Bush team tries "signing statement" strategy after Bali accord

The Bush administration is attempting a "signing statement" after the Bali agreement. The Telegraph reports

The White House has declared it has "serious concerns" about a historic deal to negotiate a new climate change treaty struck in Bali.

After a sleepless night and a day of high drama in Bali, the United States agreed to a compromise with the European Union to avoid mentioning any target figures for slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

But the country, which reneged on the Kyoto Protocol six years ago, has since issued a statement questioning the role of developing countries involved in the deal.

The White House, while recognising that there were positive conclusions from the conference, said the "United States does have serious concerns about other aspects of the decision as we begin the negotiations.

"The negotiations must proceed on the view that the problem of climate change cannot be adequately addressed through commitments for emissions cuts by developed countries alone," it said.

"We must give sufficient emphasis to the important and appropriate role that the larger emitting developing countries should play in a global effort to address climate change."

Signing statements are, of course, one of the extra-legal measures this administration has taken to legislation the president actually signs. Signing statements have no standing in law, and are simply an assertion, a fig leaf to cover the policy of doing what it wants no matter what.

The international community may not recognize the ploy, but it ought to be concerned, since it is emblematic of the absence of integrity in force in Washington. Negotiate a deal, then walk away with a statement of what you will do. Dishonest? Yes. And in full view of the world.

No change at the White House - Rove

Karl Rove is in charge of economic policy. As the NYT puts it, "Mr. Bush's Treasury secretaries ... have not had their own voices on economic policy and have been effectively subordinate to Karl Rove." (NYT, 4.5.06) And as former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill put it, "It's all about sound bites, deluding the people, pandering to the lowest common denominator."

Rove's reassignment was window dressing. "Strategic planning" undoubtedly means "continue to spin and dissemble." At most it means the day-to-day happy face news format has been running long enough for to continue on its own. Rove is going nowhere, barring indictment. Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld are not expendible. They are George Bush.

O'Neill and Lawrence Lindsey were let go back when the first wave of Bush economic promises fell through, those surrounding the stimulus value of tax cuts for the rich. This was after the excuse "it's all because of 9-11" had been milked dry. The bad news demanded sacrifice. So they sacrificed these two, blood on the altar of public opinion, so as not to have to change policies.

It was O'Neill who noted the influx of immigrants demanded an aggressive jobs program. His estimate was that 100,000 to 125,000 jobs per month are needed just to absorb new entrants into the work pool. It remains a miracle of modern statistical science that, for example, employment rose less than a million between 2002 and 2004, yet employment dropped 0.3 percent. A bare minimum of two million would have been needed just to stay even. We've talked about this before.

Now O'Neill's successor, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow is making noises about leaving. Like as not, he wants out before the economic stuff hits the economic fan, so as to avoid the inevitable sacrifice of the scapegoat. Snow will be remembered as one so bereft of principle that after staking his reputation on the need for balanced budgets, he held the coats of the men who exacted a trillion more dollars of red stuff from the future of the country. Adriana Huffington had this to say at the time of his appointment

It is a bit surprising Snow did not take advantage of Josh Bolten's "If you're thinking of leaving in the next few months, do it now." Snow leaked explicitly his plan to leave in the next few months. Possibly he has taken some hope from Rove's reassignment and imagines he might move up the ladder into a position of actual influence. Futile dream. It is more likely that Bolten, even though he once worked at Goldman Sachs, can't find anybody else interested in the job.

Lesson from the Heartland

It was minus twenty-six this morning. My loaner pickup didn't crank. I am visiting family in a small, snowy town in the upper Great Plains. The truck was supposed to carry me back to the Rapid City airport today. Right now I'm debating whether to drive Mom's car in and let my brother worry about the pickup later. It's supposed to get warmer over the next couple of days. Warm up fifty-five degrees to almost freezing.

A surprising number of people here are right-wing dittoheads. I say "surprising" because many of these people are otherwise intelligent folk. I saw Uncle Bob the other day and talk turned immediately to the weather. I prefer politics, so I said, "Sure, we've had a lot of rain out in Washington. There was a drought. Then we got a new Democratic governor. She declared a drought emergency. It started to rain and didn't stop for four months."

"Now, Al," said Uncle Bob, who was a math teacher before he retired and who recently restored an Allis Chalmers tractor from a pair of rusty fenders and a gear shift knob, "I don't think it was because she's a Democrat it started to rain."

"Well, Bob, you might have a point there. Democrats are competent, but not that competent."

"Ha, ha."

"You know how it is, Bob. They don't even let Republicans call the numbers at your Bingo games."

"Now, Al...."

Here between my brother and my uncle, I have discovered the core vulnerability of the Republican Right. Competence. They got none. Bush listened to years of ideologically heavy speeches and then tried to run the country. It was like trying to drive a plane after reading a couple of comic books. No wonder they're in the ditch.

As it turns out, my brother did expect me to go out there in his insulated Carhartts and start that truck. A cousin was going to drive the pickup back, she could have driven Mom's car, but ... Bro would do (and has done) a lot for me. But this is a right of sibling passage. Again, it has to do with competence. It's a test to see if the city mouse can get it done.

And I did. I was energized by the challenge. It was a bit complicated by not being able to get under the hood because the hood latch was frozen, but I stuck the oil pan warmers on it for 45 minutes and it opened. Got the charger hooked up to the battery, warmers stuck to the oil pan, and here comes the bro. It took him half a glance to figure out I was inadequate. He's out there right now running the charge out of the battery. His starter fluid didn't work, I guess. I wished he'd waited like I asked.

The lesson? A very valuable lesson: Only the other guy is incompetent. If we can get the multiple offenses of incompetence to stick to the Republicans, they will become the "other guys" in the hearts of the Heartland.

Just like right now I am perfectly able to criticize my brother (in my head). At the same time, to him I am still the city mouse, and he is the capable and self-reliant country mouse.

There aren't very many people in South Dakota, so if you want to have a very big family, or even a modest sized gathering, you have to include a variety of opinion. I don't convert any right wingers at these meetings, and us progressives just nod at each other's rants (even my dear old Mom's). The rest of the folks think politicians and their partisans are in a perpetual cat fight, and they talk about the weather or their medical problems. They vote, but they hold their noses when they do. Unfortunately it is these people we have to reach, and if we try to reach them with a line that the Radical Right is moving us quickly to an immoral, authoritarian, corporatist state, we're out of luck.

The correct line is: "These guys are stooges, the Keystone Kops, boobs, grinning boobs." The Heartland may not understand the grotesquery of Guantanamo or the looming danger of an imperial presidency, but they do understand that Medicare is screwed up, the budget is screwed up, Katrina was screwed up, military readiness is screwed up, energy markets are screwed up, et cetera is screwed up. They may not be willing to point fingers at Cheney or Rumsfeld (though they do call him "Dumbsfeld" at Ellsworth, the local Air Force base) or Gonzalez, but they do know when something is not being done right.

In the past, the Republicans have been able to paper over an inability to govern with a consummate ability to run a political campaign. Karl Rove in the Office of Character Assassination has done a particularly good job. A campaign becomes a trial government, and Presidential appearance, staying on message, and appropriate backdrops create a show of competence.

This was the genius of Bill Clinton. He was more ruthless, more capable, a better campaigner, and he kept the pressure on till their false fronts fell over and the shantytown behind was exposed for all to see. Clinton would win again, if we'd let him.

Inept Bush jokes. Gotta have 'em. For the Heartland.

It was George W, drunk at the wheel!

The problem of a supine media is not only that they deliver lies so long as they are spoken by the President in front of the flag, it is also that there is no place to go to find the truth that is not under attack by the Radical Right. Reporting has become a balance of "opinions." This is confusing to the nonpolitical, and they would prefer to tune out the raucousness. This, and the need to win politically and soon, have distilled themselves into a recurring dream.

I am in the front passenger's seat of the car. It is dark and raining. Mom, Grandma and the two kids are in the back seat. My idiot brother-in-law is driving, and he's drunk. I'm telling him to watch out, pull over, let me drive, and he's just getting madder and going faster. I'm faced with the dilemma of whether to try to wrestle the wheel away, pull the key from the ignition, or continue a fruitless argument.

The folks in the back seat definitely know something is wrong, but they can't quite see what. I try to tell them, and point out the lurching and hitting barricades and driving in the wrong lane against traffic is not what we want. But the idiot brother-in-law screams louder about how I'm trying to destroy the family and it's my jealousy and all kinds of BS that don't even make sense to me. I look over, and it is not my brother-in-law, it is George W. Bush with his knuckles white on the wheel.

The dry drunk has control of the car. The people with the real power are the people with the purses in the back seat. He will do what they tell him, but they're scared, confused and can't see clearly out the windshield.

"Democrats can't win and Republicans can't govern," it is said. The Right has focused on winning at all cost and gotten hold of the keys without learning how to drive. But winning has to do with getting the people in the back seat to say, "Pull over George. Let John drive." Getting them to say that means we need to talk to them where they are, about the issues they can see.

This does not mean abdicating the defense of the Bill of Rights nor foreign policy issues that get indistinct in the mist of competing claims. But the same sponsors that brought you the lies of Iraq bring you the lies of Big Oil, the Medicare drug fiasco, the denial on climate change, the corruption, and inevitably the absence of security.

One trick the Rove media machine pulls out is to make outrage look like hysteria. And a little bit of excess neutralizes a lot of good when it gets twisted by the master. Look like what happened in the George W was AWOL situation. The guy got special treatment from pulling strings, didn't show up for training, and at best sat in an office reading magazines hiding from the War, but because CBS ran a piece with some forged papers, the issue is neutralized. Never mind that the roster of chicken hawks didn't serve, compared to the Democrats whose patriotism they challenged.

Who remembers the duplicity exposed in Newt Gingrich's phone call? All we remember Jim McDermott's endless defense against the leak.

The issues that resonate with the back seat are everywhere.

The first one is character. It is becoming more and more clear that you cannot trust these guys. Enumerate the One Thousand One Lies of George W. Bush. This is even the softest spot about Iraq, the intentional public lying. The corruption, both the Abramoffs and the Enrons.

Then security. Climate change with no possibility of a missile shield, the incompetent ignoring of the WMD stockpiles in the former Soviet Union, and really, the inadequacy of secret police action in protecting us against terrorism.

Finally, the economy. The evaporation of a surplus into an enormous and growing debt, the continual bleeding of jobs, losing the social safety net. Careful, don't get hysterical again.

Speaking to the people in the back seat is a little bit of what George Lakoff was talking about in his moral politics. The perspective is completely changed when W turns out not to be the solid citizen, but the drunk behind the wheel.

# Posted by Alan : 9:37 PM