A lot of people are playing up this article in the Toledo Blade. But, they are playing it up for the wrong reasons. No one should be surprised that Paul Hackett did opposition research on Sherrod Brown. Nor should anyone be surprised that his consultants told him to attack Brown for being weak on terrorism. Brown is one of the most progressive congresspeople that we have. Of course he has voted to slash defense spending and money for our intelligence services.
Sherrod Brown was always the more progressive candidate. That Hackett was going to try to turn opposition to a bloated military-industrial complex into a love affair with terrorism should have been obvious to anyone.
What people should be getting out of this article is a sense of what’s at stake.
In August, 1993, his first year in Congress, Mr. Brown supported an amendment to reduce funding for intelligence agencies by 10 percent of what they’d received in the 1993 fiscal year. It failed by a 3-1 margin. Democrat Louis Stokes was the only Ohioan to vote with Mr. Brown.
Mr. Brown voted for similar attempts to cut intelligence budgets, most of them sponsored by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) or Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), at least once a year through 1999.
More Ohio congressmen sided with Mr. Brown on the cuts at decade’s end, including, on three occasions, U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland – now a Democratic candidate for Ohio governor.
The Hackett researchers also noted Mr. Brown voted against the entire intelligence appropriations bill in 1998 and voted twice to declassify Congress’ intelligence spending levels, which are secret. He opposed creating the Department of Homeland Security, along with establishing and reauthorizing the USA Patriot Act.
Mr. Brown also voted against amendments to a 2004 intelligence overhaul that aimed to increase the government’s power to detain and deport suspected terrorists.
So, Sherrod Brown is unafraid to cast votes that are supposed to be the kiss of death in an era of Global War. He not only has not dipped into the punch bowl, he’s willing to go on the record and oppose the plundering of our treasury for a lifelong battle with a phantom menace.
The Democratic Bigwigs just shoved aside a popular, charismatic, fighting Dem in favor of an actual left-wing naysayer. And if Brown gets beaten down with the standard attacks on anyone that opposes unending bloodshed, the cause of truth and sanity will take a terrible blow.
You can see the attacks coming:
flip
Republican Party leaders including Karl Rove, President Bush’s deputy chief of staff, have pushed candidates to focus this year on fighting terrorism, a strategy widely credited for GOP victories in 2002 and 2004.
“The United States faces a ruthless enemy – and we need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity that American finds itself in,” Mr. Rove told a GOP gathering last month, the Associated Press reported. “President Bush and the Republican Party do. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Democrats.”
Republicans haven’t attacked Mr. Brown’s national security record yet. But they’ve already called him too liberal for Ohio.
Shortly after Mr. Hackett’s withdrawal last week, the National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a news release calling Mr. Brown “fundamentally out of touch with the mainstream values of Ohioans” and more liberal than Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Cleveland), based on rankings from a national liberal advocacy group.
I know it is a painful time for Paul Hackett’s biggest supporters, but if Sherrod Brown loses, the party’s conviction that liberals can’t win statewide races will be further cemented. And if he wins, we may see less of this Bob Casey bullshit.
I’m psyched to have solid liberal running in Ohio. Bring it on.
Oh. That explains why Hackett got shoved aside. The People Up Top are trying to do a hit on progressives by clearing the field for one somewhere he can’t possibly win. If Casey wins and Sherrod loses, expect the Democratic party to try and out-Reich the Republicans.
Well, I don’t agree with the first part. Casey and Brown were picked for the same reasons: money and name recognition.
But on the second point you make, yes!!
ZZZZZZZZ… solid liberal…. “race for ohio”…. zzzzzz
I hope Sherrod Brown excites bejezus out of somebody because I had never heard of him before “he decided not to run before he decided he would”.
And I don’t give a half-bucket of crap about him now that the only interesting senate candidate is not running at the behest of the DC Dumbshits.
Good Luck to him though! Really! I mean, if the backstabbing whiz-kidz wanted him bad enough to undercut Hackett… I hope that some good comes of it.
But it is not like I am going to waste my time or money on Ohio anymore.
The DC Dumbshits are the latest thing in Nytol.
LL
phantom menace=terror is absolutely correct! I can not state it any better!
Thank you for a good diary,.
Does this mean that some form of Deomcrat control would mean significantly less money spent on defense and intelligence in the near future?
but the money would be more wisely spent, IMNSHO — less money for weapons that don’t work, more money for the folks on the ground that need it (better pay/benefits, better equipment that does work).
And if we’re lucky, maybe in 2008 a change in philosophies that focus more on preventing wars before they’re fought…
I can understand that reasoning but is the foundation of the party expressed as not spending less money total in the gwot? The content of the diary could be taken in a way that Schumer and Reid as representing the party might be taking a new stand on the issue and I think that’s a good idea.
Brown’s wife, a columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, announced she is taking a leave of absence for the duration of the campaign.
Since then, a lot has changed.
My husband and I share the same values on just about everything that matters to us, which is how we fell in love and why we married two years ago.
What makes for a strong marriage, though, can really complicate a career when you are a columnist at the largest newspaper in the same state where your husband is running for elected office.
I still want to write about what’s on my mind, but that is becoming increasingly difficult. Each passing week brings more limitations in my choice of topics because there is a concern that some will accuse me of using my column to stump for my husband.
As a woman and a feminist, the suggestion that I am merely parroting my husband both amuses and offends me.
She ends with a reference to a series of articles she did exposing how many employers pocket the tips of coat checkers and wait staff:
In the meantime, please remember to ask who gets the money in the tip jar at the coat check and at the bar.
Tip restaurant servers in cash whenever you can.
And if you or someone you love is thinking of settling down with another human being, keep in mind what my mother always told us girls:
Don’t marry him ’til you see how he treats the waitress.
In 1993, foreign terrorists bombed the World Trade Center. The perpetrators were captured, given a fair trial, convicted, and incarcerated for their crime, and are still in jail today. There was no invasion of any other country. And there was no other foreign attack on US soil for the remainder of the Clinton administration, IIRC.
In 2001, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. The terrorists were killed, however there has been no capture of their alleged financiers (Osama bin Laden) or other ringleaders. We invaded a country (Iraq) that had no connection to the 2001 attacks, and indeed that attack has potentially increased our vulnerability to future terrorist attacks, both by creating animosity towards us in the Muslim world and by draining resources (especially the National Guard) that could be used to protect potential targets like nuclear power plants, etc.
So, who’s being soft on terrorism?
[Wish I could remember when/where Bush was quoted as saying he wasn’t all that concerned with bin Laden…]
I see a problem developing in this discussion. I’m not much into the voting system here but I watch to see how it’s used. At the time of writing this comment, two others have received 2 – 4s each and two others had received none. One comment was primarily a quoted reference and the other was detailed and had a few relevant points. My question in a previous comment was a legitimate question that I think is crucial to the future.
The comment that detailed the nonwar approach to terrorism is very valid, however, there’s enough evidence to show that the comment’s basis is inaccurate. Defining the terrorist threat and assessing our recent actions toward it is very important and largely misinformed.
Nothing personal toward the commentors.
in my response to your question, it’s not so much the amount of money, but what you do with it. Millions of dollars spent on intelligence really don’t matter when the people in charge ignore what’s being reported because, for example, it doesn’t match up with their mindset or interferes with future plans.
The Republicans complain all the time about money wasted in social programs — I have the same complaints, especially when you have “poverty pimps” who are more interested in lining their own pockets than truly serving the people who need the services. But I have the same complaints about phony intelligence that’s used to justify going to war, and money that’s supposed to go support our men and women in action that instead disappears in a sea of corporate red tape.
No problem in agreeing with that. I think maybe we disagree in how much is necessary for those programs altogether. There is so much money being wasted in a way to to send profits to lobbyist causes. At the same time, several of those expensive programs aren’t actually needed but are justified mostly by attacking democrats as being soft. Another factor for that waste is that the lobbyists are tied into the democrats too. We really need to take an honest look at who, what and where the threat is and address it reasonably.
I think the dems can do this but it would be a radical move on their part. It would appeal to a large segment of voters.
No rational person can believe that the bloated military budget (and it IS the military budget, not the “defense” budget) is of any use at all in defending this country against any realistic assaults. ICBMs are not the problem. Neither is ground war on our soil.
We have one of the biggest military outlays in the history of the world but have next to no successes, no protection, to show for it. We’re paying Ferrari prices and getting a military that subsists on garbage equipment, training, and care. What a fucking swindle. It’s hanging time, is what it is.
Gotta say, my early enthusiasm for Hackett now appears to have been mistaken. Doing research with the purpose of attacking Brown with the GOP “soft on terrorism” bullshit is unforgivable. That said, if the primary had been held, the winner would presumably have had the backing of the loser in a united front. Primary campaign attacks would have been neutralized. Now that may be impossible. Hackett’s idiot staff set loose a weapon that cannot be recalled.
And so I get back to my constant question: why do the Democrats work so hard to make sure they always lose? Damn, I’m sick of it.
and the more I read about him, the more I like him…I may actually send him a few dollars. I have far more confidence in him as a Democrat than I do someone like Casey, for example.
My problem was with the machinations that pushed Hackett out of the field after all the work he’d done — it’s almost like someone in the corporate world busting their butt to land a vital contract, then at the last minute being taken off the account and watching someone else get all the credit when the contract is signed. I’ve never been a fan of back-room politics, and the more times these shenanigans are pulled, the more people are going to be turned off by “politics as usual”, and we’re left with a tiny group of voters making decisions for the millions who live here…
I agree entirely, Cali. I was as pissed as anybody about how Hackett was treated. The problem is with the damn fool Dem “strategists” who insist that primaries are a bad thing, so they step in where they have no business and muscle their boy to the front of the line. If there had been a primary, even a bitter one, things would have been patched up because there would have been a fair contest instead of a fix. The loser would have become an important campaign asset for the winner.
Still, I’m disgusted with Hackett for what was apparently intended as an attack from the pro-military/war-lover side. Not what I’d call honorable, given the image Hackett tried to project earlier.
Yup.
I had the same problem with what happened to Hackett and the voters’ choice rather than not liking Brown.
Dave, if you haven’t already, read Susan Hu today.
But Dave!!
That’s what the whole fighting Dem movement is about. Spending more money on guns than the other guy.
Well, then, may I offer a suggestion or three as to where they can shove those guns?
War! What’s it good for?
Hm. I may have to do that diary on cultural views of conflict as expressed through fiction after all… Maybe I’ll have time this week!
Boo, I could write a whole diary on that if it wasn’t so enervatingly depressing. If the Dems keep on with the soldier-love, they can count me out. I’m seriously begining to wonder if the Dem “strategists” are so goddamn dumb that a Dem-led government would be almost as dangerous and self-destructive for America as the current regime.
BTW, thanks for a good and useful article.
I don’t mind soldier love. Pat Murphy and Paul Hackett are good guys. But I’d rather they tell the people about the true costs about war, not brag about their willingness to appropriate that cost.
Hackett was asked on a talk show ¨”should we get out of Iraq now”, his answer to my shock was yes.
Is that Brown´s position? It sounds like it is.
More to it than met the eye a week ago…eh?
Here’s an area that any dem candidate should be able to gain some ground if they take a stand.
Is there any standard position from the candidates to this type of problem?
Brown is more progressive than Hackett is the CW on the blogs. From skippy’s diary quoting the Mother Jones Hackett story:
The bloggers hear that Brown is more progressive, the big donors hear that Brown is more centrist.