GOP Senators Go After Kagan By Attacking...Thurgood Marshall?

Dana Milbank:

As confirmation hearings opened Monday afternoon, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee took the unusual approach of attacking Kagan because she admired the late justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom she clerked more than two decades ago.

Justice Marshall's judicial philosophy," said Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, "is not what I would consider to be mainstream." Kyl -- the lone member of the panel in shirtsleeves for the big event -- was ready for a scrap. Marshall "might be the epitome of a results-oriented judge," he said

It was, to say the least, a curious strategy to go after Marshall, the iconic civil rights lawyer who successfully argued Brown vs. Board of Education. Did Republicans think it would help their cause to criticize the first African American on the Supreme Court, a revered figure who has been celebrated with an airport, a postage stamp and a Broadway show? The guy is a saint -- literally. Marshall this spring was added to the Episcopal Church's list of "Holy Women and Holy Men," which the Episcopal Diocese of New York says "is akin to being granted sainthood."

With Kagan's confirmation hearings expected to last most of the week, Republicans may still have time to make cases against Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Gandhi.

Every day, in every way, the GOP continues to present themselves to the world as the party of cranky old white men who think the civil rights struggle and desegregation were bad things and who wish all those noisy brown people would just learn their place (and who indignantly shout about "playing the race card" when anyone points out this very obvious fact).

GO LEMMINGS GO!

The PR Geniuses at BP

Latest Newspaper Column:

You know, British Petroleum probably thought it had made a pretty good choice when it picked Tony Hayward to be its CEO.

He's young, he's good-looking, he's got great hair, and he's got that charming British accent. The power of this last trait is not to be underestimated, as I discovered in college when a classmate from Great Britain was explaining why he hadn't done his assignment for that day. "You can tell me anything you want," the female teaching assistant cooed, "as long as you do it in that accent."

I was not, it should be noted, well pleased by this. But it did teach me an important truth of life: You can get away with almost anything if you make it sound like you're doing it on "Masterpiece Theatre."

The operative word there being "almost." In the aftermath of the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf, Hayward, accent notwithstanding, has apparently discovered a true genius for ticking people off.

First he tried to downplay the potential effects of the spill, saying the effect of millions of gallons of oil spewing into the ocean would be "very very, modest" and that the spill itself would be "tiny."

Then Hayward exhibited the kind of sensitivity one would normally associate with decapitated French royalty when he told an interviewer, on-camera, "There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back." Gulf residents were quick to point out that since there are a few million people along the coast who could say the same thing, to say nothing of 11 workers killed by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, their sympathy for Hayward's inconvenience was, shall we say, somewhat muted.

Things went from bad to worse when BP Chairman Carl-Henrik Svanberg tried to step in to reassure people and managed only to step into an even deeper hole. "We care about the small people," Svanberg said after a four-hour meeting at the White House with President Obama. "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are really companies that don't care, but that is not the case in BP, we care about the small people."

Now, I'll be fair here and note that Svanberg is a Swede and English is clearly not his first language. So he probably didn't really mean to imply that the people of the Gulf coast were hobbits. Still, when you're trying to manage a disaster of biblical proportions, it might be a good idea to have someone in front of the cameras who knows the language.

Fortunately BP, alone and embattled, managed to find a defender, a white knight who rode to the rescue of their besieged reputation. Who was this brave paladin, this defender of poor and downtrodden BP? It should surprise no one to learn that it was a Texas Republican.

"I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," Rep. Joe Barton said during congressional hearings on the spill. "I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown." Barton actually apologized for the White House being so mean to poor BP.

That rumbling you heard immediately afterwards was the sound of a thousand Democratic political strategists dancing for joy. Horrified fellow Republicans immediately disavowed Barton, even threatening to strip him of his seniority on the Energy and Commerce Committee. It's OK, you see, to be a harlot for the oil industry, but it's a PR problem to be such a shameless one.

Barton immediately began his own familiar song and dance.

First, it was the old "I didn't really say that" defense: "If anything I have said this morning has been misconstrued to an opposite effect," Barton said, "I want to apologize for that misconstruction." Then the "well, I did say it but I'm sorry" sidestep: "I apologize for using the term 'shakedown' with regard to yesterday's actions at the White House ... and I retract my apology to BP." Now all that's left is to apologize to the English language for atrocities like "misconstrued to an opposite effect" and "tragedy of the first proportion."

So in the end, Barton's apologized, Hayward's been pulled off of "day-to-day" management of the spill by BP, and Svanberg is probably still asking everyone (in Swedish) "What? What did I say?" And the oil continues to flow.

Sigh. Even I can't find anything to be amused about in that.

Obama's Katrina?

Latest Newspaper Column:

Is the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico “Obama’s Katrina”?

Certainly a lot of right-wing pundits and radio hosts would like to make it so. But then, these people have been looking for something to dub “Obama’s Katrina” since the day he took office.

As the watchdog site Media Matters points out, nearly every crisis, no matter how large or small, has been described by someone as “Obama’s Katrina”: the H1N1 flu, the Fort Hood shootings, the failed Christmas Eve plot by the Undiebomber, ice storms in Kentucky, the Haiti earthquake, the GM bankruptcy, the Nashville flood — I guarantee you, if Obama ever appears in public wearing white after Labor Day, someone’s going to call it “Obama’s Katrina.”

The ironic thing about all this effort to dub the spill “Obama’s Katrina” is that the people who are so eager to do so, such as Rush Limbaugh, are some of the very same people who became bitterly angry when the blame for that botched rescue and relief effort was laid at the feet of President George Dubbya Bush and his cronies.

So maybe when Limbaugh calls this “Obama’s Katrina,” he’s calling it “a really big and unmanageable thing that someone else screwed up and that’s totally unfair to blame the president of the United States for.” But probably not.

The major difference between this and the Katrina debacle is this: Hurricane relief was something the government knew how to do and didn’t do it. For example, as I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, we don’t have a secret oil-well-capping ship hidden away.

During Katrina, on the other hand, we did have a U.S. Navy ship (the USS Bataan) steaming right into the Gulf behind the hurricane with a full complement of helicopters, 1,200 sailors and Marines, a water purification plant and a fully functioning hospital — and it steamed around for six days waiting for orders while people suffered and died.

And that’s just one example of things we knew how to do, but which didn’t get done because of incompetence all the way up and down the governmental chain.

In contrast, we don’t really know how to plug a leaking oil gusher a mile under the ocean. And while we have some technology for containing oil spills (booms and the like), this is the biggest spill anyone’s ever seen. Scientists are studying effects they’ve never seen before. We are, in the words of Indiana Jones, “just making this up as we go.”

This, of course, raises the question of whether we should be drilling that deep at all, or whether we should, as Canada does, demand that the oil companies drill a relief well at the same time as the main one, as well as providing a plan in case of blowouts.

But that’s not a question you’re likely to be hearing from the crowd that was mocking the idea of keeping your tires properly inflated to save gas and chanting, “Drill, baby, drill” in 2008.

Some have faulted the president for not visiting the area enough. In response, the White House has stepped up presidential visits to the Gulf Coast to the point where you begin to wonder if he might ought to just move the whole White House down there. Of course, this leads to criticism from the “Obama is always wrong” crowd that he didn’t come down sooner.

But you know what? If I’m someplace where everything is going down the tubes, I don’t want the president of the U.S. on the ground in the area, sucking up the attention, trailing a battalion of reporters and causing security headaches.

I want him nice and comfy in the White House Situation Room, watching the thing in real time with communications and overhead satellite surveillance that only God himself could rival, surrounded by smart people who he listens to, and a phone he can give orders into. That’s why they built the Situation Room in the first place.

The president summoned top BP oil executives, including CEO Tony Hayward, to a meeting at the White House on Wednesday. We don’t know everything that was said, but there’s one phrase made famous at the time of Hurricane Katrina that I’m pretty sure Obama didn’t use. I’m reasonably sure no one said, “You’re doing a heck of a job, Tony.”

Same Old Song And Dance

Texas Republican Congressman Joe Barton apologizes to poor, put-upon British Petroleum for the mean way they've been treated by the White House:

"I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday," Barton said. "I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown."

"I apologize," Barton told Hayward. "I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is -- again, in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize."

Then, when other GOP lawmakers suggest that maybe taking the side of the people that poisoned the Gulf of Mexico and ruined countless lives doesn't make for good visuals, the good old fashioned sidestep begins. First, the old "I didn't really say what I said" dodge:

"I think BP is responsible for this accident, should be held responsible," Barton said, before adding that he also thinks the company should pay for costs of the spill. "If anything I have said this morning has been misconstrued to an opposite effect, I want to apologize for that misconstruction," he added.

Then the "okay, forget what I just said, I actually did say what I said I didn't say, but now I'm sorry I said it":

"I apologize for using the term 'shakedown' with regard to yesterday's actions at the White House in my opening statement this morning, and I retract my apology to BP," he said. "...I regret the impact that my statement this morning implied that BP should not pay for the consequences of their decisions and actions in this incident."

I mean they do this every freakin' time. Horrible statement, claims of being misquoted or misconstrued, then the apology, and suddenly all the bullshit is forgiven. How long are people going to let them get away with this crap?

Well, the Hobbits, At Least, Should Be Pleased

BP Chairman: 'We Care About the Small People' : "BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg today said that President Obama “is frustrated because he cares about the small people. And we care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are really companies that don’t care, but that is not the case in BP, we care about the small people.”

The Swedish-born Svanberg made his comments after a more than four hour meeting between BP executives and White House officials, including President Obama."

Here's a hint, ya'll. The next time you have someone make a statement on your behalf, you might want to make sure he or she is either a native English speaker or someone who understands the language's idioms. Because you're gonna get crucified for this.

Our Annual Summer Vacation Guide

Latest Newspaper column:

I feel as though I need to apologize. I just noticed that this column's annual compendium of suggested summer vacation spots is scandalously late this year.

If you've been putting off your vacation plans until you see what I've come up with, please accept my abject apologies. Sorry, even if everything's all booked up by now, you may not come over and spend the week at my house. Anyway, on to the guide.

What would summer vacation be without a visit to a collection of grotesque medical oddities? No, I'm not referring to your Aunt Junie and Uncle Clem in West Virginia. I'm talking about the Mutter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Right now, the museum is hosting an exhibit called "Corporeal Manifestations," in which "11 ceramic sculptors ... examine the human experience from a physiological and psychological perspective." Wheeeee!

But who needs that sort of artsy malarkey when you can bop right down the hall and see sights like a jaw tumor secretly removed from the jaw of President Grover Cleveland, a "huge ovarian cyst" and a plaster cast of the bodies of the original Siamese Twins?

As if that wasn't already more fun than a human should be allowed to have on a summer's day in Philly, you can gaze in wide-eyed wonder at a display of the actual conjoined liver of said twins, and a "specimen" taken from the autopsy of presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. Now that's what I call entertainment for the whole family.

If you're a real hard-core body-part aficionado, however, for whom gazing at bits of people through glass just doesn't provide the thrills you crave, you can jet to the other side of the continent, to the frozen Yukon and the town of Dawson City. There you will find the Downtown Hotel (located, one supposes, downtown) and its famous "Sourtoe Cocktail Club."

Sourtoes, it should be noted, are actual human toes that have been dehydrated, preserved in salt and dropped into a cocktail, which is then consumed by an aspiring member of the club. I do not know where they get the toes, and I am not asking. You do not have to consume the actual toe, just touch it with your lips. As the club's one rule puts it: "You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow - but the lips have gotta touch the toe."

Have you been feeling run down? Out of sorts? Just plain pooped? Well, maybe your problem is that you're not getting enough radiation! If you think that may be it, head for the healthy radon mines of Montana!

According to the website www.RoadsideAmerica.com, a half-dozen played-out mines south of Helena, Mont., "attract ailing tourists, who bask in radioactive radon gas and drink radioactive water to improve their health." One claim is that "the gas stimulates the nerves and helps the body heal itself."

The mines have names like "Sunshine Health Mine," "Earth Angel" and "Merry Widow." (Actually that last one sounds a bit ominous, doesn't it?) Supposedly, in order to get the full effect, you're required to sit in the mine for a few hours, two or three times a week, until you hit the maximum exposure levels the state of Montana allows.

I don't know about you, but to me, nothing says "summer fun" like sitting in a hole in the ground while I worry about turning into something from a cheesy '50s monster flick.

I know some of you are probably getting impatient, tapping your feet and saying under your breath, "Yeah, yeah, that's all well and good, but where's my favorite part of this feature? Where are the freakishly huge objects?" Tap no more, dear friends. I bring you, for your edification and amazement, the world's largest pecans.

There's the actual world's largest, which sits outside a pecan farm in Brunswick, Mo. It stands 12 feet tall and weighs in at 12,000 pounds. Seguin, Texas, boasts a 5-foot-by-2 1/2-foot 1,000-pounder that has a sign over it saying, "World's largest pecan."

When asked, however, Seguinites (Seguinians?) will admit it's only No. 2. They are quick to point out, -however, that they do have the world's largest mobile pecan, a 10-foot-tall behemoth mounted on a truck frame. See it before it rolls away.

Big nuts, radioactive mines, body parts under glass and in your glass - may all your vacations be at least this interesting. Happy summer!