Wednesday, March 10, 2004

Bush fails to oil door...

...the rovolving door to the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House. Although he didn't board it up, far fewer contributors to his campaign ended up spending the night in the White House or at Camp David then was the standard during the Clinton years. Oh, the AP reporter does try to spin the story against Bush:

Bush's overnight guest roster is virtually free of the famous — pro golfer Ben Crenshaw is the biggest name — but not of campaign supporters.

At least nine of Bush's biggest fund-raisers appear on the latest list of White House overnight guests, covering June 2002 through December 2003, and-or on the Camp David list, which covers last year.

The list of nine includes three of Bush's partners in the Texas Rangers baseball team (one of whom was a fraternity brother at Yale) from 1989, the childhood friend who introduced Bush to his future wife Laura, and the governors of New York and Colorado. That leaves three fundraisers.

Clinton's record is a bit different. I won't go into details, because the Jerusalem Post, the Washington Post, and CNN have done it for me. (The WaPo also has this handy list of 1995/1996 guests, with dollar amounts attached, and CNN has this one, covering 1999/2000.) Suffice it to say that there was a lot more of a quid pro quo in the nineties than there is now.

UPDATE-11Mar04/0855—John Cole has much more on this, including links to fatuous posts from Oliver Willis and Kevin Drum.

posted at 03:59 PM | permalink | Comments (0)

More Double standards

Continuing the theme of the previous post, John Kerry has harsh words for his opponents, especially President Bush. This article contains two interesting statements:

"John Kerry has voted for higher taxes 350 times and his numbers for new spending don't add up," said Steve Schmidt, a Bush campaign spokesman. "His campaign-trail promises mean he is going to raise taxes by at least $900 billion." It is the first time the Bush campaign has put a number on tax hikes it says Kerry favors.

I expect that the Bush campaign has the documentation to back up that rather startling claim, because Kerry is sure to dispute it, or (if his team has come up with similar figures) gloss over it with as little comment as possible.

Kerry, the Democratic nomination well in hand, is moving to engage Bush, and the president is returning the favor. The Massachusetts senator said Bush has resorted to personal attacks at an unprecedented early stage in the campaign.

Kerry has been campaigning against Bush since 2002, launching countless attacks on the president. Here is one from April 4, 2001, 73 days after Bush took office. His last four press releases (on his senate website) are three attacks on Bush and a congratulatory note to the New England Patriots on their Super Bowl win. Bush has waited until after the nominee has been decided by the Dems before beginning his campaign. Another note to Kerry: pointing out inconvenient facts in your voting record does not constitute a personal attack. Attacking someone's integrity (which you have done with an astonishing frequency to Bush) is a personal attack. I'm waiting for the GOP to start launching retaliatory attacks upon Kerry, responding to every attack with an attack of their own.

(UPDATE 4:21 PM—Jim Miller has a post that is germane to my second point, with numbers to back it up.)

posted at 03:27 PM | permalink | Comments (0)

Changing Perceptions

1993: Janet Reno issues a legal opinion that the president can issue a recess appointment when congress adjourns for three days or more.

1999: President Clinton uses a recess appointment to appoint James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg, as his appointment had been bottled up by conservative Republicans, opposed to him due to his homosexuality. Ted Kennedy was one of his chief supporters. The appontment occurs during a 10 day recess which includes Memorial Day.

2004: President Bush uses a recess appointment to appoint William Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, after Democrats filibustered his nomination (because they did not have enough votes to defeat him).

Edward Kennedy issues a vindictive, nasty press release which libels Pryor and Bush. He then asks the 11th circuit to consider whether the appointment is unconstitutional, due to the short length of the recess. It's part of what appears to be a coordinated media campaign, since other charges are flying, all issued from Kennedy's office.

I didn't hear Kennedy screaming over the Hormel and Bill Lann Lee appointments. Of course, they pass his ideological litmus test. Pryor apparently, fails, although I wonder if Kennedy considers his prosecution of Roy Moore to be characteristic of a nominee who possesses "... questionable commitment to the authority of the Supreme Court and the rule of law." Somehow, I don't think so.

posted at 02:51 PM | permalink | Comments (0)

Monday, March 8, 2004

Announcement

If you have sent an e-mail to me in the last week or so, there is a good chance I did not receive it. I had to kill all of my e-mail accounts and recreate them due to an odd problem between my e-mail program and my server. Of course, anything that was waiting in the accounts was vaporized when the account was deleted.

I apologize for any unanswered e-mails that you may have sent to me. If you still want a response, please resend it to me.

posted at 02:23 PM | permalink | Comments (0)