MoJo Sections: Politics

Sarah Palin, Tito the Builder, and Me

By David Corn — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:53:00 -0800

Well, I guess I've made it. Sort of. In Sarah Palin's book, Going Rogue, I have a cameo appearance on page 305. I learned of this not by reading the book—just haven't gotten around to it yet—but because Slate produced a tongue-in-cheek (but real) index for the index-free book. I'm listed under "haters, unnamed"—along with Andrew Sullivan and Ashley Judd. ("Haters, named" includes two Alaska-based critics of Palin—blogger Andrew Halcro and self-styled reform watchdog Andree Mcleod—and the Huffington Post.)

What drew me into Palin World was an encounter I had with a McCain-Palin supporter after a campaign rally in Virginia for John McCain two weeks before the 2008 presidential election. This fellow named Tito Munoz, who came to be known as Tito the Builder, was angry about press coverage of Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber. A week earlier, Wurzelbacher had become a player in the campaign after questioning Barack Obama about his tax plan and suggesting Obama's policies could prevent him from buying the plumbing company he worked for.

In the intervening days, news reports had noted that Wurzelbacher had not registered to operate as a plumber, that he did not make enough money to acquire the plumbing business where he was employed, that he had not paid $1,182 in Ohio state income taxes, and that he would actually pay less in taxes under Obama's proposed tax plan than under McCain's. In her book, Palin says that she liked Wurzelbacher and that "our campaign quickly realized" that he "typified the everyday American laborer who...ought not to be punished by oppressive tax policies."

Palin accurately reports that Munoz, wearing a yellow hard hat and orange reflective vest, had come to that Virginia rally "mad as hell" at the media for having raised questions about Wurzelbacher. And she accurately notes—here's where I come in—that a "left-wing reporter from the magazine Mother Jones told Tito he didn't see anything wrong with the press coverage." That exchange was part of a feisty conversation between me, Munoz, and several other McCain-Palin supporters. (You can watch it here or below.)

Palin and her cowriter, though, provide a skewed account. They note that a woman in the crowd, treating me as a representative of the entire news media, yelled, "Why is it that you can go and find out about Joe the Plumber's tax lien and when he divorced his wife and you can't tell me when Barack Obama met with William Ayers [the 1960s Weather Underground radical]? Why? Why could you not tell us that? Joe the Plumber is me!" And in Palin's account, Munoz piped up: "I am Joe the Plumber. You're attacking me."

What Palin leaves out is that as Munoz continued to complain that the media was not reporting on Obama's past, I pointed out to him that the most comprehensive article to date on Obama's relationship with Ayers was a long piece that had recently appeared in The New York Times, the ground zero of the liberal media conspiracy. Palin also neglected to note that when I told Munoz and his fellow McCainiacs that nonpartisan tax policy experts had concluded that Obama's tax plan would impose lower taxes on Americans making below $200,000 a year than McCain's proposal, Munoz and the others jeered, with one shouting, "Do you believe everything you read?" This was an indication that Munoz and his comrades were not in the mood for facts. And moments later—during another part of the conversation Palin does not chronicle—Munoz, referring to Obama, shouted, "Socialist, socialist!" (By the way, Munoz owns a construction company that has received a loan from the Small Business Administration and that has been registered as minority-owned in order to receive what some conservatives might call "affirmative-action" federal contracts.)

In writing about Munoz, Palin hails him as something of an American hero. She recalls that her campaign jumped at the chance to have him introduce her at a subsequent rally. But in her book, she really uses him—and my encounter with him—to demonstrate that she had the guts to go after Obama in a way McCain did not:

Tito the Builder sounded like the kind of guy who wasn't going to be told to sit down and shut up, something I'd basically been told to do when I spoke on the trail about Obama's associations with questionable characters, including Obama's long association with Bill Ayers.

Palin recalls that McCain campaign headquarters approved an Ayers-related soundbite for her to use: Obama's "palling around with terrorists." But after media commentators accused her of playing down-and-dirty politics, she grouses, "the folks there [at the McCain campaign] did little more than duck." Yet Palin notes that not only was she willing to continue this line of attack, she was eager to slam Obama for his relationship with "Jeremiah 'God Damn America' Wright." She writes, "I will forever question the campaign for prohibiting discussions of such associations."

Palin, no surprise, is unrepentant about her attempt to brand Obama as a pal-to-terrorists. And she's using Munoz to back her up, implying that he knew better than those wimpy McCain campaign strategists. If Palin does decide to run for president in 2012, perhaps she can bring Munoz aboard as Tito the Adviser.

You can follow David Corn's postings and media appearances via Twitter.

Stimulus Site Criticism: Legit?

By Jennifer LaFleur and Michael Grabell — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:54:06 -0800

This story first appeared on the ProPublica website.

Stimulus critics were abuzz this week flogging the federal Web site Recovery.gov for flaws in its first big data release. Problems ranged from confusing variation and gaps in job numbers to mistakes that put projects in nonexistent congressional districts to spending that never made it into the data.

Even stimulus backers demanded fixes. Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations and one of the chief architects of the nearly $800 billion stimulus package, demanded that the Obama administration “correct the ludicrous mistakes.”

Earl Devaney, the top stimulus watchdog charged with running Recovery.gov, downplayed the problems, saying he’s less interested in data glitches than in what’s happening with taxpayer money.

The Afghan Speech Obama Should Give

By Tom Engelhardt — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:27:49 -0800

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Sure, the quote in the over-title is only my fantasy. No one in Washington—no less President Obama—ever said, "This administration ended, rather than extended, two wars," and right now, it looks as if no one in an official capacity is likely to do so any time soon. It's common knowledge that a president—but above all a Democratic president—who tried to de-escalate a war like the one now expanding in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, and withdraw American troops, would be so much domestic political dead meat.

This everyday bit of engrained Washington wisdom is, in fact, based on not a shred of evidence in the historical record. We do, however, know something about what could happen to a president who escalated a counterinsurgency war: Lyndon Johnson comes to mind for expanding his inherited war in Vietnam out of fear that he would be labeled the president who "lost" that country to the communists (as Harry Truman had supposedly "lost" China). And then there was Vice President Hubert Humphrey who—incapable of rejecting Johnson's war policy—lost the 1968 election to Richard Nixon, a candidate pushing a fraudulent "peace with honor" formula for downsizing the war.

Still, we have no evidence about how American voters would deal with a president who didn't take the Johnson approach to a losing war. The only example might be John F. Kennedy, who reputedly pushed back against escalatory advice over Vietnam, and certainly did so against his military high command during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In both cases, however, he acted in private, offering quite a different face to the world.

Brodner's Cartoon du Jour: At the Karzai Inauguration . . .

By Steve Brodner — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:01:14 -0800

...the oath was reportedly administered by good friend Rod Blagojevich. In a lighthearted moment the two exchanged the hair for the hat. Also in attendance (and up for high-level Cabinet posts): Alberto Fujimori, Robert Mugabe, and 17 Madoffs.

The Tea Party's Favorite Doctors

By Stephanie Mencimer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:00:00 -0800

Most tea party protests against health care reform feature a standard cast of characters. Revolution-era patriots in greatcoats and tricorne hats; LaRouchies handing out pictures of Obama with a Hitler mustache; the people with the giant fetus signs; and some guy dressed as an actual tea bag. Then, there are the doctors. Real doctors. They wear white coats and they look respectable. And many of them come from a group with a respectable-sounding name—the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.

As tea partiers have become the leading opposition to health care reform, AAPS has lent credibility to their criticism of the emerging health care legislation. Before the big 9/12 rally in Washington, AAPS cosponsored a protest on Capitol Hill with the Tea Party Patriots that AAPS says attracted 1,000 physicians. The organization's president, Mark Kellen, appeared with Georgia representatives Tom Price and Phil Gingrey—GOP members of the congressional doctors' caucus—to slam the bill.

AAPS docs hopped Tea Party Express buses to protest the American Medical Association's annual meeting in Houston (the AMA endorsed the House bill), and staged a live reading of the legislation to highlight objectionable passages. When Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann called for tea partiers to come to the Capitol on November 5 to "kill the bill," AAPS doctors organized a national "tele-town hall" to prep attendees. On Fox News and talk radio, AAPS docs often appear to offer an expert medical opinion against reform.

Yet despite the lab coats and the official-sounding name, the docs of the AAPS are hardly part of mainstream medical society. Think Glenn Beck with an MD. The group (which did not return calls for comment for this story) has been around since 1943. Some of its former leaders were John Birchers, and its political philosophy comes straight out of Ayn Rand. Its general counsel is Andrew Schlafly, son of the legendary conservative activist Phyllis. The AAPS statement of principles declares that it is "evil" and "immoral" for physicians to participate in Medicare and Medicaid, and its journal is a repository for quackery. Its website features claims that tobacco taxes harm public health and electronic medical records are a form of "data control" like that employed by the East German secret police. An article on the AAPS website speculated that Barack Obama may have won the presidency by hypnotizing voters, especially cohorts known to be susceptible to "neurolinguistic programming"—that is, according to the writer, young people, educated people, and possibly Jews.

MoJo Interview: Malalai Joya

By Sonja Sharp — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:58:39 -0800

Malalai Joya has often been called the bravest woman in Afghanistan. Just 27 when she was elected in 2005, Joya has quickly become one of her country's fiercest critics. In print and in public, she decries widespread government corruption, brutal violence, and appalling conditions for women that persist eight years after the NATO invasion. Since she was thrown out of office in 2007 for a speech comparing parliament to a zoo, Joya has been in hiding, traveling disguised in a burka with the protection of several body guards. Now she's in the US, promoting her new book, Raising My Voice: The Extraordinary Story of the Afghan Woman Who Dares to Speak Out. Joya stopped by MoJo headquarters to discuss rumors of more troops, Hamid Karzai’s reelection, and the ongoing struggle for women's rights in Afghanistan.

Mother Jones: What do you think about the possibility of Obama's sending more troops to Afghanistan?

Malalai Joya: Unfortunately, Mr. Obama's policy is quite similar to the Bush administration's. They spend $165 million a day for war in Afghanistan, while for all of Afghanistan in a day, aid is $7 million. If Obama is really honest with the Afghani people, he must apologize and end this tragic drama of the so-called war on terror, end this occupation. Democracy never comes by the barrel of a gun, or by cluster bombs. Mr. Obama must stop arming the warlords. He must put pressure on neighboring countries, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, not to support the Taliban and these warlords.

MoJo: Do you feel that things have changed under Obama?

MJ: Mr. Obama, no question he's different from Bush. But his foreign policy—what he is doing, tomorrow people will say he is worse than Bush. He started a war in Pakistan! And for this he gets the Nobel Peace Prize.

How to Pay Off Afghan Warlords

By Pratap Chatterjee — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:12:20 -0800

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Kabul, Afghanistan—Every morning, dozens of trucks laden with diesel from Turkmenistan lumber out of the northern Afghan border town of Hairaton on a two-day trek across the Hindu Kush down to Afghanistan's capital, Kabul. Among the dozens of businesses dispatching these trucks are two extremely well connected companies—Ghazanfar and Zahid Walid—that helped to swell the election coffers of President Hamid Karzai as well as the family business of his running mate, the country's new vice president, warlord Mohammed Qasim Fahim.

Some of the trucks are on their way to two power stations in the northern part of the capital: a recently refurbished, if inefficient, plant that has served Kabul for a little more than a quarter of a century, and a brand new facility scheduled for completion next year and built with money from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Afghan political analysts observe that Ghazanfar and Zahid Walid are striking examples of the multimillion-dollar business conglomerates, financed by American as well as Afghan tax dollars and connected to powerful political figures, that have, since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, emerged as part of a pervasive culture of corruption here. Nasrullah Stanikzai, a professor of law and political science at Kabul University, says of the companies in the pocket of the vice-president: "Everybody knows who is Ghazanfar. Everybody knows who is Zahid Walid. The [government elite] directly or indirectly have companies, licenses, and sign contracts. But corruption is not confined just to the Afghans. The international community bears a share of this blame."

Anti-Abortion Group to Protest Palin

By Stephanie Mencimer — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:00:00 -0800

When she was running for governor of Alaska in 2006, Sarah Palin reportedly said that even if her then-14-year-old daughter were raped, she would "choose life" and force her to bear a child. Comments like that that have endeared the fiery Alaskan politician to most pro-life voters, who lionized her for not aborting her Down's Syndrome baby. But Trig isn’t enough to protect Palin from a phalanx of anti-abortion activists who plan to protest her appearance on Thursday to promote her book in the conservative heartland of Indiana. Their reason? They think she's not really pro-life.

For the Denver-based American Right to Life, when it comes to abortion, Palin is as impure as any godless feminist. “[H]er words and actions prove that she is officially pro-choice and stands against the God-given right to life of the unborn,” they write in a new report. ARTL members plan to educate reporters about Palin’s many alleged failings as a true believer, particularly her March nomination of a former Planned Parenthood board member to the Alaska Supreme Court and her refusal to call for a ban on the morning-after pill.

GM Will Pay Back Gov't Loan...With Gov't Money?

By Paul Kiel — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:25:14 -0800

This story first appeared on the ProPublica website.

GM will begin paying back the TARP money in December, the company announced this morning. It’s a statement in need of a little context.

Basically, GM will be using a portion of its $50 billion in TARP bailout money it received to in turn repay another portion of the TARP loans.

The reason GM can do this is because when GM emerged from bankruptcy, it struck a deal with the Treasury Department to carve up its obligation to the government in four different ways.

How Palin Became a Rogue

By Max Blumenthal — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:02:19 -0800

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website. For an audio interview with Max Blumenthal, click here.

Sarah Palin's heavily publicized book tour begins in earnest this Monday, but weeks before, her ghostwritten memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life, had already vaulted into the number one position at Amazon. Warming up for a tour that will take her across Middle America in a bus, Palin tested her lines in a November 7th speech before a crowd of 5,000 anti-abortion activists in Wisconsin. She promptly cited an urban legend as a "disturbing trend," claiming the Treasury Department had moved the phrase "In God We Trust" from presidential dollar coins. (The rumor most likely originated with a 2006 story on the far-right website WorldNetDaily.)

In fact, a suggested alteration in its position on the coin was shot down in 2007 after pressure from Democratic Senator Robert Byrd. Nonetheless, Palin did not hesitate to take up this "controversy," however false, since it conveniently pits a tyrannical, God-destroying, secular big government against humble God-fearing folk. In doing so, of course, she presented herself as this nation's leading defender of the faith.

In a Republican Party hoping to rebound in 2010 on the strength of a newly energized and ideologically aroused conservative grassroots, Palin's influence is now unparalleled. Through her Facebook page, she was the one who pushed the rumor of "death panels" into the national healthcare debate, prompting the White House to issue a series of defensive responses. Unfazed by its absurdity, she repeated the charge in her recent speech in Wisconsin. In a special congressional election in New York's 23rd congressional district, Palin's endorsement of Doug Hoffman, an unknown far-right third-party candidate, helped force a popular moderate Republican politician, Dede Scozzafava, from the race. In the end, Palin's ideological purge in upstate New York led to an improbable Democratic victory, the first in that GOP-heavy district in more than 100 years.