For Tuesday, April 23, The American Prospect Online taps the following Web content:
FREE FALLING? Bush's once preternatural performance ratings have dropped to 69 percent according to the latest Zogby America poll, their lowest figure since 9/11. In fact, Bush's approval rating is now officially four points lower than Bill Clinton's approval rating immediately after being impeached in 1998. [posted 3:50 pm]
MUST SEE. The great cartoonist Tom Toles captures the poignancy and the ridiculousness of the "therapeutic" cloning debate. [posted 3:45 pm]
LIND ON AIPAC. The always-fascinating Michael Lind has published a good piece on the Israel lobby's influence over U.S. Middle Eastern policy. (Among the most important points: groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee don't even represent the full range of opinion among American Jews, most of whom support a negotiated peace settlement.) It's fair-minded and worth reading. Our only quibble is that Lind shamelessly rips off TAP's March cover story, by Michael Massing, on precisely the same topic. But at least Lind published his piece in a magazine that also shamelessly rips off our name. (They're the British Prospect, launched in 1995. We're The American Prospect, launched in 1990.) Now, before anyone on the right starts accusing Lind of being anti-Semitic, let's recall that he quit The National Review (and, eventually, the conservative movement) because of that magazine's refusal to renounce Pat Robertson's lunatic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. [posted 3:05 pm]
REPEAT AFTER TAPPED. Protecting ANWR does not endanger national security or economic growth. Hack Detroit News columnist Thomas Bray -- who is spot on the GOP talking points, comparing Tom Daschle to the obstructionist Newt Gingrich; way to go -- has not done his homework. And it shows, since Bray doesn't cite a single number to prove his points. (Don't they teach basic reporting skills in Detroit?) Point one: The potential oil reserves in ANWR wouldn't even come close to supplying American needs were our Mideast oil supplies cut off. Data from the U.S. Geological Survey indicates that 10 years of exploration and construction and fifty years of drilling would produce a grand total of...six months supply of oil. (Production during the peak year of 2027 would fill two percent of projected U.S. consumption.) Point two: pace the Teamsters, ANWR drilling might create about 70,000 jobs, as Time's Douglas Walker points out in a piece debunking the widely-cited jobs figure of ten times that amount. Get thee to a fact-checker! [posted 3:00 pm]
RIP VAN DEMOCRATS. Maybe our friends in the House and Senate ought awaken from their slumber and pay attention to the latest behind-the-scenes shenanigans of their Republican counterparts. Two critical pieces of "post-Enron-reform" legislation working their way through the Hill -- the pension and bankruptcy reform bills -- outrageously tilt toward big business. Here's how:
Buried in the pension "reform" legislation are provisions that could make things worse for workers. How will low and moderate income employees feel about legislators who rolled back protections under current law that keep them from being excluded from 401(k) and pension plans?[posted 12:58 pm]And we have the same reaction to the bankruptcy bill, long pushed by the credit card companies. At stake is whether the repayment conditions these companies want to impose on those who go bankrupt will drive more people deeper into debt (and whether millionaires who declare bankruptcy can make their fancy homes off limits to creditors if they go belly up). The Post says this would be like the Enron execs keeping their multimillion dollar mansions while the junior workers lose their cars or furniture as times turn bad.
SO WHAT'S THE REAL STORY? Bush Administration communications czar Karen Hughes is resigning, citing the age-old Washington excuse that she wants to spend time with her family. Tapped will proffer a few possible explanations for why she really left.
1) Finally lost the longtime power-struggle between herself and fellow Bush counselor Karl Rove.[posted 12:00 pm]2) The Bushies are hoping to stem the tide of anger and resentment among the White House press corps, which is largely a consequence of Hughes' heavy-handed approach to spin control.
3) Hughes is being held responsible for Ari Fleischer's stunning ineptitude as a press secretary.
GORE IN '04? Tapped just read the remainder of Al Gore's speech berating George W. Bush on Ari Fleischer's pathetic claim that the American people endorsed Bush's environmental policies in 2000. Say what you will about Al's terrible 2000 campaign. But as Turkish tells Tommy in Snatch, "Gee Tommy ... you sure have got those minerals." (Tapped is big into Guy Ritchie.) [posted 12:00 pm]
IN THE NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY. That refrain has been used to pass some pretty awful legislation of late. Imagine our surprise to find that the White House didn't even ask Congress for the funds the Energy Department says it needs to protect our nuclear weapons plants. [posted 11:22 am]
WHERE IT STOPS, NOBODY KNOWS. The AFL-CIO piles on to the constitutional carousel that has been prompted by the recently passed campaign finance legislation. The trade federation's lawsuit attacks the McCain-Feingold's issue ad and coordination prohibitions and is similar to the one filed by Mitch McConnell's gang and the NRA. There's one major difference however. The AFL-CIO believes in real reform, including full public financing of campaigns, which the courts long ago ruled constitutional. [posted 11:17 am]
LET'S BLAME PHIL. This report from the Associated Press has got us pretty flummoxed this morning. It seems to indicate that Senator Phil Gramm -- who apparently has no shame about batting for Enron -- is threatening to kill the energy bill unless the Democrats guarantee a vote on the making permanent the repeal of inheritance taxes. Must be tough on Gramm to be caught between the just plain 'ol wealthy folks who've supported him for years and his patrons in the energy industry. [posted 11:10 am]
GAMES LEGISLATORS PLAY. Massachusetts isn't the only state where the legislature is still playing games with providing public funds for candidates called for by their campaign finance laws. Now the Kentucky legislature is fighting over some $9 million that Governor Paul Patton included in his budget request to fund the governor and lieutenant governor races. The state's Democratically-controlled House approved the provision but the Republican-controlled State Senate deleted the $9 million. While in Kentucky it's budget impasse time, up in Massachusetts, activists are about to auction off two state-owned 2001 Ford Expedition SUVs and 11 state-owned 2002 Ford Taurus wagons to fund clean election candidates. We're taking ideas for new campaign finance reform slogans. "Buy A Car or Buy a Politician?" is the current favorite. [posted 11:00 am]
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFECTION AGENCY. Trouble continues to unfold at the EPA. Robert J. Martin, the EPA ombudsman for the Solid Waste program and now a folk hero to Superfund advocates, has resigned in protest over his transfer to what he calls a telephone answering job. We suspect a lot of enviros will want to call him for the inside scoop now that he's out of government. [posted 10:48 am]
TERRORISTS AND MILITIAMEN. So-called "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui put on quite a show in federal court yesterday, demanding the right to fire his lawyer and still managing to call publicly for the death of Israel and the United States. But what Tapped found most interesting in Moussaoui's remarks was this nugget, reported in The New York Times: "America, I am ready to fight I want to fight against the evil force of the federal government." We wonder if the Michigan Militia was listening in, and if so, whether they liked what they heard. Zacarias Moussaoui, meet Timothy McVeigh.
BODY, SLAMMING BUSH. Speaking of federalism, Tapped is peeved that it can't link yet to a cool interview with Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura in the latest issue of Time magazine. However, mag in hand, we can you quote Jesse's take on George Bush:
He's doing good internationally, but I'm disappointed in him. Being a former Governor, he came in and said he'd be a huge advocate of federalism. He's done the opposite. Cases in point: Oregon, with its assisted-suicide law. They voted on it twice. Yet in comes the Federal Government saying, "We don't care." On medical marijuana, you have seven states voting to approve it. Yet in comes the Federal Government saying to any doctor who gives it out, "We'll take your license away." President Bush wants to control everything at the presidential level.
You just gotta love the Body.
CHICKEN, EGG, ARIEL, ARAFAT. As this morning's Washington Post indicates, the public is waffling almost as much as the Bush administration on Middle East matters. We wonder, though, if the masses might have more clarity if the administration did -- or is it the other way around?
CONFLICT OF INTEREST HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FED. You know how several of Wall Street's biggest banks and brokerages might have played a role in Enron Corp.'s fraud on investors? Their dealings uncovered a system fraught with potential conflicts that investment banks face in recommending the stocks of companies that pay them fees. Now, as The New York Times reports, the Child Health Corporation "says its mission is to find the best medical supplies for some of the nation's biggest children's hospitals" but finds itself "endorsing certain products in return for a percentage of sales and, in some cases, shares or warrants from their manufacturers." Some of these corporate types must think a conflict of interest is a disagreement over whether or not the Fed will raise rates.
GORING BUSH. Former vice-president Al Gore went on an Earth Day offensive yesterday against George W. Bush. Bush didn't respond directly to Gore, but White House press secretary Ari Fleischer had previously commented that the environment had been a major cause that Bush "defeated Al Gore in the election of 2000." This got Gore's dander up, and he let loose. An extended quotation:
Now, I didn't bring up the election of 2000. I put that behind me. They want to keep talking about it. So let me just say a word. When they say that the American people endorsed their approach to the environment in 2000, there are two things wrong with that charge.No. 1, they are overlooking the fact that during the campaign then-candidate Bush himself pledged to bring about a reduction in greenhouse gases. Of course, the day after he took his oath of honor and integrity, he made that his very first broken promise.
Now the second thing that's wrong with this, and as I said, I've put this behind me long since -- but refresh my memory a little bit -- did a majority of the American people endorse his policies in the election? He won the election and he is our president, but he ought to be a little bit more careful about claiming that a majority of the voters endorsed his policy payoffs to polluters who pressured him to break his promises to the public.
Ouch.
-- compiled by Prospect staff
