A Partisan Democrat's Solution To End Partisanship

He is Washington's Most Toxic Asset. He, along with Chris Dodd and Bill Clinton, were the architects of our current economic meltdown. He is the Banking Queen - Democrat Rep. Barney Frank, as thoroughly partisan as anyone to ever have sat in Congress. In response to soon to be former Sen. Evan Bayh's chastisement of Congress for rank partisanship, Frank agreed and proposed his own solution to that problem:

. . . Frank says his fellow Democrat could do more to change that by staying in Congress and helping change the filibuster rule than by stepping out of public service.

Hah. His answer to the partisan crisis is to make the minority party irrelevant, thus allowing the majority Democrats to ignore Congressional Republicans. It would end partisan rancor by dispensing with any need for bipartisanship. When in God's name will Mass. voters turn this walking disaster out of office?

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A New Era Of Bipartisanship

Especially in the House, there’s too much of this attitude that if it’s bipartisan, that just means you didn’t negotiate hard enough.

- Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), quoted in the NYT article, 45 Centrist Democrats Protest Secrecy of Health Care Talks

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Andrew McCarthy's Clear Eyed Response To An Obama Invitation

Former U.S. attorney and author Andrew McCarthy has turned down an Obama administration request to participate in a discussion of policies concerning detainees in taken as part of our contingency operation on man-caused disasters. He has declined - and his letter to that Attorney General Holder to that effect is a must read:

This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening . . .

The invitation email . . . indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.” . . . [I]t is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government. . . .

. . . We have already released too many jihadists who, as night follows day, have resumed plotting to kill Americans. Indeed, according to recent reports, a released Guantanamo detainee is now leading Taliban combat operations in Afghanistan, where President Obama has just sent additional American forces.

The Obama campaign smeared Guantanamo Bay as a human rights blight. Consistent with that hyperbolic rhetoric, the President began his administration by promising to close the detention camp within a year. The President did this even though he and you (a) agree Gitmo is a top-flight prison facility, (b) acknowledge that our nation is still at war, and (c) concede that many Gitmo detainees are extremely dangerous terrorists who cannot be tried under civilian court rules. Patently, the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year was made without a plan for what to do with these detainees who cannot be tried. Consequently, the Detention Policy Task Force is not an effort to arrive at the best policy. It is an effort to justify a bad policy that has already been adopted: to wit, the Obama administration policy to release trained terrorists outright if that’s what it takes to close Gitmo by January.

Obviously, I am powerless to stop the administration from releasing top al Qaeda operatives who planned mass-murder attacks against American cities—like Binyam Mohammed (the accomplice of “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla) whom the administration recently transferred to Britain, where he is now at liberty and living on public assistance. I am similarly powerless to stop the administration from admitting into the United States such alien jihadists as the 17 remaining Uighur detainees. According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, the Uighurs will apparently live freely, on American taxpayer assistance, despite the facts that they are affiliated with a terrorist organization and have received terrorist paramilitary training. Under federal immigration law (the 2005 REAL ID Act), those facts render them excludable from the United States. The Uighurs’ impending release is thus a remarkable development given the Obama administration’s propensity to deride its predecessor’s purported insensitivity to the rule of law.

I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness. But I can decline to participate in the charade. . . .

Read the entire letter. I think Mr. McCarthy covers all relevant bases above. As was immediatly apparent the moment Obama greenlighted the criminal investigation into the OLC attorney's, it was a decision that will have wide ranging impact. Consider McCarthy's decision the opening salvo. Further, McCarthy makes clear that he will not take part in Obama-style bipartisanship - i.e., Obama makes a decision that he will not alter, then reaches out to the opposing side to either have the decision bless or to at least give a patina of bipartisan effort on his part. At any rate, an excellent read from Mr. McCarthy.

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Biden Slings The Bull

Biden’s speech last night was a series of outrageous falsehoods, one after the other and one bigger than the other. Everyone expected him to go on the attack. There is no problem with that. But the substance of his attacks was patently ridiculous. If this is the best the far left has, their troubles have just begun.

You can read the transcript of Biden's speech here. The really over the top stuff was on foreign issues. First, Afghanistan:

Should you trust the judgment of John McCain, when he said only three years ago, "Afghanistan, we don't read about it anymore in papers because it succeeded"?

Or should you believe Barack Obama who said a year ago, "We need to send two more combat battalions to Afghanistan"?

This is so dishonest its mind-numbing. It doesn’t even rise to the level of comparing apples to oranges – they are at least two fruit. Three years ago, Afghanistan was a success. Obama was not calling for sending combat brigades to Afghanistan either three years ago. In fact, as you can see in the post below, he was calling for sustained operations in Iraq and arguing against cutting and running or setting a timeline for withdraw.

You will note in the above quote that Biden also calls for two battalions to Afghanistan. Does Biden, a career politician with no military, executive, or private sector experience, understand the difference between a brigade and battalion? I will grant that he may merely have mispoken on this one, but if there is any other indication that he is actually this clueless about the composition and organization of our military, then there is a major problem.

One would think Biden could go no further into outrageous and disingenuous fantasy. One would be wrong.

Should we trust John McCain's judgment when he says -- when he says we can't have no timelines to draw down our troops from Iraq, that we must stay indefinitely? Or should we listen to Barack Obama, who says shift the responsibility to the Iraqis and set a time to bring our combat troops home?

Now, after six long years, the administration and the Iraqi government are on the verge of setting a date to bring our troops home. John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama was right.

Can Joe get more unethical. The only reason for our success in Iraq - the surge and its most vociferous champion, McCain – just got written out of history. Also written out of history is Biden and Obama’s opposition to the surge and their efforts to legislate defeat in Iraq. What makes this even more outrageous is that both Biden and Obama were on record arguing vociferously against timelines before they saw partisan gain to be had by tossing our national security under the bus and embracing defeat. See here and here.

Then there is Iran, where the myth of the left is that we have ignored Iran by not talking to them during the Bush presidency:

Should we trust John McCain's judgment when he rejected -- when he rejected talking with Iran and then asked, "What is there to talk about?" Or Barack Obama, who said, "We must talk and make clear to Iran that it must change"?

Now, after seven years of denial, even the Bush administration recognizes that we should talk to Iran because that's the best way to ensure our security.

We’ve been talking with Iran throughout the entire period of the Bush presidency. They have been stringing us along and negotiating with all the sincerity of Japan in 1941. Beyond our Ambassodor level talks in Iraq, we have fully supported talks with Iran by the Europeans in an effort to get them to suspend their nuclear program the past four plus years. Bush actually joined the last round of talks with a high level state dept. official. Even the Russian diplomat in attendance called Iran’s attitude a joke. And Biden would have us believe that unconditional talks with the One will solve the problems? This is not only disingenuous, it is dangerous.

McCain rejected unconditional talks with the Iranian regime. Not since Neville Chamberlain in 1938 or JFK in 1960 has any politician embraced unilateral and unconditional talks with an aggressive enemy. Both proved disastrous. I have yet to hear from the One why he expects his plans to do so would achieve any different result.

And finally, Biden highlight the Russian invasion of Georgia. He doesn't lie on this one about McCain, but he completely ignores Obama's response:

Ladies and gentlemen, in recent years and in recent days, we've once again seen the consequences of the neglect -- of this neglect with Russia challenging the very freedom of a new democratic country of Georgia. Barack and I will end that neglect. We will hold Russia accountable for its actions, and we will help the people of Georgia rebuild.

I'll leave the response here to Victor Davis Hanson:

Why evoke Georgia and Obama—when Obama had a three-strike-out response: 1) initially both sides were equally at fault; 2) then go to the UN and find resolution; 3) then suggest our taking out a genocidal dictator was equivalent to Russia attacking a democracy.

That is the most outrageous of it all. But on domestic issues and bipartisan issues, Biden was equally as disingenuous.

Theme one for Biden was the “American Dream slowly slipping away. . . “ He gave a litany of problems that he had heard from middle class people as he sped into Washington on the taxpayer dime, using Amtrak – a boondogle he has vigirously defended during his entire Senate career and to which he has directed billions in taxpayer dollars to subsidise. At any rate, back to the litany of problems from the middle class - as Biden says “he can almost hear them.” Yes, that’s right, the world "almost" is key. The conversations of utter misery he describes are imaginary.

Not surprisingly, these imaginary folk are suffering from a litany of economic ills and hard times as a result of Republican policies that have reduced their standard of living over the past eight years. No mention of –

- unemployment far lower during the Bush years than the Clinton years

- Economic growth just posted at a healthy 3.3% this past quarter

- The business cycle that occurs in capitalist economies

- The energy crunch caused by over 30 years of Democratic refusal to allow the exploitation of our resources and the creation of a regulatory scheme that further ties our abilities by handing the keys to the court house to radical environmentalists.

- The effect of ethanol subsidies on the cost of food

- The fact that capitalism, individualism and freedom are what have combined over two centuries to give us the highest standard of living in the world

The incredible concluding line to Biden’s theme one – “And, folks, these are not isolated discussions among families down on their luck.” They weren’t discussions to begin with. They were plucked from Biden’s imagination – the imagination of a doctrinaire progressive on the far left fringe of his party.

Theme two for Biden was Barack the Saviour, where he tried to take Obama’s paper thin record and turn into substance. Biden made it sound as if Barack, in his three years following in Saul Alinsky’s footsteps as a community organizer in Chicago, was the savior of Illinois. Biden really glosses over Obama’s record as a State Senator in Illinois, though he suggests that Obama was responsible for welfare reform in Illinois. This is another lie. Obama voted against the such reform in Illinois.

From there he moves from into the realm of pure falsehood in an attempt to show that Obama is above partisan politics:

And when [Obama] came to Washington, when he came to Washington, John and I watched with amazement how he hit the ground running, leading the fight to pass the most sweeping ethics reform in a generation.

Describing McCain’s reaction to Obama as “amazement” is more than a gross distortion, as is using this example to claim that Obama acts bipartisan and not as a far left ideologue. McCain made no secret of his disdain for Obama when it became clear that his talk on ethics reform was smoke and mirrors. I well remember this event when it happened because of the stinging criticism McCain directed towards Obama. Obama began working with McCain on an ethics reform bill. Within a week, he backtracked on his statements to McCain and pulled out of the bipartisan effort. The incident and McCain’s written response to Obama were reported in the papers at the time:

Republican Sen. John McCain on Monday accused his Democratic colleague Barack Obama of “partisan posturing” on the issue of lobbying ethics reform . . . “I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable,” McCain, R.-Ariz., wrote in a letter to Obama, D-Ill., Monday. “Thank you for disabusing me of such notions.”

This whole episode is so well documented that I can’t believe Biden highlighted this as their biggest and brightest example of bipartisanship by Obama. This goes beyond trying to turn chicken excreta into chicken salad. Its just renaming the excreta. Moreover, the other examples of bipartisanship cited by Biden had nothing to do with reaching across the aisle on issues of any controversy.

Biden still wasn’t done with his rewrites. He moved into oil and energy.

as oil companies post the biggest profits in history, nearly $500 billion in the last five years, John wants to give them another $4 billion in tax breaks.

McCain voted against the energy bill to give tax breaks to oil companies. Obama voted for it. This is at best, a complete distortion of reality, besides being populist pandering.

Millions of Americans have seen their jobs go off-shore, yet John continues to support tax breaks for corporations that send them there. That's not change. That's more of the same.

This is not a falsehood, but it is such wrongheaded populist pandering it deserves a mention. Businesses move off-shore if the combination of taxes, costs and regulations make it cost effective to do so. Haliburton is a classic recent example. Punishing corporations by increasing their costs of business in the U.S., a nation with already the second highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, is clearly going to hurt our nation.

In summary, this was a real hatchet job that no one with an ounce of ethics or integrity could have given. It shows just how weak Obama is and just how base, unethical and transparent Joe Biden is. And as I say, if this is the best he can do, problems for the Democrats are just beginning.

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