we're speaking of desperate gestures, Larry Craig has a new friend: the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU says he's a victim of entrapment. The trouble with the entrapment defense is that it implies an admission of actual guilt. If your legal defense is that you were lured into commiting an act, then you're admitting that you committed the act... right?
New tourist hotspot
Meanwhile, workers at the Minneapolis Airport are reporting that Craig's infamous bathroom stall has become the hottest tourist attraction in town! Passersby have been stopping to check out where the wide-stanced Senator did his thing. And with the Republicans holding their convention in Minneapolis this year, it's bound to make a great reception booth.
Cleaning up their mess
Finally, a lesson to be learned from Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who's been coaching for 43 years. After his players got arrested for an off-campus fight, the veteran Nittany Lions coach decided to give the team an object lesson by getting them to help clean up the stands after home games this season. It's something we could use at the national level. Your crowd creates a mess. You clean it up. It's called "accountability."
by Chris Matthews
The big story of the week is General David Patraeus couldn't say the war in Iraq is making America safer, but President Bush saying we'll stay there longer.
President Bush hitched the future of this country beyond himself, beyond whoever is his successor, to a permanent American presence and influence in the heart of Arabia.
In a primetime speech to the country, President Bush told us that the United States would stay in Iraq indefinitely and troops will only come home when he decides there's enough success to do it. He talked about our allies in Iraq, saying, “We thank the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq."
Well, actually, the U.S. has 169,000 men and women over there. The British about 3 percent of that number.
Now let me give you a sense of the other firepower that's joining us in the field: Hungary has 15 people there, Japan 5, Latvia 2, Turkey (a strong Islamic ally) 2, New Zealand 1, Singapore 1, and Canada 1.
Friday, four more American soldiers were killed by an explosion in Iraq.
Editor's note: A few of you, in comments (below), want to figure out the rest of the 36. The folks overe at TPMMuckraker.com have been working on that as well.
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Sen. Joe Biden is the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee -Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate and chaired this morning‘s hearings with Gen. Petraeus. He had a heated discussion with Chris Matthews about the hearings and his reactions to the answers Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker provided regarding Iraq. Here are some of the highlights.
On his impression of Petraeus and Crocker
CHRIS MATTHEWS: I am stunned, Senator, not usually stunned here. I know you’re not stunned often. But there’s 169,000 people over there fighting and risking their lives every day, men and women in Iraq, wondering if they’re serving their country, in some cases. Here we have the general commanding them saying he doesn’t know whether they’re making America safer over there.
SEN. JOE BIDEN (D-DEL.): It’s a sad day, Chris. I think what the whole day proved, both in my committee and now in the Armed Services Committee, is that the two men in charge of the policy, I don’t think they embrace the policy. I think they know that there’s no possibility to be able to secure Iraq, bring our troops home and leave something stable behind based on the strategy of this administration. And yet that’s what they’re supposed to implement. I think that’s what you saw today. That’s me making a judgment about two men I know pretty well. They did not say that to me, but that’s what their answers said to me.
MATTHEWS: Well, You know them well. I only know them from appearances. Ryan Crocker looks like he does not believe in the policy because he didn’t really explain it. He never really made the case that there’s going to be a political unification of that country, the kind of central government that you oppose and believe won’t work. He doesn’t sound like he believes it, either.
BIDEN: I don’t think he does. I think there’s virtually very few people who at this point don’t agree with what Les Gelb and I have been pushing, not because we pushed it, either as a default position or as their starting position, which is the only way American forces can leave Iraq without leaving chaos behind and having a civil war metastasize into the region is to separate these parties, give them breathing room within their own federal areas and have a loosely knit central government that distributes revenues.
I think that’s the only, only way out. I’ve thought that for some time. And I believeand it sounds self-serving, but I really believe, Chris, the vast majority of the foreign policy and military specialists are reaching that conclusion.
On foreign policy and Bush’s position on Iraq
MATTHEWS: But we have a policy of restoring stability to the streets of Baghdad so that that central government can come together, and you’re saying all the blood and treasure to try to do that has a worthless end because in the end, there won’t be a coming together and this mission will fail.
BIDEN: There will not be a coming together. Look, by the definition this president’s had a policy. What was his policy? He was going to establish a strong central democratic government in Baghdad. How was he going to do that? He was going to, quote, “stand up” an Iraqi army so we could stand down.
The second part of the policy was, We’re going to have this surge. Why? To give breathing space to the warring sectarian factions to get together and reach an accommodation. By their own measure, they have failed. The military will not be ready for at least another two years. I don’t believe they’ll be ready for four to five years. I’m not sure they’re ever.
MATTHEWS: How long are we going to be in Iraq, according to Petraeus’s estimates, based upon your conversations with him? He won’t say it in the hearing. Will he tell you? How many years, how many decades are we going to be over there?
BIDEN: Well, if, in fact, we reelect—I’m not being a wiseguy now. If we elect a Republican president after this, we’re going to be there for another seven, eight, ten years.
MATTHEWS: And when will we achieve this goal of an independent defensible, democratic, stable government in Iraq?
BIDEN: We will not. What we will have done, we’ll try to occupy as long as we can to keep the wheels from totally coming off. That’s all this is about, Chris.
MATTHEWS: So we’re the cork in the bottle.
BIDEN: We are the cork in the bottle. That’s it. And that is not something I want our sons and daughters to be. We will not tolerate that. The American people will not tolerate us being the cork in the bottle. They’ll take sacrifices for a victory that, in fact, enhances the security of the United States of America, but they’re not going to do this to keep the status quo ante, and they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t be asked to do it.
On the Senate dealing with the war question
MATTHEWS: What’s going to happen in the U.S. Senate, sir? You’re one of the senior members. What’s going to happen between now and the end of this year to deal with this war question?
BIDEN: Chris, you know, we need 67 votes in the United States Senate to override the president, a recalcitrant president’s veto. He’s going to veto everything.
My hope was that what would happen with this report is enough Republicans would see through it, we would be able over the month of October and early November to pick up enough votes to set deadlines of beginning to withdraw our troops and reject this notion that we’re going to have—we’re going to go back to pre-surge levels this time next year. For what? For what?
MATTHEWS: Well, let me just count—let’s count the names. You might—you’ll probably pick up Chuck Hagel. He’s leaving the Senate because he’s apparently being shunned by other Republicans. You’ve got Gordon Smith, I believe, who’s been outspoken in this regard. Will you get Susan Collins? Will you get Olympia Snow? Will you get John Sununu? Will you get Norm Coleman?Will you get these people?
BIDEN: The answer is, based on what I heard—I shouldn’t guess, but in my committee, Coleman and Sununu, they weren’t as critical of the report as I hoped they would be. So I’m not optimistic about how many of them are going to switch, at this point.
But look, Chris, you know, you’re not doing this, but what is—what we all do is we handicap whether the president has a good day, a bad day, the administration’s policy has a good day or bad day. None of that matters. What’s going to matter is when I pick up “The Washington Post,” “The Philadelphia Inquirer,” “The San Francisco Examiner” a month from now and they’re going to see nothing, nothing materially has changed for the better.
And so all this malarkey about whether or not the president’s had a good day and whether or not he’s been able to move the pea in the shell a little bit longer is going to be irrelevant because this comes down to how many people are going to be dead between now and then, how many people are wounded between now and then.
On the reaction to the hearings
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you again about the performance. Let me watch this again together. And I want your reaction. I’ll get out of your way. I found this profound. This is the senior Republican on Armed Services, one of the most respected colleagues you have, and I know you agree, John Warner. Here he is, asking the question.
I think he took the bark off this guy. And I respect him as a soldier, but not as a policy maker. Petraeus shouldn’t be a policy maker. We only have one of them, the commander-in-chief.
You know, Senator, you have the port in which the—Dover, Delaware, where the bodies come back. I hate talking about this. I know you do, too. But if the commander over there can’t justify the deaths of these soldiers because it serves a national purpose and makes us safer, then what the hell are we doing there?
BIDEN: We shouldn’t be there, Chris. We should not be there now. We’ve got to get out of there.
Look, Chris, on my way back, I was supposed to fly out this last Friday on a C-130. And on that flight, they placed what they call—and this is heart-wrenching—they refer to every one of those bodies as a “fallen angel.” They put six fallen angels on that aircraft. And you know, Chris, what do you say? Why did they fall? What do you say? What do you say to their parents? What do you say to those troops?
And you know what? They’re incredible, Chris. I’m not one of these guys that gets on every time and talks been about, Oh, I love the military, and the rest. But let me tell you something, Chris. I’ve been over there eight times. These kids are brave. They get in these vehicles every damn day, and they ride out on those roads, some of them having been hit already, knowing that their chance of getting blown away is overwhelming, and they do it every day.
And what are we doing now? We are not telling the American people the truth about the failure in Iraq, and we are not having the courage to have a fundamental change in policy withdraw, change the dynamic, eliminate the footprint, move outside the cities, get out of this civil war, insist on a federal system, bring in the international community.
MATTHEWS: I understand, sir. You’re very emotional about this because you’re talked to me. I’ve watched you on television, not just with you personally, but watched you on television talking about the need to give these men the equipment to protect them, the vehicles, to protected them from IEDs.
And I keep thinking about General Eisenhower. I didn’t serve in the military. I was in the Peace Corps. But let me tell you something. General Eisenhower, when he met with the troops on D-Day, right before they took off and risked their lives, and lost them in many cases, he said, Good luck, soldier. Imagine if he’d said to them, Good luck, soldier. I don’t know what the hell you’re fighting for, I don’t know if this is going to make our country any safer or not. It’s unimaginable.
It’s unimaginable that Petraeus came before the Senate and spoke. Imagine what this is going to sound like on Armed Services Radio tonight and television when they watch the commander say they don’t know whether they’re making America safer or not.
And he’s asking them to go into battle every day. It’s maddeningly stupid. And this president seems to be hiding behind a guy he gave the orders to and then is expecting him to defend the policy, and he admits it’s beyond his pay level to defend the policy.
BIDEN: Let me tell you something, Chris. He also knows that there’s other generals and admirals, some his superiors, who do not think it’s making America safer.
MATTHEWS: Oh, I think that is his honest answer, Senator. I think you were on to it when they say they don’t know, I’m afraid they do
Watch for a link to the full transcript on this space. Click here and the Hardball site to watch more video.
"Hardball" host Chris Matthews gives his take on the day's top political headlines.
Obama takes on Hillary, Vitter takes on Craig
Barack Obama has just started to call Hillary's bluff. She brags about her experience. He says it's not about "living" in the White House. It's about serving in "elected" positions. Obama also says, “I've been in elected office longer than John Edwards or Hillary Clinton.... I've passed more bills, I'm sure, than either of them."
Hillary refuted his claim saying, "Barack's problem, obviously, is that his claim to all this 'experience' undermines his louder claim to being the 'new kid on the block' - the young fellow un-scathed by all the slime in the political world."
Obama and Clinton aren’t the only politicians taking harsh digs at one another. David Vitter, who got caught with a prostitute, spoke out against Sen. Larry Craig’s resignation woes. Vitter denies there's a double standard that lets him stay in the senate while Craig gets the bum's rush for seeking sex with a male undercover detective. He says anybody who says there's a double standard is just being "partisan," whatever that means.
Also on the Larry Craig front, some of his backers are now calling for a boycott of the Minneapolis airport. They want to "punish" the airport for "ambushing" their fellow. To paraphrase Larry, "that naughty, nasty airport."
Michael Deaver's friends came together at the National Cathedral today to celebrate what his good friend Jim Baker called "the miracle of a redeemed life." There were a lot of them: Some still powerful, some once powerful and others newly empowered -- several hundred former drug addicts whom Deaver had helped rescue from the streets of the nation's capital.
Henry Pierce spoke for them, from the pulpit where presidents and potentates are usually memorialized, to an audience that included Vice President Dick Cheney, former presidential candidate George McGovern, Nancy Reagan, Washington wise man Bob Strauss, and an army of former Reagan cabinet secretaries and White House staff. Pierce is now the director of an organization Deaver helped keep going called Clean & Sober Streets. As Pierce tells it, 15 years ago he was a dope addict who wandered in early one morning. A man in a baseball cap handed him a donut, a cup of coffee and a willing ear. Mike Deaver, who at his death had been sober for more than two decades, was rescuing another soul. Hundreds of them in the congregation stood to be recognized.
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