Oh no, here we go again, Dkos’s Markos and mainstream internet guy Dems have the hots for a ‘man in a uniform’. This time it’s fatigues-wearing Texas State Senator and Border Patrol (and former Afghanistan) Lieutenant Colonel Rick Noriega, who kos manages to describe as a “people-powered” candidate for John Cornyn’s Senate seat.
Don’t you love a lieutenant colonel defending America’s puppet government in Afghanistan?
In 2006 it was man’s man former Republican and Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb. …
Who has turned out, surprise surprise, pretty damn Republican-ite on many things, including human rights like habeas corpus.** The other man’s man kos l-o-v-e-d last year was Jon Tester, the equal to Jim Webb in disregard for basic human rights.
Anyway, as a Democrat who wants _all_ (that doesn’t mean leaving 70-80,000 behind) our troops _home_ (not redeployed in Kuwait and Afghanistan) _now_ (not in 9 months or 12 months or 4 more f%#king years), I’m not excited by either Watts or Noriega. Because their positions on Iraq seem to suck.
Here’s what little we know of Noriega’s position on Iraq (emphasis added):
Noriega said he would like the United States to follow the December recommendations of the Iraq Study Group on getting troops out of Iraq. “The war is the critical issue,” he said, adding in Spanish: “We have to stop the war.”
But the Iraq Study Group wouldn’t stop the occupation (or ‘war’):
Despite the breathless hype, the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report did not include any dramatic new ideas for ending the war in Iraq. In fact, it did not include a call to end the war at all. Rather, the report’s recommendations focus on transforming the U.S. occupation of Iraq into a long-term, sustainable, off-the-front-page occupation with a lower rate of U.S. casualties.
And the Iraq Study Group misunderstands the key fact of the occupation, that the Iraqis don’t want us in Iraq:
…its authors … share one great misconception with Mr Bush and Mr Blair. This is about the acceptability of any foreign troops in Iraq. Supposedly US combat troops will be withdrawn and redeployed as a stiffening or reinforcement to Iraqi military units.
Mikal Watts, Noriega’s main Democratic opponent for Cornyn’s seat, is also minimalist and hard to pin down on Iraq. But his position is not much different from Noriega’s, as far as anyone can tell:
Watts took aim at Mr. Cornyn as a Bush loyalist in “an ill-conceived and mismanaged war in Iraq,” saying American troops should be withdrawn. But later, on his plane, he was ambivalent about setting a timetable.
Here’s more of our man in uniform (no we’re not under martial law, he’s swearing in to the Texas House). Kos really thinks this one will turn you on:
Hey guys, let’s ask more from Democratic candidates than that they be he-men, as ‘proved’ by their combat duds.
** The Senate bill that Tester and Webb have not signed onto, sponsored by Senators Leahy and Specter, would axe the following provision of the Military Commissions Act:
No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.
Also at http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=17877
Markos is a “libertarian Democrat” whatever that means. He doesn’t want a progressive Democratic Party. He wants a Democratic party in which he is an acknowledged king maker. If that means throwing women’s issues, or gay issues, or other “single issues” (think the environment) overboard in order to elect the Dems he supports, then he will be all for it. He is not the leader of the netroots, he’s starting to be a cancer upon it.
You mean a “Libertarian CONservative”?
Has Kos ever been to Texas? He really needs a cup of STFU and stop trying to tell Democrats in every state who they should nominate.
be sure to save a cup for yourself. I see you feel free to comment on a wide range of topics yourself-without geographic limit.
Kos has been to Texas-more than once. I’ve met him and he has quite a few very well connected activist friends here.
Besides, while Kos and the other national blogs are interested in supporting a strong candidate against Cornyn, the draft movement that eventually helped convince Rick to form his exploratory committee is Texas based.
Where are you at, Alice?
Tips and recommends for me, a non-libertarian Democrat, and my post.
Has anyone else come forward?
Two other candidates have also formed exploratory committees, Mikal Watts (a trial lawyer from San Antonio with deep pockets) and Emil Reichstadt, of whom I know very little.
Neither has any legislative experience.
Any of these three would be an improvement over Box Turtle Cornyn.
I don’t have an opinion about Texas, TX Democrats can judge for themselves, I just think Kos should stop playing king maker.
Just because you have some TX connections doesn’t mean you can judge. Except for extreme cases, like Lieberman, the national blogs should stay out of primaries.
“national blogs should stay out of primaries”?
Excuse, me, but national blogs like Firedoglake, Down With Tyranny, Blue America, and other national blogs have been raising money for, and awareness of, progressive candidates from all 50 states.
I’m quite glad that national blogs are involved with primaries, because they help out underdog candidates who might otherwise not stand a chance to compete.
was a bad idea?
How about Jon Tester? Jim Webb?
Are you from Texas? I didn’t see your answer, but if not, how do you presume to know what people in Texas want?
Venturing that opinion on a national blog, no less.
Mmmmmmm. Nice irony sauce on that dish.
I don’t have an opinion about Texas, TX Democrats can judge for themselves
I thought that made it clear that I am not from TX. I am from VA and I do not regard Webb as a success story.
I regarded Lieberman as an extreme case and supported the Ned Lamont campaign. I think it fine for national blogs to get involved when there are no primaries, but otherwise they should stay out.
Just my view.
And, so?
While Noriega was getting legislative experience, arresting illegal immigrants and killing Afghans, Mikal Watts was winning multimillion dollar settlements for people victimized by giant corporations like Firestone.
So, what the hell is so wrong with Watts’ ‘story’ compared to Noriega’s? Okay, he didn’t learn to salute his superior officers, he didn’t learn to kill and ask questions later, and, hey, he didn’t get any legislative experience.
The problem I have is very simple: why is Markos so frequently turned on by military guys? He’s living inside a myth that these guys are popular with either the Democratic majority or the population at large. He needs (for example) to take a look at General Clark’s abismal 2004 Presidential campaign and maybe take a pill for his uniform fetish.
He’s living inside a myth that these guys are popular with either the Democratic majority or the population at large. He needs (for example) to take a look at General Clark’s abismal 2004 Presidential campaign and maybe take a pill for his uniform fetish.
My view precisely.
I can’t speak for Markos but I welcome veterans into the Democratic Party. Almost all the Iraq/Afghan vets that have run for office have run as Democrats, which tells people something important.
And I think it helps in Texas to have a guy that has served his country running rather than just another trial attorney.
I’m not from Texas, so I’m just guessing, but I think that’s a valid presumption.
Plus, Noriega is better on women’s rights than Watts.
I don’t count it for or against him, and I don’t count Watts’ trial lawyer experience for or against him. The only way we start ‘counting’ these things is when we start buying into how the Republicans have spun our understanding of the electorate. Which is exactly what Markos and so many others seem to have done.
Sorry if this is too unkind or at least blunt, but at least Markos has the excuse of his youth, naivete and lack of deep interest in politics.
Again, I don’t speak for Markos. He’s a veteran himself and has a reason to feel strongly about pushing back on the meme that the GOP is more military friendly.
Actually, progressives making comments about how they don’t want to see vets in office or that serving in our armed forces is not a qualification (or even disqualifying) are precisely what lets the GOP claim to be more military friendly in the first place.
I think serving in the guard and doing a tour of Afghanistan gives Noriega an unique perspective on some of the most important issues we are facing. I think being a trial attorney gives different insights, some that are also quite valuable.
But I do think Noriega’s biography better places him to defeat Cornyn.
It’s the same reason that Fmr. US Attorney John Kelly is perfect for a run against Domenici.
to those stupid enough to buy that from right-wing radio. And why don’t we Dems take, say, ‘worker friendly’?
This is part of the Dems’ big problem, they don’t want to concede a single right-wing voter. And consequently they lose the activism of their base and look like whimpy and indistinguishable from the Republicans.
I find this disturbing. Not as disturbing as the dKos version of the sentiment, since failing to toe the party line there will get you banned, while you, Booman, are admirably tolerant of pretty much anything but direct assaults on your immediate ancestry. But it is disturbing all the same.
Honestly, I don’t like the military. Not just ours, but any military. Militaries make wars possible, and big militaries make them more likely. Wars are rarely genuinely in self-defense, and killing people is not a respectable profession in any case, much less in the name of ideology or greed, which covers 99% of wars. The military, moreover, sucks trillions of dollars away from productive uses of money, employs tens of thousands of scientists who could be thinking of ways to save lives instead of end them, and encourages an aggressive mindset that is a liability to both domestic society and foreign diplomacy.
If the GOP wants to take the views of a borderline pacifist like myself and use them to paint the whole Democratic Party in those colors, what should I do? Should I STFU and force GOP propagandists to invent left-wing pacifists from whole cloth (which they will surely do) to fool people who are eager to be fooled anyway, and thereby fail as well to follow the personal conscience that demands that I speak out against what I see as a cancer upon civilization? Do I end each post with a disclaimer that the views expressed here are my own and not those of the Democratic Party, which as anyone can see is busy sucking at the same military-industrial teat as the other party?
If I am undermining progressivism by saying that mechanized mass murder is a bad thing and its perpetrators probably ought not to be lauded as the apex of civilization, then both progressivism and civilization are irremediably fucked.
I’m definitely going to put myself out of the mainstream on this, but I don’t want to see military uniforms anywhere near an elected office. I don’t mean that veterans shouldn’t run, but if you keep bringing your military service up, I’m not going to vote for you. Why? Because in countries where ex-military personnel fill the legislature and the executive offices, the military generally ends up calling the shots.
And frankly, I don’t buy the argument that veterans are less likely to start wars. Seriously, where did that argument come from? Allow me to remind everyone of Lt. George H.W. Bush, Capt. Ronald Reagan, Lt. Cmdr. Richard Nixon, Lt. Cmdr. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Lt. John F. Kennedy, Col. Harry S. Truman, and so on, back through Col. Theodore Roosevelt, Capt. Abraham Lincoln, etc., and so forth. Ironically, it’s only FDR and Wilson who had no military service, and WW2 at least wasn’t an optional war.
In any event, I fail to see how a military career prepares a person to function in a democratic government. It might be quite handy in a dictatorial state, but it’s neither here nor there in a democracy.
I understand that the point of Kos’ enthusiasm for veterans is that they counteract the popular image of Dems as sissies, but maybe our effort would be better spent pointing out that tough guys of the sort so beloved by Republicans are generally incompetent dumbasses. Maybe you would want to have a beer with them, but you’d also want to keep them away from the wheel and away from elected office.
are knee jerk responses whether they’re from the left or the right.
Allow me to introduce you to Rick Noriega.
Perhaps you’d like to peruse his actual record of accomplishments, which are hardly limited to his honorable military service.
You might be curious about what his legislative colleagues think of him. (Hint, they want him to take out John Cornyn, too.) BTW, that list of supporters includes state Senator Mario Gallegos, who put his own health at risk to protect the rights of Texas voters in the last legislative session.
IOW, you might wish to inform yourself before coming to a conclusion about whether Lt. Colonel Rick Noriega would be another Senator like Jim Webb or Jon Tester.
Or, you might not. Your call.
My point, which you seem to have missed completely, is that it is his non-military record that counts in a civilian election. His military service is completely irrelevant to me, except that continually bringing it up as a selling point is as much a turn-off as continually bringing up any other irrelevant nonsense, like a candidate’s sex life.
I want to know how he’s going to vote; I simply don’t care what kind of soldier he was. He could have been demoted for cowardice under fire and spent the rest of his tour peeling potatoes on KP for all I care; his views on abortion, the environment, labor laws, and so on are what is relevant here.
I do, however, find the military fetishism emanating from dKos — and his cadre of off-site comment police — highly unattractive. There is nothing particularly admirable about killing total strangers just because someone with more stripes told you to do so. I’d rather see teachers, doctors, and scientists running than soldiers.
Which is that you’re using a candidate you might well find yourself agreeing with to indulge in some Kos bashing.
Well done, you.
I think I’d file that under “fetish is as fetish does”.
Do you really think it has escaped anyone’s attention that your main activity here is responding to “Kos bashing”? That is your point, komissar.
It’s the Noriega angle that brought me into this discussion.
Nice additional use of the ol’ ad hominem. A proud moment for you.
You might want to respond to my diary, which highlights the statement above by Noriega and then expands on what supporting the ISG recommendations means. There ain’t a lot of mystery. the ISG and Noriega support a long-term occupation with far less troops, and hopes to make that work by enlisting support from Iraq’s neighbors.
When either Noriega or Watts says _all_ troops out except for a few hundred to man an embassy of non-imperialist size, that’s when pro-peace, non-interventionist Democrats should get enthusiastic about either Watts or Noriega. So far both suck on Iraq.
you wouldn’t have led with the Kos bashing headline.
Don’t pretend you don’t know that.
was the gist of the diary. The key reality for me is the candidate’s stance on the Iraq occupation.
You’re apparently enthusiastic about Noriega despite or even because of his stance on Iraq (or at least what we can gather is his stance, since he avoids saying much specific other than what I’ve quoted). Well, you have a right not to defend your opinion on the Iraq occupation.
The list of politicians that are hiding behind the obsolete ISG report is quite long. You have a point, but it has little to do with the Netroots (or Markos’) support for Noriega.
Markos’s enthusiasm for Noriega, despite Noriega’s support for the ISG recommendations, says a lot about Markos and the site he commands. I think we know pretty well that the ISG looked to a long-term occupation that stays out of the headlines.
And, as I said, Mikal Watts is (also) non-specific as h#ll on Iraq. Progressives should demand progressive specifics (on Iraq for me) from Noriega and Watts before we get enthusiastic and fork over our bucks.
This popular image is well-earned. The Democrats just put on a real sissie or (more accurately and less politically incorrectly) whimp show with their failed resistance to the Republican filibuster.
But, most spectacularly, we go back just to May 24 and the Dems sponsoring and carrying through Congres the $95 billion funding bill for Bush’s Iraq occupation. And why did they do that? Because Bush played chicken with the troops against the whimps in Congress, and the Democrats whimped out.
So How long have you worked for the watts campaign? This is total crap.
I guess we are supposed to run a Dennis Kucinich liberal in Texas or something. Mikal Watts is a pro-lifer, Rick Noriega is a pro-choice veteran than might actually be able to beat Cornyn and he wants us out of Iraq. But he doesn’t want that enough, I guess.
the Democratic Party on Iraq. I don’t think that’s asking too much before I get enthusiastic about a Democratic Congressional candidate. See one of my other posts for the latest poll numbers on Iraq.
As is obvious to those who read the diary.
What else would you expect from a ‘peace Democrat’, when both Watts and Noriega have ‘long-term occupation’ positions?
Rep. Lt. Col. Noriega is a Texas Representative. That’s Major Rick Noriega with his right hand up. He was getting sworn in for his fourth term in the State House while serving in Afghanistan. That would explain the uniform. Don’t try and twist the facts. Look at Rick’s voting record while in the Texas House and you will see why so many in Texas are excited about him running. or you can check out the diary I did earlier today.
http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2007/7/18/92048/3231
Something that’s also worth mentioning but nobody’s bothered yet: Noriega isn’t Regular Army, he’s National Guard. He isn’t a professional soldier any longer. He was, and he’s earned the respect of those who still are, but I’ve seen him OUT of uniform far more often than IN uniform. (And like it or not, this being Texas that uniform is the single best thing he’s got going for him — a serving Democrat – even a Guardsman – trumps a Chickenhawk Republican.)
And I’ve met him maybe a couple dozen times at events, so I’ve had the opportunity to listen to him on a number of occasions over a period of … ten, twelve years I guess. He’s a liberal centrist, NOT a progressive, but we’re not going to get a progressive elected out of a statewide Texas election in the near future; hell, it’s all we can do to get them out of single-member districts.
The impression I have is that Noriega’s not an idealogue. He’s a people-centered pragmatic liberal who seems to think the system we have OUGHT to work if we had the right people running it with the right goals in mind, and I think that’s what he’s going to work towards.
He did an excellent job running the shelter-and-assistance program for Katrina evacuees, within the limits of the higher-level idiocies imposed by FEMA and friends, and as far as I could tell while covering the story the only people he pissed off in the process were the ones who thought we should have let the poor folks drown or starve… and y’know I don’t really take those folks’ opinions to mean much…
And, oddly enough for Texas these days, he doesn’t really seem to hate anyone, as far as I can tell.
One Rick story that kind of sums it for me:
Back some years ago, he was the keynote speaker at the graduation ceremony for the first ESL class at a community education program in the East End. Most of the class was made up of either very recent immigrants (read: Very Poor) or elderly folks who’d never gotten the time or chance to learn English well. So when they processed in they were mostly kind of quiet, shuffling, they were afraid to be seen or photographed or on TV… they just didn’t want to be noticed. (A fair number were, I think, political or economic refugees from places where being noticed is the first step to being dead – there’s a kind of practiced indistinguishable invisibility that comes with living in that environment for long.)
So they went through all the usual preliminary crap that goes on at these things, and then Noriega with the usual congratulatory bullshit for the school and the administrators and whatnot (it’s obligatory social noise, no one except the people being thanked ever pays attention) and then he looked at the class…
“Think about this: We are living in the only country in the industrialized world where a man can speak only one language and still be considered to be “educated”. And now you, all of you… You’re now better qualified for that title than about 80% of your countrymen, because you speak two. Congratulations. Well Done.”
It’s enough for me. If we’re building towards workably similar worlds, the path is big enough for differences of opinion on the best way to get there.
I don’t HAVE to agree with him on everything; the man cares about people, even the ones who can’t do a thing for him.
He may very well be the best candidate. I just think that Kos and the national blogs should stop being know-it-alls, king makers, etc, and let the local Democrats decide.
I think military experience is highly relevant, but it is only one factor among many. Democrats in TX can decide for themselves, everyone else should concentrate on winning elections in their own states.
I quite agree with you… except that for me it’s a theoretical argument as I’m not sure the actual votes cast on election day have anything to do with who takes office, so the whole question of who funds or supports whom is to me somewhat moot.
I don’t remember you recommending any of my Verified Voting diaries when we were having that fight during the last legislative session here in VA. If you have a concern about the machines, then DO something about them.
If Corazon Acquino took your attitude the Marcos regime would never have been brought down.
First, I’m not IN Virginia, I’m in TEXAS. None of the people on your ballot, except for the Pres and VP, are on my ballots. I don’t follow your races, I don’t worry about them.
Second, my biggest worries are NOT with the electronics involved….
Third, what I am and am not involved in in the real world is something you have no clue about, so while you’re passing out the STFU… have one on me….
Can’t Texans demand, based on those numbers, that Noriega at least be in favor of getting us out of Iraq? What does he need before he or Watts ‘gets it’?
Remember, the Iraq Study Group recommendations will not get us out of Iraq, and Noriega expressly supported those recommendations.
Here is the latest polling data on Iraq:
As for the rest of your post, it reminds me of the 2004 pro-Kerry electability arguments. Yeah, I remember him saluting the Democratic Convention too. Damn, that was lame. He and his advisors completely misread the American public, and in particular Democrats. At least by November 2006 I thought I’d seen the last of that from political mindreaders.
Texans can DEMAND anything we want. Whether we’ll GET it, or get anywhere useful WITH it, is a different question with, I think, a different answer.
I think Noriega probably “gets it” as far as WHAT the public’s preference is concerned, but it’s entirely possible he doesn’t agree with it, and doesn’t see it as a good way to handle things.
I dunno. I’m not a confidant, I’m not privy to what’s inside his head. I just go on what I read between the lines from what I’ve heard him say and where, mostly from speeches but with a few behind-the-scenes moments in the mix.
I doubt ANYONE arguing for a full and immediate withdrawal is going to get elected statewide in Texas, at the moment, and I think it’s very likely that Noriega has access to better sources of info than I have on what’s really going on over there. In any case I don’t have enough pieces of the puzzle to be doctrinaire on the question, and I’m not going single issue on it.
Bottom line is that I’m tentatively inclined to trust Noriega’s judgement on the question, given the circumstances.
However, I AM willing to go single issue on choice, and I AM willing to go single issue on “I’ve seen enough R’s in office to last the next ten lifetimes…” so I ain’t got much choice, really. But it helps that I actually DO think Noriega’s a good man with a good head AND a good heart.
Whether he wins even if he gets the most votes… another question.
Look at the numbers: independents & Democrats are overwhelmingly in favor of getting us out. Immediate I don’t know about and that’s not what I’m demanding: most people believe these things take time, so they are in favor of a withdrawal timetable. Fine, no problem, but let’s do it! And withdrawal doesn’t mean leaving 70-80,000 behind, candidates won’t be able to pretend otherwise forever.
So yes, I very strongly believe that a guy can get elected Senator from Texas who supports an orderly and swift withdrawal from Iraq. How you can say “it can’t get done” when you look at those avalanche-like numbers?
In fact, I think the Dem nominee will have a very hard time getting elected in Texas unless he clearly differentiates himself from the Republican on the key Iraq issue. If Noriega and Watts decide not to do so, they’re creating an image of themselves as wishy-washy and losers, which resonates with a lot of the public when they think of the Democrats.
Democrats and independents are NOT a clear and clean majority in Texas, which means that who wins and who loses is all about Getting Out The Vote.
Noriega stands to peel off enough wavering R’s to get there, and because he’s serving military with combat experience in this conflict, he’s going to be somewhat more difficult to label as a coward or an appeaser or a terrorsymp.
A full withdrawal candidate (of whom one should note there are not any on the horizon) will not only NOT peel off those wavering R’s, he’ll cement them back into the party (at which they become close to an absolute majority), AND hands the R’s a to-die-for GOTV argument about how the D’s are all traitors on the same side as the terrorists who’re coming to get all of us.
And it’ll fly here, because what’s not mentioned in Bush’s declining numbers is that a lot of redstaters (especially in Texas where I hear it daily) think that Bush’s problem is that he’s just not conservative ENOUGH, and that he’s just being too nice, too softhearted, and needs to just kick ass…
And THOSE are the folks who’ll turn out en masse to keep ANY of them goddam surrender-monkey liberals from destroying the country OR giving all our oil away to the Iranians and the Muslims.
When you can’t figure out the difference between the Repub & Dem candidate on the main issue of the day?
Get out the vote is about authentic enthusiasm based on a belief the candidate will make a difference. You can’t fake it, you can’t hide the wishy-washiness, people will figure that out and stay home. I’m a messenger: with their (apparently) long-term occupation Iraq stands, Noriega and Watts will make people sit on their butts and stay home.
By the way, more than 40% of Republicans now want us to withdraw from Iraq. Those would be the rational Democratic camaigner’s votes to peel off. Right? Again, when the Dems try to be all things to every voter, even the rightist wing of Republicans (on this issue), they end up inspiring apathy because people don’t buy that.
Thanks, I changed “Senate” to “House”.
wow, weren’t some of us saying this stuff years ago?
Everyone bitched and said we were crazy.