RAGGED THOTS

The administration's most recent budget request also mystified lawmakers. It asked to take $6 million from Homeland S&T's 2006 budget that was supposed to be used to develop explosives detection technology and instead divert it to cover a budget shortfall in the Federal Protective Service, which provides security around government buildings.
Sens. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the top two lawmakers for Senate homeland appropriations, rejected the idea shortly after it arrived late last month, Senate leadership officials said.
Their House counterparts, Reps. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., and Sabo, likewise rejected the request in recent days, Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Brost said. Homeland said Friday it won't divert the money.

Homeland Security's research arm, called the Sciences & Technology Directorate, is a "rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course," Republican and Democratic senators on the Appropriations Committee declared recently.

"The committee is extremely disappointed with the manner in which S&T is being managed within the Department of Homeland Security," the panel wrote June 29 in a bipartisan report accompanying the agency's 2007 budget.

Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., who joined Republicans to block the administration's recent diversion of explosives detection money, said research and development is crucial to thwarting future attacks and there is bipartisan agreement that Homeland Security has fallen short.
"They clearly have been given lots of resources that they haven't been using," Sabo said.

# posted by Robert A. George @ 9:29 PM

The events have emboldened Democrats to challenge Bush more forcefully on
national security issues, especially Iraq.

"This latest plot demonstrates the need for the Bush administration and the Congress to change course in Iraq and ensure that we are taking all the steps necessary to protect Americans at home and across the world," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

Democratic candidates from Connecticut to Ohio were under fire as weak on terror yesterday amid news of the massive air-attack plot that was busted up in London.
Embattled Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary, used the arrests to attack primary winner Ned Lamont for advocating withdrawal from Iraq.

"I'm worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don't appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us - more evil or as evil as Nazism and probably more dangerous than the Soviet Communists we fought during the long Cold War," he said.

Democrats accused the White House of amping up its terrorism rhetoric after an anti-war Senate candidate won in Connecticut because it knew the London terror busts were imminent.
"When you consider that the White House and Republicans in Congress have politicized the war on terror and the Iraq war since their inceptions, it certainly raises some questions that they need to answer," said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Bill Burton.

One Democratic operative working on 2006 midterm election strategy offers this Frank-Rich-column-in-the-making timeline to The Note this morning.

A profile in politicizing terror:

Wednesday: Weeks after the White House learns that the London terror plot will be uncovered, Cheney says Lamont victory will encourage "al Qaeda types."

7:42 a.m., Thursday: The White House announces that the threat level has been raised to 'Red.'

10:54 a.m. (CDT): The President announces, on his way to a Wisconsin fundraiser for congressional candidate John Gard, that the arrests in London are "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation."

12:26 p.m.: The RNC sends out a fundraising email penned by Rudy Giuliani saying "In the middle of a war on terror, we need to remain focused on furthering Republican ideas more than ever before. Please make your commitment felt with a financial contribution for $500, $250,$100, $50, $35 or $25 to the Republican National Committee today."

2:53 p.m.: Bush official celebrates the terror plot. The AFP reports,"'Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big,' said another White House official, who also spoke on condition of not being named, adding that some Democratic candidates won't 'look as appealing' under the circumstances."

4:22 p.m.: The RNC follows with a statement attempting to elevate the war on terror above those who would crassly use it for politics sake: "On a day when American authorities are working with our allies to stop a global terror plot, instead of focusing on political attacks, we should focus on the fact that we are at war and need every tool to win the War on Terror."

# posted by Robert A. George @ 10:39 AM

General Jack D. Ripper: He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?
Col. Jessep: I did the job I...
Kaffee: [shouting] Did you order the Code Red?
Col. Jessep: [shouts]
You're goddamn right I did!

# posted by Robert A. George @ 8:45 PM

It's too bad that his support for President Bush's war in Iraq provides such an easy explanation for the downfall of Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT). The pious prig from the Nutmeg State is almost the perfect Murder On the Orient Express figure: There are so many reasons to wish him ill that the real challenge shouldn't be finding suspects, but settling on just one. To have Lieberman's Iraq stance become the default reason for opposing him (among Republicans, of course, it's also been the only reason for supporting him) is just too easy.

Lieberman is possibly the least libertarian member of the United States Senate: An infinite-state liberal who always found ways to oppose Social Security reform (which he allegedly supported), an absurd moral scold who co-sponsored the "Silver Sewer Awards" with William Bennett, a values buttinski who couldn't resist attaching himself to Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, he was in the final analysis nothing but a fake, a tartuffe, a figure able to puff enough gas into every opportunistic action to make it seem like an example of high principle.

Most of all, I detest the way in which he casts himself--a Jew--as an outsider in America. After the debate with Mr. Cheney, he thanked the American people effusively, and ingratiatingly. It was the effusiveness of a man posing as an outsider, of a man giving thanks to his generous "hosts." Consider these words, which I quote in full from his closing remarks at the debate: "If my dad were here, I would have the opportunity to tell him that he was right when he taught me that in America, if you have faith, work hard and play by the rules, there is nothing you cannot achieve. And here I am, even the son of a man who started working the night shift on a bakery truck can end up being a candidate for vice president of the United States. That says a lot about the character of this nation and the goodness of you, the American people."

These are the words of a man who went to Yale. But the man who went to Yale would like us to believe that he is akin to an immigrant. More: These are not words that bear a proletarian message. These words are about his Jewishness. And they are thanking America for welcoming a Jewish candidate into the political mainstream. These words are pandering words, playing to an imagined gallery that
would see Jews as outside the mainstream, and giving thanks to that same mainstream for letting him, a Jew, run competitively for vice president.

I'm an immigrant, and Mr. Lieberman's spiel is as unappetizing to me as a cold chicken curry. I think Mr. Lieberman's a fraud. I think he's an unctuous and fulsome fraud. He's also a dangerous fraud, because he's taken everyone in, duped them into seeing him--Joe Chameleon--as a moral wind vane. He is, truly, a moral equivocator (to use a word employed by Frank Rich), a moral opportunist, a moral social-climber.

Looking back, I refuse to believe that his criticism of Bill Clinton at the time of the president's impeachment was anything other than opportunist. Mr. Lieberman's words then strike me now as having been made with an eye on the main chance. He knew that there would soon be a new dispensation in the Democratic Party--a new dispensation in America--and he was pinning his colors to a new flag. He wanted to be the first so that he could, later, be among the powerful. How else does one explain his failure to put his vote where his mouth was?

Contrast this with his vote against Clarence Thomas, on evidence that was substantially less compelling than the evidence against Mr. Clinton, and on the basis of charges that were far less severe. No, Mr. Lieberman wasn't really pained, or troubled, or horrified by the president's behavior. He was, in fact, energized by it. He saw his own future in Mr. Clinton's past.

# posted by Robert A. George @ 8:30 AM

"I am, of course, disappointed by the results, but I am not discouraged," Lieberman said. "I'm disappointed not just because I lost but because the old politics of partisan polarization won today. For the sake of our state, our country and my party, I cannot and will not let that result stand."

Of course, this is President Bush's fault. In the past three election cycles--in 2000, 2002 and most notably for his re-election in 2004--the president put the Republicans on top by running a get-out-the-vote campaign. In 2004 Mr. Bush even managed to win with a record turnout, proving to both political parties that getting their voters to the polls was more important than winning over supporters of the other party. By freeing the parties from hunting for votes across the aisle, Mr. Bush has inadvertently increased both the power and the stature of the most active wings of the two parties. Ironically for Mr. Bush, the net result is the rise in recent years of antiwar activists on the left and anti-illegal-immigrant activists on the right--neither of which serves his political goals.

Nonetheless in the coming years we're likely to see more of the brand of politics practiced by the Club for Growth: political groups targeting members of their own party who stray too close to the political center. For the club that has meant funding conservative challengers to tax-hiking Republicans, such as Rhode Island's Sen. Lincoln Chafee. For Mr. Lieberman, it means facing a credible, self-financed antiwar candidate in Mr. Lamont.

# posted by Robert A. George @ 1:25 AM

"I spent most of 1994 fighting Republican bureaucrats on the local, state and federal level who did everything in their power to elect my very moderate opponent in the GOP primary. A week before the primary, the Republican Congressional Committee campaign director let me know that I might as well give up. 1994 would be the year of the Moderate.

"Yeah, right.

"Within a few months of that conversation, scores of right-wing, knuckle-dragging, spear-carrying conservative barbarians like myself ran through our moderate Democratic opponents like Barry Bonds through a bottle of roids. It was ugly.
Darting to the base was the ticket to victory for the Party of Reagan.

"Fast forward twelve years and now we find many making the same misguided arguments, except this time they are giving their stupid advice to Democrats generally and Connecticut voters specifically.

"Ned Lamont may be a pencil-necked geek, as Imus claims, but he is the type of candidate that will bring out the Democratic base in an off-year election. That is especially true this year because George W. Bush is even more unpopular than Clinton was when the GOP swept into power.

"My advice to Democratic voters this year is 'Go left, young man!'

"There may be hell to pay in 2008, but for now the only thing that should matter to you is seizing control of Congress. Do that for the first time in a decade and then you can start worrying about swing voters in the suburbs."

# posted by Robert A. George @ 7:49 PM

In general, variants on the word "enable" dominate the Lieberman discourse. "When Lieberman compromises on drastic regressive changes to our system he is not a moderate," says gibsonp. "He becomes an enabler of right wing extremists." georgiepowl agrees: "[Lieberman] is a Bush-enabler. He hasn't stood against Bush on anything important in six years." MDWooldridge puts it most concisely: "Lieberman=Cheney Enabler."

Other complaints arise, too. Many center on Lieberman's pledge to run as an independent should he lose the primary. "I don't like to all out campaign against Lieberman in the Blogosphere," avers webbhaymaker, "but when Lieberman declared that he would run as an independent ... I lost my respect for him." Reader hustveit agrees: "The independent-candidacy was the real corker for me; not only a really risky move for this reliably blue-state but strategically it was foolish beyond words." And gea1434 feels Lieberman's been irritating for years, but his "vow to run as an independent was only the last straw. I mean, if your problem is your standing with Democratic base voters, do you really think it's a good idea to vow that you don't give a hoot about the primary results?"

# posted by Robert A. George @ 12:30 PM

These Republicans have hardly broken with Bush. Talent and Kennedy, after all, have invited him into their states this year to help raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for their campaigns. But their tactics are representative of the diverse ways, large and small, that Republican candidates are trying to put distance between themselves and the president and his most unpopular policies.

Last week, Maryland GOP Senate candidate Michael S. Steele caused a tempest with his comments knocking Bush for the Iraq war and the administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina.

The contrast could hardly be sharper from the last two election cycles, when most Republican candidates were happy to be identified with Bush, confident that his popularity with conservatives would boost their own prospects. This year more closely resembles 1994, the last time a party's president and congressional leadership were simultaneously held in such low regard. Voters that year evicted Democrats from their 40-year control of the House.

# posted by Robert A. George @ 9:30 AM