Wednesday, August 8, 2007

CQ and DC


CQ (a.k.a. Congressional Quarterly) put out the below press release yesterday:

Veteran Political Editor and Author to Contribute Regular Blog to CQ's New Web Site

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Congressional Quarterly Inc., the nation's premier provider of news, analysis and information on Congress, politics and public policy, today announced it has signed a deal with veteran political editor and writer David Corn to contribute a regular blog to CQ's expanded free-content Web site, which will launch this fall. Corn's blog will be one of several that express a variety of viewpoints and will play an integral role in CQ's broader effort to reach beyond the Beltway.

David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation, the oldest political weekly in America, a Fox News Channel contributor and a best-selling author. He writes on a host of subjects, including politics, the White House, Congress, and the national security establishment. He has broken stories on George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, Colin Powell, Rush Limbaugh, Enron, the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA leak case, the Pentagon, and other Washington players and institutions. He currently writes a Web column for The Nation called "Capital Games;" has a blog at http://www.davidcorn.com, which is part of the Pajamas Media network; and also has blogged for HuffingtonPost.com and the "Comment Is Free" site of The Guardian.

David Corn brings to American political discourse a liberal sensibility marked by fresh insight and powerful argumentation," said Robert W. Merry, CQ's president and editor-in-chief. "His outlook will be mixed on our site with other bloggers representing other political perspectives, but nobody projects David's particular point of view more brilliantly than he does himself. His talents will strengthen our expanded free-content site, and I couldn't be more pleased to have him on the CQ team."

Corn joins Bruce Drake and Peggy Girshman, NPR veterans who will lead the development of CQ's free-content site....

"I am honored to become part of CQ, a Washington journalism tradition long known for excellence, as it expands its Internet presence," said Corn. "I hope my blog--with its reporting and commentary--will help the new site as it heads toward becoming one of the top sites for political news and analysis. These are exciting and turbulent days for the media, with old and new media looking to harness changes in our information culture. I look forward to moving ahead with CQ and its expanded public Web site."


Longtime readers will recall that when this blog became affiliated with PajamasMedia.com, some commentators--most notably James Wolcott of Vanity Fair--blasted me for daring to associate with an endeavor founded by mostly right-of-center bloggers. (Wolcott even compared PJMers to Dr. Josef Mengele.) Well, it turned out that the PajamasMedia.com site--which features several liberals--has done little to harm the civilized world. And I say farewell to Pajamas--as an affiliated blogger--with nothing but best wishes for the PJMers. (I'm still doing a webcast for the site with conservative writer Richard Miniter.) Moreover, I am pleased that CQ wanted this blog to be part of its soon-to-expand site, which will offer plenty of up-to-minute and substantial coverage of politics and policy.

This site will probably soon go through a redesign as part of this CQ affiliation. Perhaps the comments section will be revived. (In the meantime, send comments to cornblog@hotmail.com.) But the blog's essence will remain the same: postings on the war, the presidential race, the assorted White House follies, the misdeeds (and occasional accomplishments) of Washington, and whatever strikes my fancy. I thank all my readers for their past support and hope they and others will join CQ and me as we proceed.

Posted by David Corn at August 8, 2007 12:05 PM

19 comments:

capt said...

Mr. David Corn,

Best news in a very long time.



Kirk

capt said...

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

It's become a bit of a cliché to compare the rise of Cheney-Bush fascism to the ascendancy of the Third Reich, but the analogy does reveal a fundamental truth about power and politics.

Fascists or Bolsheviks (just look at the short-lived Alexander Kerensky republic in Russia that fell to the Soviets in 1917) proceed on a premise that liberals are ambivalent about asserting power -- and take full advantage of that weakness.

Bush may be a tin horn cowboy propped up by Rove and Cheney, but almost all of his power at this time is derived by the unprecedented unitary authority granted to him by a Democratic Congress. In short, an utterly failed president guilty of illegal activity, whose poll numbers are in the dust, is able to make enough Democrats fearful that they give him power when they should be aggressively taking it away from him.

In the narrative of "toughness" that Rove has created for Bush -- and that Cheney has backed up with Franco-like substance -- Bush emerges as a "strong" figure, ironically, only because the timid Democratic leadership is so weak.

We are in a moment of history, when the Democrats should be controlling the debate and have Bush, Cheney, Rove and Gonzales cornered. Instead of impeaching Gonzales, they -- due to a lack of party discipline -- just gave him the power to legally spy on Americans without any real accountability, even after he has confessed to at least two programs of illegal spying.

The right wing depends upon a fundamental weakness in the character of "liberals" to achieve its authoritarian goals.

At this point in time, after having failed to protect us from 9/11 -- despite being warned of terrorist acts by bin Laden about to happen in the U.S. -- and years of a failed war against terrorism that has consumed the financial resources of our nation and all too many lives, the Democrats should be making Bush quiver in his boots about the next terrorist attack and how his ineptitude has allowed it to potentially happen.

Instead, the Democrats fear a guy who spent the first ten minutes after 9/11 reading a story about a pet goat with grade school students until his handlers could figure out what to do with him -- and then he went AWOL, just as he did in terms of avoiding service in Vietnam.

The Weimar Republic fell because the advocates of democracy in Germany were too timid to fight back against the thuggish tactics of Hitler's storm troopers. They passed the "enabling act" after the Reichstag fire (read terrorist act) that gave him virtually omnipotent power to "protect the homeland."

The right wing is right about one thing: the Democrats in Congress don't have the will or the wherewithal to put up a fight for the Constitution. Bullying works against a caucus without a backbone.

Hitler's power was legally granted to him by those who thought that the "homeland" faced grave threats.

The gravest threat, of course, that the German homeland faced, was Hitler himself.

That is an analogy to Congress's abject surrender to Bush that is, indeed, worth repeating.

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

Anonymous said...

This site will probably soon go through a redesign as part of this CQ affiliation. Perhaps the comments section will be revived. (In the meantime, send comments to cornblog@hotmail.com.) But the blog's essence will remain the same: postings on the war, the presidential race, the assorted White House follies, the misdeeds (and occasional accomplishments) of Washington, and whatever strikes my fancy. I thank all my readers for their past support and hope they and others will join CQ and me as we proceed. Posted by David Corn at August 8, 2007 12:05 PM

If you open the comments section, I'll join you there.

Gerald said...

I have heard that by law as the primaries are pushed up more and more that Iowa may have its primary on December 31. Just think about it about 2,000 voters will be conducting a straw poll drunk. I say that we should push up all the primaries to the second Tuesday in November after after the 2008 election if there is one which I doubt. We will have at least two years to ponder on the idiot who will be in the general election. Only in America!!!

Anonymous said...

Open the COMMENTS sections, and they will come...

Gerald said...

Christians were safer under Saddam says the Vatican

Don't you just get your jollies with our spreading of democracy throughout the world???

Gerald said...

Beyond Disaster

Gerald said...

What is terrifying is not that the architects and numerous apologists of the Iraq war have learned nothing, but that they may not yet be finished.

Gerald said...

Are Nazis born that way?

Gerald said...

True conservatives cannot be changed. It's unclear whether they are born with their panicky, wimpy attitude or if it's a result of exposure to a dominant frightened parent. Some say that their fear is deeply rooted in a traumatic episode that may have taken place during their potty training. Does it matter? Just know that they're afraid, very afraid. So when a conservative comes at you with their name-calling and the venom of a bloated bully with names like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly--think of how frightened they are inside. Be kind. If they start whining about your lack of patriotism and you need to get them out of your face just yell, "boo" or better yet, try to make them look at their own shadow.
_______

Gerald said...

A MUST SEE AND HEAR ARTICLE

Please take the time to see and hear this article, please!!!

Our government is committing war crimes!!!!!

Gerald said...

Great! If only these symbols were practiced and had true meaning for our corrupt politicians and justices!

Gerald said...

If someone says to me that Bush and Cheney have or offer "faith, hope, love, and clemency", I will have a torrential puke this very moment!!!!!

David B. Benson said...

CQ certainly used to be highly respected. (Probably still is AFAIK).

Congradulations, David Corn!

Hajji said...

congrats DC!

-T

capt said...

"The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make a criminal look like he's the victim and make the victim look like he's the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press." . . . . "If you aren't careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." "At the Audubon, December 13, 1964." In Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements, ed. George Breitman, 96-114. New York: Ballantine Books, 1964, 101

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"Justice is as strictly due between neighbor nations as between neighbor citizens. A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang": Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, 14 March 1785 (B 11:16-7)

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If... the machine of government... is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law: Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobediance, 1849

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Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may: Mark Twain

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We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." ~Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Why We Can't Wait, 1963

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Write on my gravestone: "Infidel, Traitor." --infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.: Wendell Phillips

===

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

capt said...

Uncle Sam, Your Banker Will See You Now


Early this morning China let the idiots in Washington, and on Wall Street, know that it has them by the short hairs. Two senior spokesmen for the Chinese government observed that China’s considerable holdings of US dollars and Treasury bonds “contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency.”

Should the US proceed with sanctions intended to cause the Chinese currency to appreciate, “the Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar.”

If Western financial markets are sufficiently intelligent to comprehend the message, US interest rates will rise regardless of any further action by China. At this point, China does not need to sell a single bond. In an instant, China has made it clear that US interest rates depend on China, not on the Federal Reserve.

The precarious position of the US dollar as reserve currency has been thoroughly ignored and denied. The delusion that the US is “the world’s sole superpower,” whose currency is desirable regardless of its excess supply, reflects American hubris, not reality. This hubris is so extreme that only 6 weeks ago McKinsey Global Institute published a study that concluded that even a doubling of the US current account deficit to $1.6 trillion would pose no problem.

Strategic thinkers, if any remain who have not been purged by neocons, will quickly conclude that China’s power over the value of the dollar and US interest rates also gives China power over US foreign policy. The US was able to attack Afghanistan and Iraq only because China provided the largest part of the financing for Bush’s wars.

If China ceased to buy US Treasuries, Bush’s wars would end. The savings rate of US consumers is essentially zero, and several million are afflicted with mortgages that they cannot afford. With Bush’s budget in deficit and with no room in the US consumer’s budget for a tax increase, Bush’s wars can only be financed by foreigners.

No country on earth, except for Israel, supports the Bush regimes’ desire to attack Iran. It is China’s decision whether it calls in the US ambassador, and delivers the message that there will be no attack on Iran or further war unless the US is prepared to buy back $900 billion in US Treasury bonds and other dollar assets.

The US, of course, has no foreign reserves with which to make the purchase. The impact of such a large sale on US interest rates would wreck the US economy and effectively end Bush’s war-making capability. Moreover, other governments would likely follow the Chinese lead, as the main support for the US dollar has been China’s willingness to accumulate them. If the largest holder dumped the dollar, other countries would dump dollars, too.

The value and purchasing power of the US dollar would fall. When hard-pressed Americans went to Wal-Mart to make their purchases, the new prices would make them think they had wandered into Nieman Marcus. Americans would not be able to maintain their current living standard.

Simultaneously, Americans would be hit either with tax increases in order to close a budget deficit that foreigners will no longer finance or with large cuts in income security programs. The only other source of budgetary finance would be for the government to print money to pay its bills. In this event, Americans would experience inflation in addition to higher prices from dollar devaluation.

This is a grim outlook. We got in this position because our leaders are ignorant fools. So are our economists, many of whom are paid shills for some interest group. So are our corporate leaders whose greed gave China power over the US by offshoring the US production of goods and services to China. It was the corporate fat cats who turned US Gross Domestic Product into Chinese imports, and it was the “free trade, free market economists” who egged it on.

How did a people as stupid as Americans get so full of hubris?


More HERE

David B. Benson said...

Because we had oil and other plentiful natural resources.

capt said...

New Thread