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Comments by YACCS

 

The best remedy for speech is shutting people up

Speaking of Senator Wellstone, I happened to run across an article on Mickey Kaus' blog which discussed an ad campaign being planned in Minnesota. Of course, with the tragedy that took Senator Wellstone's life, the specifics are no longer relevant, but the Wellstone mindset is still important to understand.

Americans for Job Security, a Virginia-based interest group that opposes the reelection of Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone, has made an unprecedented $1 million ad buy that will fill the airwaves in the last two weeks before the election, according to Wellstone campaign officials.

Campaign manager Jeff Blodgett said the buy is so large that it may equal what Wellstone and Republican rival Norm Coleman and the two state parties each are expected to spend on media in the closing weeks.
Blodgett said his biggest concern is that no one knows who funds the mysterious group, which has found a legal loophole that apparently allows it to keep its donors secret.

"In a state with a reputation for clean, transparent campaigns, this is an outrage, that a group can come in and spend this kind of money and no one knows who their donors are," Blodgett said at a Tuesday morning news conference. "We demand to know. We ask Norm Coleman to join us in this."

This was a particular obsession for Wellstone, who authored the "Wellstone Amendment" to McCain-Feingold, aimed at protecting incumbents by preventing groups from running ads against candidates.

With all the talk of the glorious liberal Paul Wellstone standing up for people's rights, his final legacy was censorship.
posted by David Nieporent at 10/31/2002 05:04:00 AM |

 

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

So now the hatemongers over at Media Whores Online are targetting President Bush for not attending Senator Wellstone's funeral? Isn't the fact that the Wellstones already snubbed Dick Cheney when he was going to attend just a little inconvenient for this argument?

A Democrat involved with planning the service at the University of Minnesota's Williams Arena here said the family did not want the event overwhelmed by the additional security, logistical challenges and potential protesters that would accompany the vice president.

Just a guess, but I don't think the logistics would be any easier if the president appeared.

Besides, somehow I don't think the Bush-haters really wanted the president at the funeral, anyway. If he appeared, they'd attack him for drawing attention to himself at a somber event.
posted by David Nieporent at 10/30/2002 01:43:00 AM |

 

Don't worry; there are more where he came from

How well do you think it would go over if a Republican candidate publicly told his supporters that the death of Senator Wellstone opened up new opportunities for the Republican party? I think there'd be a huge uproar, no?

So how come senate candidate Frank Lautenberg can get away with this:

A day after United States Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash, Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey's Democratic candidate, said that the best way for Mr. Wellstone's political admirers to honor his memory was to ensure that the Democrats retain control of the Senate.

[...]

But with the Democrats holding a single-seat margin in the Senate, and Mr. Wellstone's seat now in serious jeopardy, Mr. Lautenberg said the tragedy made it even more important for Democrats across the country to support candidates like himself, who share Mr. Wellstone's political beliefs.

"This certainly poses a burden on us," said Mr. Lautenberg, who is leading Douglas R. Forrester, the Republican, in most public opinion polls. "All of the seats under contest have to go Democratic to protect the interests he had. I hope to be part of that group."

I know that political reality has to intrude eventually, but Lautenberg waited all of one day before he decided to exploit the death for his own political ends. This is a man who refuses to debate his opponent, who then has the audacity to claim that Forrester isn't addressing issues. And then he uses as his own "issue" that people should vote for him because a dead guy needs to be replaced so that Democrats can retain control of a house of Congress.

The good news for Lautenberg is that, with Walter Mondale looking like the likely Democratic substitute candidate in Minnesota, Lautenberg will no longer be the most washed-up-hasn't-had-a-good-idea-in-two-decades Senate candidate in the country. (Though Lautenberg, believe it or not, is several years older than Mondale, who last was in office twenty-two years ago.)
posted by David Nieporent at 10/28/2002 06:20:00 AM |

 

Bipartisanship, liberal media style

Not intending this to be a shot at Paul Wellstone, I note this example of the mindset of the media, from a Washington Post editorial eulogizing the senator:

Held up as the very model of a liberal Democrat, he nonetheless worked across the aisle on issues he believed in. He formed a lasting alliance with Republican Sen. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico to battle for expanded insurance coverage for mental illnesses. With Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) he championed an important piece of human rights legislation, trying to curb international trafficking of women.

So Wellstone and Domenici fought for intrusive federal regulation of the insurance industry, but this represents Wellstone "work[ing] across the aisle."

I'm reminded of the aftermath of the 2000 election, when various editorial boards urged newly-elected President Bush to "prove" his rhetoric about being a "uniter, not a divider" by not fighting for any of his campaign proposals. For some reason, the media defines "bipartisan compromise" as "Everybody agreeing to settle on the Democratic position."
posted by David Nieporent at 10/27/2002 02:01:00 AM |