Dick Gephardt: Still Betraying Democrats After All These Years

When you're making your list of the worst Democrats of the decade, put Dick Gephardt close to the top. A lot of the mistrust between the Democratic base and the Congressional leadership over the past five years is just the bill for things Gephardt broke. His grand moment of treachery came in 2002, where he wrote the Iraq War Resolution with Dennis Hastert, undercut antiwar Democrats and moderates who wanted more safeguards in the legislation and pushed the thing through the House. The version of that legislation which passed the Senate had Joe Lieberman in the Gephardt role as Democratic co-sponsor.

That's the founding painful memory of the left-wing blogosphere. Amid the shock of November 2004, the fact that Pelosi and Reid replaced Gephardt and Daschle wasn't fully appreciated as a new direction. But the new management has done quite well, blocking Social Security privatization, winning bushels of House and Senate seats in 2006 and 2008, passing a big stimulus bill this year, and now getting health care reform through every committee. It's one of the reasons I'm such a huge fan of Nancy Pelosi -- when you've seen the devil, you'll know what an angel she is.

Via Matt, Sebastian Jones' article in The Nation details how Gephardt is using his new career as a corporate lobbyist to betray Democrats in new ways. He's lobbying for a coal company that funds climate change denialists, "Professional Employment Organizations" that allow employers to split employees in the same workplace between several different subcontractors so they can't unionize effectively, and pharmaceutical companies that want to keep generic drugs off the market. Back in April he was telling people that universal health care couldn't pass this year and Democrats should think smaller. I'm glad that the guy retired from the Congressional leadership, but I wish that meant that he was off playing video games somewhere instead of lobbying against progressive interests. (Though if he was playing first-person-shooters, he'd probably just go around teamkilling.)

Lawless MILF Groups

I was intrigued by a recent headline from Mindanews in the Philippines: "NorthCot jail on alert with reports of MILF rescuing a detained commander." Another regional headline tells us that "Bombers used rogue MILF’s signature."

There is more interesting news on the issue from a variety of Filipino sites. According to one, "threats of MILF attacks are being feared in several towns." Another tells us that "The next generation of MILF leaders have been described at in their 30s to early 40s and were born during the war years." While setbacks in a previous negotiating process resulted in a "resurgence of violence between the government and lawless MILF groups," recently "the government and the MILF signed a historic agreement" that may bring an end to the conflict.

In these contexts, "MILF" of course refers to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Friday Obama Caption Contest

Brynja Hammer smiles at President Barack Obama during a visit to the Oval Office on her eighth birthday, August 21, 2009. Byrnja's father Mike is spokesman for the National Security Council. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Playing Fetch With Blue Dogs

Warms my heart to see Ellen Tauscher in an honest line of work. When you can turn a more-conservative-than-her-district centrist Democrat who is doing the banking industry's bidding into an administration spokesperson against missile defense pork that destabilizes our relationship with Russia, you've done well. Russian cooperation on nonproliferation issues has a greater security value than extremely unreliable missile defense technology. Tauscher, Matt told us a while ago, was always right on this one. I'd love to see similar executive branch offers made to Blue Dogs who have the right positions on some narrow issue or other, but are otherwise causing trouble. (If next year's elections turn out badly, of course, many of them may need new jobs.)

The Carper Compromise of a Compromise of a Compromise

If states are allowed to form band together to form a multi-state public option under Tom Carper's compromise, then if it turns out to be a way to get 60 or 61 votes it's pretty attractive. I would prefer to get the Schumer option written into the merged Senate bill, but perhaps this is a way to square the circle.

Update: looks like a mixed bag. States can band together, but they can't force providers to participate or tie rates to Medicare, or even Medicare plus some fixed percentage. If you can convince Carper to allow states to tie rates to Medicare+5% or something like that, it'd be a good start.