Salon.com > Nicholas Thompson

The exterminator

Wed, 03 Sep 2003 23:05:00 +0000

In May 2002, Westar Energy sent a $25,000 check to Texans for a Republican Majority, an organization set up to propel Republicans into the Texas state government. What did the Kansas-based Westar care about Texas Republicans? Probably not much. But it did want to curry favor with the political group's founder, Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the House majority leader.

DeLay's "agreement is necessary," one Westar executive helpfully explained in a memo, according to documents released by the company's board, "before the House conferees can push the language we have in place in the House bill."

DeLay took Westar's money, invited its top brass to a golf gala shortly thereafter, and supported Westar's language for a lucrative special exemption in the House energy bill. That exemption was ultimately dropped when those in Congress learned of a federal fraud investigation into the company. The bad news for Westar still meant money in the bank for DeLay, and he used the donation, along with many others to Texans for a Republican Majority, to construct the GOP juggernaut that commandeered Texas' elections. Juiced by DeLay's cash -- Texans for a Republican Majority spent about $1.5 million in the 2002 elections -- and organizational prowess, Texas Republicans smothered the opposition. Eighteen out of the 22 Texas House candidates supported by the PAC were victorious, contributing heavily to the GOP's comfortable 88-62 majority in Austin. Once in power, the Texas GOP -- at DeLay's urging -- swiftly got to work trying to gerrymander congressional districts in the Republicans' favor, even though the districts had just been redrawn two years earlier, based on the most recent census. As that spectacle stands now, 11 Democratic legislators are sequestered in a New Mexico hotel, preventing a quorum on a vote they would surely lose, as the Democratic Party sues to prevent the redistricting, calling it a violation of the U.S. Voting Rights Act.

The Dean machine rolls through the Big Apple

Wed, 27 Aug 2003 18:49:00 +0000

Howard Dean's bash in Bryant Park last night makes an easy target. The New York City park was packed, but seemingly everyone there was white, under 30 and dressed for a Burlington, Vt., block party. A man selling tie-dyed shirts did brisk business, and the crowd of about 10,000 seemed oddly disconnected from the incredible mix of people and cultures walking New York's streets right nearby, many of whom must have wondered what was going on. Save for the ubiquitous blue signs, "Howard Dean for America," it would have been hard to know that Bryant Park was hosting a presidential candidate last night and not a Hootie and the Blowfish concert.

But even bearing that in mind, it was hard to leave the speech last night without thinking: Wow, this guy can actually win.

People may have initially been drawn to the doctor and former Vermont governor because he opposed a war that few other powerful people did. But Dean's antiwar stance offers little reason to support him now. Every candidate now criticizes Bush on the war, in particular eviscerating him for the way we got into it. Moreover, Dean is by no means a peace candidate. He methodically explained that he supported the first Gulf War and the obliteration of the Taliban. If elected president, he'd support more wars. Dean even told the audience that it could decide if he was a liberal or not (thus hinting that he'll soon say he isn't) and he dropped his trademark crowd-pleasing line, "I'm here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party."

Bush’s lies vs. Clinton’s lies

Thu, 24 Jul 2003 22:54:00 +0000

Conservative Republicans like to compare George W. Bush to Ronald Reagan, characterizing him as a masculine Everyman, traditionally conservative and regularly underestimated because of his low-key manner. Liberals like to compare him with his father, who seemed Reagan's tightly wound, Ivy League, career-climbing opposite -- and a one-term president to boot.

Now a different former president is the dominant comparison: Bill Clinton. And that bodes very poorly for our commander in chief.

In the past week, as the White House first reeled from plummeting polls and the Iraq intelligence flap, and then beamed at footage of Uday and Qusay's demise at the Mosul corral, references to Clinton have come both from those taking aim at the president and those buffering his image.

For opponents, Bush's notorious 16 words in his State of the Union address erroneously talking up the Iraqi nuclear threat make up a far more important prevarication than Clinton's 11 ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.") Moreover, the White House's fine parsing of the phrase matches Clinton's floundering over the definitions of "is" and "sexual relations." Consequently, critics argue, the political price that Bush pays for his lie should more or less match what Clinton paid. The stakes, after all, have been wildly disproportionate.

John Kerry turns the fire hoses on Bush

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 23:24:00 +0000

John Kerry strode into a much-hyped national security speech today in the Bronx like a slugger ambling to the plate with two runners on base and the opposing pitcher fading.

Kerry then laid down a bunt.

Kerry's aides and the gods who time political cycles had seemingly set the stage for a powerful and biting critique of the Bush administration's recent intelligence debacles. The Massachusetts senator and presidential hopeful is a decorated war hero and he was coming in to give a speech in the Veterans' Memorial Hall. President Bush, on the other hand, skipped out on Vietnam and is now -- saddled with his highest disapproval ratings ever -- struggling mightily to explain how faulty intelligence on Iraq's nuclear ambitions made its way into his State of the Union address.

"Because of his unique national security credentials, [Kerry] can make a credible case that the others can't," said former New York public advocate Mark Green right before the speech. "He's not just a war hero, he's a warrior."

But then the warrior came out, flanked by 12 flags and some sharp-looking police and fire department brass, and mostly changed the subject.

John Bolton vs. the world

Wed, 16 Jul 2003 21:50:00 +0000

When Jesse Helms, R-N.C., urged his fellow senators in March 2001 to confirm a longtime friend as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, he gave an endorsement that was, quite literally, out of this world.

"John Bolton," Helms said, "is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon, or what the Bible describes as the final battle between good and evil."

Bolton, who passed by a 57-43 vote, plays a much more important role than the flow charts suggest. He's a hard-line conservative whose intellectual and moral views are simpatico with those of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and most of the higher-ups in the National Security Council and Defense Department. Well before the accuracy of the president's rationale for waging a war in Iraq was questioned, Bolton was installed to help forge the administration's aggressive new foreign policy. His philosophy? To exaggerate slightly, Bolton believes the relationship between America and the rest of the world should resemble that between a hammer and a nail.