At the Texas Capitol on Thursday, Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco, joined by several fellow Texas House Democrats, said some people associate talk of secession with racial division and the Civil War and that Perry should disavow any notion of seceding.
"Talk of secession is an attack on our country. It can be nothing else. It is the ultimate anti-American statement," Dunnam said at a news conference.
The Democrats are proposing a House resolution expressing "complete and total disagreement with any fringe element advocating the 'secession' of Texas or any other state from our one and indivisible Union."
....Other Democrats weighed in with criticism of Perry's remark.
"Talk of secession would be laughable if it weren't mentioned in a serious way," said former ambassador Tom Schieffer, considering running for governor in 2010.
State Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat, said some issues should not be made legitimate in any way.
"By not rejecting out of hand the possibility of secession, Governor Perry is taking a step down a very dangerous and divisive path encouraged by the fringe of Texas politics," Ellis said.
But others--such as Tom DeLay on Softball--only multiply the lies and confusion so much that not only Matthews, but even Josh Marshall can't sort it all out.. Here's the clip:
A quick point-by-point rundown of what's wrong with it on the flip
I just heard Michelle Bernard on MSNBC laud Obama's Rahm Emanuel pick because he'll be able to reign in the left. Marc Ambinder echoes this point: "Advisers say that Obama has sent a not-so-subtle message to Congress: President-Elect Obama will not cede much agenda-setting ground to liberals."
So get ready to be kicked in the face, which progressives have clearlyargued iswhy Rahmis theideal pick, ushering in a new spirit of take-no-prisoners Democrats. He'll also effectively protect Obama from attacks from the right, since they'll be way too scared of him to mention Emanuel's tenure on the board of Freddie Mac.
If the Democrats want to win decisively in November, the way they should, in November, then that's what they ought to be saying in their ads. It's not just hitting McCain on one or two things, and it's not trying to "build a case," it's going full throttle, and beating the GOP at their own game, which Josh Marshall identified four years ago--almost to the day as "the Republicans' Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics." Yes, it's an offensive term, and it was meant to be. Josh quoted a report of Kerry finally starting to fight back against the Swift Boat attacks, and then wrote:
This is a good thing -- and not simply because Kerry has to respond to the president's surrogates who are trying (and, to an extent, succeeding) in damaging his candidacy with scurrilous and discredited attacks.
There is a meta-debate going on here, one that I'm not sure even the practitioners fully articulate to themselves and one that I'm painfully aware the victims don't fully understand.
Let's call it the Republicans' Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics.
It goes something like this.
On one level, of course, the aim behind these attacks is to cast suspicion upon Kerry's military service record and label him a liar. But that's only part of what's going on....
In a post-9/11 environment, obviously, this question of strength, toughness or resolve is particularly salient. That, of course, is why so much of this debate is about war and military service in the first place.
One way -- perhaps the best way -- to demonstrate someone's lack of toughness or strength is to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. And that I think is a big part of what is happening here. Someone who can't or won't defend themselves certainly isn't someone you can depend upon to defend you.
Demonstrating Kerry's unwillingness to defend himself (if Bush can do that) is a far more tangible sign of what he's made of than wartime experiences of thirty years ago.
Now, Obama has unhelpfully painted himself into a box by making a big deal about working together and being all post-partisan and such. But McCain's over-the-top antics have given Obama an out--particularly if he takes the truly condescending "more in pity than in anger" approach, shaking his head, and saying, "He was such a decent guy before he got consumed by blind ambition." It wouldn't hurt, either, to run some cheeky, smart-ass ads, such as one featuring a Paris Hilton look-alike that might go something like this....
If two of the smartest people on the political Internets cannot discern any identifiable "clear message" coming from the Obama campaign how will the typical low/medium information voter figure it out?
From Obama, honestly, I don't sense a really clear message. There are attacks on McCain, some of which are quite good. There are positive uplifting commercials. And there are ads/messages targeted to particular states -- like Yucca Mountain in Nevada and the DHL layoffs in Ohio. But it's hard for me to come up with a clear cut Obama message in way that it's pretty simple for me to do with McCain. Even the 'change' message, which is the basis of Obama's campaign, seems much more diffuse to me than it was during the primaries.
...the central problem for the campaign is that nobody knows what Obama stands for. It's a perennial problem for Democrats, but I think it may be an even bigger problem this time. The hope and change theme was galvanizing in the beginning but it isn't enough to sustain full campaign. What was once inspiring has become a fog.
The New York Times calls for Gonzales's impeachment. Chuck Schumer admits error on Alito, and calls for a special prosecutor to investigate AG Gonzales. Iraq is getting worse, and new strange allegations about Bush's spying program are emerging (and that's not including all the other criminal acts, Scooter Libby, reconstruction theft, etc). We're on a road that leads only to one place to the removal of an illegitimate and overreaching executive.
It's important to frame this by understanding that impeachment is always a political issue, and never a legal one. As such, the important question is not whether the President committed crimes, but whether there is a coalition behind restoring legitimacy to the political system. This coalition needs to have at its core a set of elite decision-makers who have decided that impeachment is the only option that will allow them to preserve something they value. In this case, Bush is threatening the very legitimacy of Congress, and House members and Senators worked hard to get where they are.
I know of several large advocacy organizations that could send emails to their base on impeachment, knowing that the response level would be high. But the tradeoff for them is to message around impeachment, or message around a policy objective that is more 'achievable'. Resources are not infinite. We're in fights on Iraq, Iran, executive privilege, student loans, SCHIP, CAFE standards, the farm bill, 12 spending bills, etc.
