Daniel Biss

It’s the crime

Daniel Biss March 26, 2007 2 Comments

Josh Marshall really hits the nail on the head:

There’s this old line the wise folks in Washington have that ‘it’s not the crime, but the cover-up.’

But only fools believe that. It’s always about the crime. The whole point of the cover-up is that a full revelation of the underlying crime is not survivable. Let me repeat that, the whole point of the cover-up is a recognition that a full revelation of the underlying bad act is not survivable.

Don’t ever forget that. When talking heads tell us that it’s about the cover-up, they’re trying to make us believe that the problem here is that the administration was flummoxed by an awkward question, gave a bad answer, and subsequently found itself boxed into an embarrassing cover-up. You know, the sort of thing that could happen to anyone.

But that’s not what’s at issue. At issue is the alleged takeover of the Justice Department by the political arm of the White House. You know, the sort of thing that pretty much could only happen to an unusually corrupt administration.

It isn’t the cover-up. It’s the crime.

Mark Kirk loves veterans

Daniel Biss March 21, 2007 4 Comments

Mark Kirk loves to point out that he is, himself, a veteran.

Mark Kirk loves to brag about the North Chicago Veterans Administration Medical Center in his district.

Mark Kirk loves to pose in photo-ops with African-American veterans of World War Two.

Mark Kirk loves to grandstand about sponsoring legislation to issue coins commemorating disabled veterans.

Unfortunately, Mark Kirk doesn’t appear to care nearly as much about actual troops who are currently serving in harm’s way. He recently voted against requiring that the troops sent to Iraq be properly prepared for their mission and protected with armor.

The vote took place in the House Appropriations Committee, where he was joined by fellow Illinois Republican Ray LaHood. The whole House will vote on this bill soon, probably tomorrow. Will Kirk vote again to send our troops into battle without the proper equipment? How will other Illinois Republicans vote?

Don’t worry, troops. As soon as you get home, you’ll be a veteran, and then Mark Kirk will love you. I’m hoping and praying that you come home safe and sound. Too bad Mark Kirk doesn’t care.

My generation

Daniel Biss February 10, 2007 3 Comments

So I was in Springfield today for the Obama announcement. Very exciting, very cold, and a very, very early departure from Evanston (5am!).

A lot of commentators have remarked on Obama’s many uses of the phrase “Let us be the generation…”

What’s he talking about? Surely the man’s far too savvy to think he can win a Presidential race without reaching out to voters older than himself.

My reading of the word “generation” is a different, looser one; it doesn’t refer to chronological age. The last 10 years have seen an incredible awakening among progressives, the beginnings of a real movement. From the 1998 impeachment circus (which gave rise to Moveon.org) to the 2000 recount fiasco, to the Iraq war and the Dean and Clark campaigns and the birth of the progressive blogosphere, to the urgency so many of us felt when working to get John Kerry elected, the past decade has been chock-full of wake-up calls.

And we’re waking up. A movement is coalescing.

Maybe I’m just hearing what I want to hear, but when Obama talks about our generation, I hear him calling this new movement to action. I hear him predicting that after the anger of 2000 and 2002, the heartbreak of 2004, and the tentative elation of 2006, our movement is ready to elect its first President.

That’s why this passage feels like the critical part of the speech to me:

That is why this campaign can’t only be about me. It must be about us – it must be about what we can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams. It will take your time, your energy, and your advice – to push us forward when we’re doing right, and to let us know when we’re not. This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.

This generation stuff isn’t some crass suggestion that we should vote for him over Hillary because he’s younger. It’s about his campaign representing a new kind of politics, a participatory, inclusive, and democratic politics. On the Evanston bus, I sat with a bunch of really active Northwestern University Democrats, as well as with a good friend of mine who’s 57 years old and got her start in politics with the Draft Clark movement. It sure felt like we were all part of the same generation.

Why do I keep forgetting how much Democrats hate John Murtha and Jim Webb?

Daniel Biss February 6, 2007 1 Comment

Here’s what David Broder had to say about last weekend’s DNC meeting.

One of the losers in the weekend oratorical marathon was retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who repeatedly invoked the West Point motto of “Duty, Honor, Country,” forgetting that few in this particular audience have much experience with, or sympathy for, the military.

You know, I really wish someone had reminded me how much I disliked John Kerry and Tammy Duckworth before I spent so much time trying to get them elected. Think of what I could have done with September and October in 2004 and 2006. Like maybe write an essay about how Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter ruined our party by serving in the military.

But leave the orange hats at home

Daniel Biss January 18, 2007 1 Comment

From the Trib (via Rich):

North Shore Democrats say they are getting calls from volunteers who want to make bus trips to promote Obama in Iowa.

Speaking of elected officials who write well

Daniel Biss January 17, 2007 1 Comment

Debra Shore has an op-ed in today’s Trib about stormwater conservation. It’s a good summary of the main issue that propelled her candidacy.

Republican micro-targeting

Daniel Biss January 11, 2007 9 Comments

As Larry points out, there was nothing new in Bush’s Iraq speech last night, and so I certainly don’t have anything new to say about it, but I couldn’t help but notice one thing.

In the 2000 campaign, Bush ran as a “uniter” and at least claimed to be trying to appeal to all Americans.

By 2004, he’d completely alienated about 45% of the country and was left with a campaign structured around Republicans, religious conservatives, and middle-class or upper-middle-class independents in the suburbs and exurbs.

Sometime in 2005, he lost independents, which was why their 2006 campaign was a desperate attempt to turn out the Republican base.

They lost in no small part because the Republican base itself has waned as the administration’s mismanagements grew more obvious.

But, finally, last night, we reached a whole new plane. The President gave a speech aimed directly at Republican members of Congress, knowing that there was pretty much nobody else he could possibly convince. In other words, in the space of 7 years, he’s gone from an audience of over 251,000,000 people to an audience of 251.

And, from the looks of it, even that’s a tough sell.

It’s the incredible shrinking constituency.

An addendum on Obama, double standards, and the high bar

Daniel Biss December 27, 2006 10 Comments

As a kid, I was fairly accelerated in math. When I came home one day with a test score that was just fine but not great, my parents were pretty upset and suggested that I withdraw from the advanced course. This seemed totally bewildering to me at the time since I was comfortably passing the class, but their claim was that you don’t skip ahead in order to just get by. You skip ahead only if you can still be exceptional.

I think this is an important thing to keep in mind when evaluating the putative Obama candidacy. If he runs, he’s running really early in his career. This is a great thing for him to do if you believe that he’s a special kind of leader who we need to fix our system as soon as possible (and like I said before, I see this as a possibility, but as far as I’m concerned the jury’s still out). It’s a less good–but still sort of okay–thing for him to do if he’s doing it just because he believes that the way the potential field lines up in this cycle is advantageous to him and maybe this is his best chance. And it’s a bad, cowardly thing for him to do if he’s doing it just because he doesn’t want to build up a long record in the Senate that can be used against him one day.

This last line is somewhat controversial, but I think it’s right. People often say that he needs to run now or else he’ll have too much Senatorial baggage, but that’s not really true. For one thing, he could easily end up as a vice president or governor if he really wanted to get out of the Senate soon. For another, as a friend recently said to me, if he turns out to be as great as we all hope he is, then he should be able to build up a record that helps him, not hurts him.

As for the middle option, where he runs now because it just seems convenient, well that’s what made me open with the story about the math class. I mean, I’m pretty sure he’d be a good candidate and good president, but when you’re talking about accelerating the career path that aggressively, it should be because you’re truly extraordinary, not because you’re just good enough.

Which brings me back to the first option, the Obama-as-transformational-leader option. That’s what the country really needs, and that’s what Obama needs to demonstrate he has to offer. Because if he can offer that, then we’ll all agree that we need him, we need him badly, and we need him now, and it will make all the talk about inexperience disappear.

So, Obama supporters, when you’re asked about your candidate’s inexperience, don’t bristle. We’re asking you because we need to be convinced that he’s the guy who can usher in a new era of government. It’s a helluva a high bar, and it sure is a double standard. But if Obama wants to be treated like the rest of the candidates, he should sit in the senate for a term or two and then run. Until then, we have no choice but to expect him to be something special and unique.

Barack Obama and our broken politics

Daniel Biss December 27, 2006 6 Comments

Hi, there. So in the time since Larry gave me posting privileges here, all anybody’s been talking about has been the 2008 presidential race in general, and Obama’s candidacy in particular. I have pretty much nothing to say about that stuff, so I thought I’d just keep quiet until 2007, when there was actual legislation being talked about in Springfield and in Washington.

But so today I was reading Robert Caro’s Means of Ascent, the 2nd volume in his immolation/biography of Lyndon Johnson (and prequel to a gift I received this week), and this passage jumped out at me:

The shredding of the delicate yet crucial fabric of credence and faith between the people of the United States and the man they had placed in the White House occurred during the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. Until the day of Kennedy’s death–until, in other words, the day Johnson took office–the fabric was whole. By the time Johnson left office, the fabric was in shreds, destroyed by lies and duplicity that went beyond permissible political license…

So, right. Starting with LBJ, we’ve been on a pretty bad streak when it comes to integrity in the Oval Office (with some exceptions of course). This has had an absolutely crippling effect on our public and political life, from the way policy gets made, to the way citizens interact with government, to the way elections happen.

Now we’re approaching something I actually feel like talking about. My activity in politics stems from a desire to engage people, to increase civic involvement. Down here at the grassroots level, we do what we can to accomplish that, but the fundamental problem really stems from peoples’ lack of trust in their leaders.

The excitement about Obama comes from a belief that he can restore that trust. In other words, he’ll be a different kind of President, one who would fundamentally transform our relationship to the presidency (and, by extension, our government and political system).

This is a part of what Joe Trippi is getting at with his talk of “transformational politics”. Our political system is broken, and we need a leader who’s willing to transform it into something different, something functional. A lot of people have faith in Obama’s ability to accomplish this.

The Obama skeptics see this faith as naive. They see his proven abilities (giving a great speech, writing a good book, voting for good legislation and against bad legislation) as small when compared to the task at hand. They worry that the believers are falling in love with a persona or an image, and haven’t thought through how that image will translate into executive leadership.

Some Obama supporters might say that his ability to inspire will in and of itself be enough to transform American politics, but I think there’s got to be more to it than that. I look at Obama and I feel instinctively that he’s got it, but then I can’t even articulate what exactly it is, and then I remember how easy it is to get your heart broken in politics, and how high the stakes are in America today, and I just can’t help but want to know more about what he brings to the table.

So here’s my question for those of you who are committed to an Obama candidacy: how exactly do you think he’ll be able to transform our politics? Not just what about him will enable him to catalyze the transformation, but what precisely will the transformation look like? How will things be different? How, for example, will the 2016 presidential campaign look unlike the 2004 one? The more specific your answer, the happier I’ll be…