A Crisis in Black Politics

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a modified version of an article that appears in the 1st issue of Leverage magazine. It can be found here.

The writing is on the wall. A year ago, America’s long-term neglect of the urban poor bubbled to the surface when Hurricane Katrina devastated one of America’s most storied – and blackest – cities. While that crisis briefly brought the issue of poverty, black poverty even, into the center of national debate, it was soon overshadowed by battles over Supreme Court justices, missing white women and celebrities, and much of America moved on, without any systemic solutions proffered to the problems highlighted. It would seem to be part of a pattern. After all, the 2004 election cycle marked the first election in over a generation that issues of black poverty were almost completely ignored, that is, after the African-American protest candidates, Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun, who raised little money and lacked legitimacy even in their own community, were disposed of. Perhaps most disturbingly, the highest-ranking black officials in the country in the last five years, Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, have been apologists for a right-wing administration that is actively hostile to the interests of the poor.

Voices for the black poor have been systematically marginalized. The Congressional Black Caucus, never having developed an independent funding apparatus, is beholden to the priorities of the Democratic Party as a whole, and as such cannot serve as an effective or assertive voice for disenfranchised blacks in the halls of power. The current highest-ranking black elected officials – Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Lt. Gov. Michael Steele of Maryland – came to prominence through promotion of explicitly non-racial politics. Three of this year’s highest profile black candidates – the aforementioned Steele, Ken Blackwell in Ohio, and Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania – are counting on winning a significant minority of African-American votes in their strategies. The other, Harold Ford of Tennessee, has spent five terms in Congress burnishing his conservative credentials, and most recently made headlines by declaring in USA Today that his paternal grandmother was white, not black. Each, in his own way, has sought to reduce his blackness to a mere matter of ancestry, disconnected from a history, politic or community that compels the promotion of any particular agenda.

Meanwhile, the black middle class increasingly finds its economic fate untied to that of the black poor. Our diffusion into majority-white suburbs and upper-middle class black enclaves and the advancing gentrification of formerly majority-black center cities affords middle-class blacks access to opportunities that the black poor aren’t even aware exist. The issues that are important to this class largely revolve around access to capital, corporate recruitment and advancement and access to professional schools. No longer living primarily in proximity to the black poor, issues of mass incarceration, crime or declining schools are relevant to them only inasmuch as they view themselves as part of a larger black community that increasingly doesn’t exist geographically or socially. In fact, increasingly, this class is mobilized around the same religious and social issues that motivate many white voters. As the economic fortunes of the black middle class have improved, old-line black organizations have declined. The NAACP is a shell of its former self, the Urban League faces financial crisis in many of its local chapters, and no other comparable groups exist even on their reduced scale.

Entertainment, sports and, to a lesser degree, finance, have nurtured the creation of an ever-increasing black upper-class that has yet to confront the exploitive images upon which much of their wealth was built, or the relatively scarce opportunities to follow their paths into the high-net worth class, or to articulate a political voice significantly different from their white counterparts with similar wealth. They are beginning to make inroads into the worlds of charitable giving, economic development and support for education, but overall are a relative non-factor at this stage of development. Beyond Russell Simmons and Sean Combs’ periodic energizing of the youth vote, it’s still very unclear that we can expect leadership to emerge from this class.

Perhaps most significantly, outside of the continuing war in Iraq and rising energy prices, the hottest issue in America this year has been immigration. The issue has been thoroughly Mexicanized, with the problems and issues of Asian or African immigrants marginalized, and the contest over the issue becoming a proxy for the integration of “America’s largest minority” in sufficient numbers to counterbalance the African-American polity. If a compromise on immigration is reached in Congress, it will pave the way for a large voting bloc full of conservative Catholics and evangelicals sympathetic to the Republican values message to enter the body politic, thus creating huge pressure for the Democratic Party to court their vote in order to remain competitive. Major black political organizations have made virtually no outreach to that community on a national level, so there is little prospect for the revival of “rainbow coalition” politics. The stage is being set for the long-awaited Latino march into the great American majority, and the black response – from xenophobia to nativism to corporate liberalism to brown solidarity – can best be described as confusion.

With all these trends converging, it’s clear that black politics in America as it has been constituted for the last 40 years is a wreck; foundering in the face of racial transformation just as the American Whig Party did in the 19th century. The political issues that are salient primarily to the African-American population without affecting the majority population in comparable ways – mass incarceration and HIV/AIDS – are unlikely to be addressed through the political process because of this decline in the black political apparatus, and the issues of education and economic development have passed into the liberal mainstream in ways that make race-based appeals both less effective and less attractive. Confronting this dilemma is the challenge black Americans face in the coming years. It may be possible to chart a course that addresses these black issues in local and non-governmental ways. But without an effective political apparatus or non-religious leaders who have real accountability within the black populace, finding ways to coordinate these de-centered efforts will pose a huge challenge to a community that sees the writing on the wall, but can no longer agree on how to read it.

Notes on Climate Change I

The above map was developed by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK. Basically, it introduces us to some of the key hot spots being watched by environmental scientists as CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere and threaten to alter the ecological equilibrium that has maintained for the last 6000 years (that is, since the dawn of human civilization). Much ink and focus in America and the West has been given to the possible shutdown of the Gulf stream within the next 50-100 years, which would plunge Europe back into an Ice Age. This effect alone should give the lie to the term "global warming," as it should be made clear that climate change doesn't necessarily mean that the global temperature will run away upward until Earth becomes indistinguishable from its evil twin, Venus. Instead, some places will get colder, some places will get hotter; some places will get wetter, some will get dryer.

One consequence of the climate change phenomenon that most people are unaware of is the change that is likely to be thrust upon the Sahara Desert due to changing climate patterns. In short, over the next century, the Sahara is, in all likelihood, going to become green. In fact, the process may already be happening. For the past few years, the Sahel, or southern border region of the Sahara, which had been steadily advancing southward throughout the 70's and 80's, causing drought and misery, has been retreating back northward, and land has been becoming arable again. In 2003, Mali apparently received its greatest rainfall in 600 years. As if these anecdotal happenings were not enough, recent climate models predict just such an occurrence.

Since this climate flip is easily the least-discussed of all the consequences of global climate change, its social and economic consequences are the least explored and understood. Probably the central issue with Saharan greening is that an area the size of the United States of America will become open to human habitation over the next century. As other areas of the world freeze or dry out, this will create immense pressures on Saharan nations unlike anything the world has seen in modern times. It's very unclear that the leaders of Saharan nations are in any way thinking about the changes that may be in store for their lands. It's an issue that may be as critical for them as energy independence will become for the United States.

There is one major drawback to the likely greening of the Sahara. The dust storms that rage across the Sahara every year carry across the Atlantic and bring many nutrients and important ingredients to the Amazon rainforest. Thus, the very strange result of man-made climate change might be that the "lungs" of the planet will shift across the Atlantic, from South America to North Africa, and that the most bio-diverse area on the planet will suffer an alarming dieback. That will have a devastating impact on the indigenous cultures of the Amazon. In addition, the Amazon nations, primarily Brazil, will have to deal with a remarkable change in the way their economies work. It's possible that climate change will have a devastating effect on South American agriculture, once again a social and economic effect of climate change that few seem to be contemplating outside scientific circles.

To be sure, no one is 100% certain that climate change will proceed in any one particular way, but these are likely occurrences, and it's well past the time for dialogue to begin on how to cope with these massive changes in the way the biosphere is organized, because they will have startling impacts on the way humans live our lives.

Black Elitism, White Anti-Racism, Hip-Hop, and Three 6 Mafia.

The choruses have been loud and braying ever since Three 6 Mafia took home a golden statue last Sunday for "It's Hard Out Here for A Pimp." Middle-class black folk are angered and dismayed that yet another crass display of "coonery" enters the American lexicon as an award-worthy representation of the African-American community. Young people and liberal white folk exult in the thumb in the eye to middle-class respectability that their performance seemed to represent. Those who hate hip-hop feel vindicated as they see yet another misogynistic, ignorant display of gutter music endorsed by the Hollywood elite. NYC rap purists bemoan the decline of their artform and the ascendance of "crunk music." And other hip-hop enthusiasts keenly note that Three 6 has been in "the game" for 15 years, and that being independent and uncompromising in your work eventually does pay off -- another version of the American dream.

It's another look into the ugly cancer of race in America, and the sickness and vomiting that 40 years of chemotherapy has visited upon us.

Yes, Three 6 Mafia glorifies pimps, hoes, casual sex, smoking marijuana (in their recent, other most successful single to date, "Stay High," rendered "Stay Fly" for radio), ass-whoopings and tearing the club up, and yes, they were originally the 6*6 (you won't see that number in MY blog) Mafia, which eventually drove their female member, Gangsta Boo, out the group and into (briefly) the ministry. In short, they crystallize the excesses of 60's counterculturalism and exemplify the "bad" images respectable blacks have been combatting since the days of "Superfly." Yes, they are country "bammas" of the type widely reviled by Northern blacks who have strived so hard to excise any of that country-ness from their personas. And I don't think anyone -- not even they -- would attempt to defend their body of music as high art or something they want their children to listen to.

But all of that, in some way, misses the point. Middle-class Black Americans are widely upset because they feel that Three 6 Mafia reflects poorly on them to white people, and that their music is symptomatic of the problems in Black America. All of their criticism is ironic. On an economic and social level, the middle class has been happy to integrate into White America on White terms -- ignoring the poor, striving for wealth accumulation at all costs, and following them wherever they move.

Yet when White America informs Black America that on a cultural level, too, they will be integrated on White terms, not on Black, there's a backlash. Well, sorry, can't have it both ways. Just as Italian-Americans had to suck it up and take the Oscars for "The Godfather," wait for Al Pacino to play a blind asshole to win his trophy, and ended up with a real jerk as their guy on the Supreme Court, Black Americans had to take their turn in the way it was handed to them. It's not pretty, but it's how the process the middle class has been happy to roll with for 30 years works.

On another twisted level, it's yet another vindication of the American dream. Just as Joe Kennedy started off bootlegging during Prohibition and eventually produced a President and a Senator, just as Jews started off being clowns in vaudeville shows and ended up running Broadway, Three 6 Mafia took their dream from the ghettoes of Memphis all the way to the red carpet on March 5. Few in this great country get famous or wealthy because of their noble deeds -- most do it either on the backs of others or by exploiting their identities. Three 6 Mafia chose the latter route -- a popular one these days, if we are to judge by the excesses of reality television.

To be sure, it's jarring to see these three guys poppin' they...COLLA...one day on "106 & Park" one day, and chilling with Ellen the next, but in the narrow way ratified by modern Black leaders from Vernon Jordan to Andrew Young, it's success and progress. They've made it to the mainstream! They can get access to that white dollar now, which, in case you didn't notice, is way bigger than that black dollar. And it should be expected that racist white commentators like Bill O'Reilly would rail against their entrance into the mainstream because it insults their sensibilities. What's funny is that their commentary mirrors that of un-self-critical black commentators who call them racists in one breath and echo them in the next. What the black ones don't see is that the very values they extol are the ones that laid the groundwork for Three 6 Mafia to succeed in the first place.

Taking it as a whole, it looks like a typical day in America -- black shame and black success fighting each other, while white America looks on with scorn and admiration. Business as usual for a complex nation that's trying to heal old wounds without opening new ones.

An Open Letter to the World about the Dubai Ports Deal

Dear Citizens of the World,

You should not be dismayed that American citizens revolted against the purchase of six of our largest ports by Dubai Ports World. Contrary to what some on the left and in the Bush administration would have you believe -- contrary to what your own instincts about nationalist, isolationist Americans would have you believe -- opposition to the deal was not about anti-Arab or anti-Muslim sentiment. Instead, it was fundamentally about many of the things that people across the globe have been decrying for at least a decade -- the unfettered power of moneyed elites, free trade and globalization being held up as goods in and of themselves, and effective and transparent government. And to be quite honest, yes, it was about national security.

Let's take the last objection first. Two of the hijackers who took down the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon in 2001 came from the United Arab Emirates. As much as the world has excoriated America for attacking Iraq, when it had nothing to do with 9/11, why now does the world think that the American people wouldn't take a dim view towards a nation whose people were involved? A.Q. Khan's nuclear proliferation network ran through the UAE. To be sure, the government there has sought to crack down on that network, but given the spotty record of the Bush administration, we should be forgiven for not taking this as total assurance. There are definitely remnants of the group who aided Khan still in the UAE, and who is to say that they could not, or have not, infiltrated DPW? Furthermore, the financial network that subsidizes Osama bin Laden runs through the UAE as a financial hub. It simply doesn't fly with most people to think that a nation whose people were intimately involved with both Al Qaeda and nuclear proliferation should run operations at the ports where security is already shoddy.

But, so many argue, the UAE is America's greatest new friend in the Middle East! Well, let's be clear on something -- the emirs who run the UAE are great friends of the Bush administration. That says nothing of how the masses of people in that nation feel about America. There has been a growing sense over the last 5 years that the Bush administration governs, not in the interest of all the people, but in the interests of a moneyed elite. Halliburton and, to a lesser extent, the Carlyle Group are words that conjure up images of BushCo cozying up to dictators while their people are angered by the hegemonic power of this country. They say they are working to clean up madrassas and modernize. Yet that means that in their country there is still great dissent against such a cozy relationship with the United States. And authoritarian rulers -- emirs -- cannot exactly grant the American people tough assurances that they have their people in check. So no, the elite-to-elite contact that is the strength of the USA-UAE strategic partnership is no comfort to us.

What's worse about the worldwide reaction to the scuttling of the ports deal is that it reflects a supposed consensus about the way that free trade and globalization proceed that is never evident in any other debate. No one on the left crowed about Bolivian nationalism when they decided that their water resources would not be privatized. We don't see anyone complaining about Venezuela nationalizing its oil resources. Indeed a large portion of the criticism of free trade over the last decade, beginning with NAFTA, was that it seemed that capital was becoming predominant over any other interests. Yet when Americans decide that critical infrastructure should remain in American hands, we're branded isolationists and protectionists. It's a dangerous and insulting double standard that plays into the hands of the corporate profiteers who benefit from unrestricted globalization. Leftists and socialists should take heart at the fact that Americans seek, on a visceral level, to control critical infrastructure in our country. It could be a model for other nations to follow. Instead it's used as another tool to bludgeon the arrogant American.

Finally, dissent over the ports deal is about effective and transparent government. When our President's first line of defense about the deal is, "Well, I didn't know about it in the first place," there's a serious problem in our government. Like it or not, in a country that has been a victim of a string of terrorist attacks over the last 13 years (stretching back to the first World Trade Center bombing), it's imperative that deals such as this are seriously scrutinized. It's not a game; let's not forget that this nation was attacked on 9/11/01. So people are demanding that a somnolent government wake up and protect us like they have been claiming they would do for the past four and a half years. And as poor as this deal looked, the people had to say "NO" to it.

Many commentators would have us believe that the scuttling of the Dubai Ports deal (which, by the way, isn't over yet -- what does it mean to "transfer control to an American entity"?) could have negative effects on various international business deals that American companies are working on. It's a sad day when willful misreadings of the sentiment of the American people could be used to punish us in such a way. Don't mistake the genuine concern of the American people for our safety for something so crude as anti-Arab sentiment. Contrary to popular belief, we're more complex than that.

A Peculiar Mobilization

"It's time for everyday people to wake up and take power in the face of elite abuse of power." -- Cornel West

This is the seventh year that Tavis Smiley has brought together a cross-section of black intelligentsia and organizational leadership for the State of the Black Union forum, which can be found on C-SPAN's website. It has evolved from a forum dedicated to specific topics on African-American society -- the Black Church, health, and others -- into a media platform for expressing where the assembled believe that the community should go. In post-Katrina America, the forum struck a decidedly more combative tone than in previous years, from Cornel West asking "What will it take for us to wake up?" to Louis Farrakhan's striking juxtaposition of classical black nationalism and Armageddon.

Last year's forum marked a sharp departure from previous years, in that Smiley realized the need to move beyond mere talk into some form of concerted action. The realization of that need crystallizes this year in the publication of The Covenant, a document that proposes to delineate a Black Agenda for this age. That the document came together at all is a remarkable achievement. In an age when talking heads prevail and social and political action on a community-wide level are anathema in the Black community, a gauntlet of a sort has been lain down. Smiley and his collaborators are challenging the Black community to stop being reactive, and to be proactive.

To be sure, The Covenant's agenda could be seen as rather routine. Its 10 points are certainly ones that any progressive American would be in agreement with. However, with no national political organization seriously pursuing these objectives, other than the largely ineffective and marginalized Congressional Black Caucus, it sets into sharp relief how far out of relevance and power progressive values have fallen. In that sense, it serves as an important clarion call for communities of color, not of color, and otherwise, to focus on pragmatic solutions to the problems plaguing this nation. As such, there could be little dissent among the people agreeing to appear at the forum as to its objectives.

Still, perhaps the most striking thing about this year's forum is the closing of the ranks around The Covenant, in a community infamous for personal rivalry and intransigence among its leaders. Every panelist seemed to be personally invested in the document, although Smiley was careful to state that it is a public document subject to change by "the people." Whereas previous years saw the motley assortment of leaders fail to come to any concrete conclusions on how to advance, this one evinced a unanimity of purpose that is rarely seen among the black elite in the present day. In and of itself, the clarification of a clear set of goals is important both for the black elite and the black masses.

However, despite the noble intentions of the authors, it is quite unclear how much effect this covenant can have on the public policy debate in this country. Perhaps the clearest flaw in its early implementation is its dependence on "the people" to push for the agenda and implement it. Depending on the black masses in and of itself is an important route through which this covenant needs to travel. Yet it is unclear that Smiley or his collaborators are seriously committed to getting this covenant out to the majority of Black America, because their mechanisms of distribution seem to be lacking.

The first issue is that the book costs money. Although allegedly a public document, Smiley has gone to the lengths of publishing the Covenant in book form. To be sure, it isn't an expensive tome -- $12 at Amazon.com, plus shipping & handling -- but it seems contrary to the spirit of the project to restrict access in that way. The danger of the approach is that, in constantly hawking a product for sale, they risk reducing the project of creating a coherent Black agenda to an extended infomercial. It was dissonant, at the very least, for Harry Belafonte to denounce American imperial capitalism, on the one hand, and then to be implored to BUY THE BOOK on the other. Another issue with the book costing money is access. To be sure, major booksellers are on board with something being produced by a best-selling author like Smiley. Yet it is unclear how the creators of the Covenant plan to bridge the reader gap and get the book and its contents out to people who never set foot inside a Barnes & Noble or a Borders.

The second major issue flows from this issue of access. Smiley and his cohorts intend a 7-city tour to publicize the Covenant over the next week that seems somewhat unfocused in its outreach. Atlanta and Memphis? San Francisco and Oakland? The Midwest without hitting Chicago (which, ironically, is the home of the publisher of the book)? Whom is this tour supposed to reach? Why are so many major cities with huge black populations left out, if popular mobilization is the aim? Perhaps Smiley has already been assured that town-hall meetings of the type proposed on the Covenant website will take place in these cities and others; but it seems unwise not to, at the very least, try to hit the cities with the 10 largest black communities in the US with the frontline leadership for this launch.

Worse, there seems to be a glaring and frightful omission from the explicit agenda of the Covenant. In his opening remarks, Harry Belafonte was at pains to draw a connection between the launch of a Covenant with Black America and the rise of left-wing governance in South America. Another panelist, Ron Brown (who usually serves as co-moderator), drew a clear link between Black political impotence and American inaction in both Rwanda in 1994 and the Darfur region today. Yet, within the Covenant, nothing can be found that ties the Black community in America to the other African communities in the Americas or the continent of Africa itself. The former is problematic because it makes it clear that the authors don't see a connection between the fight for economic self-determination elsewhere in the Americas and the problems facing Black America. The latter is problematic because it makes it clear that the authors of the Covenant root themselves solely in an American context, without regard for the leadership role that the African-American community has long played in promoting progressive foreign policy toward that ancestral homeland (exemplified by the anti-apartheid movement). Without a clear mooring in a global context, the Covenant ultimately fails to contextualize itself or give itself any sort of unique relevance to this community.

Finally, one of the major problems with the execution of the Covenant is its continued marginalization of young leaders. The Civil Rights Movement, which all of the older panelists made sure to tie themselves to, was largely a youth movement, especially at its height in the mid-60's. Smiley has heard criticism about the absence of young leaders from the beginning, and did make a sincere effort to create a panel exclusively composed of young leaders. However, this panel was relegated to the very end of the forum, their time compressed because of the loquaciousness of older leaders. One of them made a very clear request that, next year, the young people be heard first. Viewers can only hope that Smiley heeds that call, if only because hearing from young people first is the only way that the leaders who populate the panel can hope to reach out to my generation.

Ultimately, the Covenant is a useful document for progressives of all colors, as noted by several panelists. However, can it spark a movement? That remains to be seen in the next few years. Can Smiley and his cohorts energize enough people to heed his call for town hall meetings to discuss the issues underlined in the Covenant? Will a top-down, semi-commercialized, media-driven, older-to-younger paradigm succeed in revitalizin the Black body politic? It seems unlikely. But it's a start.

Re-launching the Revolver

It has been two and a half months since I updated this blog, primarily due to the holidays and upheavals in my work and personal life, but also largely because I had writer's block and had to figure out exactly what The Revolver blog was going to look like. Finally, I realized that what I needed was a sharper focus on what exactly would be covered via this blog.

Ultimately, I realized that I wanted to expand the breadth of The Revolver, increase its frequency, and not sacrifice any of its perceived potency. Functionally, this means that the blog is upping its publication frequency to semi-weekly, and that there are eight focus areas: the emerging global order; cultural homogenization and exploitation; political machinations, especially in the U.S.; sexual politics and health; economics and business; technology; environmental sustainability and energy issues; and spirituality. The plan is for the blog to be topical, timely, and insightful. I hope that past readers continue to learn and be caused to think by this blog, and that new ones come on board.

My brothers are dying and no one seems to care.

With all the talk about "DL" brothers and black women being the fastest growing portion of new HIV cases in this country, a simple fact always seems to get overlooked: the largest single group of people living with HIV in this country is black gay men.

And by black gay men, I don't mean "dl" brothers. I mean rainbow on the car, at the club, homosexual men.

Dying, y'all. CDC reports that in 5 major cities, up to 46% of black gay men are HIV+. Yet, it's like black gay men are the invisible victims. White gays are always out there, doing their thing and raising awareness. Opree make sure she get the info out there for the sistas. Yet when it comes to the most vulnerable community, there's silence. Except inasmuch as a minority within it can be demonized, there's not a real public discourse on how to stop the 80's from happening all over again in the black gay community.

We've got a whole generation of young brothers who didn't come of age in the 80's. Who weren't even born until after Ryan White had come and gone from the national scene. And because so much of that generation was consumed in the first wave during that time, the knowledge hasn't been effectively passed down. Young homosexual brothers are being as promiscuous as their heterosexual counterparts. The difference is, the consequences for them can be very different from a new life or inconvenient sores that never go away. The consequences can be debilitating illness that cripples them physically and financially, and, ultimately, death. The great challenge is to find ways to reign in this epidemic in the black community. And it's not just about the sisters. It's about the brothers. Brothers who we want to ignore and act like they don't exist.

It's scary for one. For two, it makes me angry. Today is World AIDS Day, and yes, it's critical that everyone go out there and get tested. But it's also important that we be clear on who the primary victims are.

Maybe the queens at the balls, caring for their sick partners, don't make attractive enough targets for documentaries. Maybe the young, pretty woman who is infected by her lying husband is more sympathetic. Maybe it's just easier to find white people who are living with HIV.

But the simple truth is, this is something that's killing our brothers, folks. And we have got to get real about what needs to be done. To make sure that poor men of color have access to the same type of drugs that wealthy gays in West Hollywood and Provincetown do. To make sure that families don't cast us aside when we are stricken with this disease, and either cover it up, or act as if it's our "just desserts" for a "demonic" lifestyle.

I applaud groups like Us Helping Us in DC, GMAD in NYC, or the recently defunct BlackOUT in Cleveland. Doing that hard work, of brothers reaching out to brothers, because no one else seems to be particularly interested.

But today, brothers and sisters of all persuasions, I want you to recognize that our brothers are dying. More than that, I want you to care. Because out of a million Americans living with HIV, something like 400,000 are gay black men. This isn't a just a gay issue, it's a black issue.

I'm done.

Miers, Alito, and the Limits of the Conservative Movement

I think a lot of people laughed at the Bush administration when they finally blinked and pulled the Miers nomination. Underqualified, unglamorous, and most importantly, unappealing to virtually everyone outside the West Wing, she never really stood a chance. BushCo overestimated the confidence his base had in him as a leader, and he was caught between the pincers of conservative intellectuals outraged that he hadn't picked one of them and Christian fundamentalists who found waffling on the issue of abortion to be only slightly less of an abomination than homosexuality.

Yet, many on the left seem to think that the Miers nomination was some sort of tactical feint -- push an unqualified, laughable candidate out there, then stick it to us with a red meat conservative. Well, ignoring the fact that the Miers nod was book-ended by two fabulously qualified and broadly popular nominations to key positions -- John Roberts to the Court itself, and Ben Bernanke to the Fed chairmanship -- it's unclear what exactly BushCo would've gained from such a strategy. Were they trying to divide their base to show that they're not monolithic? Was the strategy to make the Democrats even more quiescent and supine than usual? That whole idea doesn't fly.

No, Bush was rewarding loyalty with a position -- see Brownie for another example -- and his base showed that they are more loyal to competence and to track record than they ever will be to him. So, lesson learned, Bush on Monday did the only sensible thing that he could do -- nominate a staunch conservative who would satisfy all the disparate factions of his base. Give them the fight that they've been waiting for.

A fight that, um, they can't win.

Samuel Alito probably won't be a Supreme Court Justice anymore than Miers. He's simply too far to the right. And as his views on race-based discrimination, disability-based discrimination, abortion (which, according to the Chief Justice, is settled law), and a host of issues relating to the everyday concerns of the American people come to light, the GOP is going to find themselves on the wrong side of a bruising battle. Alito has a 15-year record on the 3rd District Court of Appeals, and they can trust that every liberal group in the country will be scouring his opinions for the sick things he would do as an associate justice.

Bush's problem is, he's not popular. And Alito is a lightning rod for moderates and progressives to distance themselves from and actively work against. In the end, he may be counting on Dr. Frist to invoke the nuclear option, or for Southern Democrats to break ranks with their party. But uh, confirmation hearings aren't going to start until January, and it's highly doubtful that Democrats will be voting with a highly unpopular Republican in an election year. What's even more unclear is the impact that Frist's insider trading investigation and presidential ambitions will have on that fight. Will he want to be seen as "a uniter, not a divider"? Will he be unnerved by possible indictment?

The stars just don't seem to be aligned for a radical Republican -- a reactionary, paleoconservative, pre-New Deal judicial activist -- to make it onto the Supreme Court. Sandra Day O'Connor may just have to stay put for a while.

The Cheney Drumbeat

BOOM

BAP

BOOM


The Plame scandal is the gift that keeps on giving. I. Lewis "I'm not a felon, George H.W. Bush Pardoned Me" Libby went down as expected last Friday, and the administration sincerely hoped that, with that indictment, all the fuss would die down. Such would not and should not be the case, since apparently, according to court docs, Cheney may have known a lot more about Libby's stint as an unnamed source for national security reporters than he is telling the public. "What did he know, and when did he know it?", the classic questions, are swirling around our notorious vice-president.

Cheney isn't one that is known for his candor or visibility. He disappeared for weeks after 9/11 and earlier this year. His modus operandi during times of trouble echoes the Billy Ocean classic -- when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Yet for him, the problem now is, where's he gonna go? The spotlight is gradually shifting from the ineffectual frontman of this administration to the guy who's really pulling all the levers. To be sure, the pieces above all come from rags that could be labelled "liberal." But what they're asking for is not a resignation or a conviction, but simply that Dick Cheney come clean. If he didn't do anything inappropriate, his speaking out could clear the air for his administration, or at least give them some room to breathe. His continued silence and absence only invites further speculation as to what he may be hiding. And indeed, his mendacious reputation doesn't serve him well in this time of trial.

Let's be clear -- Libby is no fall guy. He's a liar, and he could have compromised national security by playing politics with an undercover agent's identity. It's not even a question of whether he has tried to fall on his sword in order to protect his benefactor in the administration. Rather, Cheney's coming clean is a matter of BushCo's long-ago promise to bring integrity back to the White House. As long as Cheney remains silent, their integrity remains compromised.

What's more intriguing about the role Cheney may have played in the Plame outing is that this scandal threatens to blow wide open the discussion on the exaggerations, prevarications, innuendoes and outright lies that BushCo cobbled together in order to lead us into the quagmire of Iraq. Years after the fact, the Plame scandal may become the beginning of the reckoning for this war. My mom always told me not to lie, because eventually the truth would come to light. Perhaps Cheney is remaining silent because he doesn't want to start us down that road. Unfortunately for him, we've already started down that road, and eventually that road will lead to him. It's in his interest to speak out first and try to set the tone. It won't work, but he should at least try.