Centerblue.org

It’s good to know there are still some Republicans out there with enough sense to oppose the autocratic madness oozing out of the White House these days.

Dick Cheney was sent to Capitol Hill today to try whipping Republicans into accepting Bush’s proposals on surveillance and military tribunals. I can’t help but wonder whether Cheney will call his fellow GOP’ers unpatriotic “appeasers of terrorists” for refusing to give Bush the blank check he’s looking for.

Bush is seeking legislation that would:

• provide immunity from prosecution to interrogators who “mistreat” (a/k/a torture) detainees;
• allow an alleged terrorist defendant to be convicted with hidden evidence to which he has no access;
• give legal status to Bush’s warrantless surveillance efforts, despite their running afoul of the Fourth Amendment.

Republican Senators like Collins, Warner, McCain, and Graham thankfully remember that this is America, not Taliban Afghanistan. You simply do not convict anyone in this country or in any advanced democracy without so much as letting him know what evidence is laid out against him. You do not give license for interrogators to torture anyone. You do not wipe your ass with the Constitution.

I may want Republicans out of power because I believe they’ve lost their ability to lead…but I respect these Senators for understanding their current role as the last bastion against a White House that seems bent on pulling this country down into fascism.

A new poll, Mason-Dixon/Times-Dispatch, is showing that Democratic Senate challenger Jim Webb has closed the gap with Republican George Allen, no doubt due to the crumbling of Allen’s campaign in the wake of the “macaca” scandal last month.

The poll has 46% for Allen to 42% for Webb, with Webb in the margin of error. Allen has surrendered a 16% lead in this poll as compared to July. The race is now competitive and Democrats stand a good chance of picking up this seat, which would help secure a Democratic majority in the Senate. Even if Allen wins, his disastrous showing against an unknown Democratic opponent may very well doom his presidential aspirations.

Webb is underfunded and in serious need of financial contributions. You can contribute online by going here.

Florida’s Democratic Senator Bill Nelson has won re-election to the Senate.

The headline may be early but the outcome is pre-ordained, in light of the fact that Republican Katherine Harris won the GOP primary for the right to challenge Nelson in November. She has, unfortunately for her, the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell of defeating him. From the campaign staff that continually fled from her, to her proclamation that there is no separation between church and state, to her caked on make up and horrendous fashion sense, Republicans had a better chance of electing a manatee than electing her.

Congrats, Bill Nelson!

The Providence Journal is reporting today that GOP Republican primary challenger Stephen Laffey, who is running against incumbent Lincoln Chafee, penned several anti-gay columns during his college years, 1983 and 1984. Excerpts:

“I have never once seen a happy homosexual. This is not to say there aren’t any; I simply haven’t seen one in my lifetime. Maybe they are all in the closet. All the homosexuals I’ve seen are sickly and decrepit, their eyes devoid of life.”

and

“Why is the pop music of today so bad? Because it is communist to the very core. It’s turning the children of America into sissies and preying on the minds of every American, making them weaker and weaker.

“And how about this humanoid (I’d hesitate to say person, and I would never use the word MAN) Boy George. It wears girl’s clothes and puts on makeup. When I hear it sing, ‘Do you really want to hurt me, do you really want to make me cry,’ I say to myself, YES, I want to punch your lights out, pal, and break your ribs.”

Confronted with the comments, Laffey had this to say–asked if the columns reflected his views, he said:

“No. Not now, nor then, or ever . . . Do I regret writing some of these things? Sure. But at the time, we were just having fun. We thought it was funny.”

So Laffey thought that advocating violence towards a gay singer was “funny.” Mind you, this came at a time when gay men were being decimated by a mysterious new disease that ended up killing hundreds of thousands….and this pathetic excuse of a politician saw fit to find amusement in holding gays up to scorn and ridicule. Is this the kind of person Rhode Island wants representing the state in the US Senate?

I hope Chafee knocks him on his ass the way he deserves in the upcoming primary.

Florida Republican Senate candidate Katherine Harris–the Secretary of State that certified the state for Bush in the 2000 debacle–is embarrassing religious conservatives…for being too religious:

“If you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin…we have to have the faithful in government [because that is God's will. Separating religion and politics is] so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers. And if we are the ones not actively involved in electing those godly men and women, we’re going to have a nation of secular laws. That’s not what our Founding Fathers intended, and that certainly isn’t what God intended.”

The Religious Right is recoiling from her remarks:

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said she was “disgusted” by the comments “and deeply disappointed in Representative Harris personally.”

Harris, Wasserman Schultz said, “clearly shows that she does not deserve to be a representative.”

Ruby Brooks, a veteran Tampa Bay Republican activist, said Harris’s remarks “were offensive to me as a Christian and a Republican.”

“This notion that you’ve been chosen or anointed, it’s offensive,” Brooks said. “We hurt our cause with that more than we help it.”

I don’t understand why these religious conservatives are so up in arms over what this crazy old bat is saying. At least she has the guts to show the Religious Right’s true colors and say aloud what they all believe but keep to themselves. They all act like they’re the Anointed Ones and final arbiters of morality.

The criticism of George Allen’s “macaca” comments this week has been relentless. Contributing to that in no small measure has been the “YouTube” phenomenon and the increasing ease with which videos get shared. The video documenting Allen’s comments has been viewed almost 200,000 times as of today’s date.

Allen’s nightmarish week has translated into gains for his Democratic opponent Jim Webb. Traffic to Webb’s website has doubled in the last week, and there has been a resurgence of interest in his campaign. Webb, who is an inexperienced campaigner and is underfunded compared to Allen, needs all the help he can get. Now the question is whether Webb can capitalize on the momentum and keep it going.

Democrats need one more seat to gain control of the Senate. Will this one be it?

George Allen is trying hard to control the political damage to his senatorial and presidential ambitions in the wake of repeatedly calling an Indian American, S. R. Sidarth, at a recent rally a “macaca” while welcoming him to the “real world” of America and Virginia.

His “apology” for the comment is disingenuous and insincere.

He says that his comments “have been greatly misunderstood by members of the media.” How arrogant. Anyone watching the video can see plainly what he said, and how he subjected Sidarth to ridicule in front of a tittering audience. Does he think viewers are stupid?

He claims “macaca” was a play on “mohawk,” used to describe Sidarth’s haircut. How you get from “mohawk” to “macaca” is beyond me. The words have nothing to do with each other and do not rhyme.

His apology read, “I do apologize if he’s offended by that. That was no way the point.” In other words, he’s not sorry he made the comments, he’s only sorry Sidarth and the rest of the world were offended by them. In other words, what he’s really sorry about is the big pile of “macaca” he has stepped in that may become a huge thorn in his side for his presidential ambitions. Allen has a long history of racial insensitivity, from keeping a noose around his office to admiring the confederate flag. The “macaca” comment plays neatly into that perception.

His apology is as fake as his half-baked efforts to sponsor symbolic (read useless) anti-lynching legislation in Congress and to sponsor an official apology for slavery in his effort to distance himself from his past. Can’t he just come out and say “I’m sorry for the ‘macaca’ comment, it was insensitive of me to say it?” Why put the blame on others’ perceptions instead of taking ownership of what came out of his own mouth?

Maybe it’s because he’s just another self-entitled politician who thinks he can do no wrong. The damage to his presidential if not senatorial plans will likely inform him otherwise.

Outrage followed in the wake of the blogosphere’s explosion of commentary on Republican Senator Allen repeatedly calling S. R. Sidarth, the only non-white member of a rally, a “macaca” and “welcoming him to America.” Allen issued an apology on Monday night, but the damage was done.

What did Allen mean by “macaca?” The Washington Post speculates:

Depending on how it is spelled, the word macaca could mean either a monkey that inhabits the Eastern Hemisphere or a town in South Africa. In some European cultures, macaca is also considered a racial slur against African immigrants, according to several Web sites that track ethnic slurs.

The fact that Allen’s mother is a Tunisian immigrant makes it highly likely he was aware of the term’s derogatory use as a racial slur.

The slur itself was bad enough, but Allen’s telling the audience to welcome the US-born Sidarth to America and “the real world” was incredibly condescending and makes you wonder what kind of “real world” America George Allen lives in.

What did Virginia Senator George Allen mean when he called a person of Indian descent a “macaca” during a recent rally? (View the video.) That’s what his opponent Jim Webb wants to know.

The individual, S. R. Sidarth, was videotaping the rally for the Webb campaign. Allen, who must have gotten annoyed with Sidarth’s presence, pointed out that “macaca over here”, and later “welcome[d him] to America and the real world of Virginia,” said “real world” consisting of an all-white Republican crowd except for Sidarth.

“Macaca” is the genus of macaque monkeys. Did George Allen really intend to call the only person of color at a rally a monkey?

I would love to see GOP candidates skewered in November as part of a Democratic takeover of Congress. However there is one vulnerable GOP candidate, Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee, who I would be saddened to see defeated. He is one of those rare few GOP mavericks that’s often on the right side of the issues. He’s committed to stewardship of the environment, recently meriting an endorsement from the Sierra Club (which drew the outrage of liberals with charges that “centrism is for suckers.”) He opposes opening ANWR to oil drilling. He favors conservation, increased efficiency, and alternative fuels as part of a national energy policy. He supports increased education funding. He opposed the Iraq war and favors a phased troop withdrawal.

The Left’s gunning for Chafee is understandable in an election year where a switch to a Democratic Congress is in reach. Chafee is not just being attacked from the Left, though–the far Right also has it in for him. The conservative so-called “Club for Growth” is endorsing GOP challenger Stephen Laffey in his bid to unseat Chafee in Rhode Island’s GOP primary next month. They are angry he voted against Bush’s tax cuts and refused to vote for Bush’s re-election.

It’s tough to be a moderate these days. I disagree with my more liberal friends who believe that all Republicans must be defeated as the only acceptable condition for victory. Not only is this unrealistic in a relatively conservative nation, it also hampers the chances of succeeding at the important things we need to do. Rare open-minded individuals like Chafee should be valued, not derided.

If I lived in Rhode Island and had to choose between Chafee and Democratic control of Congress I’d reluctantly choose the latter because the national GOP leadership has completely lost its way and is steering the country on a ruinous course. If it weren’t for such pressing issues, though, he’d be the rare Republican who would tempt me to cross party lines (something I have yet to do, ever.)