Watching The Trib Omit

I'll say it again - oh the stuff they leave out!

Take a look at this Editorial from today's Tribune-Review (by the way, it's titled "Ed the terrorist?":

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell is so self-serving that he accepted apparently illegal payments for speeches supporting an Iranian-dissident organization that the State Department has listed as a terrorist group since 1997.

The Treasury Department has subpoenaed records related to payments that Mr. Rendell admits taking in exchange for advocating removal of the People's Mujahedeen of Iraq, aka Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), from State's terror-group list.

He denies wrongdoing and says he and his agent are cooperating. Yet a Treasury spokesman told The Washington Times that "U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group."

As always, when you peek into the details you'll see what Scaife's braintrust has decided you don't need to know.  From there you can decide for yourself their credibility.

They Have No Shame (Seconda pars)

More evidence the GOP has no shame.

First there's Karl Rove. And no, I am not talking about how this "traditional marriage defender" is getting divorced - for a second time. No surprise to learn that a prominent GOPer is trying to rewrite Bush Administration history. Via Thinkprogress:

Yesterday on Hannity, former Bush White House adviser Karl Rove sharply criticized President Obama’s response to the failed terrorist attack on Christmas Day. In particular, Rove went after the fact that Obama issued his first public statement on the matter 72 hours after the event.

And what do you think we find when we actually you know take a look at the Bush record? Thinkprogress links to this at the this Huffingtonpost article where the headline reads:

Bush Waited Six Days To Discuss Shoe Bomber With No GOP Complaints

Huh. Imagine that.

There's more. This from Talkingpointsmemo:

Last night, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge said that he disagreed with the decision to try the Flight 253 suspect criminally, and that "he's not a citizen of this country."

A few paragraphs later TPM reports:

Of course, Ridge was secretary of Homeland Security during the Bush administration, when British citizen and "shoe-bomber" Richard Reid was tried and convicted in 2003 on terrorism charges after attempting to blow up a plane with explosives hidden in his shoes.

History, truth, evidence. None of these terms means anything to these folks. Not while they're defending the records of war criminals.

A footnote: So Rove has now been married (and divorced) twice and Newt Gingrich is on his third marriage (he's twice divorced). Rush Limbaugh married and divorced three times. Even Ronald Reagan got divorced and remarried. Given that the GOP is the party most bent on "defending" marriage can someone please explain to me, in light of how casually prominent Republicans seem to take their marriage vows, why so many gay Americans still can't get married?

Tom Ridge Confirms It

From USNews:

Tom Ridge, the first head of the 9/11-inspired Department of Homeland Security, wasn't keen on writing a tell-all. But in The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again, out September 1, Ridge says he wants to shake "public complacency" over security. And to do that, well, he needs to tell all. Especially about the infighting he saw that frustrated his attempts to build a smooth-running department. Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over. [emphasis added]

Atrios put it best:

Sometimes it's a bit hard to remember just how nutty the world was in those post-9/11 days. Suggesting that Bush was using the terror alert for political purposes would have made you a crazy person, the mere suggestion of it would've put you outside the bounds of acceptable discourse.

And now it's been confirmed. Wonder how that'll get played out.

BREAKING - Ridge WON'T Run

A Statement from Ridge (from Pa2010):

WASHINGTON, May 7—Tom Ridge, the first U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and former Governor of Pennsylvania, issued the following statement today on his decision not to seek the Republican nomination for Senate in his home state of Pennsylvania.

“After careful consideration and many conversations with friends and family and the leadership of my party, I have decided not to seek the Republican nomination for Senate.

“I am enormously grateful for the confidence my party expressed in me, the encouragement and kindness of my fellow citizens in Pennsylvania and the valuable counsel I received from so many of my party colleagues. The 2010 race has significant implications for my party, and that required thoughtful reflection. All of the above made my decision a difficult and deeply personal conclusion to reach. However, this process also impressed upon me how fortunate I am to have so many friends who volunteered to support my journey if I chose to take it and continue to offer their support after I conveyed to them this morning how I believe I can best serve my commonwealth, my party and my country.

“Public service has long played a significant role in my life. That service does not end here. There are causes to which I remain intensely committed, including my work on behalf of the disability community, our nation’s veterans, our national security and the GOP — the party I enthusiastically joined more than four decades ago.

“To those who believe that the Republican Party is facing challenges, they are right. To those who believe the Democratic Party is without its own difficulties, they are wrong. No one party has a monopoly on all of the answers. The more important view, in my mind, is that we remember, whether Republican or Democrat, we are foremost Americans. And as Americans, we have always overcome challenges when we put partisanship aside and solutions first.

“And so my desire and intention is to help my party craft solutions that both sides of the aisle can embrace. My hope is to raise the level of civility in public debate and raise the bar on outcomes that serve our citizens fully, fairly and equally. My belief is that those in my home state can best be served by the principles of limited government, less taxes, competent governance and shared responsibility. So I stand ready and excited to help my party and my country prevail as we continue to work to preserve and protect our strong, storied and much beloved nation.”

Tom Ridge And The Fairness Doctrine

The GOP circular firing squad is aiming at Tom Ridge. As usual the GOP gets its history wrong and their media mouthpieces (in this case the Tribune-Review) omits some important data.

From Washington Monthly:

Arlen Specter left the Republican Party when Pennsylvania Republicans rejected his relative moderation. Pessimistic about Pat Toomey's chances, GOP leaders have been scrambling, looking for a credible Republican alternative.

It appears the party has rallied behind former Gov. Tom Ridge (R) as their new go-to guy. Ridge, a two-term chief executive and the first DHS Secretary, is probably the only Republican with a realistic shot at winning the statewide race.

Couple problems here:

There are, however, a couple of problems. First, Ridge lives in Maryland, not Pennsylvania, and as Rick Santorum can attest, Keystone State voters tend to care about whether their candidates live in the same state as they do.

Second, there's the inconvenient fact that Ridge isn't that much more conservative than Specter. If the party's far-right base found Specter intolerable, Ridge, whose pro-choice views were rumored to have kept him off the McCain ticket, may find himself vulnerable to attacks from the right.

First attack from the National Review Online:

We keep hearing again and again that Tom Ridge is a supporter of abortion rights and that he's less conservative than Pat Toomey. Both statements are correct. But just what kind of Congressman was he?

Fact is, it really depends on what year you're looking at. He moved from left to right over time. Near the end of his congressional career, as he prepared his gubernatorial run, Ridge was a 60-70 percent voter on the American Conservative Union's issues. Earlier on, he voted like a moderate Democrat, with ratings as low as the 30s.

A few key votes that Ridge took: He voted to expand welfare eligibility (1984), to fund abortions with public money, and in favor of the fairness doctrine (in 1987). Ridge voted against an early school choice program in 1992. He also voted for a number of union priorities — in 1988, he voted to re-hire the air traffic controllers who had gone toe-to-toe with President Reagan seven years earlier and lost. Ridge voted against SDI repeatedly, and against some tax cuts.

The bottom line is that as a member of Congress, Tom Ridge had a liberal streak that goes far beyond abortion. But his record still puts him to the right of Arlen Specter.

Note Ridge's shift towards the right over time - that Ridge began in Congress farther to the left than when he left it, according the writer of the piece, David Freddoso. But such subtlety is lost, obviously, on our friends on The Tribune-Review's editorial board. Take a look:

Writing at National Review Online, David Freddoso reminds that Tom Ridge, now talked up as a Republican challenger to Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter next year, might not be everybody's idea of a "conservative" but that his record is to the right of Mr. Specter. It will, however, be difficult for Republicans to forget Mr. Ridge's votes for the liberal-coddling Fairness Doctrine and repeated votes against missile defense. And that would make it tough sledding against the real conservative in the race — Republican Pat Toomey.

That pesky Fairness Doctrine. Note that Freddoso at least has the decency to point out when the votes were made. In this instance, The Trib's Editorial Board chose to omit the fact that the vote they so abhor occurred 22 years ago.

Here's something else they won't tell you. The Bill they're probably referring to was HR 1934, the "Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987." Here's the CRS Summary from thomas.loc.gov:

Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987 - Expresses the findings of the Congress that the Fairness Doctrine: (1) fairly reflects the statutory obligations of broadcasters; (2) received statutory approval from the Congress in 1959; and (3) reasonably balances first amendment rights.

Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to require broadcast licensees to provide a reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on issues of public importance. Requires enforcement and application of such requirement to be consistent with the rules and policies of the Federal Communications Commission in effect on January 1, 1987.

The bill had 71 cosponsors (though Ridge was not one of them). Among those cosponsors were:

• Robert Dornan (aka "B-1 Bob")
• Newt Gingrich
• Henry Hyde
  
• Trent Lott

I wonder why they didn't point that part out?