CIVIL RIGHTS
Caving To The Right On Affirmative Action

On ABC News's This Week yesterday, host George Stephanopoulos asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) about how "opponents of affirmative action" in his home state of Arizona are pushing a ballot initiative "that would do away" with the equal opportunity program. "Do you support that?" asked Stephanopoulos. "Yes, I do," replied McCain, adding that he had "not seen the details of some of these proposals," but that he's "always opposed quotas." Asked again specifically about "the one here in Arizona," McCain responded, "I support it, yes." McCain's support for the current anti-affirmative action initiative is a reversal of the stance he took in 1998 when Arizona previously considered a similar referendum. At the time, McCain said that "rather than engage in divisive ballot initiatives, we must have a dialogue and cooperation and mutual efforts together to provide every child in America to fulfill their expectations." Caught off-guard by McCain's reversal on equal opportunity, his own spokesman Tucker Bounds struggled to explain the contradictory stances to ABC News, saying, "I do not have a firm enough grasp on the historical and relevant context of McCain's remark in 1998 to give you the pushback that this question deserves." Later, the McCain campaign "refused to say whether it stands by the candidate's announcement that he supports the ballot initiative," instead saying in a statement that McCain "has always been opposed to government-mandated hiring quotas."

WHAT MCCAIN IS BACKING: In his interview with Stephanopoulos, McCain justified his support for the Arizona initiative by saying, "I do not believe in quotas." But the effort to dismantle equal opportunity in Arizona has nothing to do with quotas, which were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court 30 years ago. The proposed amendment to the Arizona's constitution, which is being pushed by the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative, seeks to "prohibit preferential treatment or discrimination" by Arizona governmental entities "based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting." "The initiative is part of a nationwide attempt by Ward Connerly to have governmental affirmative action policies eliminated." Connerly's anti-affirmative action initiatives are set to capitalize on the "tensions of race, class, and ethnicity" stirred up by anti-immigrant efforts. Connerly, who successfully outlawed affirmative action in California, is also supporting initiatives in Colorado and Nebraska. On CNN's Late Edition yesterday, McCain declined to take a position on the Colorado initiative, saying, "I'm not familiar with the referendum." The language of Connerly's Colorado amendment is essentially the same as the Arizona amendment McCain endorsed on ABC.

MCCAIN'S RECORD ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: As many news outlets have pointed out, McCain's embrace of Arizona's anti-affirmative action ballot initiative stands in opposition to his record on equal opportunity. Not only has McCain previously resisted state-level efforts to dismantle affirmative action, as he did in 1998, but he has also defended such programs on the federal level. In 1998, McCain worked with Democrats to defeat an amendment that would have ended a program that sought "to give 10 percent of all Federally financed highway contracts to companies owned by minorities and women." In 1999, while speaking at the Unity convention, McCain declared, "I'm in favor of affirmative action and I support it." He reiterated this support as recently as April 2008, telling reporters in Ohio, "all of us are for affirmative action to try to give assistance to those who need it, whether it be African-American or other groups of Americans that need it."

BENDING TO RIGHT-WING PRESSURE?: Throughout the election season, conservatives have been pressuring McCain to get behind their efforts to dismantle affirmative action. In June, after McCain's campaign repeatedly refused to take a position on the initiatives, Connerly told ABC News that it would help McCain politically to support the initiatives. McCain should say, "I believe that our country is at its best when it treats everybody as an equal and I have read these initiatives and they do precisely that," said Connerly. Other conservatives have been calling for McCain to back Connerly as well. In April, hardline right winger Pat Buchanan published a column wondering "where does McCain stand." Writing on the National Review's blog, Center for Equal Opportunity President Roger Clegg asked rhetorically of McCain, "[D]o you favor the ballot initiatives" and "Do you support the anti-preference plank in the 2004 Republican platform?" Reacting to McCain's ABC interview, Politico's Jonathan Martin wrote that McCain's answers on affirmative action and gay adoption are indicative of the fact that he has a "lack of interest in cultural issues," but that he knows there are positions he is "supposed to take" in order to please the conservative base. With his support of the Arizona referendum, McCain has now pleased one part of this base. Clegg responded by declaring, "Kudos to John McCain."

Under the Radar

IRAQ -- REPORT SAYS MILLIONS WASTED BY CONTRACTORS ON FAILING PROJECTS: The U.S. government paid $142 million for prison and other infrastructure in Iraq to a contractor who only completed a third of the work, according to a new report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR). The Pasadena-based Parsons received $142 million as part of a contract valued up to $900 million to build prisons, fire and police facilities, courthouses, and border stations in Iraq, but only completed a fraction of projects. The SIGIR report revealed that "millions of dollars in waste are likely associated with incomplete, terminated and abandoned projects" and nearly 43 percent of disbursed funds "were spent on projects that were either terminated or canceled." Parsons' record in Iraq has been marked by extensive waste and mismanagement. A January SIGIR report showed that Parsons' failures "touched on nearly every aspect of the company's operation in the country" and were enabled by a "confluence of shortfalls," including "weak oversight, unrealistic schedules, a failure to report problems in a timely fashion and poor supervision." Parsons was also responsible for repairing the Baghdad Police College, but the building was left crumbling and with "ceilings still stained with excrement" more than a year after Parsons promised Congress it would fix the building. 

VETERANS -- SUICIDE HOTLINE RECEIVES 250 CALLS PER DAY: One year after the Veterans Affairs Department (VA) set up its first suicide hotline for veterans, the AP reports that "more than 22,000 veterans have sought help" and "1,221 suicides have been averted, the government says." The VA "estimates that every year 6,500 veterans take their own lives" and "four to five of them are under VA care." The VA's hotline comes after "years of criticism that the VA wasn't doing enough to help wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan." Last April, a group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans brought a class action lawsuit against the VA, arguing "that failure to provide care is manifesting itself in an epidemic of suicides" among veterans. Around the same time, CBS News reported that the VA "apparently concealed veteran suicide statistics, and fed the news organization faulty data for a story on the issue." In May, VoteVets.org and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington revealed that the VA encouraged "staff to refrain from diagnosing soldiers and veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder."

IRAQ -- PETRAEUS REJECTS IRAQI GOVERNMENT'S CALL FOR U.S. WITHDRAWAL: Earlier this month, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called for a 16-month timetable for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. The Bush administration quickly rejected the timetable, strong-arming Maliki to retract his statement. McClatchy reports that Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. top commander in Iraq, said in an interview that the situation in Iraq is too volatile to "project out, and to then try to plant a flag on, a particular date." He added, "There are a lot of storm clouds out there, there are lots of these possible lightning bolts. You just don't know what it could be. You try to anticipate them and you try to react very quickly. ... It's all there, but it's not something you want to lay out publicly." Despite the administration's rejection of the sovereign Iraqi government's requests, Iraqis have remained firm in their calls for withdrawal. Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh recently reiterated that the government wanted a withdrawal of U.S. troops by 2010.

Think Fast

The White House has "increased its estimate for next year's deficit to nearly $490 billion, a record figure that will saddle the next president with deepening budget problems in his first year in office." The rising deficit "marks a sharp turnaround for Bush's fiscal legacy. He inherited a $128 billion surplus when he came into office."

A Transportation Department report to be released today "shows that over the past seven months, Americans have reduced their driving by more than 40 billion miles. Because of high gasoline prices, they drove 3.7% fewer miles in May than they did a year earlier, the report says, more than double the 1.8% drop-off seen in April."

This week the Senate will take up a $10 billion "Tomnibus" bill containing 35 measures Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) -- a.k.a. the Senate's "Dr. No" -- has tried to single-handedly block. Coburn has exploited the “unanimous consent” practice in the Senate to hold up bills he says are duplicative of other laws already passed.

Due to insensitive remarks made by right-wing radio host Michael Savage about autistic children, "several big advertisers have pulled their commercials from the syndicated 'Savage Nation' radio show, and now, thousands of parents and protesters are urging Savage to step down, calling his words 'hate speech.'" (Take action here.)

"The American military admitted Sunday night that a platoon of soldiers raked a car of innocent Iraqi civilians with hundreds of rounds of gunfire" in Baghdad on June 25. The military also acknowledged issuing a faulty news release "larded with misstatements, asserting that the victims were criminals who had fired on the troops."

"With President Bush set to leave next week for the Olympics in Beijing, the White House is coming under increased pressure from lawmakers and advocacy groups to make a public statement of concern about the crackdown on human rights and freedom in China."

And finally: Campaign buttons in Idaho show an unlikely pair: Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Larry Craig (R-ID). "Apparently the button manufacturer picked a picture of the wrong Idaho Larry," the AP notes, as the buttons were "intended to show Obama beside Larry LaRocco, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate." "That sounds like it's going to be a collector's item," said a LaRocco spokesperson.

Good News

"Congress approved mortgage relief for 400,000 struggling homeowners Saturday as part of an election-year housing plan that also aims to calm jittery financial markets and bolster the sagging economy. President Bush said he would sign it promptly."

State Watch

CALIFORNIA: State will soon end its practice of segregating prisons by ethnicity.

NEW YORK: Gov. David Paterson (D) is "convinced the state faces its worst fiscal crisis since the mid-1970s."

IOWA: Former Bush adviser Karl Rove greeted by protesters in Iowa calling for a "citizens arrest."

Blog Watch

THINK PROGRESS: Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan: Fox News commentators use the "talking points" that the White House sends them.

WONK ROOM: The assault on Al Gore -- and on the American dream.

HULLABALOO: The New Yorker's Jane Mayer explains how the Bush administration used intimidation to quash internal dissent over interrogation policies.

WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT: Adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: "The biggest stupid idea was to invade Iraq in the first place."

Daily Grill

"As a result of private research, more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines already exist." 
-- President Bush, 8/9/01

VERSUS

"[N]early one quarter of the colonies of human embryonic stem cells that the Bush administration has approved as ethically derived and eligible for study with federal funds 'do not meet ethical thresholds that would allow them to be approved for use...and will no longer be available to researchers.'"
-- Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Rick Weiss, 7/25/08