The Danger Of Asking A Stupid Question

The biggest drunk driving case in history was argued yesterday when Exxon Mobil appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court to explain why it should not be required to pay $2.5 billion in punitive damages for causing the largest oil spill in American history. Chief Justice Roberts was clearly concerned about the amount of the award, even though (1) the punitive damages award had already been cut in half by a lower court, and (2) Exxon Mobil earned a record $40 billion in profits in 2006:

"So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" Roberts asked in court.

The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. "Well," he said, "it can hire fit and competent people."

The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.

I guess Roberts should have read the briefs before asking such an idiotic question.

The bottom line here, of course, is that Exxon Mobil has already won because it has invested the amount of the award during the pendency of these appeals and has undoubtedly made far more off of its investments than it has lost in accumulated interest on the judgment.

The Pitfalls Of Being A Bush Apologist

Here is the quote of the day:

"That was certainly one of my less astute observations. He has been less flexible in the past year than I expected after the 2006 election, and I think he continues to pay a price for his rigidity. On the S-CHIP program, for one example."

David Broder, repudiating his statement from a year ago when he argued that President Bush was poised to make "a political comeback."

Why The GOP's Attempt To Swift-Boat Obama Will Fail

It looks like the radical right is gearing up its "Swift-Boat" attack machine for use against Obama (thanks for the link, JB):

Opponents of Sen. John Kerry proved in the 2004 election that voters are sensitive to suggestions that a candidate is not sufficiently patriotic. The Democratic presidential nominee's campaign was torpedoed by critics of his Vietnam War record called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, even though he won multiple military honors and was lauded by his superiors.

The Swift Boat campaign started as a relatively small television ad buy that exploded into an issue that dogged Kerry for months. The Massachusetts senator has conceded since losing to President Bush that the campaign and his lackluster response to unsubstantiated allegations he considered unworthy of a reaction likely cost him the election. And the term even became part of the campaign lexicon -- swift boating.

Obama already is the subject of a shadowy smear campaign based on the Internet that falsely suggests he's a Muslim intent on destroying the United States. Obama is a Christian and has been fighting the e-mail hoax, which also claims he doesn't put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance, and he's been trying to correct the misinformation.

"Whenever I'm in the United States Senate, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America," Obama frequently tells voters.

"I've been going to the same church for 20 years, praising Jesus," he adds.

The reason I don't think this will work against Obama is that Obama has not exactly held himself out as being particularly patriotic, and Swift-Boating works best when you take a strength of your opponent and lie about it in order to turn this strength into a weakness.

When it came to John Kerry, operatives working for Karl Rove were able to turn John Kerry -- a legitimate war hero -- into a lying traitor, and Rove did the same thing to John McCain during the 2000 GOP primaries when he spread the word -- through push polling -- that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. McCain and his wife had actually adopted a Bangladeshi-born child, but Rove was able to turn this very positive act by the McCains into something negative. As the Nazis used to say -- the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.

That's the nature of Swift-Boating -- you take a strength of an opponent and you turn it against him. But as I mentioned above, Obama hasn't exactly held himself out as a hyper-patriotic person, so I just don't think the GOP's swift-boating attempt will work against him.

I Knew Bush Was Unpopular . . .

. . . but even I found these numbers shockingly low:

George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has dropped to a new low in American Research Group polling as 78% of Americans say that the national economy is getting worse according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.

Among all Americans, 19% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 77% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 14% approve and 79% disapprove.

Among Americans registered to vote, 18% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 78% disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 15% of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 79% disapprove.

Meanwhile, John McCain's campaign gets a big boost with this story (and I'm completely serious here -- this story only helps him).

Here We Go

Swift-Boating, Hillary style:

ABC News has learned that a group of Democratic politicos have set up a new independent 527 organization called the American Leadership Project (ALP) with the express purpose of helping Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, beat Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, in Ohio, and possibly Texas and Pennsylvania as well.

Free from campaign finance rules, ALP will not be legally permitted to coordinate with the Clinton campaign, but it is clearly intended to help her. * * *

ALP has developed three ads aimed at pushing the idea that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, is a talker and not a doer -- the ads are called “If speeches could solve problems" -- and they will contrast Obama and Clinton on issues of importance to middle class voters, such as the economy, health care, and the mortgage crisis.

This is a classic Republican tactic. You take the strength of your opponent -- in this case, it would be Obama's speaking ability (with John Kerry, it was his status as a decorated war hero) -- and attempt to turn it against him. I don't think it will work, though, because Democrats just aren't any good at this stuff. At least they haven't been up to now.

And by the way, doesn't Obama have plans to deal with health care, the economy, and the mortgage crisis? I mean, Hillary has long been attacking Obama's health care plan on the grounds that it leaves something like 15 million people uninsured, but he still has a plan, doesn't he? If Hillary's line of attack is really going to be that Obama is all speech and no substance, how does such a tactic succeed when Obama's campaign actually does have substantive positions on all of these issues?

Why Obama vs. McCain Is Far Better Than Hillary vs. McCain

One word -- Iraq:

Speaking to reporters in Richmond, VA last night, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attacked “anyone” who points out that he is “fine” with keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 or more years. “Anyone who worries about how long we’re in Iraq does not understand the military and does not understand war,” said McCain.

He then added that it is “really almost insulting to one’s intelligence” to question “how long we’re in Iraq” because he believes the current “strategy” is “succeeding.”

McCain has also recently stated that he is the "expert" on Iraq. These words will really come back to bite McCain in the ass if his opponent in the general election is Obama, who opposed the Iraq Invasion.

This is a big deal, so big in fact that Hillary has Joe Wilson of PlameGate fame going after Obama's anti-war credentials:

In an aggressive essay targeting Barack Obama's qualifications for the presidency, Joseph Wilson, the former-ambassador-turned-war-critic married to outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, endorsed Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House.

Wilson's endorsement comes as Clinton finds herself 0-and-8 in February primary contests, and Obama's campaign gaining momentum headed into Wisconsin and Hawaii next week. The retired diplomat, who spoke out against Bush's characterization of Iraq's WMD program, said Obama's record opposing the war is too flimsy because he was just a state senator at the time "representing the most liberal district in Illinois."

"Senator Obama claims superior judgment on the war in Iraq ... and in so doing impugns the integrity of those who were part of the debate on the national scene," Wilson writes in the Baltimore Sun and at Huffington Post. "In mischaracterizing the debate on the Authorization for the Use of Military Force as a declaration of war, he implicitly blames Democrats for George Bush's war of choice. Obama's negative attack line does not conform to the facts. Nothing could be farther from the truth."

Nice try, Joe -- and I really do respect the sacrifices you and your wife made for the sake of truth -- but geesus. I've said this before, and I'll say it again: if that Iraq War resolution really wasn't such a big deal as you claim, why the hell did 23 Senators vote against it?

The reason Ambassador Wilson's argument fails is that people remember the debates that occurred prior to the vote on the Iraq War Resolution. People remember watching Senator Robert Byrd going on and on about how bad of a thing this resolution was. People know how much of a disaster our occupation of Afghanistan has become thanks to the stupid decision to invade Iraq. And while 23 Senators did oppose the Iraq War Resolution, three-quarters of the U.S. Senate supported it, including Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

I'm sorry Ambassador, but when a politician makes a bad decision, there should be consequences.

And with regard to Obama being the better candidate against McCain, stuff like this -- from the latest Evans-Novak Political Report -- doesn't hurt either (via Political Wire):

"Adding to the dark mood among Republicans is the increasing prospect that they will not be able to bolster their morale by running against the detested Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.). Her unification of Republicans has been one of the few GOP assets going into the campaign. It will take time and effort to work up a passion against the likable Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) no matter how leftist he really is."

Oops

From CNN:

Thirteen miles from Dulles International Airport, the Huckabee press van carrying reporters from Washington D.C. to the airport for a flight to Little Rock, Arkansas ground to a halt on the side of the highway, out of gas.

The driver turned the key over and over, desperately hoping that the gas needle firmly set on ‘E’ was wrong. The staffer in charge of wrangling the press called ahead to let the campaign know what had happened, as the press in the back of the van pondered whether there were any metaphorical implications. * * *

Was It BushCo Idiocy Or Simply Part Of The Plan?

Here is a great piece from TPM Muckraker (thanks for the link, JB). It's all about the study the RAND Corporation did for the U.S. Army to help figure out why the Iraq War was such a disaster. I found this excerpt from the RAND Report particularly interesting:

“Building public support for any pre-emptive or preventative war is inherently challenging, since by definition, action is being taken before the threat has fully manifested itself,” it said. “Any serious discussion of the costs and challenges of reconstruction might undermine efforts to build that support.”

In other words, the lack of post-invasion planning wasn't an oversight, but merely part of the plan. BushCo knew that any talk of post-war difficulty could adversely affect their chances of getting congressional (and public) support for the invasion.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: from a PNAC perspective, the "Iraq Debacle" really did go according to plan. Indeed, even the parts that look totally idiotic in hindsight really weren't idiotic at all because the main goals of the Neo-Con Iraq policy was (1) for the U.S. to get a foothold in Iraq, and (2) to do it in such a way as to ensure that we'd have to maintain a presence there for decades. None of the small stuff (e.g., post-invasion planning, the need to prevent Iraq from turning into the Mother of All Terrorist Training grounds, etc.) mattered to Rumsfeld and the rest of the Neo-Cons. All that mattered was the big picture.

Hell, they undoubtedly like it that terrorists are in Iraq now, because they can use that fact to argue the need for a continued U.S. presence (and it allows people like Mitt Romney to argue that pulling out of Iraq would essentially be a declaration of defeat). It's all pretty ingenious.

I'm So Tired Of This Bullshit (With Update)

Via Think Progress:

During his withdrawal speech at CPAC today, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney claimed that an electoral victory by either Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) or Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) “would mean attacks on America” because he says they would “retreat, declare defeat.” “About this, I have no doubt,” added Romney. * * *

Romney’s parting shot is reminescent of Vice President Dick Cheney’s claim in 2004 that America would “get hit again” if voters made “the wrong choice” and elected Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) president.

First of all, good riddance. Romney's quest to become president really didn't take off because (1) he's an asshole, and (2) he's a member of a cult. Sorry Mitt, but no amount of money was going to change those two things.

But I'm not writing this post to state obvious shit like that. I'm writing it because I'm tired of these GOP idiots -- who don't know their asses from a hole in the ground -- claiming that they can fight terrorism better than Democrats when it was the Republicans who totally fucked things up in the first place.

With regard to the 9-11 attacks, Israeli intelligence warned the U.S. in August 2001 that major terror attacks on U.S. soil were imminent, yet these warnings were apparently ignored by our Republican administration. Other countries reportedly gave similar warnings to the U.S. during the run-up to September 11.

Condi Rice's incredible post-9-11 statement that "I don't think anybody could have predicted ... that [terrorists] would try to use an airplane as a missile" has, of course, been thoroughly discredited. And Jesus, Mary and Joseph -- on September 11, 2001, then-National Security Adviser Rice was going to deliver a speech on the topic of national security in which there would be no mention at all of Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda or Islamic fundamentalist groups. But she never got a chance to deliver that speech because . . . well, an Islamic fundamentalist group known as al Qaeda (the leader of which was a guy named Osama bin Laden) decided to attack us on that day. Way to go, Condi.

In fact, it is very clear that the Bush Regime, i.e., Republicans, screwed up big time during the run-up to 9-11, and then decided that the best way to ultimately respond to the 9-11 attacks was to (1) let bin Laden escape from Tora Bora and then (2) invade and occupy a country that had nothing to do with the attacks on September 11, 2001 (which of course caused the needless deaths of thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and also caused the U.S. to take its eyes off of Afghanistan, which in turn led to the clusterfuck that is currently taking place in that country).

And these Republicans claim that a Democrat would screw things up if one was to win the presidency in 2008? Give me a fucking break.

UPDATE: Dick Cheney said this today at CPAC:

“Guiding this nation through a time of peril is a very tough job, and the right man is in it,’’ the vice president said. “The absence of another 9/11 is not an accident. It is an achievement.’’

The crowd rose to its feet cheering Cheney on this.

So what's your point, Dick? You guys had your heads up your asses during the run-up to the 9-11 attacks -- and 3000 Americans died as a result -- so you basically want us all to give you a pat on the back now that you've shut the barn door after the horses have escaped? And speaking of escapes, where the hell is bin Laden?

Hillary Wept (Again)

Her campaign must think she's in trouble (from The Swamp):

Sen. Hillary Clinton teared up this morning at an event at the Yale Child Study Center, where she worked while in law school in the early 1970s.

Penn Rhodeen, who was introducing Clinton, began to choke up, leading Clinton's eyes to fill with tears, which she wiped out of her left eye. At the time, Rhodeen was saying how proud he was that the sheepskin-coat, bell-bottom-wearing young woman he met in 1972 was now running for president.

"Well, I said I would not tear up; already we're not exactly on the path," Clinton said with emotion after the introduction.

I'm Not Sure I Believe This Poll

I was under the impression that Hillary's lead in California was insurmountable, but a recent Zogby poll says otherwise:

A new Zogby poll in California — a state that may well decide the direction of the Democratic race — shows Barack Obama taking a small lead over Hillary Clinton, within the margin of error. Obama has 45% to Clinton's 41%, with Obama's 20-point lead among men making up for Hillary's 11-point lead with women. * * *

I know that poll results haven't been all that reliable this season, but this is an interesting development.

Meanwhile, it looks like Giuliani wasn't getting much bang for his buck during his disastrous run for the Republican nomination (from Josh Marshall):

Over $50 million for a single delegate.

As the LA Times notes, that's the worst dollar for delegate record in American presidential history. The previous winner was John Connally who spent $11 million for a single delegate in 1980.

And at that rate Rudy would have needed $60 billion to win the nomination.

On the other hand, 9/11 did change everything.

This Has No Chance . . .

. . . but I like it:

Fed up that Washington hasn’t done more to end the war, a group of Vermont lawmakers said Tuesday that the president no longer has the authority to use Guard troops in Iraq.

State Rep. Michael Fisher, D-Lincoln, said the authority to call up Guard members for Iraq duty has expired because that country no longer poses a threat to U.S. national security.

“The mission authorized in 2002 does not exist,” said Fisher, who plans to introduce a bill backed by 30 colleagues Wednesday that calls on Gov. Jim Douglas to join the effort. “Unless Congress grants a new authorization, the Vermont Guard should revert back to state control.” * * *

Iraq, of course, never did pose a threat to the United States, but that's ancient [non]history, right? Other states -- namely, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island -- are considering similar proposals.