Yestday, ThinkProgress interviewed Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), who defeated incumbent William Jefferson to represent Louisiana’s second district, which includes New Orleans. Cao came to the United States from Vietnam when he was eight, after the fall of Saigon, and is the first Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress. ThinkProgress asked Cao to respond to a 2007 quote by shock jock Michael Savage about political refugees’ inability to assimilate:
SAVAGE: We’re getting refugees now who have never used a telephone, a toothbrush, or toilet paper. You’re telling me they’re going to assimilate? They will never assimilate. They come here and they bring their destitute ways to this country, and they never assimilate. And then their children become gang-bangers. It is a disaster.
Cao pointed out that when he arrived in the United States, he had never used a toilet or toilet paper either. “But I have assimilated, and assimilated well, I believe,” he said. He said that the Republican party must not tolerate rhetoric and ideas that mirror Savage’s, which he called “racist” and “repulsive”:
CAO: You know, the Republican party should not have those kinds of views that you just conveyed. A statement like that would be very anti-immigrant, almost to me borderlining to almost being racist, if you ask me. So I take that statement as being quite repulsive, if you ask my opinion. So I hope that the GOP will not tolerate those kinds of views and will not take those positions.
Watch it:
Unfortunately, extreme, anti-immigrant rhetoric is not confined to right-wing radio; Many of Cao’s fellow Washington Republicans have made similarly inflammatory statements:
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN): Part of that is this whole idea of multicultural diversity, which on the face sounds wonderful. … But guess what? Not all cultures are equal.
Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA): There is quite a large number of people that are coming across the border that are of Middle Eastern origin as well as Asian origin. A lot of these are single, they have no families. I don’t think they are coming here to cut our grass or work in our chicken plants.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL): If there are no jobs people will go home. They won’t continue to go here. Now a lot of ‘em wouldn’t go home; you’d have to round them up.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA): We could also electrify this wire [on the border fence] with the kind of current that would not kill somebody, but it would simply be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it. We do that with livestock all the time.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL): The numbers [of immigrants] cannot be too great, or it takes jobs from Americans and can, in fact, create cultural problems that wouldn’t occur if it was a little slower.
As one of the few non-white representatives in the Republican party, some conservatives — including Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) — are looking to Cao as the future of the party.
Yesterday on the Charlie Rose Show, journalists Jon Meacham, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and Robert Draper discussed President Bush’s “impassioned and defiant” final press conference yesterday. Meacham called Bush’s demeanor in the presser “Nixon lite” and Draper said, “I don’t know that [Bush] has ever quite respected” the press’s mission. Following that point, Stolberg noted that on Bush’s last flight on Air Force One, the press asked for a photo with him, but Bush declined:
STOLBERG: [R]elations between the Bush White House and the press are so soured that even at the very end of the flight, when Dana Perino came back and a TV cameraman said, “Why don’t you send the president back to have a picture with us,” she said, “You won’t ask him any questions, will you?” And then she said she would think about it, and she came back and she said, “Well, I’m sorry, you know, we are out of time.”
Now, he is the president of the United States. If he had engaged the press throughout his administration and used the press to his advantage, he would not find himself at the end of his presidency in a situation where he couldn’t even come back for a simple photograph.
Hillary Clinton began the first phase of her official vetting session for the position of secretary of state Tuesday morning on Capitol Hill, where she made opening remarks and faced her peers in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as they took a close look at her credentials—and her husband’s globe-trotting fundraising activities.
AP via Google News:
In remarks prepared for delivery at her Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to be secretary of state also promised to push for stronger U.S. partnerships around the globe.
“America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America,” she said. “I believe American leadership has been wanting, but is still wanted.”
Borrowing a phrase meant to signal a move away from the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, Clinton said, “We must use what has been called `smart power,’ the full range of tools at our disposal. With `smart power,’ diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy.”
Clinton, with daughter Chelsea in attendance, appeared set to sail smoothly through her hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, despite concerns among some lawmakers that the global fundraising of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, could pose ethical conflicts for her as secretary of state.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the committee, said in opening the hearing that he welcomed Clinton’s nomination, calling her “extraordinarily capable and smart.”
In his opening remarks, Sen. Richard Lugar, the panel’s ranking Republican, praised Clinton, calling her “the epitome of a big leaguer” who is fully qualified for the job and whose presence at the State Department could open new opportunities for American diplomacy, including the possibility of improving the United States’ image in the world.
But Lugar also raised questions about the issue of Bill Clinton’s fundraising work and its relation to her wife’s new post. Lugar said that the only way for Clinton to avoid a potential conflict of interest due to her husband’s charity is to forswear any new foreign contributions. The Indiana senator said the situation poses a “unique complication” that requires “great care and transparency.”
Blackwell Calls Homosexuality a 'Compulsion'. Another candidate for the position of Republican National Committee chair may have put his foot in his mouth: Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state, told gay radio host Michelangelo Signoreli that gays and lesbians suffer from a âo[ogonek]compulsionâo[caron] that they âo[ogonek]can choose to restrain.âo[caron] Blackwell reiterated several times in an interview that homosexuality can be "contained, repressed, or changed." [All Stories from Newser]
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Obama Buying Time With Afghan Surge. Barack Obama intends to sign off on a Pentagon plan to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, the Washington Post reports, but not because anyone believes this new âo[ogonek]surgeâo[caron] will turn around the failing war effort. Obamaâo[dot accent]s team expects the move, which will nearly double US presence in the country, to simply buy time to re-evaluate strategy. [All Stories from Newser]
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Alaska Sex Offender Wins Lottery Run by Victims' Group. Advocates for victims of sexual assault sponsored a lotteryâo[per thou]only to watch a sex offender walk away with $350,000 after taxes, the Anchorage Daily News reports. The group itself is likely to take home only between $2,000 and $20,000 after expenses. His victims discussed their shock at his victory: âo[ogonek]We're still dealing with it, and he gets to walk away with half a million dollars.âo[caron] [All Stories from Newser]
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The new season of Fox’s popular terrorism drama ‘24′ debuted Sunday night with a special two-hour episode. The season opened with the show’s main character, Jack Bauer, testifying before a Senate committee. Asked by the committee if he had engaged in torture while interrogating suspected terrorists, Bauer delivered a dramatic defense of torture:
BAUER: When I am activated, when I am brought into a situation, there is a reason and that reason is to complete the objectives of my mission at all costs. […]
For a combat soldier the difference between success and failure is your ability to adapt to your enemy. The people that I deal with, they don’t care about your rules. … In answer to your question, am I above the law? No, sir. I am more than willing to be judged by the people you claim to represent. I will let them decide what price I should pay. Now please do not sit there with that smug look on your face and expect me to regret the decisions that I have made because, sir, the truth is I don’t.
Bauer’s fictional defense of torture and his fictional claims of its effectiveness are having very real consequences. Over the last two days, right-wing commentators have cheered Bauer’s belligerent Senate testimony, wondering how Congress could be so ungrateful to a torture advocate like Bauer. Often their commentary has been directed at critics of the Bush administration’s torture policies and suggests that the “average person” would approve of Bauer’s conduct. Watch a compilation:
The right wing’s love affair with Bauer’s use of torture is rooted in fantasy. The so-called “ticking time bomb” scenarios that Bauer often finds himself in and that conservatives cite as instances where torture should be allowed rarely, if ever, occur. Further, where torture has been used, it almost certainly results in the extraction of unreliable or inaccurate information. The “average person” is decidedly against the use of such techniques.
Still, the show is closely watched by American service men and women around the world. At Guantanamo Bay, in particular, the show was extremely popular; a former Guantanamo JAG explained, it “gave people a lot of ideas.” Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan at West Point even traveled to meet with the show’s creator and complained that the show was “promoting illegal behavior” among military officials.
If right wingers see Bauer as an example of how to prosecute the war on terror, they might be disheartened to learn that even the man that plays Bauer, actor Keifer Sutherland, doesn’t see his character’s torture techniques as effective in real life. “You torture someone and they’ll basically tell you exactly what you want to hear, whether it’s true or not, if you put someone in enough pain,” Sutherland said last year.
Bush Skipped Post-9/11 Meeting For Awful Movie: VF No examination of the Bush Legacy would be complete without taking a look at the "First Person" account of The Cleveland Show writer/HuffPost and 23/6 contributor C. Brian Smith, exclusively on Vanity Fair's website. <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/01/dubya-and-me200901?currentPage=1";>"My Dinners With Dubya" is the incredibly true story of how a progressive, gay Yale graduate rolled up to the White House in a busted-up Jeep full of harmonicas and ended up as a regular dinner guest at the White House. During that time, Smith earned himself a Presidential nickname, and enjoyed many evenings of movie-watching with the First Family in those halcyon days before September 11. As you might expect, dog farts and diarrhea figure prominently in the pre-9/11 story, as they did for all Americans before Graydon Carter murdered irony and we all became grimly serious people.
In fact, it was in that post-9/11 period that Smith's story takes a decided turn:
One month after the worst attack in U.S. history, George W. Bush watched a 100-minute long Anthony Hopkins film called Hearts in Atlantis.
It is an awful movie, and as it drags on I feel increasingly uneasy. Surely the president should be doing something else. Occasionally he gets a phone call from Andy Card, his chief of staff, who, as I understand it, is in the West Wing meeting with the head of the F.A.A. to determine when Washington's Reagan National Airport will be safe to completely re-open (some flights began operating earlier in the week). Each time the phone rings, I hope the president will excuse himself to join them. But he doesn't. Over the phone, the president tells the men to "get that airport opened up!" and then heads to bed.
That night I leave the White House feeling more anxious about our national security than when I arrived.
In fairness to President Bush, September 11th had no discernible effect on the deep-seated, soul-destroying dread that Hearts Of Atlantis inspired in a nation of moviegoers. But, for fans of contrafactual, "what if" historical musings, consider this: when Smith first showed up at the White House and met the President for his tour of the facility, he was holding. How might a quickly sneaked toke between President and guest outside the Oval Office have changed history? The thought teems with possibilities! At the very least, one imagines that President Bush would have ended up way, way into harmonicas.
In a conversation that stretched to 75 minutes — and which Rice seemed reluctant to end — the secretary of state said she was counting the hours until Jan. 20. But she yielded little ground in defense of her record or the administration’s performance over the past eight years. After being peppered with questions about regrets, she joked, “Aren’t you going to say, ‘Aren’t you thrilled that . . .?’ ” […]
Arguing that Iraq shows signs of becoming an inclusive state — it even “declared Christmas a national holiday” — Rice said that if the country eventually emerges as a democratic, multiethnic state that has friendly ties with the United States, “that will be more important than what anybody thought in 2002 or 2003.”
For the record, the United States has declared only Christian holidays as national holidays.
In an interview with Fox News’ Brit Hume last week, President Bush said that the Republican Party needed to be “compassionate” on issues like immigration reform so that the party isn’t “viewed as anti-immigrant.” Asked about that sentiment at a press conference today, Bush said that it might be “fair” to say that “Republicans don’t like immigrants”:
BUSH: Take, for example, the immigration debate. That’s obviously a highly contentious issue. And the problem with the initial outcome of the debate was some people said, “well, Republicans don’t like immigrants.” Now, that may be fair or unfair, but that’s the image that came out. And if, you know, the image is “we don’t like immigrants,” then there’s probably someone else out there saying, “well, if they don’t like immigrants, they probably don’t like me as well.”
When the White House announced President Bush’s final press conference yesterday, it sent a bulletin to reporters declaring “one correspondent per organization” and “standing room only for non-seat holders.” But as the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank points out, not enough reporters attended for the presser to make it “standing room only”:
Further complicating his last-minute legacy rehabilitation: Nobody seems to be paying attention. The White House had high expectations for yesterday’s final, historic news conference. “ONE CORRESPONDENT PER ORGANIZATION,” proclaimed the bulletin sent to reporters. “STANDING ROOM ONLY FOR NON-SEAT HOLDERS.” But when the appointed hour of 9:15 a.m. arrived, the last two rows in the seven-row briefing room were empty, and a press aide told White House interns to fill those seats.
In a conversation that stretched to 75 minutes — and which Rice seemed reluctant to end — the secretary of state said she was counting the hours until Jan. 20. But she yielded little ground in defense of her record or the administration’s performance over the past eight years. After being peppered with questions about regrets, she joked, “Aren’t you going to say, ‘Aren’t you thrilled that . . .?’ ” […]
