More Confederate Blather from Bushies

But let's make some other points clear as well. Slavery was the chief evil of the Confederacy, not the only one. It's one thing to march around in Confederate uniforms before heading back to the barn for a couple dozen bottles of Michelob. But to praise the Confederacy's ideology is deeply suspect. The doctrines of nullification, interposition, states' rights, and secession were fundamentally anti-Democratic and they were heretical perversions of the nation's constitutional order. And in case you're really into this stuff, no, they can't be justified with reference to the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-99! (What is he talking about? Fugghedaboutit! More history grad school stuff.)

The leaders of the Confederacy were, of course, also traitors. The point here isn't history, though. The fact that Norton has an antediluvian and perverted states' rights understanding of the constitutional order isn't offensive, or obscene. But it's extremely significant in judging whether she's fit to serve as the custodian of the national domain.

P.S. The ironically named Independent Institute was the venue where Norton gave her speech. And they got in a bit of trouble back in Fall of 1999. In the summer of '99, the Institute purchased full page ads in the New York Times and the Washington Post signed by 240 academics arguing in support of Microsoft against the government anti-trust suit. Well, turned out Microsoft had used the Independence Institute as a front and Microsoft had purchased the ads. Ouch! Not clever. Not clever at all.

Ashcroft lost the race by 2 percentage points. He lost. He had no case with a recount or a court case, period. He made the best of the situation and made a gracious concession. (Of course, saying how gracious it was and using it as a cudgel sort of makes it a little less gracious, right?) Handing over the opposition materials was "troubling, given the class and dignity that was shown by Sen. Ashcroft in conceding the election," said David Israelite, political director of the RNC. And because of this, Carnahan needs to carry water for him? Please. This non-story story is a good example of a common reportorial phenomena. Press flaks dress up an utterly known set of facts as a discovery, and lazy or foolish reporters report it as though it were news. Even when it's clearly not news. Did you hear the one about how Rick Lazio ran television ads designed to suppress turnout among Hillary Clinton supporters? Or how George W. Bush assisted pro-Bush voters to the polls and systematically avoided providing the same service to Gore supporters? You get the idea. As nearly as I can tell, if one is not a complete moron this is a pretty obvious effort to shift the focus onto Carnahan's widow. In fact, according to the AP, "GOP operatives asserted late Tuesday the loan reflects poorly on the governor's widow, Sen. Jean Carnahan, who was appointed to replace her dead husband." Ohhhhhhhhhhhh . . . That's class and dignity for you.

Well, now they're getting into the nomination game. They sent along this e-mail:

President-Elect Bush has finished selecting his cabinet. As part of our democratic process, all cabinet level officials have to be confirmed by a simple majority in the U.S. Senate. Several left wing groups have targeted some of President-elect Bush's selections for defeat. We must show members in the Senate that there is grassroots support for the nominees that will help us in our fight for less government and lower taxes. The link below will provide you with the information and tools you need to accomplish this goal. Please forward this message to friends and family. If you have additional questions please call our toll free hotline at 888-564-6273. Remember government goes to those who show up!!! **You may be wondering how we came to receive your e-mail address? The way in which we receive e-mail addresses is only if a person gives this information to us. Perhaps we met you at a fair, convention, conference, or you visited our home page at www.cse.org. If you would like your name removed from our list please respond and write "unsubscribe." ** Citizens for a Sound Economy recruits, educates, trains, and mobilizes hundreds of thousands of volunteer activists to fight for less government, lower taxes, and more freedom.

Of course Chavez never mentioned the fact that she had been particularly outspoken against Baird at the time. Which brings us to our point. This sort of ritualized immolation is ugly. Even if Chavez's mistakes make her unfit for the job, it's still ugly. And Chavez herself complained about this ugliness in her denunciations of the "politics of personal destruction" (PPD). One thing that I have learned during the last eight years is that people make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Mistakes that look foolish or venal or bizarre years later or when peered at by harsh eyes or ripped from their context. And people deserve to be judged by their better half and not their worst. But Linda Chavez is a practitioner of the politics of personal destruction. Her Republican associates are practitioners of the politics of personal destruction. Does that mean she deserves what she gets? No, it doesn't. But if she wants sympathy for being treated to the nastiness of this city doesn't there have to be some recognition of "wow, that was really bad when we crucified this or that Clinton appointee"? Isn't something like this necessary? Instead, Chavez's line seemed to be: Those Clinton folks like Zoe Baird really were bad but how could you do this to me . . . If Chavez were willing to show some recognition of the wrong done to Clinton nominees and various Clinton officials over recent years, then she would be very entitled not just to sympathy but perhaps also the ability to go on with her confirmation hearings (of course I think she should be rejected on the merits). But she's not; so no sympathy.

This Washington Memo adapted from Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points