This morning’s Washington Post includes a timely reminder from Anne Applebaum about the parallels between the ongoing Republican scandals in Washington and the similar scandals that produced the total meltdown of Britain’s Tories in the mid-1990s. As Applebaum notes, it took an opposition politician of extraordinary skill and vision (Tony Blair) to convert Tory misfortune into a Labour ascendancy, which, despite all Blair’s recent problems, has lasted through three general elections. It might not be a bad idea for Democrats to take a long look at these British parallels and learn some tactical and strategic lessons.

I watched with some interest the blogospheric debate last week over Peter Beinart’s TRB column for the New Republic about Joe Lieberman and his critics. Markos went after Beinart, with some justice (and a lot of unnecessary abuse) for conflating ideological and purely partisan grievances about Lieberman. But I have to say he missed the important point in Beinart’s piece, which was that both Joe and Joe-haters are in danger of treating the Iraq War as the only issue that really matters. Markos’ defense of Joe-hating cites Lieberman’s status as “the go-to guy whenever the press needs a Democrat to bash another Democrat.” Maybe I’ve missed something, but I can’t really think of any examples where Lieberman has bashed Democrats on any subject other than Iraq.Indeed, the only non-Iraq issue that Markos cites against Lieberman is this: “[He] rolled over during the recount in 2000 without fighting for the victory Gore had earned.”And that’s just a bad case of revisionist history. Put aside for a moment the fact that Al Gore, in the opinion of most objective observers from both parties, would have won decisively if he and Bob Shrum had not perversely refused to run on the successful policy record of the Clinton-Gore administration (“I’m Clinton without the sex” was the message even a child would have understood). Within the tortured and limited view of the election in Florida, Al Gore would not have been competitive in that state without Lieberman’s presence on the ticket. And even when it came down to the Florida recount, Lieberman’s alleged “rollover”–his repudiation of any plan to issue wholesale challenges of overseas military ballots–was a tiny factor compared to the Gore High Command’s bad decision to demand a selective instead of a statewide recount, which proved disastrous when the Florida Supreme Court predictably authorized the latter when it was too late. Tie elections obviously make it possible to cite any particular factor as critical, but blaming ’00 on Joe is just wrong. Hell, the U.S. Supreme Court would have handed the election to Bush even if the Gore-Lieberman campaign had violated its principles by tossing out a few military ballots. So I would say to JoePhobes: express your opinion, and make your case; but don’t let’s get dishonest and blame the man for the fact that he, not Dick Cheney, should currently be Vice President of the United States.

I must vigorously dissent from the views expressed by my friend The Moose about the president’s NSA domestic surveillance adventure. I’m proud that we can have this kind of useful debate within the big-tent confines of the DLC. And I hope this post won’t be misused and abused to bash my antlered colleague, whose defense of Bush on this one subject is but a small tree in the forest of his condemnations of W.The heart of The Moose’s argument is that freewheeling executive power is essential to the prosecution of the War on Terror, and that those of us–not just Democrats, but many Republicans–who would fence in that power by requiring observance of the rule of law are either mindless of the threat we face from Jihadism, obsessed with civil liberties absolutism, and/or blinded by Bush-hatred to the need for extraordinary national security measures.I plead innocent to all three counts of this indictment, and suggest The Moose is missing three characteristics of the War on Terror that make some limits on executive power not only advisable but essential: (1) this is a protracted, Cold War, that cannot be successfully waged in an atmosphere of permanent emergency; (2) congressional and judicial oversight of executive counter-terrorism activities is the only way we can ensure an effective war on terror; and (3) conspicuous respect for the rule of law is the only way we can sustain domestic support for the war on terror, and the only way we can successfully offer our own institutions and values as an alternative to Jihadism in what is preeminently an ideological battleground.There is one, and only one, exception I would make to these three principles: the possibility of nuclear terrorist acts. As of yet, no one in the administration has claimed the NSA surveillance program was in any way targeted on that possiblity (indeed, it wasn’t targeted at much of anything, best we can tell), and moreover, this administration seems determined to do as little as it can to actually deal with the nuclear terrorist threat, if it requires multilateral action or spending money on things like port security.More generally, the administration has been painfully slow–despite warnings from the 9/11 commission and congressional mandates to get moving–to deal with reforms in how intelligence agencies compare, analyze, and act upon raw intelligence data. U.S. law enforcement agencies had plenty of data on the 9/11 conspirators before they acted; more data swept up by the kind of program Bush later authorized wouldn’t have addressed the inability of the system to understand and act on that data.In addition, any consideration of emergency executive powers has to involve a close look at the alternatives to scofflaw behavior. If FISA was deemed inadequate by the administration, it could have and should have gone to the Congress controlled by its own party in 2003 and asked for amendments, which most Democrats would have supported as well. The habit of demanding unlimited executive power when it’s unnecessary is one of the most unsavory aspects of this administration’s behavior, as illustrated most recently by the president’s statement that he would not feel constrained by the prisoner treatment rules sponsored by Sen. McCain, and duly enacted by Congress.And that, in the end, is probably the heart of my difference of opinion with my friend The Moose. The legal case for the president’s NSA ukase is shabby at best; the editors of The New Republic, hardly wimps when it comes to the War on Terror, demolished it in an editorial last week. You can be hard-core on the War on Terror and still be hard-edged in criticizing the administration’s we’ll-do-what-we-see-fit position, and even those who agree with Bush on this particular subject need to begin with the presumption that his critics have a legitimate and patriotic case to make. (After all, even Joe Lieberman joined the Democratic filibuster against the Republican effort to make the Patriot Act permanent with little debate).The Moose concluded his latest post by proudly calling himself a “Hamiltonian mammal” who favors a strong executive. Well, I’m a Jeffersonian mammal by temperament and tradition, and though both strains of the American political dialogue have much merit, Jeffersonians tend to understand that while Lincoln, TR, and FDR, among others, have vindicated faith in a strong executive, we also have to have a system that deals with presidents like Harding, Nixon and George W. Bush. That means no executive blank checks without balances, especially when those balances are entirely consistent with a robust defense of our country.

It’s now becoming obvious that the Congressional Republican leadership, buttressed by the institutional GOP, the White House, and most conservative media, have adopted a three-pronged strategy for minimizing the damage associated with the Abramoff scandal and related outrages:1) False Moral Equivalency: the “everybody does it” defense for GOP corruption may not be morally or intellectually respectable, but it does benefit from its consistency with the views of a large and abiding segment of the electorate, who assume absent compelling evidence to the contrary that indeed “everybody does it.” Democrats have to pound away on the unusual, unprecedented (at least since the Gilded Age) and systemic nature of Republican corruption to overcome this argument. (Tom Toles’ cartoon today is a simple and useful example of the picture we must paint). And countering this false equivalency is another powerful reason for offering a strong and comprehensive reform agenda and a new set of rules that Democrats openly ask voters to hold themselves accountable to.2) Scapegoating Hopeless Cases: The “few bad apples” defense is obviously designed to lay all the blame for GOP corruption on people who are already destined for disgrace, if not a stretch in the hoosegow. That’s what’s already happened to Abramoff, and may now be happening to Tom DeLay (though the slippery Bug Man, if he manages to get re-elected this year, should not yet be counted out, given his long-standing ability to control his colleagues without officially taking on the mantle of maximum leadership). And that’s why it’s critical for Dems to consistently draw attention not only to the many and longstanding ties between disgraced figures like Abramoff and Scanlon to the highest figures in the GOP, but to the pattern of abuse of power and money madness that suffuses the whole Republican machine. In other words, Abramoff’s follies are examples of the problem, not the problem itself.3) Embracing Minimal Reforms: The most devious strategy of all is for GOPers to suddenly proclaim themselves interested in a reform agenda of their own, as reflected by the laughable designation of Sen. Rick (K Street) Santorum as a point person for Senate Republicans on lobbying reform. And aside from deriding the hypocrisy involved in such efforts, Democrats must focus on offering reforms that Republicans cannot afford to co-opt, such as making it a federal crime to offer lobbyists access to the legislative process in exchange for partisan affiliation or campaign contributions.Contra those Democratic commentators who say we should just forget about corruption and focus on the GOP’s ideology and policy positions, I strongly believe the GOP three-pronged defense can and must be countered in ways that constantly connect corruption to the ideology and money-driven political strategy of the entire Republican Party from top to bottom. It may be the only way to batten on the powerful anti-Washington sentiment out there, while assuaging cynics that Democrats actually offer an alternative approach to governing.

Commenting on Pat Robertson’s latest outrage may seem like the blogospheric equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel, but I will try to add a bit of value by offering a theological perspective on the Rev’s persistent habit of asserting that God Almighty will smite anyone who disagrees with Robertson’s views on society and politics. Certainly every religious person of any faith tries to do God’s will, and to humbly try to discern it in all public and private decisions. But it’s a peculiarity of fundamentalists (again, of every faith), and of the Christian Right in particular, to embrace their own interpretations of God’s Will as clear, certain and infallible, and to attribute a willful disobedience towards the divine order to anyone who might happen to hold a different interpretation. In the end, this tendency leads its practitioners dangerously close to the position that they literally speak for God on any matter they decide to talk about. In Pat Robertson’s case, he’s gone well over that line, and apparently thinks his judgments and God’s are identical, which to my point of view is self-idolatrous and indeed blasphemous. I’ve speculated at length elsewhere that this fanatical certainty that God has a clear position on every secular matter–and that dissenters know this and are consciously in rebellion against God–reflects the dire spiritual danger today’s cultural warriors have risked by providing religious sanction to the entirely secular conservative agenda they have chosen to emphasize over every task. After all, if they’re wrong in thinking that the clear lesson of Holy Scripture for today’s Christians is to criminalize abortion, demonize gay people, and reverse the changing gender roles of recent centuries, then they are the kind of “false prophets” that Holy Scripture warns us all to fear and reject, right? In that sense, Robertson stands out less for the breathtaking arrogance of his pronouncements, than for his remarkable lack of discretion in broadcasting them regularly.Still, you have to wish he’d finally retire and share his views less broadly, if only because of the scandal he so often brings to his faith and his country. (Wikipedia has an excellent summary of his fatuous fatwahs over the years).When I first heard that the Rev had breezily announced Ariel Sharon’s stroke was a direct Act of God, like many Christians, and many Americans, my first thought was please shut up. Or, to quote one of the preachers in the repertoire of the late Richard Pryor: “How long? How long? How long–must this b—s— go on?”

One of the most outrageous aspects of the recent Bush administration counter-offensive aimed at reversing the president’s bad poll ratings has been an effort to recast him as a brave, tough and far-sighted Commander-in-Chief in the tradition of Harry S. Truman (Condi Rice, in particular, has been promoting this wildly revisionist argument).Over at TPMCafe, G. John Ikenberry demolishes this false analogy in considerable detail, mainly in terms of Truman’s strategy for dealing with the post-World-War-II challenges facing America, which couldn’t be much farther from Bush’s strategy in the war on terror. Please read it all.I would, however, like to supplement Ikenberry’s analysis by pointing to the radically different leadership styles of Truman and Bush.Truman famously said of the presidency that “the buck stops here.” Bush’s aversion to admitting mistakes or taking accountability for his administration’s actions is so extreme and notorious that he actually gets praise for his occasional “mistakes were made” admissions, invariably abstract rather than specific, that perhaps he isn’t infallible.Truman quickly and decisively fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur as military commander in Korea, at a time when MacArthur was far more popular than the president himself. Bush cannot bring himself to fire Donald Rumsfeld, whose departure would not cause a ripple in public opinion, and would be quietly celebrated throughout most of the armed forces.Truman was of course a fiery partisan, but he also cooperated with Republicans whenever possible, especially in foreign policy. Bush pretends to be “above party,” while in practice (with the sole exception of the No Child Left Behind legislation) treating Democrats who don’t simply surrender to him as nonentities to be ignored if not destroyed.I would have to guess that this campaign to make Bush “the new Truman” is based on the superficial identification of the two presidents as simple, resolute and non-reflective men who never worried much about criticism.Truman, of course, was a man from a very humble background, who did not attend college. Yet his administration built virtually the entire complex superstructure of multilateral organizations and policies, economic as well as diplomatic and military, that guided the West throughout the Cold War and beyond.Bush, the ultimate child of privilege, with a presidential father, a prep school education, and degrees from two Ivy League universities, has actively cultivated a non-reflexive attitude, and is “visionary” only in the imagination of his speechwriters.I obviously don’t expect the Bushies to advertise their boss as the reincarnation of some more likely figure such as Warren G. Harding, but still, this Truman Show does not pass the laugh or smell tests.

As Kevin Drum and the L.A. Times have both pointed out today, the Abramoff scandal is pointing big red arrows at a much broader and more politically significant scandal: the conscious, deliberate GOP effort to make corporate lobbyists a cog in the Republican political machine through a crude pay-for-play arrangement known as the K Street Project. The K Street Project, which was basically the product of the evil genius of Grover Norquist (one of Abramoff’s deputies, along with Ralph Reed, in Casino Jack’s salad days with the College Republicans, and a key figure, also along with Reed, in Abramoff’s efforts to launder his tribal-shakedown dollars), has been operationally under the control of Roy Blunt–also known as the Acting Majority Leader of the U.S. House–and Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. That’s why I was fascinated to learn today (in a Byron York report via Matt Yglesias) that Senate Republicans decided a couple of months ago to anticipate the Abramoff fallout by developing a lobbying reform initiative of their own, and delegated this task to none other than Rick Santorum.Now I can certainly understand why Ricky, who’s in an uphill fight for re-election this year against Bob Casey, would want to burnish his non-existent “reform” credentials. But Lord-a-mighty, for this guy to pose as the champion of lobbying reform would be a classic example of a bad guy returning to the scene of the crime. So I say, bring it on, Ricky. Your identification with Republican “lobbying reform” will do wonders for the Democratic effort to connect the dots and explain why the Abramoff scandal is but the tip of the iceburg in the ongoing scandal of the GOP’s descent into corruption and influence-peddling as a way of life.

Looking back at my holiday posts, I realize I did nothing but whine for two weeks (Eeyore was, after all, a donkey). So enough of that. Like many of you, no doubt, I caught up a bit on my reading, and also got a few new books for Christmas. By far the most enjoyable holiday read was an advance copy of Michael Kazin’s new biography of William Jennings Bryan, A Godly Hero. I’ve written an extensive review of the book for The Washington Monthly‘s next issue. But suffice it to say that I recommend it highly, especially to those self-styled populists of the Left and Right who claim parts of Bryan’s heritage while ignoring aspects of the Commoner’s thinking that don’t fit into their own ideologies. Like a lot of sports junkies, I asked for and received the ESPN College Football Encyclopedia under the Christmas tree. And I suspect a lot of said junkies shared my reaction to the tome: it’s fun at first, but gets boring pretty fast. Sure, it’s a handy reference book for resolving arguments, but who really wants to sit around reading box scores of every bowl game in history; statistical summaries of every season; or team schedules from time immemorial? The essays that begin and end the book are pretty sketchy, and the individual team histories generally read like they were written by Sports Information Directors for the schools involved. Probably the most interesting general tidbit is the section in each team history about how they acquired their nicknames and mascots. In other words, it’s a fine book to keep in the W.C. I always get at least one theological book for Christmas, and this year’s selection was Kevin Irwin’s May 2005 offering, Models of the Eucharist. It’s a useful if somewhat frustrating study: useful because Irwin exhaustively examines the truth underlying a variety of historical and contemporary understandings of the central ritual of (non-evangelical) Christianity; frustrating because the book’s design as an official Roman Catholic textbook gives it a didactic tone that undercuts its scope of inquiry. Still, if you’re interested in this topic, Irwin’s book belongs on the same shelf with Dom Gregory Dix’s seminal The Shape of the Liturgy, and the playful post-Vatican II classic, Thomas Day’s Why Catholics Can’t Sing.In an earlier post I lifted a quote from another book I finished reading over the holidays: Eamon Duffy’s Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. Duffy manages to pull off a credible and readable history of two thousand years of papal development in just 317 pages, and is particularly good on the tangled legacy of the Renaissance Popes and the internal Church tensions that produced the First Vatican Council and the doctrine of papal infallibility. Given his unhappiness with the authoritarian strain of Pope John Paul II’s reign (the book was published in 1997), you have to wonder if Duffy will produce a revised edition assessing the significance of Joseph Ratzinger’s election as Benedict XVI. (Disclosure: I’m a big fan of Duffy’s work on the Tudor Reformation, especially The Stripping of the Altars. And one of my favorite memories was the opportunity I had a couple of years ago to sit next to Duffy at High Table at Cambridge’s Magdalen College, while I was there to participate in a panel discussion of neoconservatism). The last book I undertook as 2005 waned was a golden oldie which I retrieved from a dusty bookshelf at home: Gore Vidal’s 1973 novel, Burr.Anyone who just thinks of Vidal as a cranky conspiracy theorist, a media hound, or the purveyor of tawdry novels like Myra Breckinridge, should definitely read Burr and its equally delightful sequel, 1876. These books stand alone as historical fiction of the highest order.

Well, since my last post I’ve experienced(1) a chipped front tooth;(2) the news that Independence Air, which my family depends on for direct air travel from Washington to Savannah, where my disabled father-in-law lives, is shutting down;(3) the possible death of my car, which lost power on I-95 just north of Fredericksburg, and was loudly sounding an apocalyptic blooga-blooga-blooga by the time I reached Arlington.(4) the Sugar Bowl (I refuse to use the corporate adjective), wherein my Georgia Bulldogs came back from a 28-0 deficit early in the first half and then lost 38-35 after West Virginia pulled off a fake punt late in the game. All in all, my holiday season has been a rolling fiasco, but like the Dawgs, I am determined to make a comeback, and if things keep going wrong, I will remain bloodied but unbowed.

I fully intended to do a year-end thumbsucker post reviewing the baleful consequences of George W. Bush’s re-election, and the increasingly obvious dysfunction of his Republican Party. But it’s hard to blog when you’re wheezing and coughing and subsisting on NyQuil and antibiotics. I rang in the New Year sound asleep, and today I am hiding from a cold, rainy day in Central Virginia (as is the fog-shrouded Blue Ridge a few miles from here) and awaiting tonight’s Sugar Bowl.In this state of mind, any thoughts I have about the upcoming year are dominated by the depressing realization that Bush’s second term has three more years to run, accompanied by my Eeyore-like fears about Democrats’ ability to walk (make major gains next November) and chew gum (set the table for victory in 2008) at the same time.I can only hope that in a day or two I will feel better, the mountains will reappear, the world will look more promising, and the Donkey Party will kick off this new year with an intelligent strategy for reclaiming power.