The Enlightened Despot

If your local Chrystler dealer is having a going-out-of-business sale, you’d better act fast - the sale could be off soon, an not because they’ve gone out of business. Back when we were giving billions of dollars to automakers, it was important for lawmakers to emphasize that the money came with the requirement that the corporations be downsized and otherwise restructured with an ever-hopeful eye toward some day becoming profitable. As part of that process, GM and Chrystler announced they were closing over 2,000 dealerships nationwide. Congress is now working to make it clear that cost-cutting was never meant to entail spending less money in the districts of Congressmen. A bill to keep the dealerships open now has 221 co-sponsors in the house, enough to pass. Jim Manzi has an excellent, though brief, analysis:

The practical effect would be to reverse or prevent the vast majority of dealer closings that were a key component of the auto restructuring plans. This seems only fair, as the dealers paid good money for these politicians.

Felix Salmon thinks the Senate will put a stop to the madness. Here’s hoping, though the Senate version of the bill already has 14 sponsors. That’s a far cry from 60, but it’s a depressing start. So, just who are these clowns? Some highlights:

• Ted Kennedy. It’s extremely unlikely that Kennedy will ever vote on this. It is insane that legislators have to physically make it into the building to vote, without exception, but then again, it’s also insane that, knowing this, we continue to elect so many very old people. Why Kennedy thinks he needs to take a purely symbolic stand in support of a piece of graft that no disinterested party could possibly support is beyond me.
• Ron Paul. There must be some nutty piece of reasoning that makes this move fit his ideology, but I confess I can’t figure it out. Perhaps all the recent government intervention in the economy has driven him (more) insane. Or maybe he’s just in it for loot with the rest of them.
• Iowa and Minnesota. Five out of five Iowas Representatives, six out of eight from Minnesota, both Iowa Senators (including the bill’s principal sponsor), and Tom Harkin from Minnesota. Al Franken is late to the party, so we’ll see. Apparently these states are tired of being accused of ruining our farm policy, and want to prove they can screw up the economy in other ways too.

Other sponsors from both houses worth mentioning: Maxine Waters (natch), Barney Frank (chair of the relevant committee, big fan of getting paid), Frank Lucas (no, really, that’s his name), Adam Smith (ditto. I believe the kids call this sort of thing ‘ironic’. They should cut that out), John Murtha (always thinking up clever ways to remind me how much I dislike him), Mark Begich (where there’s graft, there are Alaskans), and, finally, John Kerry, who is too boring to be worth a pithy insult.

Sarah Palin is without a doubt the most consistently and egregiously overrated politician of my lifetime. It has been almost eight months since John McCain attempted to shoot the moon without first looking at his hand, yet, somehow, people are still surprised that this woman doesn’t know what she is doing. Over the past few weeks, as regular readers of this blog will recall, Palin has been flouting public opinion - not to mention the law - in an attempt at marginal gains for the GOP in a state she is no longer particularly interested in governing. This would be difficult behavior to explain if we weren’t talking about Palin, but as it is, it’s par for the course. Yet somehow, people are still shocked. Here’s Reihan (a former supporter!):

Palin’s campaign antics can be forgiven. What can’t be forgiven is the ham-handed way she’s tried to build her national profile since she returned to Alaska. She’s abandoned the bold right-left populism that won over Alaska voters—and me—in the first place in favor of an increasingly defensive and harsh partisanship. After making her name as a determined enemy of Alaska’s corrupt Republican establishment, she recently called for Democratic Sen. Mark Begich to step down so the hilariously crooked Ted Stevens could get another crack at the seat. She loudly promised to leave federal stimulus money on the table before clawing that promise back with a whimper. One can’t help but get the impression that Palin is a clownish, vindictive amateur.

Now, for example, Palin is raising hackles for naming colorful crackpot Wayne Anthony Ross to be Alaska’s attorney general. It turns out that Palin may have consulted with Ross over a state senate appointment, a move that would have been against state law. As a general matter, state law is something you might want your AG to be on top of.

And here is Chris Orr, who was never a fan:

Perhaps the most mystifying element of Palin’s recent forays into nuttery is that, politically speaking, it would be difficult to come up with stupider way to position herself in the wake of her v.p. run. The base already loves her–the diehard pro-lifers, the hands-off-mine individualists, the anti-elitist brigades, you name ‘em. Where she has (deepening) trouble is with everyone else: moderates, socially liberal libertarians, DC-establishment types, and anyone who places a premium on basic competence.

The obvious, obvious play for her was to move to the center to reassure moderates that she wasn’t her far-right caricature and reestablish some of the different-kind-of-Republican glow that once attracted reformist conservatives such as Reihan. Instead, she’s been performing partisan panders so acrobatic they’d embarrass Mitt Romney–who, unlike Palin, actually needs to build credibility on the right. Whoever is advising her these days–assuming she’s taking anyone’s advice at all–is hammering early nails into the coffin of her future prospects.

I find Palin herself endlessly entertaining, but the punditry’s take on her makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills. When she was first announced as McCain’s running mate, I joined the rest of the world in a massive double-take. Then I did a few hours of due-diligence, did a few more double-takes, and concluded that McCain’s candidacy was over. Meanwhile, millions of liberals, with access to the same information, lost their composure, convinced that she was the magic bullet that would stop Obama’s momentum. Everything she has done since, and every fact about her that has come to light, has reinforced the obvious truth that she is too crazy, too ignorant, and too verifiably corrupt to be a serious contender for national office. Yet people continue to be ‘mystified’ when her actions work at cross-purposes to her ambitions.

Alaskans clearly aren’t surprised by any of it at this point. If the rest of the country is still fooled after all this time, what can possibly get us up to speed?

That new Palin scandal I promised has been announced, and it has to do with the sponsorship of Todd’s snowmobile team:

Arctic Cat really wanted to sponsor team Davis-Palin this year. For obvious reasons that go above and beyond Todd’s defending champion status, they knew that “Team Palin” was getting lots of attention from Alaskans, and the national media. All eyes would be on that bright green Arctic Cat logo.  Turns out there was even a photo shoot and article in Sports Illustrated this year focusing on the “first dude.” That’s some nice exposure; exposure that was worth $5000 for Arctic Cat to get permission to “brand” Todd Palin and his team.

But, as anyone who has taken time to consider “conflict of interest” or anyone who has read the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act (like, hopefully, our governor) knows, there’s a line that can’t be crossed.  If the governor’s family benefits directly from a private sponsor, (like getting a $5000 check from them) and the governor shows up to take an official role at an official event, representing all Alaskans, it’s a big fat no-no to show up plastered like a billboard with the official “gear” and giant flaming logo of the company that’s been paying you money.

The only shocking thing here is just how little this impresses me. Sure, allowing corporations to pay politicians for sponsorship rights to official functions is obviously illegal, and for all the right reasons. Another ethics complaint has been filed against Palin, and presumably the charge will stick. That’s 11 complaints thus far for the Barracuda. And therein lies the rub: if she’s still standing at this point, what’s one more moral and legal lapse going to do? Anyone crazy enough to still see her as fit for any sort of office at this point isn’t going to let this be the last straw.

Call me when she kills somebody.

Some day I’ll have to stop titling posts ‘Blago!’. Today is not that day:

With any luck, he’ll have a talk show of his own waiting for him when he gets out of prison.

(h/t Malkin)

Readers who have been with us since the beginning will recall that the first topic the Despot really went crazy for was Sarah Palin’s refusal to release emails thought to be relevant to Troopergate. You can click some or all of those links if Alaskan politics are near and dear to your heart, but here’s a quick recap for the rest of you:

• Way back before John McCain reminded us all that we had a state stashed up somewhere near Canada, former Sarah Palin fan and long-time self-appointed corruption watchdog Andree McLeod requested a large quantity of emails from Palin’s office under Alaska’s version of the Freedom of Information Act. The governor complied, but with heavy redactions: over 1,000 were withheld entirely except for times, recipients, and subject headings, on the grounds of executive privilige or deliberative process.
• McCleod filed an appeal with the governor, and later in court, over the redactions. Particularly questionable were withheld emails sent by or to Palin’s husband Todd, who is not employed by the State of Alaska. While the relevant laws and precedents are (natch) complicated, one cannot generally claim privilege selectively - if something is not too sensitive to reveal to one private citizen, it’s not too sensitive to reveal to us all.
• On February 28th 2008, Palin aide Ivy Frye sent an email to a group including both Palins and aide Frank Bailey with the subject heading ‘PSEA’, which is the labor union representing Alaska’s State Troopers. The next morning, Sarah Palin replied to the same group of recipients. Shortly thereafter, Frank Bailey called Trooper Rodney Dial to discuss upcoming negotiations with PSEA. The focus of the call was to recruit Dial as a mole, passing internal union documents along to the governor’s office. This fun bit of corruption was foiled by the fact that Dial wasn’t actually a member of PSEA. Bailey then went on to ask about Trooper Walt Moneghan, the subject of Troopergate. This call was recorded, and was the most publicly understood piece of evidence against Sarah Palin, who repeatedly claimed she had no idea, before or after the fact, that Bailey and Dial had ever had the conversation.
• Shortly after the call, Bailey contacted Frye to tell her that Dial didn’t have access to “that stuff”, but would pass along anything he heard.

All of which is to say that there is a very good chance that emails which Palin is legally required to disclose very probably show that she was blatantly lying on the most straightforward question in the Troopergate investigation. McLeod’s appeal to uncover those emails is still going on. Meanwhile, Alaska’s Democratic Party has filed a seperate request for a wider group of emails. The governor’s office has delayed complying with this request for months, claiming technical difficulties. The request has to be read to be believed:

In the request, Alaska Democratic Party chairwoman Patti Higgins sought Palin’s schedules and calendars between Jan. 1, 2007, and Sept. 15, 2008. The Democrats also sought various categories of e-mails for about the same time period, including:

• All those between Palin and state Rep. John Coghill, R-North Pole, or between Palin and state Sen. Fred Dyson, R-Eagle River, with the words “abortion” or “AGIA,” which is short for the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act;

• All e-mails from Palin containing the following words: babysitter, childcare, McCain, Obama, Democrat, Huckabee, Wal-Mart, Eskimo, Natives, Kuwait, passport, Ruedrich, or Kopp;

• All e-mails between Palin and her husband, Todd, with any of the following words: vote, veto, budget, oil, Monegan, or Wooten; and

• All e-mails between Palin and her sister, Molly McCann, with the words Wooten or Monegan.

‘Kuwait’? ‘Eskimo’?  The PSEA emails will always be my Dead Sea Scrolls, but the Democrats seem to think there’s a lot more fun stuff where that came from. Which, after all, is about what you’d expect.

Those are valuable fucking things you got there, mam

(h/t CWB)

Oh, Blago, what will we do without you? The Dapper Don of Illinois politcs has been ousted. After convicting him, the senators passed a bill barring him from any future public office in the state, just for fun. If this bill was actually necessary, Illinois is beyond hope. Also, Wikipedia tells me that every state constitution forbids bills of attainder, and Illinois is a state, so I think we’ve got a syllogism on our hands. In any event, Blago did not go gently into that good night, delivering a passionate and deeply psychotic defense to lawmakers:

I suspect - and hope - we have not seen the last of Rod Blagojevich.

Senate seat? What Senate seat? Blago says Illinois legislators want to impeach him so that they can raise taxes. He also actually says “I think the fix is in.” How a guy who sounds like a prohibition-era gangster ever got elected in the first place is beyond me, but Blago is a national treasure.

No surprise here:

Before me, for example, is the report of a pledge of $100 million to the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative by a set of companies based in Vancouver and known as the Lundin Group. The ostensible purpose of this mind-boggling contribution is stated in the usual vacuous terms of “sustainable local economies,” chiefly in Africa. All I know for sure about the Lundin Group is that it does quite a lot of business in Sudan. And all I can think to ask—as perhaps some senator might think to ask—is why such a big corporate interest doesn’t just donate the money directly, rather than distributing it through the offices of an outfit run by a seasoned ex-presidential influence-peddler. What do they and the other donors suppose they are getting for their money? A good feeling?

I’m still not happy about Clinton’s nomination, though I do think Hitch is being a bit dramatic. In any case, the whole confirmation process seems like a mistake to me, so I think it’s perfectly fine that she will pass through it unscathed. Here’s hoping that the Clinton Foundation takes in a little less dirty money than it might otherwise, and that, Hillary refuses to make good on whatever promises her husband makes to these people. On a Clinton-adjusted scale, that’s change I can believe in.

I’m sure other people have already pointed out the similarity here, but I haven’t seen it yet. Here is Southpark, mocking Johnny Cochran, and anticipating the Blago press conference I just posted:

This sort of thing is apparently pretty common in court rooms. It doesn’t even have to be the defense. Oliver Stone’s JFK, for instance, is a feature-length Chewbacca prosectution, and a lot of fun.

2008 was a pretty spectacular year for corruption. Rangel, Stevens, Kwame, and Langford all belong in prison, and some of them will end up there. Bernie Madoff reminded us that there are criminals in the private sector too. The two most entertaining elected felons, however, were definitely Palin and Blago, and there is fresh footage of each:

Changing How Washington Works™ is great stuff, but, admit it, these guys made politics a lot more fun than it would otherwise have been.

You have to say this for Blago: when he decides to do something slimey, he really gets out there and does it. Given the chance to make a U.S. Senator by fiat, just about any politician on earth would weigh the angles, but Blago really took it to the next level. Now he’s showing a similar all-in attitude to his appointment-cum-race-card:

It’s long, but the highlight (at about 6:20) is that Blago echoes friend, flunky, and lunatic Bobby Rush in telling the press to “feel free to castigate the appointor, but don’t lynch the appointor [sic]“. Rush, however, has been the point man for this stuff, following up today with this:

Well, let me just say this, you know, the recent history of our nation has shown us that sometimes there could be individuals and there could be situations where school children–where you have officials standing in the doorway of school children. You know, I’m talking about all of us back in 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas. I’m talking about George Wallace, Bull Connors and I’m sure that the US Senate don’t want to see themselves placed in the same position.

Amazing stuff, but we shouldn’t really be surprised; having shame and still being in Blago’s camp are pretty much mutually exclusive.

On a side note, I find it a little disappointing that so many bloggers feel the need to link to this from Ta-Nehisi Coates:

I don’t know if I’ve shifted politically or what. But after watching a black man named Barack Obama–who couldn’t get into the Democratic convention eight years ago–win Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico and Colorado, my tolerance for Negroes claiming that we need an appointment like this–in this kind of situation–is zilch.

Look, I say this as a black dude obviously concerned about race in this country. If you want a black senator go out and do the work to get yourself one.

Ben Smith comments that “Coates echoes a large volume of email I’ve been getting from black readers, though certainly not all African-American commentators see it that way.” To which I say: who gives a shit? When someone compares Harry Reid to George fucking Wallace, do you really need to defend calling this out by pointing to a black guy who agrees with you? And, no offense to Coates, but there is really no other reason to link to that particular post - it’s just not a particularly interesting expression of the very obvious fact that Rush and Blago are full of it.

Blagojevich just knocked it out of the park. He’s a pretty terrific speaker, as it turns out. He has opted to go all-out, repeatedly asserting that he had done nothing wrong. He did a good job portraying himself as a victim, getting quite emotional as he admitted that “it’s pretty lonely right now” and thanked those who had shown him support. He did not, of course, take any questions or provide any substantive defense, but he did his best to cover for that by arguing that the appropriate place to make his defense was in court. Nonsense, of course, but it also gave him the opportunity to criticize his attackers for making their accusations publicly.

This is probably the only strategy open to him, as he is obviously very, very guilty. But he gets an A for execution. Less clear is what he possibly hopes to get out of all this. Actually, I suspect that he is a crazy person, and hopes to be fully vindicated and restored to the ranks of presidential hopefuls. And really, why shouldn’t he try to get back on that track? That kind of stature is a valuable fucking thing, you don’t just give it away.

Attackerman, well, attacks:

Note that at the end, Spencer calls out Common and Kanye West. I don’t know what that’s about, or how it relates to Blagorap, but I’m curious.

From TNR, a photogaffe that is almost too good to be believed:

Steve Chapman voices a suddenly common complaint about governors appointing replacement Senators:

Okay, so it’s obvious we don’t want Rod Blagojevich choosing a replacement to fill Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat. But is it obvious we want any governor to have that power?

Of all the things a governor has the authority to do, this is the one that reeks most of King George III. One senator, Dick Durbin, holds his office because the people of Illinois voted for him. The other, to be named later, would hold his or hers just because the governor said so. Neither the legislature nor the courts nor the voters have any role.

I don’t have strong feelings about how Senators should be replaced, but this is simply untrue. Lots of public offices are filled via appointment, and there’s nothing undemocratic about it. The voters did have a role: they elected Blagojevitch. Which shows you what they know.

(h/t Appel)