Swampland
A blog about politics.
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  1. What Even The White House Respe…
  2. The "Call 'Em Out" White House…
  3. House Expands Probe into Rangel

House Expands Probe into Rangel

Posted by Jay Newton-Small
October 8, 2009 at 6:05 pm
9 Comments

A day after surviving a GOP-sponsored vote to take away his House Ways & Means gavel, Charlie Rangel was again in the news. The House Ethics Committee voted unanimously to expand their investigation to Rangel's personal disclosure forms. Earlier this year, Rangel quietly amended these forms, reporting an additional $600,000 in income going back to 2001. The committee had been unaware of these changes until they were reported in the press in August. At Rangel's request, the committee had already been looking into his sub-leasing of rent-stabilized apartments near his home in Harlem, his failure to report income from a vacation rental house in the Dominican Republican and his fundraising for the Charlie B. Rangel Center at New York's City College.

The committee's work has already lasted more than a year and, they revealed today, they've issued more than 150 subpoenas relating to the case. They've also “interviewed approximately 34 witnesses resulting in over 2,100 pages of transcripts; reviewed and analyzed over 12,000 pages of documents; and held over 30 investigative subcommittee meetings,” Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Jo Bonner, the committees top Democrat and Republican, respectively, said in a joint statement.

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Related Topics: congress, corruption, democrats, , , ,

What Even The White House Respects About Fox News

Posted by Michael Scherer
October 8, 2009 at 5:24 pm
21 Comments

In the course of reporting a story for this week's TIME magazine, which is about the White House's determination to take the fight to its critics, I came across a lot of sentiments like this quote about Fox News that I noted a couple days back. "They are the paid political programming for a party, and occasionally a couple of news stories break out in the midst of 23 hours and 45 minutes of political rantings and opinion," said one senior administration official. "Everything about it is one-sided political opinion directed at a base. Period."

Well, not entirely everything. Anita Dunn, the communications director, who is leading up the White House's rapid response effort, did point out to me that there was at least one Fox News employee who she considered an upstanding member of his profession. Did she call out Fox News Sunday's Chris "Biggest Bunch of Crybabies" Wallace? Or Shepard "Public Option" Smith?

No and no. “We think Major Garrett is a legitimate reporter,” Dunn told me, referring to the network's White House correspondent. Sorry Major, if that hurts your rep among certain parts of the Fox News viewership. I would add that I personally have a professional affinity for Major, since we are both alums of Mother Jones magazine. (Note to Glenn Beck: Mother Jones magazine is named for Mary Harris Jones, who was a socialist. Put this fact up on your chalkboard and I am sure you will quickly conclude that both Garrett and I constitute a KGB sleeper cell with White House press credentials--a clear threat to the republic. Or maybe not. Nothing wrong with asking questions. Etc.)

While we are on the topic of the media and politics, I recommend that people take a moment to read the latest from Thomas Edsall, a poker-playing mainstream media lion, most notably for the Washington Post, who betrayed his "village" roots (I use that term ironically) and started working for Huffington Post a few years back. He has a new piece up at Cjr.org, arguing that reporters should stop protesting and just acknowledge their own (usually) liberal views, which, it must be added, do not always lead to coverage with a liberal slants. Indeed, he complicates his whole argument by attacking, you guessed it, Fox News and its institutional kin. To wit:

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Related Topics: white house, , , , ,

I Guess They Don't Do Oppo Research In France

Posted by Amy Sullivan
October 8, 2009 at 1:35 pm
78 Comments

Just...wow. I honestly don't know what's more shocking--that France's culture minister, the same fellow who vociferously defended Roman Polanski and complained the director was being "thrown to the lions," has a history of paying for sex with "young boys" in Thailand or that HE WROTE ABOUT IT IN A BOOK FOUR YEARS AGO.

And not that there's a non-creepy way to write about traveling to Asia to have sex with young boys, but Frederic Mitterand certainly brought the ick in his memoir, The Bad Life:

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McCain, Maverick No More?

Posted by Jay Newton-Small
October 8, 2009 at 1:33 pm
27 Comments

John McCain returned to the Senate in 2000 a virtual liberal: throwing bombs at his Republican leaders (and especially George W. Bush).

John McCain returned to the Senate in 2009 a virtual conservative: a model Republican and leading critic of President Obama – especially, these days, on the war in Afghanistan.

McCain's favorite role in defeat seems to be trying to straighten out the man who beat him. A look at McCain's year on the wilderness and his reemergence on the stage in this week's dead tree issue.

          

Related Topics: congress, gop, john mccain, republicans, senate, white house, , , ,

Our Pakistani Allies

Posted by Joe Klein
October 8, 2009 at 11:06 am
9 Comments

Let me get this straight: the U.S. Congress has voted to send an historic $7.5 billion in economic and humanitarian aid, over five years, to Pakistan--and the Pakistani is complaining? Yes, yes, I know there are sensitivities, but the strings attached don't seem all that onerous: that the civilian government remain in charge of the country and that the Pakistanis suspend their ties with the Taliban who are killing our soldiers in Afghanistan.

The latter stipulation seems particularly appropriate given the suicide bombing at the Indian embassy in Kabul today--the last time this happened, in 2008, there were clear indications of Pakistani involvement (and there is a ripe--no: overripe--mythology in Islamabad about the size and activities of the Indian presence in Kabul). The Pakistani protection of Mullah Omar's Quetta shura simply has to end--or the Pakistani Army has to understand that Predator drones will, finally, find their way to specific targets in Quetta.

In any case, given the utter failure of the Pakistani government (and Army) to provide a supple system of transportation, education and justice over the past 60 years, the Army would be a little bit more gracious about this offer of friendly, few-strings assistance from the United States.

          

Related Topics: pakistan

Latest Column

Posted by Joe Klein
October 8, 2009 at 9:16 am
12 Comments

Cutting through the smoke and baloney on Afghanistan.

Note: There was an error--soon to be corrected, I hope--in communication between me and the fact-checker. I actually believe that the President's final decision will be a bit more robust than the plan advocated by Les Gelb: 20,000 troops, equally divided between troops sent to secure Kandar city and trainers for the Afghan security forces.

          

ATTN: Sarah Palin

Posted by Karen Tumulty
October 7, 2009 at 6:15 pm
70 Comments

If you are out there somewhere reading the Congressional Budget Office's preliminary analysis of the Senate Finance Committee's health care bill (and, really, aren't we all?), I am sure you have already noticed an intriguing line-item under SUBTITLE I-MATERNAL, INFANT AND EARLY CHILDHOOD VISITATION.

It says "Assisted Suicide."

Have we finally found where they have hidden the Death Panels?

Actually, I am told that refers to the budgetary impact ($0) of an Orrin Hatch amendment, adopted by the committee, that would prohibit money from being used for assisted suicide. But CBO might want to be a little more careful about how they label these things. This is how misunderstandings get started.

          

Related Topics: Max Baucus, congress, health care, sarah palin, , , ,

Good News/Bad News: CBO on Baucus Bill

Posted by Karen Tumulty
October 7, 2009 at 4:43 pm
70 Comments

The much-anticipated CBO score is here. I've just begun to read it. The good news/bad news seems to be that it reduces the deficit by $81 billion over 10 years, but leaves 25 million uninsured (one-third of them illegal immigrants). Will post more soon.

UPDATE: Jonathan Cohn gives us the comparisons to the House bill:

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Related Topics: Max Baucus, congress, health care,

Is Barack Obama--Gasp!-Good for America?

Posted by Michael Scherer
October 7, 2009 at 12:40 pm
85 Comments

One of the steady themes conservative bloggers and pundits like to return to is the argument that President Obama likes talking smack about America, or at least that he feels like he has to apologize for his homeland whenever he travels overseas. As columnist Charles Krauthammer asked on Fox News after Obama's appearance before the United Nations, "What do our allies think when they hear that and when they hear . . . Obama denigrating his own country and presenting himself as the man who will redeem America from its wickedness?"

Well, that's one question to ask. But the answer, at least as told through public opinion polls, might come as a surprise to Krauthammer. Whatever Obama is doing does seem, after all, to be having an effect. This morning, the White House circulated an independent poll showing that global admiration for the United States brand has risen considerably in the last year. "What's really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States in 2009," explains Simon Anholt, the founder of the Nation Brands Index, which measures the global image of 50 countries.

Last year, the United States ranked seventh, behind Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan and--damn you Berlusconi!--Italy. This year the U.S. ranked first. Perhaps a little apology/self-reflection/change-in-leadership/outreach goes a long way. Methodology and full 2009 results after the jump.

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Related Topics: barack obama

Aghan Reinforcements

Posted by Joe Klein
October 7, 2009 at 12:30 pm
20 Comments

Yochi Dreazen in the Wall Street Journal has encouraging word that the military is bolstering its intelligence efforts--in both sense of the word--on Afghanistan and Pakistan on two fronts. At the Pentagon, Brigadier General John Nicholson has been put in charge of a new Af/Pak coordination office, which is very good news as Nicholson has extensive experience on the Af/Pak border, especially in the vagaries of counterinsurgency warfare. At Centcom, General Petraeus has set up an institute to coordinate military intelligence-gathering and train military intelligence officers for service in the region.

The Centcom program is particularly important. We've gone eight years in Afghanistan without definitive, multi-dimensional maps of the districts--basic things like how many people live there, the local tribal structure, how many development programs (both NATO and UN), how many troops, police, patterns and types of violence, levels of corruption. It is simply impossible to wage a counterinsurgency campaign without this sort of information. (And for those who believe that any sort of NATO presence is counterproductive, these sorts of maps will be able to prove or disprove that--and perhaps find  an appropriate balance between troop levels and development programs, and also which development programs work best.)

I'll have more on the Afghanistan strategy review and the President's looming decision in my print column tomorrow.