Archive for the 'Democrats' Category

Filed under: Comedy, Documentary, Independent, Distribution, The Weinstein Co., Politics, Michael Moore

Whether you love him or hate him (or as I do, love him and hate him), you’re probably looking forward to Michael Moore’s next film. Even if you have no intention of seeing it, you can’t wait to be vocal about why not. Of course, not all the haters will be avoiding the film; Moore, unlike any other despised filmmaker, has a way of still attracting his critics to the theater. Well, you lovers and haters don’t have much longer to wait, because The Weinstein Co. has just announced a June 29 release for Moore’s latest, the health care system expose Sicko.

For those of you wondering if Moore could possibly top his successes with Bowling for Columbine (the Oscar-winner) and Fahrenheit 9/11 (the Cannes winner and the box office winner), it turns out that Sicko could be successful in a new way. According to Harvey Weinstein, the doc will unify Republicans and Democrats. He claims to have seen the film with members of both parties, and all viewers have been in agreement in disapproving of the U.S. health care industry, as it is depicted by Moore. However, the problem with the film being less controversial, and to many Americans, possibly less interesting, is that it might be a hard sell to audiences who might rather spend their weekend happier, with Pixar’s Ratatouille, or who might even hold out five days and see Transformers instead.

Similar to what the Weinsteins did with Fahrenheit 9/11, the new documentary will be distributed domestically by Lionsgate. The difference is that with the previous film, the partnership was somewhat forced by Disney — which owns Miramax, which was at the time run by the Weinsteins — because Disney didn’t want to be associated with the Bush-bashing doc. Now that the brothers have TWC, they don’t have such an obligation, but the union was still beneficial to them this time around because of a doc distribution deal Lionsgate has with Showtime. While Lionsgate books Sicko in theaters in the U.S., TWC will distribute internationally and will take care of marketing costs.

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Bowers has come to the grim conclusion that the only way out of the Iraq War is to wait two years for a potential Democratic president. Of course, there are many other ways for a Democratically controlled Congress to bring an end to our involvement in Iraq.

What's more, arguing on March 1, 2007 that a Democratic party that doesn't take serious steps to end our involvement in this war will retain the public's trust and will be competitive in 2008 might be asking for more than the Democratic base and swing voters can give. Are they going to vote Republican? Probably not. Is a sizeable segment going to stay home? Very possibly.

What should the Democratically controlled Congress do? What can they do? For starters, they can declare two things:

1. We will do everything possible to have our troops out of Iraq by X date.

2. We will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.

With a strong majority of the American people wanting the war to end, how could this be either bad policy or bad politics?

Borrowing from Keith Olbermann, it's now been 1397 days since George Bush declared the mission accomplished in Iraq.  And after nearly four years of unending violence, and the failure of every new "plan for victory" from the White House, the American people have, both in the voting booth and in the latest polls, made their feelings clear; 67% disapprove of the current sitution in Iraq, 56% want our troops withdrawn, regardless of conditions on the ground, 67% oppose George Bush's plan to escalate the war, and 58% favor Murtha's plan that would require fully trained, equipped and rested troops.  That's what the American people want.  But what will they get?  

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday he wanted to delay votes on a measure that would repeal the 2002 war authorization and narrow the mission in Iraq.  [...]

"Iraq is going to be there — it's just a question of when we get back to it," Reid said...

Yes, it is still going to be there, and our troops will continue to die there.  But not to worry, we'll be getting back to it soon.  Nothing substantial mind you, but we will continue "ratcheting up pressure for a change."  And that's great, because everyone knows how the White House responds to pressure from the Democrats.  And what about on the House side?  How are they doing on building support for the Murtha plan?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., meanwhile, said she doesn't support tying war funding to strict training and readiness targets for U.S. troops.

The comments distanced her from Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who has said he wants to use Congress' spending power to force a change in policy in Iraq, by setting strict conditions on war funding.

That would be the plan that 58% of Americans favor.  

And how does all of this reflect on the Democratic Party?  

The developments on both sides of the Capitol reflected a new level of disarray in Democratic ranks on Iraq.

While the "Dems in disarray" meme is usually a tired talking point, in this case it seems to be dead-on. We keep talking about doing "something," but nothing is getting done.  According to Dick Cheney, if this latest "new way forward" in Iraq fails, we will:

...keep trying until we get it right.

Whatever getting it right means. This administration has no intention of even beginning the process of getting out of Iraq, no matter what Congress says or what the American people want.  There's only one way to pressure this administration, so the question is, when are we going to do it?  

Just two days after pissing on the third rail of Democratic primary politics by embracing price indexing for Social Security, Tom Vilsack is planning an 11 AM CST presser to withdraw from the 2008 race. Why?  Money, money, money.  He figured that he needed $20 million to be competitive, and he didn't think he could raise it.  It's an early withdrawal, but it's a realistic decision.  That said, I'm trying to remember any other candidate in the last few cycles who entered the race (as opposed to forming an exploratory committee) and then withdrew in such short order, so long before the first voting.

I'll miss the logo.  If nothing else, the Vilsack campaign had edgy graphic design.  (And they'd just redesigned the website . . .)

UPDATE:  Damn.

One adviser said Vilsack was on a path to raise just $1.3 million during the first quarter of the year. In contrast, Obama raised that much at one Hollywood fundraiser on Tuesday night and Clinton similarly can raise that much at a single event.

Cash rules everything.

The nonbinding resolutions debated (or not debated) in the Senate and House recently were but a first step in what is sure to be a drawn out confrontation between Republicans and Democrats over the Iraq war.  As Speaker Pelosi stated last week, "[a] vote of approval will set the stage for additional Iraq legislation which is set to come to the House floor."

Just what will that legislation look like?  Representative Murtha is floating the idea of tying war funding to troop readiness.  Senator Biden and others are talking about repealing or modifying the Iraq War Resolution (IWR).  Senator Clinton unveiled her own Iraq plan on Friday.

This internal party deliberation about the best way forward in Iraq has been going on for quite a while, and ideas that have been proposed in the past may well give us a glimpse of what we'll see in the future.  

To help us understand what may be on the table, I took the liberty of compiling a list of all Iraq-related legislation which has been introduced by Democrats this year. The list below does not include "sense of the Senate" or "sense of the House" resolutions, of which there are many on Iraq.  Nor does it include the plethora of bills introduced by Democrats which aim to increase veterans' benefits, increase transparency in war spending, and otherwise address other aspects of this war.  The focus here is on withdrawal--or redeployment, as the case may be.  

The spectrum of boldness here is interesting.  Some have chosen to legislation which makes a strong stand but will surely never gain bipartisan support.  Others have more carefully worded their bills as to attract more supporters.  All in all, the general consensus here is that something must be done by Congress to facilitate the end of this war, to bring the troops home and provide to Iraq the support it will need to transition into a stable nation.

Almost two weeks ago, Kagro X finalized the Jonah Goldberg countdown for us.  In 2005, Goldberg, claiming to have "superior" judgment about Iraq, proposed a bet with Juan Cole.  Goldberg claimed that in two years' time, "Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it." Two years later, when his "superior" judgment proved to be wildly and embarrassingly off the mark, Goldberg brushed off the incident.  He refused to really address the matter, and since then has continued to offer up his very non-superior judgment as if he had a shred of credibility left on the issue.

Watching the Congress debate the anti-escalation resolution was much like watching a nonstop parade of Jonah Goldbergs.  Republican after Republican took the floor and chastised Democrats for not "supporting the troops" and "emboldening" the enemy.  The President, they assured us, had a plan. The escalation, they argued, will work.   And they claimed that it will work with such conviction, with such surety.  

This ability of pundits and Republicans alike to proceed as if they have a modicum of credibility on Iraq consistently amazes me.  It shouldn't, but it does, and I find myself wondering how these men and women can with straight face claim to know the "right" course of action in Iraq when they have been so consistently and profoundly wrong.

The answer, of course, is that they do not acknowledge their wrongs.  The Republican vote on the anti-escalation resolutions crystallizes this lack of ownership. For four years, Republicans have not only passively sat by as the President mismanaged this war, but they also actively attempted to silence those who would hold the President to account. They wanted this war.  They've sustained this war.   This is a Republican war, begotten of ego and folly.  Yet Republicans will have no part of it.  

They create chaos and then look upon that chaos with the glazed and puzzled eyes of a stranger. This war? This hell? Surely, it cannot be of my own creation.  

Here, ego keeps reality at bay.  

Not sending in enough troops in the first place. Not planning for the aftermath of the invasion.  Not keeping check of the billions lost. Not being able to secure Baghdad after its first, second, or third liberation. These and thousands more are orphaned failures, belonging neither to the President nor his party.  

This is their detachment.  This is how they run from their errors, gliding past fact and tripping over logic until they've escaped from the shadows of their monumental failures.  They proudly emerge from those shadows.  Unscathed.  Inculpable. Infallible. Ready to "right" the wrongs of their own creation.  And still armed with the same defective judgment that gave birth to this catastrophe in the first place.  Ready to take us down the wrong path once more.

And so, here we are again.

A nation trapped in an endless loop of lies and lunacy. With a damn sameness which seeps into every corner of the president's hamster-wheel foreign policy.  Rather than hearing the chorus of mea culpas that is due to us, we hear tired charges of treason. We hear that this president has a plan for "victory."  We hear the pundits and politicians preach patience.  We hear the same purveyors of false prophesies promise again that this time, during these next months, we will see progress and a path to peace.  

And they foolishly expect to be believed.

And they foolishly expect the past to be forgotten.

For who would want to make claim to these orphaned failures? These scores of wounded, these scores of dead?

It is understandable then that Democrats have themselves been hesitant to take ownership of this war. It is a Republican-made war, a Republican-run war.  

It is a war that presents no easy off-ramp, no sound-bite perfect solution.  But there is no need for Democrats to take ownership of this war, only to take ownership of its end.  And yes, that end may well be frenzied, bloody and chaotic.  But it will be, for those 130,000 American targets in Iraq, an end.

This week's nonbinding resolutions, we are told, were but a first step.  I hope so.  If Congress is to reassert its rightful status as a co-equal branch of government, let it do so with a roar rather than a whisper.  Let it lay forth these Republican failures in excruciating detail.  Let hearing after hearing remind these cheerleaders of the real price of war.  Let this bungled occupation be the yoke that it should be on these Republicans and Republicanism as a whole.

In short, let this war be shoved so far down the throats of its most vocal supporters that their faces turn red with shame and their shrill voices are stunned into silence.  Let us wrap this war around them so tightly that they cry out for mercy, for an end, for anything but the suffocating presence of accountability and consequence.

This war shall end when the Republicans are forced to own it.  

With roll call votes and public debate, let the ownership process begin.