Same old story, one small difference. Instead of screwing the country Republicans shat their own bed for once. Apparently the geniuses didn’t exempt their internal bookkeeping from the right’s ideological hatred of good management practices. If the GOP was a roofing contractor nobody in their right mind would go near them.
Point and laugh. As small and pathetic as Republicans seem today, wait until we get kiddie locks back on the levers of power.
Z
It never ceases to amaze me how people like this never think they will get caught.
Zifnab
You may not like what they espouse, but at least you know where they stand.
Ninerdave
Democrats are worse
myiq2xu
Some people might wonder why this story came out now, just before an election. My theory is that even though this embarrassing they bit the bullet and let this go forward now while G-Dub is still in charge.
That way they can have a few designated fall-guys cut good deals with the DOJ and sweep some of it under the rug.
Pleas bargains and wrist-slap sentences, with sinecures for the fall-guys.
And if they get a judge like Robert “Maximum Bob” Sirica, G-Dub can issue pardons and/or commutations on January 19th.
myiq2xu
In restroom stalls?
Billy K
Don’t worry – St. McCain will fix all this stuff. I hear he’s good with accounting.
Krista
POTD
Jen
What I want to know is, does this mean they have even less money than we thought they had?
Dork
I’m convinced that a sizeable sum of the missing Iraq money was funneled into the NRCC. If not directly, then the money was “lost” to indys involved with the contractors, then “donated” back to the committee. Any coincidence that the real financial malfeasance started at….oh…about the time the Iraq war started?
Either way, this is certainly bad news for Democrats.
Z
Maybe they used Karl Rove’s math to do the books.
Z
You are so right, Dork. They will get the ‘Math is hard! I hate it!’ sympathy vote.
L Boom
If this was snark … brilliant!
If this was not snark … even more brillianter!
Darkness
I’m all for Red State style tough Law and Order as long as it starts with politicians’ asses getting handed to them. How about a “forfeit the election rule” if your books are off by more than 1%? That way Lieberman’s slush fund troubles from the last election would mean we could kick him out now. If the election stands despite fraud, these guys have no reason NOT to cheat. Playing by the rules guarantees you get screwed.
Can we get some of that endlessly espoused Law and Order from the right wing now. Please?
Billy K
Hmmm… how brown are the folks you had in mind for justice?
Jeffro
I think Dork’s onto something, and Dems should both take note and then take it public. With all that unaccounted-for money sloshing around, it would be all too easy for a nice percentage to end up back in Republican campaign coffers. Just a cost of doin’ business, right?
They need to clean up the waste, fraud, kickbacks, and no-bid funny business not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s important strategically to defund the Republican crooks behind it all.
Jake
And for reasons not related to the Rainbow of Fear for once!
Jamey
This is great news for John McCain!!!
Dennis - SGMM
More good news for Republicans: Confidence plunges, inflation rate soars:
NEW YORK – No good news today on the economic front. Consumer confidence plunged, the wholesale inflation rate soared, the number of homes being foreclosed jumped, home prices fell sharply and a report predicts big increases in health care costs…
No wonder McCain remarked that he has to convince voters that we’re winning in Iraq. He sure as hell can’t run on anything else.
Tom in Texas
Excellent article on the people surrounding Obama. I suspect he’s a lot less liberal than he is being portrayed, though I’ve noticed he’s unwilling to say so in speeches — this is the Dem primary after all.
Face
I believe the nom de jour is “Code Brown”.
Cyrus
Meh, to be fair, one percent is pretty damn low. Setting impossibly high standards doesn’t result in politicians who meet them, just politicians who are better at faking it. And if you want a utilitarian or partisan reason to oppose that rule, I’m pretty sure it’s much harder to keep track of a lot of small donors than relatively few large ones.
This is just nitpicking, though; a politician’s books being off by 25 percent is ridiculous.
Martin
And the stock market went up. Republicans are happy.
Martin
Oh, and as for the Republican accounting practices, what we call graft and corruption, they call a free market. Accountant oversight is just unnecessary regulation that limits growth.
Innocent Bystander
Absolutely right. Remember all of those Republican ‘fundraisers’ where they hauled in millions at each dinner? I think they’ve been doing serious money laundering between the unaccounted Iraqi $8BB (remember, only vetted Republicans need apply for the CPA?) and other questionable income streams (go read madcowprod.com for years now. It takes serious $ to game elections….I’m guessing that they can’t properly match revenue sources or expenses. If I’m the ex-Treasurer of the RNCC, I’m thinking about witness protection programs….
Zifnab
I heard he was the most liberal currently serving US Senate, the most liberal US citizen since Joseph Stalin, and the most liberal life form since the Duck Billed Platypus. So I don’t quite know what you’re judging that against.
Zifnab
Or they could all just agree not to press charges against each other. :P
I’m thinking this all started coming out because someone keeps throwing money in the RSCC piggy bank only to come back finding it empty. I mean, if you’re hemorrhaging money like that in the middle of a glut of cash, who cares? But when the Committee Chairs start digging quarters out of mattresses to make their paydays, a few hundred grand that just “goes missing” will put a few people up in arms.
These coffers are what pay the party’s bills. Kinda hard to jam phone banks and flood mailboxes with propaganda if you can’t afford the phone bill or the postage, much less pay the office secretary to do all the work.
Cyrus
Interesting article. Your take on it is a little unclear, though. “Less liberal than he is being portrayed (by Republicans)” isn’t saying much; every Democrat is. “… (by the media)” seems inaccurate; I don’t remember too much about him being portrayed as all that liberal. He’s supposed to be the bipartisan guy, after all. “… (by his supporters)” begs the question; how liberal are his supporters portraying him? I doubt that many of his supporters on the left and far left really think he’s left enough for them; just the most left of the viable candidates. The Obamacans like Andrew Sullivan are bending over backwards to portray him (just like everything else that’s good and right in the world) as conservative.
Well, anyway, I found one particular bit of the article funny. Not that I needed any more reason to treat Republicans with contempt, but sure enough, there was one in there.
Do Republicans think that seeking a world without nukes without unilateral disarmament is really a fringe idea, or did they just dishonestly leave that part out of what Obama said he would do? Warmongerers or liars? (SASQ: Both!)
Jake
You know who else I’ve heard is liberal? Hitler.
Martin
It depends on how you measure ‘liberal’. He’s liberal in terms of what he sees as concerns, so you won’t find him being any different than Clinton or really even Kucinich in terms of where they think problems are. They might disagree somewhat on the relative magnitude of those problems.
In terms of solutions, he’s decidedly not liberal. In fact, I think he’s not ideological at all – he’s pragmatic. So, his speeches connect with the usual slate of problems that liberals see – choice, environment, Iraq, and so on, but his solutions differ rather a lot and I think will appeal to may conservatives.
More than anything, he’s very evidence driven and he seems to value voters seeing results in a timely and very local manner. So I don’t see much willingness to bend down to traditional liberal or conservative solutions. That’s going to make it damn hard for the right to attack him on policies because more often than not he isn’t offering solutions that fit the usual ‘big government’ or ‘social welfare’ pigeonholes. Now, that’s going to be a problem for a lot of rank and file Democrats that seem intent on jumping back to 1961 on a bunch of things, but every time I’ve cringed at one of his policy solutions and done some research on it, I’ve found myself at least reassured that he’s not out on an ideological ledge – that there’s some solid backing for the policy.
It’s possible that this will cut him from both sides – that by not presenting the cookie that either the left or right want him to present will doom him, but if it comes down to a policy discussion I’m pretty confident he’s going to kick some ass. He’s got a shitload of reason on his side, which is more than I can say for most politicians.
The one thing that stands out, if you can put aside a natural instinct to reject new ideas, is that virtually every policy is focused on opening options for voters, with the implied cost being passed on to corporations (that’s not really spelled out). It is an extremely optimistic set of policies for *individuals*. What is missing is how some of this is going to get paid for. The implication is that corporate and top earners are going to be paying, along with some moving of expenses. But that really isn’t spelled out in detail. It’s not a punishment to corporations or the rich, but rather a ‘everyone will win eventually if we fix this problem now’ kind of approach. It’s subtle in ways – and subtle doesn’t always work with voters.
There is some grumbling on the left about a lack of liberal economic wonks. Goolsbee is liberal, but not in the way that they want. They want a full-on Keynsian revival. Well, Keynes died half a century ago and things have changed, so they’re gonna have to get with the times, I’m afraid. What will be interesting is that I can see some of Reagan’s economic guys giving Obama a nod. I get the sense that the people that put together the first round of Reagan tax cuts are deeply ashamed at the “If we cut all taxes to 0, the government will be rolling in dough!” message coming out of Republicans these days. They will, above all, reward a rational and cogent policy if they see one, I’m sure of that.
Z
Obama favoring pragmatism over ideology vs Clinton doing the opposite, can be chalked up to generational differences. That is part of his appeal to the younger crowd.
The Other Steve
Obama transcends Liberalism.
jbofmo
“wait until we get kiddie locks back on the levers of power.”
Those had better be pretty damn strong kiddie locks. I don’t see the r’s playing nice for another election cycle or two. They will have to be knocked around very hard to come off this kick they have of flipping off most of the country.
jcricket
Basically unless we can start out-maneuvering on the following the following three fronts, Republicans will continue their ways (damn the consequences):
1) Parliamentarians in the Senate. We’re not gonna get 60 seats, and we need to find ways to force the Republicans to take unpopular stands/break their filibuster threats. Otherwise they can just keep us at bay with little cost.
2) Reframing a bunch of topics. Democrats are solidly with the “will of the people”, but the people often think otherwise. Recent polls show this changing (with people giving Democrats a solid majority in every issue when they’re asked which party is better able to handle that issue). So Dems need to sieze on this. Otherwise Republicans can continue to paint Dems as “soft on terror”, “unpatriotic”, “tax and spend” (which is bad, somehow), etc.
3) Negative attacks. We need to blunt their negative attacks, not necessarily by going negative, but by pushing the public to a place where the negativity works a lot less because it’s viewed as coming from fringe nutjobs (which it is). That way we can spend less time with kabuki dances and more time in the world where Dems actually do a good job (policy + implementation)
J Bean
Eh, I think the correct response is still “It’s Bill Clinton’s fault.” This one can also now be used by Obamacans.
Steven Hawkins
Hmmm reminds me of the 3rd crusade. Richard the lion hearted would have sorted this matter out by just taking them out all at once, no messing around. Bish Bash Bosh.