CALIFORNIA YANKEE

The White House New Media Failure

Today's edition of the US News & World Report's "US News Political Bulletin," reports Bush administration communications officials "believe they relied too heavily on traditional media and the White House press corps to get out the President's message about the broader war on terrorism and the booming economy":

"We didn't use the new tools of communication" like the Internet, blogs and mobile technology," said a former key official. As a result, added another official, the President's message was filtered through the mainstream press which eventually got bored with the story and stopped reporting the President's repetitive messages. "You've got to use the new tools. They can reach far more people than TV or the papers," said an administration official. "A video on the Internet or some blogging can reach millions and we should have played with that much more," said the official.

This doesn't entirely ring true. During and after the 2000 presidential campaign, team Bush seemed miles ahead in the use of the internet. The use of "team leaders" was very savy and seemed cutting edge for the time. Perhaps, despite that great start, the White House failed to grasp the potential power of blogs.

The White House failure to embrace blogs is unfortunate because the right side of the blogosphere was a natural ally for President Bush and was self-identified as part of the President's base.

We don't agree with all of the Bush policies. Immigration is perhaps the best example of that. Nevertheless, in disagreement we were usually respectful. Starting with the Harriet Meirs debacle things started to change. A divergence between the agendas of the White House and those of the right side of the blogosphere has festered and is now perceived by both sides as more than a polite agreement to disagree.

According to the US News Bulletin, White House insiders claim that they have worked with bloggers and non-traditional media but that the tide has turned against them. Well, the tide has turned - just as the right side of the blogoshpere is less subtle or polite in disagreement with the administration, the President has likewise given up the high road and directly attacked conservatives:

During a visit to Georgia on Tuesday, President Bush raised the ante, blasting “conservative critics” of the Senate immigration reform deal. President Bush accused conservative critics "of having failed to read the legislation they're attacking":

The first step to comprehensive reform must be to enforce immigration laws at the borders and at work sites across America. And this is what this bill does. For the skeptics who say that we're not concerned about border security or workplace enforcement, they need to read the bill. The bill prioritizes enforcing our laws at the border, and saying to employers, we'll hold you to account for employing somebody who's here illegally -- knowingly employing somebody who's here illegally.

[. . .]

A temporary worker program will not begin until our border security measures are in place, and until we have a reliable system for verifying employment eligibility. That's the way the bill works. Oh, I'm sure you've heard some of the talk out there about people defining the bill. It's clear they hadn't read the bill. They're speculating about what the bill says, and they're trying to rile up people's emotions. This is a good piece of legislation. It addresses the border security needs, and it addresses the employment needs of our country [emphasis added.]

In the words of the New York Times, this was a "rare case of the president's taking on the coalition that helped him win and keep the Oval Office, the same conservative radio hosts, bloggers, writers and members of Congress who contributed significantly to the defeat of immigration measures last year."

The bloggers with whom I choose to associate take pride in doing their homework. We have perused the bill and found things - too many things - that need to be modified.

Instead of wrongly accusing opponents of objecting to the bill because we haven't read it, the President should seek a cease fire. He should have representatives reach out to those who point out specific problems contained in the bill and see if improvements can be made. This is the least he can do for those "that helped him win and keep the Oval Office." In arriving at the Senate immigration deal, the President did at least that much and more with those that did not provide him such assistance.

The White House can then reconsider the misplaced over reliance upon traditional media and attempt to forge a renewed relationship with the new media. They don't have to choose one over the other. Even the traditional media is beginning to embrace the new media. Realizing there is a potential symbiotic relationship to be exploited in joining the traditional and new media, many newspapers now have blogs. Perhaps the White House communications team can effectively exploit that relationship as well.

Ignoring The Constitution May Doom Immigration Deal

The Senate should know better, especially after last year.

The U.S. Constitution’s “Origination Clause” (Article 1, Section 7) requires that revenue-related bills to originate in the House; therefore, some argued that the back-taxes provision in the Senate's Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 was unconstitutional.

The Senate's current immigration deal requires that illegal aliens to pay back taxes before becoming citizens, thereby reopening the door for any member of the House to block the proposed Senate immigration deal by issuing a blue-slip, the color of the paper used for the resolution which formally declares that there has been a violation of the "Origination Clause." The bill would then be returned to the Senate for the appropriate constitutionally permissible reforms.

According to the Hill, several House members are "lying in wait for the Senate to 'make the same mistake twice.'”

“We’d rather have no bill than a bad bill,” Kurt Bardella, spokesman for Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), said. The House Immigration Reform Caucus that Bilbray chairs, bitterly opposed to the Senate bill, “will use any and every means necessary to see that the American people get the immigration [reform] they deserve,” Bardella added.

The list of House GOP critics who could race to blue-slip the Senate bill is a long one. Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), both staking presidential bids on opposition to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.) all said through press secretaries that they are considering any and all options to counter the Senate bill.

Last year, then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, tried to resolve the constitutional procedural issue in the usual way, proposing to attach the immigration bill to a tax bill that had already passed the House. It would then proceed to a "conference committee," where negotiators from the House and Senate hammer out differences between the two chambers' immigration bills. But Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid refused to go along with that fix. I presume that was because the Democrats decided they could gain a partisan political advantage if there was no immigration reform before the midterm elections.

Just like last year, the Senate's immigration deal may be doomed to never make it to a conference committee. Under House rules, any member can introduce a "blue-slip resolution" to return the legislation to the Senate, potentially killing the so-called "immigration reform" effort. Why would the Democratic lead Senate make the same mistake twice? Do the Democrats want to scuttle this year's immigration reform as Reid and company did last year?

Dodd Calls for End to Iraq War

Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd said Saturday we can't wait to end the war in Iraq:

"We really can't wait another 18 months," the U.S. senator from Connecticut said while campaigning. "We have to have the convictions to stand up to this president."

Dodd said the war has been waged "for all the wrong reasons" and that it is eroding both the nation's security and its moral leadership.

Dodd wasn't always for giving up on the war.

He voted to authorize the war.

During the "The Great Connecticut Senatorial Iraq Debate," Dodd, like Senator Lieberman was hopeful that the number of U.S. troops in Iraq could be decreased "significantly" by the end of 2006 and adamant that the military should determine when troops come home, not artificial deadlines.

Less than a year ago, Dodd voted against Kerry's amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, which called for "redeploying" troops out of Iraq by July 2007.

But that was all before he became a presidential candidate.

Villaraigosa Backs Hillary

Hillary has won the endorsement of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa:

"She's the right candidate at the right time," Villaraigosa said to reporters outside Los Angeles City Hall on Tuesday.

According to the Associated Press, Villaraigosa will announce his endorsement Wednesday, at a Clinton campaign rally at UCLA.

Villaraigosa's endorsement is an important accomplishment for the Clinton campaign. The mayor is popular among the growing number of Hispanic voters. Exit polls in the 2004 election found 21 percent of California voters were Hispanic.

Also posted at Examining Presidential Politics.

Bagpipes Cryin

"Bagpipes Cryin'" by country Duo Rushlow Harris. The song is based on a poem written by Commander Mark Waddell, as a tribute to the SEALS he lost under his command. It's a moving tribute to those who sacrificed so much for us.

Via saul anuzis, at RedState.

Richardson Gets It Wrong

On NBC's "Meet The Press," Presidential wannabe Bill Richardson stated that the border fence had not worked anywhere along the border:

MR. RUSSERT: The wall hasn’t worked?

GOV. RICHARDSON: No, it hasn’t worked.

MR. RUSSERT: Anywhere along the border, the fence hasn’t worked.

GOV. RICHARDSON: It hasn’t worked. What has worked is more border patrols. What has worked is some National Guardsmen. What has worked is some technology. It’s made the program better. But, Tim, we got to talk to Mexico, our friend, get them to do more. . . [The complete transcript is available here.]

Richardson needs to get his facts right. In April 2006, The Assistant Chief of the Border Patrol's San Diego sector, Jim Henry, told NPR that apprehensions in the San Diego sector were reduced 95 percent, from 100,000 a year to 5,000 a year, after the single strand of cable marking the border was replaced by double -- and in some places, triple -- fencing.

Some say Richardson's statement is more than getting the facts wrong. Watch this video of Richardson saying the fence hasn't worked:

Richardson isn't going to convince many people to support him if he continues to make such gaffes on national television broadcasts.

Thanks to Lonewacko for the tip.

Memorial Day 2007

Please take the time today to remember all those that sacrificed so that we are able to live in freedom.

Observe the National Moment of Remembrance at 3 p.m., local time, today. Pause for a minute in an act of national unity to honor those who died for our freedom. Ask others to remember, to observe the Moment wherever you are.

Or do as Ralph Kinney Bennett suggests in his phenomenal "Go and find a soldier's grave." Go and find a soldier's grave and think about what it means; what it really means to give your life, in its prime, for your country. Make this Memorial Day truly memorable.

The image above is from the National Cemetery in the Presidio in San Francisco. The image to the left is an arial view of the World War II Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, which is situated on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach and the English Channel in Colleville-sur Mer, France.

President Abraham Lincoln found the most appropriate words:

The Gettysburg Address
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Who Was Wrong?

Chris Matthews tries to rewrite history. Watch this video:

Now read section 3 of the Iraq Liberation Act:

SEC. 3. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS REGARDING UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD IRAQ.

It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.

Sounds like support for regime change in Iraq to me.

It is Chris Matthews who is wrong, not the audience or Giuliani. To paraphrase Mr. Matthews, How can he go on television and incorrectly accuse people of being wrong without any research? Who writes this stuff for Matthews?

As for Matthews' complaining that the Iraq Liberation Act is said to have opened the door for former president Clinton to attack Iraq and the Washington Posts Anne Kornblut's quip, that "this has been a standard Republican Line for sometime," Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act on October 31, 1998 and on December 16, 1998 attacked Iraqi weapon sites. Watch this report from Fox News reporter Jim Angle.

McConnell Predicts Passage Of Immigration Deal

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell predicts passage of the Senate immigration deal soon after lawmakers reconvene. The Senate will be back from a week-long break for the Memorial Day holiday on June 4. McConnell is less certain the so-called immigration reform will pass the House.

According to the Minority Leader, the immigration bill in Congress won't cost "a single member of either party:"

Most Americans want Congress to fix a system they regard as broken even though they have reservations about the proposed legislation, McConnell said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital with Al Hunt." Public opinion, he predicted, will trump such specific concerns as whether it amounts to amnesty to grant eventual legal status to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

"This is a divisive issue" for both parties, said McConnell, a Kentucky Republican. But, he said, "I don't think there's a single member of either party next year who is going to fail to be re-elected over this issue."

I think McConnell is correct.

UPDATE: Guest blogging at Right Wing News, my RedState colleague, Rob Bluey wonders if McConnell has lost his way:

What a tremendous disappointment. McConnell, who is up for re-election next year, should know better. He's won accolades among conservatives for his steady leadership and savvy work blocking Democrat-sponsored legislation. But his support for the amnesty bill will undo much of that.

Like Rob, I have appreciated McConnell's leadership in the Senate. It's not surprising that McConnell would support the Senate immigration deal. Leader McConnell was among 23 Republicans who voted for the immigration reform bill, which passed the Senate last year. McConnell sees the current bill as an improvement over last year's bill. Senator McConnell isn't seeking perfection and would rather act than not act.

Go Find A Soldiers Grave

As we prepare to celebrate Memorial Day, I ask you to consider the suggestion of Ralph Kinney Bennett, who last year posted a phenomenal article at TCS Daily about how to make Memorial Day truly memorable.

Make this Memorial Day really memorable.

Go and find a soldier's grave.

It shouldn't be too hard. If you're not near a military cemetery, just about any cemetery will do.

Look for the little American flags fluttering by the stones or the little bronze markers placed by the veterans' organizations.

Or walk the rows and look for those stones that impart terse histories of short lives -- "Killed in Action on the Island of Iwo Jima," or "KIA Republic of Viet Nam," or "Iraq 2003."

I know, I know. You do plan to watch that short parade, and the ceremony at the flagpole. But then relatives are going to be over for that big cookout. There's baseball and auto racing on TV, not to mention the "Memorial Day Mattress Event" or the "Memorial Day SUV Salesathon."

Look, just take an hour away from all that. An hour. Go out early in the morning if you have to.

Go and find a soldier's grave.

Put some flowers there. Or just pause and say a prayer. Nothing elaborate. "Thanks" will do.

Or just stop and think about what it means; what it really means to give your life, in its prime, for your country. Look at that name there on the stone. Think what might have been... and what was.

Some of these men and women were in uniform by choice. Some because they had no choice. Some were heroes. Some were not.

But they were there where all hell was breaking loose. They probably had no idea they were giving "the last full measure of devotion." They just had some instant, desperate job to do. In a cockpit or a turret or a hole in the ground.

Did they grasp the "policy implications" of their presence on the high seas, in the air or on some foreign soil? Did they have time for a curse or a prayer when they saw the muzzle flashes or heard that rushing sound, or when the bomb sent the Humvee into the air?

Go and find a soldier's grave.

You can have that hamburger and beer later, and maybe relax in the hammock and not give a thought to that one whose life span is now an incised line in stone -- that one who represented you, like no Congressman could.

Go and find a soldier's grave.

Remember what duty costs.

Then just bow your head and, as Gen. George S. Patton said, do not mourn that such men died, but thank God that such men lived.

Bennett's suggestion is much more in keeping with the ideals of Memorial Day then John Edwards' revolting effort to seek a personal political advantage by dishonoring the sacrifice of our heros.

How do you plan on celebrating Memorial Day?

Photo by William D. Moss, courtesy of the Defense Department.