ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Bush To Usher In New Era Of ‘Bipartisanship’ By Renominating Controversial Judicial Nominees

That was quick.

See Think Progress for details.

ch: 2006

Things That Won't Help Re-election Chances: Strangling Your Mistress

Read This: During National Character Counts Week, Bush Stumps for Philanderer

President Bush flew here to champion the reelection of a congressman [Don Sherwood] who last year settled a $5.5 million lawsuit alleging that he beat his mistress during a five-year affair. [...] While representing the good people of the 10th District, the married congressman shacked up in Washington with a Peruvian immigrant more than three decades his junior. During one assignation in 2004, the woman, who says Sherwood was striking her and trying to strangle her, locked herself in a bathroom and called 911; Sherwood told police he was giving her a back rub.

No surprise, but Democratic opponent Chris Carney is leading Don Sherwood in the polls.

However, Sherwood is leading among mistress chokers, though only by 9% (they’re big on the environment).

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Far-Right Extremist James Dobson Pushing Bachmann

From Bloomberg News, we find that extremists are making Michele Bachmann’s election one of their top priorities:

If Republicans lose control of the U.S. Congress, the Supreme Court will be packed with abortion- backing liberals, tax dollars will pay for research on cloning to create ``little human beings’’ for organ farming, and elementary- school teachers will be forced to promote homosexuality to their students.

That’s the view and vision of James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family, a nationwide, politically active evangelical group allied with the Republican Party. The moral future of America is at stake and ``staying home’’ isn’t an option, Dobson told 2,400 followers at an Oct. 16 get-out-the-vote rally at the Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville. ``Folks, we cannot afford to do that.’’ [...] In Minnesota, Dobson is trying to engineer a win for Michele Bachmann, a candidate for the House seat being vacated by Republican Mark Kennedy, who is running for the Senate. Bachmann, a Republican who opposes abortion and supported a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriages while in the Minnesota Senate, said the scandals in Washington and Bush’s low approval rating mean she faces a tight race in the socially conservative northern suburbs of Minneapolis.

What kind of man is backing Bachmann?

Dobson likened embryonic stem cell research to Nazi experiments

Dobson claimed the Mark Foley scandal was sort of a joke by the boy and some of the other pages.

Dobson warned that gay marriage would lead to marriage between daddies and little girls … between a man and his donkey

ch: 2006

John Sweeney: Sweatshops in New York Worse Than Marianas

Republican Rep. John Sweeney, in a tough re-election fight against Dem Kirsten Gillibrand, is getting hit for his ties to convicted felon Jack Abramoff and a trip he took which violated Congressional rules:

U.S. Rep. John Sweeney may have violated congressional ethics rules by failing to reveal who paid for a trip he took to a Pacific island with a lobbyist hired by convicted Washington influence peddler Jack Abramoff. [...] The Saipan Chamber of Commerce says it paid for Sweeney’s visit, but Sweeney never reported any privately funded travel as House rules require. Those rules prohibit lobbyist-paid travel.

Why was Sweeney there? Among other things, to defend the Marianas sweatshops. Here’s a refresher from ABC News about the conditions that conservatives like Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff sought to protect from government protections:

BRIAN ROSS (VO) Put to work under often grueling conditions, the women are not free to change jobs because of the Saipan loophole. It’s something that would not be legal on the mainland. But under the same loophole in the law, a growing number of women are being brought into staff Saipan’s booming Garapan district, a seedy, sleazy place of nightclubs and karaoke bars, where the customers range from wealthy Japanese businessmen to American sailors to local government officials.

KATRINA (through translator) Once there was a customer that bit my breast. But the boss told us the customer is always right.

BRIAN ROSS (VO) Many of the women who work here are only teenagers. Many under age, like Katrina, not her real name, who was 14 when she was recruited from the Philippines.

KATRINA (through translator) It was my first time to dance naked, and I was ashamed.

BRIAN ROSS (VO) Katrina told federal investigators that she signed this official Saipan government affidavit, thinking she was going to be a waitress and ended up forced into live sex acts on stage.

Sweeney’s reaction? “Sweeney was quoted in the Saipan Tribune on Jan. 15 as saying reports of poor working conditions in the CNMI were overblown, and that he had seen worse sweatshops back home in New York.”

Amazing.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Bad Analogies Continued

I previously noted Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum’s attempt to draw parallels between the Lord of the Rings movies/books and the Iraq war. Didn’t really work. But at least that wasn’t offensive. This one, from Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King, is:

A transcript of Two-term Republican Congressman Steve King’s (Iowa) comments made at a Republican fundraiser in Boulders Conference Center showed he compared illegal immigrants to stray cats that wind up on people’s porches. King said at first stray cats help by chasing mice, so people feed them. King added that the stray cats then have kittens, which are liked for their cuteness, but eventually the strays, fed by the people, end up getting lazy, just like illegal immigrants. King would not comment on what he said on that day.

Wonder why.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Read This: Displease a Lobbyist, Get Fired

Over the weekend, Peter Wallsten wrote a must-read piece in the LA Times that details the cozy relationship between the Republican Party and convicted felon Jack Abramoff. How far did it go? Enough that Abramoff was able to get at least one government official fired for going after his clients:

For five years, Allen Stayman wondered who ordered his removal from a State Department job negotiating agreements with tiny Pacific island nations — even when his own bosses wanted him to stay.

Now he knows.

Newly disclosed e-mails suggest that the ax fell after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff.

[...] “Mehlman said he would get him fired,” an Abramoff associate wrote after meeting with Mehlman, who was then White House political director.

The exchange illustrates how, more than two years after the corruption scandal surrounding the now-disgraced Abramoff came to light, people are still learning the extent of the lobbyist’s ability to pull the levers of power in Washington. The latest revelations provide more detail than the Bush administration has acknowledged about how Abramoff and his team reached into high levels of the White House, not just Capitol Hill, which has been the main focus of the influence-peddling investigation.

Mehlman, as you may know, is now the head of the Republican National Committee.

Read the piece here.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Michele Bachmann: Not a Fan of Medicine

Via MN Publius, here’s Republican candidate for the US House (MN – 6th District) Michele Bachmann commenting on Terri Schiavo:

“I woulda voted in favor of protecting the life of Terri Schiavo. She was a woman who was healthy…and ah, she had brain damage, she there was brain damage there was no question, but from a health point of view she was not terminally ill.”

By the way, as noted when an autopsy (medicine!) was performed, Schiavo “had massive and irreversible brain damage and was blind” and that “she was blind, because the “vision centers of her brain were dead.” Also, her “brain weighed 615 grams, roughly half of the expected weight of a human brain. This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons.”

And yes, this person wants to be a US Congresswoman.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Think Progress: Reality Show Contestant Supported By DeLay For Her ‘Good American Values’ Quits Show, Files For Divorce

Funny

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Michele Bachmann: Not a Fan of Science

Michelel Bachmann at a recent candidate forum, as captured by a YouTube video:

I don’t think it’s been established as a fact that global warming is the issue of the day. [laughter] What we need to do is look at the science.

By the way, as noted by Think Progress, “Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity.”

Does Bachmann trust Science Magazine for science?

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

George Allen Uses the 'N' Word on a Regular Basic

The New Republic’s Ryan Lizza keeps score on the former presidential hopefull and his fancy of the ‘N’ word:

“He used the N-word on a regular basis back then.” Dr. Ken Shelton

“It was so common with George when he was among his white friends. This is the terminology he used.” Edward J. Sabornie

“George said ‘only the niggers around here eat em.’” Dr. Chris Taylor

“I heard to my left the N-word and I heard it again and I looked around and I heard it again and there was this fellow sitting on the ground….I said to the boy beside me, a man, who is that kid? And he said, oh, that’s George Allen.” Patricia Waring

“He just threw it around so casually, it’s like he didn’t know any better….[W]henever he’d get a black card that he didn’t like, he would refer to it as a ‘nig—card’ he needed to get rid of.” Leah Deason

“It was part of his everyday speech. It just rolled off his tongue. He’d get a black card he didn’t like and he’d toss it back and say, ‘I don’t need that nig—- ten.’” a former UVa classmate

“I do not remember ever using that word.” -George Allen

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Dennis Hastert Lacks Proof

Dennis Hastert without evidence:

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday night, Hastert said he had no thoughts of resigning and he blamed ABC News and Democratic operatives for the mushrooming scandal that threatens his tenure as speaker and Republicans’ hold on power in the House. […] HASTERT: “I think the base has to realize after a while, who knew about it? Who knew what, when? When the base finds out who’s feeding this monster, they’re not going to be happy. The people who want to see this thing blow up are ABC News and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by [liberal activist] George Soros.”

He went on to suggest that operatives aligned with former President Bill Clinton knew about the allegations and were perhaps behind the disclosures in the closing weeks before the Nov. 7 midterm elections, but he offered no hard proof.

Evidence:

HEADLINE: Longtime Republican was source of e-mails

[...] These revelations mean that Republicans who are calling for probes to discover what Democratic leaders and staff knew about Foley’s improper exchanges with under-age pages will likely be unable to show that the opposition party orchestrated the scandal now roiling the GOP just a month away from the midterm elections.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Katherine Harris Doesn't Make Much Sense

Click the video below to see Florida Republican Katherine Harris’s explanation of the Mark Foley scandal. The basis idea: the media shouldn’t make this a partisan issue, but we need to find out which Democrats—Not Republicans, mind you—knew about the Foley conversations.

“The media would be quite disingenuous to make it a partisan issue. If anything, the Republicans didn’t know about these issues and we’re going to be very anxious to find out who in the media and on the other side of the aisle (Democrats) knew about it and kept this from the public interest, because our children were at stake.”

Noted veteran Palm Beach Post reporter Larry Lipman, “Harris did not mention that House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Majority Leader John Boehner, Republican National Congressional Committee Chairman John Shimkus, and Rep. Rodney Alexander — all Republicans — knew about Foley’s contact with a former 16-year-old page nearly a year ago. “

Just today, the ultra-convservative Washington Times called on Speaker Dennis Haster to resign:

House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once. Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week’s revelations—or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away. He gave phony answers Friday to the old and ever-relevant questions of what did he know and when did he know it? Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Conrad Burns Keeps Stepping In It

“I can self-destruct in one sentence. Sometimes in one word.� Republican Senator Conrad Burns

From last night’s Associated Press wire:

Republican Sen. Conrad Burns, who has gotten into hot water before for comments seen as disparaging various groups, joshingly remarked Thursday on the number of Italian-Americans at the Federal Aviation Administration.

The Montana senator, facing a tough re-election fight against Democrat Jon Tester, was heading an aviation subcommittee hearing of the Commerce Committee when two FAA officials, Michael Cirillo and Nicholas Sabatini, introduced themselves as witnesses.

“I’m wondering if that’s all they’re hiring,” Burns said of the federal agency.

Previous self-destruct comments:

The United States is up against a faceless enemy of terrorists who “drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night.”

He drew criticism in June for calling his house painter a “nice little Guatemalan man.”

Burns also had to apologize after confronting members of a firefighting team at the Billings, Mont., airport and telling them they had done a “piss-poor job,”

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

They Said It, Not Us: Iraq

Trent Lott, speaking very candidly about Republicans and Iraq:

President Bush barely mentioned the war in Iraq when he met with Republican senators behind closed doors in the Capitol Thursday morning and was not asked about the course of the war, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, said.

“No, none of that,” Lott told reporters after the session when asked if the Iraq war was discussed. “You’re the only ones who obsess on that. We don’t and the real people out in the real world don’t for the most part.” [...]

“It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people,” he said. “Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion? Why do they hate the Israeli’s and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference? They all look the same to me.”

Well, there you have it, folks. The former Senate Majority leader himself says the Republicans don’t obsess about Iraq, and neither do you. Good to know.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

More Evidence the Republican Congress is Out of Touch

Devoid of campaign issues that break their way, Congressional Republicans are increasingly turning to the bread and butter campaign tactic of ‘fear, smear and queers.’ Just listen to Colorado Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave speak about the “most important issue that we face today” at a conference held by the far-right Family Research Council:

As Maggie and I were talking before we came on, I wasn’t attacked on marriage, because the people in Colorado believe that marriage should be defined as a union between a man and a woman. In fact, it’s on the ballot this year for a constitutional change. [...] I believe that when you’re in a cultural war like this, you have to respond with equal and hopefully greater force if you want to win this battle. But this battle is the most important issue that we face today, and what an honor it has been to serve in the United States Congress and carry the Marriage Amendment.

If Rep. Musgrave sounds like she’s out of touch with the priorities of everyday Americans, it’s because she is. When the Harris polling company asked the open-ended question of “What do you think are the two most important issues for the government to address?” voters didn’t include gay marriage as a response on a list of 8 (strangely, our men and women dying overseas and jobs topped gay people having relationships).

And it’s not just a wacko Congresswoman in Colorado. Earlier this year, the Republican Congress took up the “American Values agenda”—a week of bills that included an “amendment to ban same-sex marriage” and “protecting the Pledge of Allegiance from pesky federal judges.” All of which, of course, took time away from real issues ordinary Americans care about.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Jean Schmidt Adds Another Bullet to Resume: Plagiarist

As noted by the blog Wonkette, freshman Rep. Jean Schmidt already has a resume that would impress her senior Hill colleagues: lied about a college degree; called decorated war veteran John Murtha a coward; faked endorsements on her website

But not content to run on that record, Schmidt has crossed into plagiarism:

Jean Schmidt added another blatant deception to her long list of publicly-exposed lies this week when she published an op-ed about Medicare Part D in the Community Press and Recorder that is almost identical to a press release issued by Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-Columbus) on July 10 of this year. She also published the op-ed on August 30 in the Piketon News Watchman and in the Adams County People’s Defender. [...] The plagiarism was discovered through a program that monitors high school and college student papers for acts of copying and forgery.

Schmidt’s opponent in the race is Dr. Victoria Wulsin.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

CREW Releases 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a non-partisan watchdog group that targets both Republicans and Democrats, has released it’s annual list of the most corrupt members of Congress. And yes, there are some familiar names:

Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT): “In apparent exchange, Sen. Burns applied pressure to the Interior Department to direct a $3 million federal grant intended for poor tribal schools to the Saginaw Chippewa tribe of Michigan, one of the wealthiest tribes in the country (each member of the tribe receives $70,000 annually) and a client of Mr. Abramoff’s.”

Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN): “In June of 2006, the FEC released a Conciliation Agreement, finding that Sen. Frist’s campaign committee violated the law by failing to report the loan on the 2000 Year End Report, as well as failing to report the repayment of the loan in the 2001 Mid Year Report. The FEC fined Frist 2000 $11,000. Sen. Frist’s conduct in violating campaign finance laws that he either knew about or should have known about requires the Senate Select Committee on Ethics to investigate whether Sen. Frist violated Senate ethics rules as well as federal law.”

Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL): “In addition to accepting illegal campaign donations, Rep. Harris had two very expensive meals with Mr. Wade at a top D.C. restaurant. In apparent exchange, Rep. Harris requested earmarks for MZM in the tens of millions of dollars.”

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA): “In 2002, Sen. Santorum and his wife received a $500,000 five-year mortgage for their Leesburg, Virginia home from a small, private Philadelphia bank, The Philadelphia Trust Company, that makes loans only to the bank’s own affluent investors. Sen. Santorum’s taking the loan violates Senate gift rules, which prohibit Senate employees from accepting loans not available to the general public.”

Read all the reports here.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Rep. John Kline's District Director Uses Racist Language

Apparently screaming at motorists for driving “Jap cars” may not be appropriate behavior for someone on the staff of a US Congressman. Quoted from today’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Just when you thought the congressional campaign between John Kline and Coleen Rowley couldn’t get any weirder, a video appeared on a Minnesota political blog showing Kline’s district director screaming about “another Jap car.”

It was posted by DFL activists who taped a small GOP protest. It happened at a visit by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a Marine turned anti-war hero who was in Rosemount on Sunday stumping for Rowley in the Second Congressional District race.

Kline’s Minnesota director, former state Rep. Mike Osskopp, was seen repeatedly chiding people who arrived in foreign-made cars at the Murtha event at a local VFW hall.

Witnesses said they heard Osskopp several times use the word, considered a disparaging term for Japanese. One Rowley supporter, Paul Bartlett, complained Monday to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, noting that Osskopp is a “high-level federal employee.”

And the I’m not racist because I have [INSERT MINORITY HERE] friends moment:

“I apologize if my words offended any Americans of Japanese descent, including my sister-in-law,” Osskopp said.

Anyway, you can see the video here.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Conrad Burns Flies in Luxury

When Montana Senator Conrad Burns (Republican) isn’t flying first class while leaving his wife in coach, he’s also flying super-duper first class on lobbyist jets right after rewarding those lobbyists:

Montana Sen. Conrad Burns, a Republican in a tight re-election race, flew on a private plane chartered by Vonage Holdings Corp. just days after he pushed legislation that the company has advocated for more than a year.

Burns accompanied Vonage lobbyist Frank Cavaliere on the company’s chartered plane to and from the “13th Annual Burns Classic Golf Weekend” in Bigfork, Mont., on Saturday. [...] Campaign finance rules allow members of Congress to fly on corporate aircraft as long as they reimburse the company for the equivalent of first-class airfare. Jason Klindt, a spokesman for Burns, said the flight was arranged in August and the senator will reimburse the company.

In case there was any doubt, Senator Burns was named one of the most corrupt Senators in the country by a non-partisan ethics watchdog group. The group cited Burns’s closeness to lobbyists as one of the factors for his inclusion. (The other, he’s Conrad Burns)

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Gov. Perdue's Tax Advice for Newlyweds

As MVP Honorary Chairman Al Franken knows, taking calls on a live radio talkshow can be difficult, so we can sympathize with what happened to Republican Governor Sonny Perdue in a call-in show yesterday. But what we can’t sympathize with is the context for why the question was asked: Governor Perdue signing a law that essentially helped him save 100 grand in taxpayer money.

More from Paul Kiel at TMPMuckraker.com:

The piece told how in 2005, Georgia legislators “quietly smuggled language into an otherwise routine tax bill that gave one particular Georgia taxpayer a special tax deferral worth more than $100,000.” The taxpayer was, of course, Sonny Perdue, “who signed the bill into law on April 12, 2005, and shortly thereafter signed his state tax return taking advantage of that special legislation.”

Flash forward to yesterday afternoon, when Perdue was a guest on the talk show “The Right Side with Shelley Wynter.”

Brian: “I’d like to think I’m a lot like you. I just graduated from UGA [University of Georgia] and recently married my high school sweetheart.”

Sonny Perdue: “All right. I hope you make it 34 years like we have.”

Brian: “Well, that’s my goal, Governor. The one thing I haven’t been able to do is find a way to have a friend of mine write me a bill that saves me a $100,000 on my taxes. I was wondering how I might be able to get that done.”

Sonny Perdue: “Well, you get elected governor, Brian. I appreciate your question. That was really nice. I appreciate you being a fan, and i wish you well on your honeymoon.”

Read more on the Governor’s saving bonus from columnist Jay Bookman here.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Rep. Tom Tancredo Fundraises with Hate Group

Yikes! Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo (you guessed it, ‘R’) attended a fundraiser with the League of the South, which describes its mission as “Southern independence, complete, full, and total.” From the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Dressed casually in a yellow t-shirt, Tancredo addressed the standing-room audience of 200-250 from behind a podium draped in a Confederate battle flag. To the congressman’s right, a portrait of Robert E. Lee peered out at the crowd of Minutemen activists, local politicians, and red-shirted members of LOS and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The Confederate trappings of the event found a mismatch in Tancredo’s standard nativist polemic, which stayed clear of references to Southern heritage or direct plaudits for the LOS, a Southern white nationalist organization dedicated to “Southern independence, complete, full, and total.” [...]

At the close of Tancredo’s speech, several men in confederate-themed clothing stood up and bellowed the first notes of “Dixie,” the Confederate anthem. They were soon joined by voices from throughout the large hall, which was now entirely on its feet. Tancredo, a second-generation Italian-American from Denver, appeared confused by the sudden burst of strange song. He quickly worked his way toward the exit with his staff.

More on the League of the South:

Since then, the tone of the League has grown consistently more hard line. Its ideologues now openly reject the notion of egalitarianism, opting instead for the idea that society is composed of a God-given hierarchy of groups that should not necessarily have the same rights and privileges as one another. Hill now publicly decries racial intermarriage under any circumstances.

He says people other than white Christians would be allowed to live in his South, but only if they bow to “the cultural dominance of the Anglo-Celtic people and their institutions.” Where the goal of secession was once largely rhetorical, it is now a seriously stated aim.

The question, of course, is did Tancredo know of the group’s history before he attended the fundraiser for him? And, optimistically, if he didn’t know, does Tancredo’s staff know how to use ‘Google’ (or the phone)?

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Dick Cheney on Congressional Oversight

I can’t tell whether Vice President Dick Cheney is being serious or sarcastic here, but this portion of Sunday’s Meet the Press defies explanation:

MR. RUSSERT: But do you fear serious oversight of the Bush administration?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We’ve had oversight all along, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: With robust congressional hearings?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We’ve had oversight all along.

MR. RUSSERT: Not—with robust congressional hearings?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: With robust congressional hearings.

MR. RUSSERT: Like the Democrats would have?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: On, on what?

MR. RUSSERT: On the war in Iraq, on weapons of mass destruction.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We have those all the time now anyway.

The Republican-lead House and Senate have conducted robust congressional hearings on this White House?

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Bush Visits Twin Cities; Discusses Healthcare

President Bush visited Minnesota today to raise funds for extreme conservative Michelle Bachmann. During his stop here, Bush visited Minnetonka and sat on a health care panel discussion. While Bush discussed “medical liability reform, greater electronic record keeping and health savings accounts,” I doubt he talked about his administration’s record on healthcare:

• 458,000 Minnesotans did not have health insurance in 2004 – 59,000 more uninsured than four years earlier. In 2004, 17,000 more children in Minnesota lacked health insurance than in 2000. [Kaiser Family Foundation, March 2006.]

• 170,219 Minnesota workers lack basic health coverage, while the share of people with employer-provided health insurance has fallen in the past four years by 2.6 percentage point. [ Kaiser Family Foundation, March 2006. ]

• Between 1998 and 2003, the premium a worker in Minnesota must pay to get family health insurance at work increased by 90.9 percent. [Kaiser Family Foundation, March 2006.]

With a record like that, no wonder only 36% of Minnesotans approve of the job President Bush is doing.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

Makeover Mark's War Record

Here in Minnesota, much has been made about Mark Kennedy’s new ads and his makeover from a rubberstamp for President Bush to an ‘independent voice’ for Minnesota. Indeed, in one of his ads Kennedy remarks that “I’m a Republican. On issues like taxes and spending, I vote like it. But on other issues, I cross party lines.”

Interestingly enough, Kennedy doesn’t add ‘the war in Iraq’ to his list. Kennedy voted to invade Iraq in 2002, and his past statements on Iraq give little indication that he has doesn’t tow the administration’s line on the war.

Black: After the March 3 debate with your Democratic opponents, an MPR story about your Iraq position, based on the way you characterized it in that debate, said: “Kennedy says the U.S. should stay the course in Iraq until victory is achieved.” There are many details and things to parse about that, but is that a fair summary of your position?

Kennedy: That is very fair.

Ken Mehlman, by the way, claimed last Sunday on Meet the Press that conservatives aren’t “coming in and saying ‘Stay the course” in Iraq, but rather are advocating “Win by adapting.” In the interview, Kennedy also made this claim:

Black: Of the three Senate candidates, you are the only one who was in Congress in 2002. You voted in favor of the resolution authorizing the war. In your public justification of that vote, you mentioned many reasons including the belief that there were weapons of mass destruction. If you knew then what you know now, including that there was no active nuclear program and no stockpiles of useable chemical or biological weapons, and no collaborative relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda, would you still have voted to authorize the war?

Kennedy: Well you’ve made a lot of statements that may or may not represent the complete understanding a decade from now of the facts. I would suggest that there were collaborations as relates to terrorism.

Of course, the supposed links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda have long been dismissed by both non-partisan analysts and even Colin Powell.

We eagerly await the “stay the course in Iraq” ad from Kennedy.

ch: Conservative ‘Values’

WaPost on George Allen:

Very briefly, the background: “Republican Sen. George Allen came under fire Monday for allegedly making demeaning comments about a campaign volunteer for Democratic challenger James Webb based on race. The volunteer, a 20-year-old Fairfax County native of Indian descent named S.R. Sidarth, had been filming Allen last week at public appearances around the state for the Webb campaign. Sidarth said Allen should apologize for singling him out and calling him a name that sounded like “Macaca” at a campaign stop Friday.”

The Washington Post, in an editorial, harshly criticizes Allen:

Let’s consider which positive, constructive or inspirational ideas Mr. Allen had in mind when he chose to mock S.R. Sidarth of Dunn Loring, who was recording the event with a video camera on behalf of James Webb, the Democratic nominee for the Senate seat Mr. Allen holds. The idea that holding up minorities to public scorn in front of an all-white crowd will elicit chortles and guffaws? (It did.) The idea that a candidate for public office can say “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia!” to an American of Indian descent and really mean nothing offensive by it? (So insisted Mr. Allen’s aides.) Or perhaps the idea that bullying your opponents and calling them strange names—Mr. Allen twice referred to Mr. Sidarth as “Macaca”—is within the bounds of decency on the campaign trail?