Barbarian Peanut by CHS.

What has struck me forcefully about the so-called "health care debate" is how little actual issues debate there has been.  And how much orchestrated noise from paid operatives has been ginned up to distract the public from the real prize: real reforms.

Bill Moyers has a profile up on Dick Armey’s Freedomworks astroturf extravaganza that needs viewing far and wide.

It illustrates a fundamental political operative truth: sowing dissent, even based on outright falsehoods, is a means to an end in a public divide and conquer strategy.  Something folks like Armey use to their moneyed clients’ advantage whenever possible because it is the way they earn their multi-million dollar Beltway living.

How so?

Think about the interests involved and their objectives for a moment: maintaining the status quo in health care means that the people making the money continue to rake it in, which means they can continue to dole it out on the Hill. People like Armey bring access on the Hill to the halls of power and that translates into valuable legislative inroads, for which moneyed interests pay handsomely.

In exchange for said donor largesse, keeping the angry public — who are clearly well and truly tired of feeling screwed these days — on the fringes of the discussion had to be a strategic priority.

The best means of doing that? Sow dissent that keeps the public’s eyes off the real ball, thereby throwing any chance at unity of purpose among the public out the window.

Why?  Because a unified public pushing for reform is what drives any substantive change this country ever sees.  It’s what gave FDR the ability to push through New Deal legislation and Wall Street regulations.  It’s what eventually forced an end to the Vietnam War.  It’s the engine that has driven major changes through our entire history.

And the forces of the status quo know that, fear it, and undermine it at every turn. 

Status quo means profit.  Change means instability which makes things tough to control or outright loss of profit, and that is not acceptable, now is it? (more…)

Not in practice, mind you, but as a codeword sop to the masses as justification for defending the status quo.

The end result of bipartisanship is paring down a bill until it changes next to nothing of import.  And then selling it as if it were the greatest thing since the last bucket of lukewarm spit to pass this way.

This is nothing new in politics. The money has always been on the side of the status quo, since change can be costly to one’s bottom line. 

And the status quo has perennially been about "I’ve got mine.  Screw you," now hasn’t it? 

One only need watch the FDR Fala speech (Youtube above) to get that. Or read a little history, you can pretty much pick any era.

What is new? That there is no real voice for change and the little guy capitalizing on this moment in our nation’s history.

And it shows.

Jean Edward Smith has a fantastic op-ed in the NYTimes today talking about FDR, the false sop of bipartisanship and the real value of a little more backbone:

. . .this fixation on securing bipartisan support for health care reform suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern and the White House has forgotten how to lead.

Roosevelt understood that governing involved choice and that choice engendered dissent. He accepted opposition as part of the process. It is time for the Obama administration to step up to the plate and make some hard choices.

He cites numorous examples of Roosevelt New Deal reforms which were enacted in spite of entrenched interests, and not because they’d been pared down to mere windowdressing to win their support.

Was Glass-Steagall passed in a bi-partisan fashion with entrenched interests on Wall Street given a seat at the negotiating table? Hell no. Social security?  Are you kidding me?!?

Were there membes of Congress consorting with moneyed interests trying to block the bill, much like Max Baucus’ lobbyist-filed anteroom? Undoubtedly.  Although, as Krugman points out, there’s a lot more of that lobbyist payola floating around these days.

But the real difference between then and now?

FDR sold the need for change at the grassroots by making that change actually happen.  And without selling the public’s interest down the river in the process.  Which made his grassroots support all the stronger, and enabled him to fend off opposition by painting them as being against the public, fueling more public support in the process. 

FDR drew his power for change from the people, not just from the people around him inside the Beltway.

Better political leadership in the Democratic party would help.  So would those leaders actually believing in the need for change instead of giving it political lip service and then undercutting it with their actions.

Can the Obama administration still make needed changes? Absolutely.

Will they? Well, that’s the big question, isn’t it?

Run aground? via marcelgermain.

Feeling a little run aground today? Join the club. 

Here’s a round-up of the legal news that’s catching my eyes at this point:

– Missed this somehow:  ABA had a reporter’s shield law discussion at their annual convention, featuring Pat Fitzgerald and Reggie Walton among others on a panel discussion.  Interesting back and forth.  Here’s a report from the local ABA branch on the proceedings. And a write-up from Legal Times.

– Dick Armey pulls out the Popeye defense: "I yam what I yam." I’m sure his former partners at Piper really appreciate that after the client relations damage has already been done.

– Is Kyle Sampson still having difficulty — after a year of trying to become a member of the DC bar? Gee, wonder why they’d have any concerns about his fitness of character or any potential outstanding legal difficulties which might pose problems for entry. How’s protecting Rove’s flank working for you now, Kyle?

– Lyle at SCOTUSblog says that Mitch McConnell is trying to shoehorn his way into Citizens United arguments, but that Citizens United is resisting. That could be an interesting struggle. Heather Gerken has commentary at Balkinization on the Citizens United case, and how an expedited briefing schedule is not so helpful when you have first amendment jurisprudence at stake.

– ACLU is trying to shine more light on detainees at Bagram. Good on them.

– File this under awkward cocktail weenies. John Rizzo attended the the Red Cross-sponsored soiree honoring the Geneva Conventions.

– A little background on Judge Vaughn Walker. Always interesting to get a glimpse of the human being wearing the robes.

The full Senate will take up debate on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the SCOTUS, with a vote likely sooner rather than later since a filibuster or other lengthy opposition strategy is not expected.

It’s almost as though the GOP wants to rush the vote off the floor. Too bad Sen.

One of the eternal truths of today’s journalism is that its awfully easy to get oppo handed to you and run with it.   

But the real difficulty — and value — is in taking that oppo, reading it critically, and finding the things which a skeptical person might want to question.  Conveniently omitted facts, long-standing ties to lobbying or other client interests involved, or donor conflict of interest questions when it comes from an elected official. The I.F. Stone maxim of “all governments lie” can be amended in this context to “all political operatives have an agenda, for which they are paid handsomely by monied interests who get something out of it.”

Well, well. It’s a quick plea deal for a long-time former aide to Sen. Thad Chocran in an Abramoff-related pay-to-play matter: Copland is the latest among more than a dozen congressional aides, lobbyists, lawmakers and Bush administration officials convicted as part of a lobbying scandal spawned by Abramoff, a former high-flying influence peddler now serving a four-year prison term….

Federal prosecutors filed their government’s sentencing memorandum in the Dusty Foggo plea deal. This is used by the judge as one of many sources to determine culpability, sentencing breaks or enhancements in terms of going up or down levels in the sentencing guidelines — all of which go into the court’s sentencing calculations. It is a scorcher. A sampling:

Earlier this month, we flagged Mark Gitenstein’s rumored contention for the Office of Legal Plans at DOJ as problematic.  At the time, what I was hearing in Beltway grapevine was that Gitenstein was said to be a shoe-in for the job because of close ties to Vice President Biden, a long record of great civil rights work, and his time on the Obama campaign. All that was swell, but it was his close ties to anti-individuals legal lobbying that was so troubling.