The 37th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) wrapped up this weekend in Washington, D.C., and as many guessed it was a huge success, with early estimates citing the largest attendance in the conference’s history. What was once a relatively modest gathering of core party thinkers has since mushroomed into a who’s who of the conservative movement, showcasing stalwart party speakers such as Dick Armey, Glenn Beck, Mitt Romney, Andrew Breitbart, Newt Gingrich, Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter.
The turnout also revealed a surprising diversity among CPAC habitués, which for more than strength in numbers alone could signal a major shift within the movement. For the first time, the conference drew large factions that typically lie on the conservative periphery, assorted wing nuts like the prodigious Tea Party Movement, the Oath Keepers, the Free State Project, various Midwest militia groups, and 25-year-old Ron Paul supporters who live in their parents’ basement.
For the most part, CPAC’s riled-up reclamations against “socialized” government retained its predictable dog-and-pony show format, but the unified anathema of anything “big government” should be noted for its ability to bridge conservative camps this year, from east coast politicians to the garden variety Tea Partier, in general ideological practice or as a reaction to specific, recent events such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
As much as Tea Partiers romantically envision themselves as Rooseveltian vanguards of small government, they’ve become uncharacteristically obsequious to their beltway counterparts in many ways, and it’s for this reason they can be seen as new pawns in an old game of conservative constituent hunting. There is a reason why Republican Party leaders have begun courting them in recent months after treating them like ugly cousins for the better part of a year prior, or why politicians like Sarah Palin have since poached their ideological underpinnings to serve as mummification for her own floundering political career.
The fact is, “small government” has never been a particular concern for Republican Party leaders. Though the phrase has been used repeatedly for its populist tenor, the Republican leaders’ M.O. of the past 35 years has been to expand the presence of government at virtually every impasse, and a brief historic of party policy shows the rallying cry to be a meaningless clause with mythological roots, delivered by pandering politicians who have no intention of implementing what they say into practice.
We can start with Nixon, an architect of modern Republican ideology whose penchant for “socialized” services dwarfed Obama’s by a hilarious degree. Nixon established “big” agencies like the EPA, the CPSC and OSHA, and drastically expanded the powers of existing agencies like the Office of Management and Budget.
He introduced the Section 8 housing voucher program and implemented affirmative action predecessor The Philadelphia Plan. He increased direct Medicare and Social Security payments to individuals by 2.6% and pumped up pay for federal employees. He introduced a health insurance plan where employers had to buy insurance for their workers. He even implemented wage and price controls.
He signed the Equal Employment Opportunity Act and to further corporate chagrin authorized the Clean Air Act. Nixon revolutionized America’s agricultural policies by giving massive federal subsidies to farmers, substantially lowering the cost of many consumer food products. Food aid and public assistance rose during Nixon’s reign by $2.5 billion. Defense spending decreased by 3.3%. In today’s Tea Party terms, Nixon was as “socialist” as they come.
Next we have Reagan, typically viewed by party ideologues as godfather of the Republican “revolution” for his hatred of education and the environment, boisterous defense spending and quick proselytizing about the power of small tax and equally small government.
History has a funny way of remembering Reagan, who initially cut taxes during his first year in Office (when budget projections allowed him to do so), and then continued to raise them each year for the remainder of his two terms. Reagan’s tax hikes hit $1 billion within three years (when adjusted for inflation, they beat Clinton’s historic tax hikes of 1993). He then imposed a heavy tax on gas, removed tax loopholes for businesses and introduced giant payroll taxes. During his second term, he signed the largest corporate tax increase in history – $120 billion over the course of five years (as Governor of California, he similarly signed the state’s largest tax increase).
Reagan wrote the blueprint for contemporary Republicans’ “small government” creed, an illusory practice of “shrinking” government by decentralizing internal (re: “closet socialist”) agencies, while effectively doubling the ones that further their political agenda. Federal spending ballooned under Reagan, from $590 billion in 1980 to $1.14 trillion in 1988. The number of federal employees grew by 8%, or by 61,000 (by comparison, these number fell by 373,000 under Clinton).
Reagan also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit and gave Social Security a $165 billion bailout. He imposed historic tariffs, bolstered military spending and drove up our national debt, forcing the country to survive on foreign loans. Small government indeed.
George H.W. Bush picked up where Nixon left off, raising unemployment benefits and pumping up welfare funds to historic highs. He signed what is typically viewed as one of the biggest civil rights bills in history, the Americans with Disabilities Act. He reauthorized Nixon’s Clean Air Act and increased funding for our highways. Faced with the unsavory task of cleaning up Reagan’s irresponsible deficit, he drew fire from his own ranks when he famously backpedaled on his “no new taxes” pledge.
It’s hard to know where to begin with George W. Bush. From the early days of his administration, Bush was poised to revive the 1981 tax cuts imposed by Reagan but in the course of doing so managed to add $345 billion to the federal budget, a record only paralleled when he added another $290 to it during his second term. By the end of his presidency, the national debt had increased 100% from when he took office.
He increased funding for the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and he signed a $7 trillion Medicare drug benefit program. He buffeted state funding on education services with No Child Left Behind.
Bush also continued the Republican practice of increasing the presence of “big government” vis-à-vis swaps with the private sector, a trend that began when Reagan appointed Don Regan, former Merrill Lynch CEO, to Treasury Secretary and later Chief of Staff. Bush’s Treasury Department staff roster alone looked like a yearbook for big bank executives, and the benefits became instantly obvious: under Bush historic bailouts were engineered for banks, financial institutions and automakers.
Running as far away from the Republican ethos as possible, Bush mandated increased regulation of private enterprise, including a Federal takeover of stockholder owner agency Fannie Mae. He gave the NSA the authority to spy on Americans without a warrant. He disabled marketplace competition by giving no-bid handouts to corporate ties during the administration’s conquests in the Middle East.
The Republican Party has always done a marvelous job of mobilizing the masses with rhetoric to drive poll numbers. In fact, it’s that knack for visceral, emotive response that Democrats could someday take note of. This case is no different. By outsourcing Tea Partiers’ “white burden” as a cause célèbre, the Republican Party has hitched a ride on the mentality of lynch mobs and driven it to critical mass.
Where were the Tea Partiers when our Republican leaders were spending tax dollars to bail out the banks? Where was the predictable patter comparing the President to Adolph Hitler, the gross confusion of contemporary “socialized” nations with Germany’s National Socialism (née Nazism) in the 1930s, when Reagan installed the largest tax increases since World War 2?
The fact is, Republicans endorse a model of small government when it suits their needs. Republicans are all-too-quick to use government to interfere in the lives of others when it comes to pro-life legislation, abolishing same-sex marriage, dissolving the lines between church and state, enacting legislation that prohibits the sale of generic drugs or jerry-rigging federal subsidies programs to give payouts to their corporate interests.
The trained, manufactured hatred of “big government,” the Pavlovian conditioning to scream “socialism” whenever a new tax on the rich threatens the Ayn Randian nightmare pumped through every paint-by-numbers talking point on the a.m. radio dial, has become the biggest con job in modern history by a political party bent on duping their own constituents. My hat is off to them. It’s one hell of a trick.
Imagine the national uproar had President Bush — like President Obama is currently doing — decided not to prosecute lawyers who approved torture of prisoners held by the U.S. Government.
The cry would have been deafening. Bush’s Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would have been rapped as a political hack, one responsible for the politicization of the Justice Dept.
Of course, the above is pure fantasy. Torture did happen in the Bush Administration, approved at the highest levels of government. Gonzales was nothing more than an embarrassing political toady who tarnished the reputation of the Justice Dept.
That was supposed to change. Redemption was said to be at hand when Obama was elected President of the U.S. He would restore trust. After all, he promised “change.”
By failing to pursue the legal stiffs who besmirched the honor of the U.S. by okaying waterboarding and the like, Obama breaks his oath with the American people. We deserve better.
Obama appears to be backtracking today from his promise not to press charges against a Bush Administration tainted with torture. C’mon, Barack, show some backbone. It’s wishy-washy to say you worry about the political “impact of high-intensity hearings.” We’ve been through much worse. Watergate immediately comes to mind.
Obama should be more worried about the damage he will do to this country’s image worldwide, if the evil-abettors are let off the hook. Cleansing is needed. The world is watching.
If Obama caves, it’s up to AG Eric Holder to step up to the plate. That would surely invigorate the Justice Dept. and send a signal to the rest of the world that America is back in the morality game.
The Justice Dept. should not be a subsidiary of the White House, as it was during the Bush years.
Obama is a smart guy. This blogger hopes his talk of no prosecutions was just a trial balloon, floated to gain reaction.
The people have spoken. It’s time to puncture the balloon and move to put the U.S. government on a higher moral ground.
There is no question the economy is in the tank, but it is not because banks didn’t have money to lend. The economy tanked, according to economist Dean Baker, because the $6T housing bubble and $8T stock market bubbles burst.
People felt broke after their imagined wealth went poof. They pulled in their horns.
Wrote Holland:
“Much of the economic growth of the Bush era existed on paper only, built on the rise of a massive bubble in real estate values rather than growth in productive industries. When all the ephemeral wealth vaporized—and with the economy shedding jobs like a dog with dermatitis---consumers stopped buying and businesses, anticipating a long slowdown, stopped seeking the loans that they might have otherwise tapped to expand their operations.”
Holland notes that consumer dollars drive 70 percent of the U.S. economy. Much of that spending was financed by people taking chunks of equity out of their homes. “People might have been eating in fancy restaurants, but they were essentially eating their living rooms to do so,” he wrote.
Financial sanity finally prevailed. Banks stopped making loans because nobody was asking for them. Though mortgage rates plummeted, the number of applications fell in lockstep. That, to Baker, is the “most glaring refutation of the claim that people are unable to get credit.”
The specter of a banking collapse was largely concocted. Bankers rejoiced as federal funds flowed to the banks, which in turn, used the money to shore up balance sheets and fund war chests for future acquisitions. Fortified by those taxpayer dollars, bankers used the “crisis” to lay off thousands of taxpayers.
It’s now up to President-elect Obama to clean up the mess. His $750B public works plan to revitalize the economy is based on building real things like roads and bridges. That's a far cry from smoke and mirrors of the past eight years.
Holland isn’t very far out on a limb with the idea that the trillion-dollar bailout was the exiting Bush Administration’s parting gift to the financial sector. After all, the White House sold the public a war based on the phony threat of weapons of mass destruction. Team Bush pushed the idea of Al-Qaida “sleeper cells” in the U.S. to win support for the Patriot Act.
A trillion-dollar scam is little more than a walk in the park for these guys.
That hissing sound you hear is the final air escaping from the balloon of the Bush Administration. The White House imploded this week as the bad news piled up.
• The President finally committed to redeploying troops from Iraq to Afghanistan after top military commanders conceded that the U.S. might not be winning the battle against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. On a similar line, news surfaced that the President has finally okayed Special Forces raids into Pakistan, the country where Osama bin Laden is thought to be living since early 2002. Better late than never. Don’t think so.
• The Pentagon couldn’t decide on the $40B aerial tanker competition that was waged between Airbus' parent/Northrop Grumman and Boeing. That tanker was once called vital to the upgrade of the Air Force’s refueling fleet. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has washed his hands of the matter, punting the tanker decision to the next Administration.
• The virtual fence that was to be erected on the U.S./Mexico border, a high-tech showcase pitched to thwart illegal immigration, is now kaput. The fence was the centerpiece of the Bush Administration’s “Secure Border Initiative.” Cost overruns and delays are responsible for its demise. Dept. of Homeland Security estimates that the cost of SBI could triple from its current $8B outlay though 2013. Even worse, the 670-mile long physical fence is now $400M over budget. The Administration can’t even monitor construction of a real fence. We used to put men of the moon.
• The cronyism of the Bush Administration was on full ugly “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job” display with a report of sex, drugs and rock & roll at the Minerals Management Service. Those dedicated public servants who are responsible for overseeing leases with oil companies, had sex with energy company executives, enjoyed drinks at industry functions, smoked pot and snorted coke. High in the Rockies at MMS' headquarters, staffers were living the high life indeed. The Interior Dept. inspector described a “culture of ethical failure” at MMS. The report also scolded MMS staffers for not maintaining an arm’s-length relationship with energy officials. No pun intended.
• Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual teeter on the edge. Questions about the prospects of American International Group arise. Those financial disasters follow the federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. Is the federal government going to bail-out every company that comes before it with a tin cup? Stay tuned.
• The photo-op from hell capped a busy week. The President shared the stage with former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of the Iraq mess, at the unveiling the 9/11 Pentagon memorial. That image crystallizes all this nation has lost in lives, treasure and global status during the eight years of the Bush Administration.
The White House PR machine is running on fumes these days. Things are so bad for President Bush’s PR team that it just flat out ignored the Commander-in-Chief’s visit with Saudi Arabia King Abdullah.
The White House website, which typically trumpets all “achievements” of Bush, has nothing to say about Bush’s visit to the King’s ranch on May 16. Could it be that the PR pros are embarrassed by the image of the American President going cap-in-hand to beg the Saudis to pump more oil to alleviate price pressures on gas! You can bet the ranch on that.
Luckily, Reuters and the Associated Press reported on the tete-a-tete, which featured Bush and Abdullah strolling hand-in-hand. There’s no image yet of the two leaders exchanging the region’s ritual double-kiss of manly affection.
Abdullah and Bush last shared a peck in January when Bush dropped by the King’s place to pick up his “King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit” (Bushie, You are doing a heckuva job!) and bend a knee before the monarch in another futile plea to raise production.
The White House site posted a boilerplate “fact sheet” on May 16 about “strengthening diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia.” It talks about nuclear cooperation and about how Saudi Arabia is working day and night to make sure that its people never again hijack commercial jets and smash them into U.S. landmarks, such as the former World Trade Center in New York.
The White House website has news of the President’s sessions with leaders from Iraq, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Israel, but nothing about Abdullah. It may be mute about the snub from Abdullah, who knows it is up to the U.S. to devise an energy policy to slash its independence from his oil. [Democrats pander just as badly as Bush when they threaten to withhold arms sales to the Kingdom unless it jacks up production by a million barrels per day.]
You know things are bad for Team Bush when reports surface that even ExxonMobil chairman Rex Tillerson is bad-mouthing Bush’s visit with the King as a policy that is “terribly upside down.”
Tillerson believes U.S. policymakers are two-faced when they urged the Abdullah to ramp it up while the same strategy is not followed here.
Rex, of course, wants the U.S. to open up Alaska, Malibu Coast, Rocky Mountains, Grand Canyon, Everglades and mid-town Manhattan for intensive oil and gas development.
This blogger votes for alternative energy production, efficiencies, conservation and improved gas mileage over Rex’s rigs in Central Park.
While many say President Bush gives Fillmore, Buchanan and Hoover a run for their money as the worst ever commander-in-chief, America thirty years down the road may come to appreciate the greatness of Dubya.
Though Bush’s current 31 percent approval rating is his all-time low, Douthat believes the Administration’s Iraq policy may be vindicated if the place turns out to be “stable, democratic and at peace with its neighbors” thirty years from now. His point: “When things turn out in the long-run—and especially when we can claim the credit—Americans tend to forgive their leaders for the crimes and errors of the moment.” For instance, few remember Teddy Roosevelt's bloody occupation of the Philippines because "despite our crimes the Philippines turned out well enough in the long run."
This country also thinks highly of “activist” leaders, such as Bush who launched two wars and embarked upon a global war on terror.
Douthat notes the sometimes impressive, but "oft-erratic" Truman is rated more highly than the “even-keeled” Eisenhower. He wrote:
“John F. Kennedy is hailed for escaping the Cuban missile crisis, which his own misjudgments set in motion, while George H.W. Bush, who steered the U.S. through the fraught final moments of the Cold War with admirable caution, is caricatured as a ditherer who needed Margaret Thatcher around to keep him from going wobbly.”
The author concedes it is hard to remember that Bush was once popular even among liberals in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He is leaving either Obama or McCain a “fragile truce in a wrecked, misgoverned country."
As the President prepares to return to Crawford, he can take solace that every tarnished Presidential reputation “eventually finds someone willing to defend it.” In other words, it may take 30 years for the U.S. to overlook the horror of the last five.
Douthat’s point is predicated on the belief that future Presidents will “stay the course” in Iraq. That 's a shaky position especially if Obama wins and Congressional Democrats are free to follow the will of the people and pass legislation to withdraw from Iraq without the threat of a veto.
If you agree with Douthat that the Bush White House years may one day be considered golden, you will love his new book, “Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.” That's another tough sell.
The polar bear is the iconic image of global warming. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace have skillfully reinforced that point with heart-tugging visuals of bears leaping from one shrinking ice floe to another in desperate attempts to stay alive. Elementary and high school students throughout the U.S. have adopted the polar bear as the “poster animal” of warming. The U.S. Geological Society has validated the threat to the bears, reporting that two-thirds of them will vanish by 2050 if predictions of future melting sea ice hold up.
Yet it took a lawsuit filed by Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Council and Center for Biological Diversity to get today’s decision that Interior must rule by May 15 whether the bears should be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The Interior Dept. has missed various deadlines and wanted another delay until June 30 to gather more information about the bears' plight.
This blogger believes that like everything else in the Bush Administration, energy development explained Interior’s foot-dragging. Interior is home to the Minerals Management Services, which has been selling off Alaskan oil and gas leases to energy companies. Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips were among giants that bid $3.4B for Alaskan oil leases in February. That bidding including a habitat for one of two of Alaska’s polar bear populations, and is undeveloped land not seen in any area of the U.S., according to Shell executive Annell Bay. Conservation groups -- to no avail -- protested that bidding, saying Interior had not made its decision on the fate of the bears. That now looms.
If Interior rules the bears are threatened, they will be the first species designated as a potential victim of global warming. That decision would be pretty embarrassing to the global warming deniers that dominate the Administration. It also will signal that -- in the waning days of the Bush Administration -- things are changing for the better in D.C.
Naomi Klein has done it again. She took on the “brand bullies” in 1999 with her classic book, “No Logo.” Klein has now achieved the impossible. The Canadian writer has made sense of the Bush White House.
The Bush Administration did not screw up New Orleans and the “War on Terror,” according to an impressive new book by Klein. It was part of a grand plan.
She contends that the gross incompetence displayed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (e.g., “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”) and bungled occupation of Iraq is at the core of “disaster capitalism,” which views either natural or man-made catastrophes as exiting business opportunities.
In “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” Klein writes that a war, hurricane, coup, or terror attack can put an “entire population into a state of collective shock.” The resulting “clean slate” allows a government and its corporate allies to re-write the old rules.
For instance, though the floodwaters of New Orleans had barely receded, conservatives were busy with plans to rid the city of its public schools, replacing them with “charter schools.” While levees and the electricity grid were repaired at a “glacial pace,” the auctioning off of the New Orleans school system took place with "military speed and precision,” according to Klein.
There were 123 public schools in the Big Easy prior to Katrina. The school board is now responsible for four. The number of charter schools rose from seven prior to the storm to 31. The teachers’ union contract was shredded and 4,700 of its members were fired, replaced by non-union educators. It was a stunning victory for the privatization crowd.
Of the War on Terror, Klein writes:
“To kick-start the disaster capitalism complex, the Bush Administration outsourced with no public debate, many of the most sensitive and core functions of government—from providing healthcare to soldiers, to interrogating prisoners, to gathering and data mining information on all of us.”
Uncle Sam’s role in this “unending war is not of an administrator managing a network of contractors but of a deep-pocketed venture capitalist, both providing its seed money for the complex’s creation and becoming the biggest customer of its service.”
To demonstrate the scope of the transformation, Klein notes that in 2003, the U.S. issued 3,512 contracts to perform security jobs. The Dept. of Homeland Security, an entity at “Ground Zero” of the disaster complex, issued 115,000 security contracts from 2004 to 2006. The global homeland security market, which was created by the selling of fear post 9/11, is now a $200B market.
Wars and disasters used to be manna for defense contractors and construction companies needed to rebuild cities. That has utterly changed, according to Klein: “Now wars and disaster responses are so fully privatized that they themselves are the new market, there is no need to wait until after the war for the boom—the medium is the message.”
Klein deserves another pat on the back for her work. This blogger hopes Shock Doctrine is under a lot of Christmas trees this year. It is a much needed wake-up call for America.
President Bush’s new “open door” media policy was turned on its head today following the release of the National Intelligence Estimate report about Iran abandoning its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The timing of the report’s release was definitely not good news for the President.
As Congress returned from a two-week break yesterday, the President held a press conference to scold Democrats for not getting the people’s business done. The President’s advisers had adopted the old “bully pulpit” game plan. They had scheduled another press conference today for the President to repeat his attack on the “do-nothing” Democratic Congress.
That story line became moot with the release of the intelligence report. Rather than forcefully browbeating Congress, the President was caught in the media crosshairs.
On the Iranian report, Bush was reduced to muttering:
“I view this report as a warning signal that they had the program, they halted the program. The reason why it’s a warning signal is they could restart it.”
That is a sharp contrast to the assertive Bush of Oct. 17, who warned the globe of a potential World War III., a conflict triggered by Iran's nuclear ambitions.
The intelligence report provides the White House a golden opportunity to tone down the rhetoric. Countering past practices, the Administration should embrace the intelligence findings and establish a dialog with the Iranians. Old dogs really can be taught new tricks.
Winding down the occupation of Iraq and forging a working relationship with the Iran would be a great way for the President to spend its last year in office. It would be Bush’s legacy.
The President held 25 press conferences during the first nine-months of this year. That compares to 16 for his first four years in office. The openness policy stems directly from the loss of Congress to the Democrats. Following the rough treatment today, one hopes the President doesn’t revert to his old press-avoidance ways.
A press conference needs to be a two-way street. If Bush thinks he can use the media day-after-day to bash the opposition, he is in for a big disappointment because that gets old real soon. The last thing the White House press corps wants is to be viewed as a pawn of the President.
The Embassy of Pakistan is lying low these days following emergency rule imposed in that Islamic State to enable strongman General Pervez Musharraf to remain in power.
Interpublic’s Cassidy & Associates is advising Pakistan’s Embassy [link, sub req'd] in the ways of public diplomacy. C&A has a hefty $1.2M contract with Pakistan to promote its role in enhancing security and stability in a “region of broad strategic importance.”
Update:Cassidy has dropped the account, according to a recent filing. [link, sub req'd]
Another C&A priority is to attain a “more accurate and balanced message” regarding the effort of Musharraf’s to deal with “important changes taking place in Pakistan in the political, economic and social spheres.” That doesn’t seem to be going so well.
America’s dear friend, Pervez, has done everything short of burning an American flag or shredding the U.S. Constitution to ridicule Washington.
Mocking President Bush’s “march of democracy,” Musharraf has declared martial law under the guise of fighting terrorism. Funny, all those black-suited lawyers didn’t exactly have the look of terrorists.
Poking the U.S. in the eye, Musharraf has the gall to liken his emergency measures to Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War. Lincoln’s actions preserved the union, while Musharraf’s moves aim to keep him in power.
Adding insult to injury, Musharraf told the New York Times he needs more financial help from the U.S. to fight terrorism. He noted Pakistan’s army only has one serviceable Cobra helicopter in its 20-member fleet. “We need more support,” he said.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul is the only Presidential candidate to say the U.S. should cut off Musharraf’s $10B allowance. He understands the U.S. may suffer the consequences of alienating Pakistan, a nuclear armed Muslim state. Paul, however, believes the U.S. serves a higher purpose by doing the right thing.
The Congressman’s “straight talk” is why he has developed such as fervent following on the 'Net and among younger voters. He says stuff that people wish more serious candidates would say. C’mon Rudy, Obama and Mitt.
The 37th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) wrapped up this weekend in Washington, D.C., and as many guessed it was a huge success, with early estimates citing the largest attendance in the conference’s history. What was once a relatively modest gathering of core party thinkers has since mushroomed into a who’s who of the conservative movement, showcasing stalwart party speakers such as Dick Armey, Glenn Beck, Mitt Romney, Andrew Breitbart, Newt Gingrich, Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter. 
Of course, the above is pure fantasy. Torture did happen in the Bush Administration, approved at the highest levels of government. Gonzales was nothing more than an embarrassing political toady who tarnished the reputation of the Justice Dept. 
Joshua Holland, writing on AlterNet, 
• The Pentagon 
The White House website, which typically trumpets all “achievements” of Bush, has nothing to say about Bush’s visit to the King’s ranch on May 16. Could it be that the PR pros are embarrassed by the image of the American President going cap-in-hand to beg the Saudis to pump more oil to alleviate price pressures on gas! You can bet the ranch on that. 
Ross Douthat, writing in The Atlantic, 
The polar bear is 
In 
As Congress returned from a two-week break yesterday, the President held a press conference to scold Democrats for not getting the people’s business done. The President’s advisers had adopted the old “bully pulpit” game plan. They had scheduled another press conference today for the President to repeat his attack on the “do-nothing” Democratic Congress. 
Interpublic’s 
