Drunk on power, the Republican oligarchs overreached. Fall of the Rovean Empire?

[Guest guest]

A

Fri, 7 Oct 2005 23:05:07 -0400

Drunk on power, the Republican oligarchs overreached. Fall of

the Rovean Empire?

 

 

(The oligarchy has been trying to control the USA for a very long time with

various plots. This one started when Nixon was president is only the latest.

They never stop trying to turn it into an oligarchy or fascist state.)

 

 

 

By Sidney Blumenthal

Salon.com

 

 

 

Drunk on power, the Republican oligarchs overreached. Now their entire

project could be doomed.

 

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100705K.shtml

 

Thursday 06 October 2005

 

Drunk on power, the Republican oligarchs overreached. Now their

entire project could be doomed.

 

For 30 years, beginning with the Nixon presidency, advanced under

Reagan, stalled with the elder Bush, a new political economy struggled

to be born. The idea was pure and simple: centralization of power in

the hands of the Republican Party would ensure that it never lost it

again. Under George W. Bush, this new system reached its apotheosis.

It is a radically novel social, political and economic formation that

deserves study alongside capitalism and socialism. Neither Adam Smith

nor Vladimir Lenin captures its essence, though it has far more

elements of Leninist democratic-centralism than Smithian free markets.

Some have referred to this model as crony capitalism; others compare

the waste, extravagance and greed to the Gilded Age. Call it 21st

century Republicanism.

 

At its heart the system is plagued by corruption, an often

unpleasant peripheral expense that greases its wheels. But now

multiple scandals engulfing Republicans - from suspended House

Majority Leader Tom DeLay to super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to White

House political overlord Karl Rove - threaten to upend the system.

Because it is organized by politics it can be undone by politics.

Politics has been the greatest strength of Republicanism, but it has

become its greatest vulnerability.

 

The party runs the state. Politics drives economics. Important

party officials are also economic operators. They thrive off their

connections and rise in the party apparatus as a result of their

self-enrichment. The past three chairmen of the Republican National

Committee have all been Washington lobbyists.

 

An oligarchy atop the party allocates favors. Behind the

ideological slogans about the " free market " and " liberty, " the

oligarchy creates oligopolies. Businesses must pay to play. They must

kick back contributions to the party, hire its key people and support

its program. Only if they give do they receive tax breaks, loosening

of regulations and helpful treatment from government professionals.

 

Those professionals in the agencies and departments who insist on

adhering to standards other than those imposed by the party are fired,

demoted and blackballed. The oligarchy wars against these

professionals to bend government purely into an instrument of oligopolies.

 

Corporations pay fixed costs in the form of legal graft to the

party in order to suppress the market, drastically limiting

competitive pressure. Then they collude to control prices, create

cartels and reduce planning primarily to the political game. The

larger consequences are of no concern whatsoever to the corporate

players so long as they maintain access to the political players.

 

The sums every industry, from financial services to computers,

spends on lobbying are staggering. Broadcast media firms spent $35.88

million in 2004 alone on lobbyists in Washington, according to the

Center for Public Integrity. Telephone companies spent $71.97 million;

cable and satellite TV corporations, $20.22 million. The drug industry

during the same period shelled out $123 million to pay 1,291

lobbyists, 52 percent of them former government officials. The results

have been direct: The Food and Drug Administration has been reduced to

a hollow shell, and Medicare can't negotiate lower drug costs with

pharmaceutical companies. In the 2004 election cycle, the drug

industry paid out $87 million in campaign contributions for federal

officials, 69 percent of them flowing to Republicans.

 

Whereas almost all lobbying before the Bush era was confined to

Capitol Hill, now one in five lobbyists approaches the White House

directly. Consider the success story of one Kirk Blalock, a former

aide to Karl Rove as deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison,

where he coordinated political links to the business community. Now,

one year out of the White House, he's a senior partner in the lobbying

firm of Fierce, Isakowitz and Blalock, boasting 33 major clients, 22

for whom he lobbies his former colleagues in the White House. Indeed,

the Bush White House boasts 12 former lobbyists in responsible

positions, from chief of staff Andrew Card (American Automobile

Association Manufacturers) on down.

 

" The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has more than

doubled since 2000 to more than 34,750, " reports the Washington Post,

" while the amount that lobbyists charge their new clients has

increased by as much as 100 percent. "

 

Macro- and microeconomic policies are subordinate to the circular

alliance of oligarchy and oligopoly. Government expenditures have

raced to the fastest pace of increase under Bush since President

Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But the spending is not intended to

prime the economic pump. Nor is it invested mainly in public goods

such as infrastructure or schools; nor is it used to expand the

standard of living of the middle and working classes, whose incomes

and real wages are rapidly shrinking. Instead it is poured into

military contracts and tax cuts heavily weighted to the very

wealthiest, who do not in turn invest in productive capital. As a

result, the largest budget surplus in U.S. history has been

transformed into the largest deficit, whose bonds are principally held

by Asian banks, a shift that presages a strategic tilt of global power

and long-term threat to national security. The illusion that as the

post-Cold War unipolar power the U.S. faces no countervailing forces

is undermined by the administration's constantly draining deficits.

Thus 21st century Republicanism reverses the policies that brought

about the American century.

 

Under Ronald Reagan, the unanticipated consequences of supply-side

economics - instead of tax cuts fostering increased government

revenues, they blew a black hole in the budget - has under Bush been a

conscious policy following the Reagan lesson. The reason is to apply

fiscal pressure on government, making its regulations more pliable for

manipulation in the interest of oligopoly and therefore the Republican

political class. Just as macroeconomic policy is the plaything of

politics, so is microeconomic policy. Environmental degradation,

lowered public health and urban neglect are indifferent byproducts.

 

The Republican system is fundamentally unstable. Bush has no

economic policy other than Republicanism. As the economic currents run

toward an indefinable reckoning, the ship of state drifts downstream.

 

In stable systems, individuals are replaceable parts.

Republicanism as constructed under Bush is a juggernaut that cannot

afford to scrape an iceberg.

 

The Republican scandals converge on operators who are the center

of the oligarchy. Their own relationships are complicated and tangled.

But the outcome of the scandals affecting these major actors will

inevitably unravel the Republican project.

 

On Monday, Tom DeLay was indicted by a Texas grand jury for money

laundering of corporate contributions through his political action

committee, a crime that carries a life sentence. DeLay had resigned on

Sept. 28 as House majority leader after being handed his first

indictment for felony conspiracy. Even as DeLay proclaimed himself a

victim of injustice - " I am indicted just for the reason to make me

step aside as majority leader " - he proclaimed that he would rule

" with or without the title. "

 

As DeLay shouts defiance, federal prosecutors close in on one of

DeLay's " closest and dearest friends, " Jack Abramoff, whose largess to

DeLay over the years, including lavish trips to Korea and Britain, are

part of the investigation. Abramoff's bilking of millions from Indian

tribes has brought other Republican figures, including lobbyist Grover

Norquist, a key DeLay advisor, and Ralph Reed, a central character in

the religious right, under legal scrutiny.

 

At the same time, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald,

investigating the exposure by senior administration officials of the

identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, has completed his inquiry by

receiving the testimony of New York Times reporter Judith Miller, and

must issue any indictments before his grand jury expires on Oct. 28.

Within the White House, Karl Rove, feverishly mustering wavering

conservative support for Bush's nomination of his personal lawyer and

White House legal counsel, Harriet Miers, to the Supreme Court, awaits.

 

Bush never much liked DeLay. DeLay criticized Bush's father, for

which there can be no forgiveness, and he criticized him, too. When

DeLay wanted to slash the earned-income tax credit, Gov. Bush,

beginning his presidential campaign in 1999 and seeking to establish

his bona fides as a " compassionate conservative, " said DeLay wanted to

balance the budget " on the backs of the poor. "

 

DeLay, the former exterminator from Sugar Land, Texas, a suburb of

Houston, who had called the Environmental Protection Agency " the

Gestapo, " had risen from the Texas Legislature to the U.S. Congress.

Once known for his boisterous reveling as " Hot Tub " Tom, he became

born again, and his right-wing politics always had a forbidding

punitive undercurrent. When he became Republican whip, he hung a whip

on his office wall. He relished his nickname, " the Hammer. " Asked to

put out his cigar in a restaurant because it violated the nonsmoking

rule, he bellowed, " I am the federal government. "

 

DeLay never really respected Newt Gingrich, who had led the

Republicans out of their 40-year wilderness to control of Congress and

become speaker of the House. Despite Gingrich's penchant for

vituperative personal attacks on Democrats, DeLay thought he was soft.

There was something of the lost boy about Gingrich, who collected

dinosaur bones, loved to visit zoos and speculated about outer space.

DeLay also felt that Gingrich had fallen under the seductive spell of

President Clinton and conceded too much to him. DeLay plotted coups

against Gingrich and finally succeeded after the Republicans lost

seats in the 1998 midterm elections. DeLay worried that Gingrich would

weaken in the struggle to impeach and remove Clinton, and because of

Gingrich's mistress on the House payroll, which made him doubly

vulnerable. DeLay coerced House Republicans to impeach Clinton,

threatening moderates that he would fund primary opponents and deny

them advantageous committee assignments. Without DeLay, there would

have been no impeachment. After the Senate acquitted Clinton, DeLay

preached at his local church that Clinton had been impeached because

he had " the wrong worldview. "

 

The center of DeLay's operation was the K Street Project, the

pay-for-play system by which businesses and lobbyists kicked back to

the Republican Party in exchange for legislation. He kept a little

black book noting which lobbyists were good and which were bad, who

deserved favors and who punishment. One reporter, believing that the

story about the black book was apocryphal, asked DeLay, who proudly

showed it to him.

 

Of all the lobbyists on the good list, Jack Abramoff ranked at the

top. Abramoff's provenance as a scion of Beverly Hills, Calif., could

not have been more fortuitous for a career in the Republican Party.

His father was president of the Diners Club franchises, owned by

Alfred Bloomingdale, a member of Ronald Reagan's kitchen cabinet.

Abramoff parlayed his connections and money into a campaign that

gained him the chairmanship of the College Republicans in 1981, Year 1

of the Reagan era.

 

Abramoff's campaign manager was a radical right-winger named

Grover Norquist, and the two of them recruited a zealous younger

activist to carry out their orders, Ralph Reed. Reed required College

Republicans to recite a speech from the movie " Patton, " replacing the

word " Nazis " with " Democrats " : " The Democrats are the enemy. Wade into

them. Spill their blood! Shoot them in the belly! "

 

Norquist was the first to point out the political potential of

evangelical churches to Reed, imagining that they could be turned into

Republican clubhouses. During the week of George H.W. Bush's

inauguration, Reed encountered Pat Robertson, the right-wing

televangelist, who recruited him on the spot to run the Christian

Coalition. " I want to be invisible, " Reed explained. " I do guerrilla

warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over

until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night. "

 

Norquist himself underwent a metamorphosis from gadfly to player

with the Republican takeover of Congress. His Wednesday meeting became

a place where conservative groups from the National Rifle Association

to the Christian Coalition plotted strategy. Norquist opened it up to

lobbyists, who paid exorbitant fees to be part of the action. They,

too, were then coordinated. Norquist was especially close to Gingrich,

a relationship he used to build up his own lobbying business behind

front groups such as Americans for Tax Reform. Once Gingrich was

toppled, Norquist used Abramoff to link him tightly to DeLay.

 

Karl Rove, whose political career began as chairman of the College

Republicans in 1971, was well acquainted with the Abramoff circle for

years by the time he began planning George W. Bush's presidential

campaign. He was not enamored of anti-tax crusader Norquist, who had

made a grandstand gesture of assailing Gov. Bush in the mid-1990s for

suggesting raising taxes to support schools. But, for the campaign,

Rove made peace with him.

 

In 1997, Reed left the Christian Coalition to found his own

lobbying firm, Century Strategies. He sent Abramoff an e-mail: " Hey,

now that I'm done with the electoral politics, I need to start humping

in corporate accounts! I'm counting on you to help me with some

contacts. " Rove soon recruited Reed for the upcoming Bush campaign,

setting him up as a consultant for Enron.

 

When Sen. John McCain defeated Bush in the Republican primary in

New Hampshire, Reed came into play. South Carolina was Armageddon.

Suddenly, McCain was beset by a series of vicious accusations,

including racial slurs about an adopted daughter and dirty tricks.

 

Marshall Wittman, who had worked as director of the Christian

Coalition under Reed, had joined McCain's staff, though Reed had

attempted to bring him along to the Bush campaign. " Ralph was very,

very, very close to Rove, " Wittman told me. " Ralph asked me in 1997 if

I wanted to work on the Bush campaign. Rove was operating everything.

Rove parked Ralph at Enron. Ralph told me before the New Hampshire

primary that he would do what it took to eliminate McCain as an

opponent if he posed a challenge to Bush. He would do whatever it

took, that means below the radar, paint his face. Ralph has a dual

personality, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, charming in public and then

ruthless and vicious. "

 

Abramoff grew ever closer to DeLay, helping DeLay's former aides

who had become lobbyists, who also assisted his business. Abramoff

took millions from various Indian tribes and then lobbied against them

so they would pay him more. Norquist complained to Abramoff about a

" $75K hole in my budget from last year, " and his pal put him in the

deal. Reed was hired to use the religious right to campaign against

the casino that the Tigua tribe had contracted Abramoff to help them

open. Meanwhile, Abramoff forced the Choctaw tribe, another client, to

kick back $1.5 million to the Alabama Christian Coalition. Norquist

acted as the go-between for the money, funneling it ultimately to

Reed's efforts.

 

Eventually, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee exposed the

various scams; it does not seem ironic that the committee's chairman

is McCain. Soon, the Justice Department was investigating. Norquist

and Reed have both appeared in front of the grand jury. Reed is

running for lieutenant governor of Georgia. " Ralph has notions he'll

be president of the United States, " said Wittman.

 

Abramoff is under investigation by a grand jury in Guam for

illegal contracts and money laundering and another grand jury in Fort

Lauderdale, Fla. In that case, a former business partner in the

SunCruz casino boat company with whom Abramoff had had a dispute was

allegedly murdered by three hit men, who have been indicted for the

crime. Abramoff's business partner Adam Kidan made payments from

company funds of $30,000 to one of the killers' daughters, who

performed no services for the company, and $115,000 to a firm the hit

man owned. Reportedly, Abramoff is not under suspicion for the murder,

but he was indicted in August for bank fraud in the case.

 

Last month, another player in the ring was arrested - David

Safavian, a Bush White House official, director of the Office of

Federal Procurement Policy, in charge of overseeing $300 billion in

federal contracts. Safavian had been Abramoff's lobbying partner in

the mid-1990s before he became Norquist's lobbying partner. Before he

was elevated to his sensitive post in the White House, he had been

chief of staff at the General Services Administration, where he tried

to help Abramoff grab two federal properties in Washington. On

Wednesday, Safavian was indicted on five counts of perjury and

obstruction of justice. (Safavian's wife, Jennifer, is chief counsel

on the House Government Operations Committee, overseeing the

investigation into the Bush administration's response to Hurricane

Katrina.)

 

Meanwhile, the grand jury in the Valerie Plame case prepares to

conclude its work. In August, it called Rove's assistant Susan Ralston

to testify. As it happens, she had formerly been Abramoff's assistant.

And it was revealed that before she allowed people to meet with Rove,

she cleared them with Norquist. Rove, for his part, often used

Abramoff and Norquist as his conduits to DeLay.

 

Now all the investigations are coming to a climax. Will it mean

the decline and fall of the Rovean empire? " Rove is the ultimate

center of everything, " said Wittman. " All roads lead to Rove. If it's

Rove, everything collapses. People say there is no indispensable man.

That's not true. "

 

But more than the fate of one man or even a ring around him is at

stake. For decades, conservatives created a movement to capture the

Republican Party and remake it in their image. Under Bush,

Republicanism as a system dominates.

 

With astonishing arrogance and bravado, the Republican oligarchy

wired politics and business so that they would always win. But in

believing that they actually possessed absolute power they have

overreached. Now their project teeters on the brink.

 

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/10/06/rovean_empire/index_np.html

 

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is

distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior

interest in receiving the included information for research and

educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever

with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or

sponsored by the originator.)

 

 

 

" ...if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind,

someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who

cares about the welfare of the people- their health, their housing,

their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties..

if that is what they mean by a " liberal " then I am proud to be a

liberal. " : John F. Kennedy