RADICAL RIGHT
Conservatives Search For Direction

Nearly 9,000 conservative activists from across the country are expected to convene at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. today, an event that has been called "a Mecca of sorts for conservatives." At last year's gathering, both President Bush and Vice President Cheney addressed the right-wing base, "the first time in 35 years" that both the president and vice president had addressed the conference in person in the same year. Now, with the Bush administration out of office and Republicans holding a weakened minority in Congress, the conference will feature a who's who of right-wing personalities vying to be the next leader of the conservative movement. Despite President Obama's popularity and the increasingly center-left nature of America, the conference's organizers believe that "if conservatives adhere to their fundamental principles and do not compromise them for political expediency, they will soon win again." "On basic core beliefs, we remain a marginally right of center country," claimed American Conservative Union chairman David Keene, the chief CPAC organizer, in a speech at the National Press Club this week. Reflecting the hardline fervor of the event's organizers, the "star attraction" at CPAC this year is hate radio host Rush Limbaugh, who will be making his first appearance at the annual gathering. Limbaugh, the "unofficial leader" of the Republican Party, will deliver the conference's final speech before receiving the "Defender of the Constitution Award."

RE-BRANDING OLD IDEAS: As the Republican Party is now "engaged in a fierce debate over how to redefine itself after having been removed from power on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue," CPAC will be ground zero for much of that argument. Kicking off with a panel discussion titled, "Timeless Principles, New Challenges: The Future of the Conservative Movement," the conference's attendees will spend three days trading ideas about how to revive the withered prospects of conservatism as a real force in American political life. But if Keene's recent op-ed in the Washington Times is any indication, the discussion will focus on new ways to sell old, stagnant ideas. "Conservative values continue to appeal to vast numbers of Americans, but conservative politicians sometimes fail to communicate those values effectively or live up to them once elected," wrote Keene. "The remedy is not to abandon the values and beliefs that brought us into the political arena in the first place, but to do a better job organizing, communicating, reaching out to new voters and recruiting candidates who are in it for more than a job and the booty that goes with it." Exemplifying the sorry state of old ideas is the slate of predictable speakers, which features speeches from right-wing luminaries like John Bolton, Newt Gingrich, and Ann Coulter.

OBSTRUCTIONIST AGENDA: Beyond efforts to re-energize the conservative movement, the assembled politicians and activists at CPAC will be plotting on how to stop Obama's agenda. On Friday, three right-wing members of Congress -- Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS), Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), and Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) -- will complain about Obama's efforts to restart the American financial system on a panel called "Bailing Out Big Business: Are We All Socialists Now?" Later that day, former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore is scheduled to talk about whether Obama's tax policy will "kill entrepreneurship" (if the 1990s are any indication, it won't). Yet another panel, called "Health Care: The Train Wreck Ahead," will. On Saturday, before Limbaugh continues his call for Obama to "fail," there will be three panels featuring climate change skeptics and deniers who are likely to attack Obama's push for a cap-and-trade program. Opposition to Obama, rather than the cooperation desired by the American people, will undoubtedly be a consistent theme of the conference. For example, in his speech at the National Press Club on Tuesday, Keene praised the Republican opposition to Obama's economic recovery package, saying that it meant "the Republican Party finally is showing signs of doing a better job of formulating its message."

THE FRINGE REVEALED: Described by some as "Mardi Gras for the Right" and "an all-inclusive vacation for conservatives," CPAC is infamous for candid moments in which the right wingers drop their guard and reveal their true beliefs. For instance, in 2007, Coulter's homophobia was put on display when she said that she couldn't "really talk about" then-Democratic presidential candidate and former senator John Edwards because "you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot.'" In 2005, then-California congressman Chris Cox introduced Cheney by declaring that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. "We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq," said Cox. Salon's Michelle Goldberg reported at the time that "no one gasped" at Cox's "startling revelation" because the fiction was an accepted truism for the CPAC attendees. In 2003, one official vendor at the conference sold "No Muslims = No Terrorists" bumper stickers, though he was forced to put them away while Cheney was speaking.

Under the Radar

AFGHANISTAN -- McCAIN BACKS AWAY FROM HIS 2003 COMMENT THAT U.S. 'MAY MUDDLE THROUGH' THE WAR: Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) delivered a speech on Afghanistan at the neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute. The Wonk Room's Matt Duss attended the event and asked McCain, "In November 2003, in discussing Afghanistan, you said that given everything else that was going on, we'd probably just 'muddle through' in Afghanistan. Now given the rather ambitious set of goals that you've set out for us today, it seems that you've come to a conclusion that muddling through is not an acceptable outcome. Could you just briefly describe the kind of process in your thinking by which you arrived at this conclusion?" McCain disputed the premise of the question, claiming, "Well, obviously you are taking that statement out of context." This statement was not taken out of context. In 2003, McCain said, "I am concerned about it, but I'm not as concerned as I am about Iraq today...but I believe that if Karzai can make the progress that he is making, that in the long term we may muddle through in Afghanistan." McCain's new position is that the Afghanistan war is necessary. "I know Americans are weary of war," he said yesterday. "I'm weary of it. But we must win the war in Afghanistan." The larger issue, of course, is that McCain -- like the Bush administration -- was so feverishly eager to go to war with Iraq after 9/11 that he largely neglected the issue of Afghanistan.


HUMAN RIGHTS -- LEAHY ANNOUNCES HEARINGS PROBING BUSH MISDEEDS SET FOR NEXT WEDNESDAY: Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) reiterated his call to form a truth commission to investigate Bush administration wrongdoings, and announced that the committee would hold hearings on the matter next Wednesday. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) rose after Leahy to support the call for investigations into "this past carnival of folly, greed, lies, and wrongdoing." "If we blind ourselves to this history, we deny ourselves its lessons," he said, warning that such an investigation will not be comfortable or easy. "We are optimists, we Americans. We are proud of our country. Contrition comes hard to us," Whitehouse added. Last night on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said that she believed Leahy's truth commission model might not be strong enough. "What I have some concern about though is it has immunity. And I think that some of the issues involved here, like the services part, politicizing of the Justice Department, and the rest, they have criminal ramifications, and I don't think we should be giving them immunity," Pelosi said. Asked if she supported "a call for criminal investigations," Pelosi responded, "Absolutely." A recent poll found that more than 60 percent of Americans favors investigations into Bush wrongdoings, including warrantless wiretapping and torture.

JUSTICE -- LAWYERS FOR DETAINEES WRONGLY HELD AT GUANTANAMO APPEAL TO OBAMA FOR RELEASE: A landmark decision by the Supreme Court in June 2008 granted detainees the right to challenge their detention in civilian courts. As a result, 23 detainees "have been declared in court not to be enemies of the United States." But the New York Times reports today that 20 of those men still remain in a "strange limbo" as they wait to be released. Today, the detainees' lawyers on Thursday appealed directly to President Obama for their release from the prison, urging Obama to "restore liberty to these men." "These are innocent men, held in a prison that has become a national shame," the lawyers said. "It's very hard to explain how they could be free men and still be imprisoned." Samuel Issacharof of New York University Law School "said the standoff showed the limitations of the legal system in dealing with the prison set up seven years ago on the naval base in Cuba, partly to be remain clear of American courts." Returning from a visit to Guantanamo, Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday confirmed plans to close the detention facility. Closing Guantanamo, he acknowledged, "will not be an easy process."

Think Fast

"About two-thirds of Americans support President Obama's decision to send approximately 17,000 additional U.S. military forces to Afghanistan," a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds. At the same time, however, "[n]early four in 10 who said the war has not justified its costs back the new troops."

"In addition to his morning national-security briefing, President Barack Obama has, starting today, begun to receive a daily economic-intelligence document, put together by several U.S. intel agencies." The briefing follows recent comments by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, who said that America's "primary near-term security concern" is the global financial crisis and the turmoil it could ignite.

In the Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove writes, "The Bush tax cuts were not targeted to 'the wealthiest few.'" The facts beg to differ.

President Obama will propose tax increases on the rich to help pay for a $634 billion downpayment on health care reform. "Overall, the fund is a good start, but it's certainly not enough to reach universal coverage."

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told PBS yesterday that bank nationalization is "the wrong strategy for the country, and I don't think it's a necessary strategy. What we need to do is to make sure that these institutions have the resources necessary to perform their critical function on an ongoing basis in our economy as a whole."

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told Congress yesterday that Guantanamo must be closed because "[c]ountries won't deal with us. Our popularity's down. We don't have blue chips to trade."

Members of Congress are "already shooting down President Obama's plan to cut farm subsidies." Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) said that "it is premature to make any sweeping changes to the makeup of the farm safety net," while Rep. Collin C. Peterson (D-MN), the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said, "[W]e just finished the farm bill last year, and I don't think we'll open it up."

A new study from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy due to be released later this week will urge the Obama administration to "work within Muslim communities in the United States to counter extremism and prevent Islamic militant groups from gathering new recruits." One of the coauthors of the study, J. Scott Carpenter, said, "We need to get beyond killing our way out of the problem."

In what some see as "signaling a potential thaw in relations between Damascus and Washington," the State Department has invited the Syrian Ambassador to the U.S. to meet with a top diplomat at the Department today. The United States has not had its own ambassador in Syria since 2005.

"In his second reversal of a Bush administration decision," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said yesterday that he is "scrapping leases for oil-shale development on federal land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.” The leases would have led to “oil-shale exploration on 1.9 million acres in the three states."

And finally: Politico has a new interview with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), asking him, "What is your favorite body part (on yourself) and why?" Kerry says that it’s definitely not his "face," because it has been compared to "New Hampshire's 'Old Man in the Mountain' (before it fell)." Instead he chooses his "better-than-Rod-Blagojevich hair." When asked "what types of products do you never go cheap, for the sake of quality,” the husband of Teresa Heinz Kerry replied, "Ketchup."

Good News

President Obama has named Jeffrey Crowley of Georgetown University, an openly gay man, to lead the Office of National AIDS Policy.

State Watch

COLORADO: Colorado state senator says HIV testing for pregnant women rewards "sexual promiscuity."

MASSACHUSETTS: Over the past year, the number of Massachusetts residents receiving food stamps has surged 20 percent.

NEVADA: Yucca Mountain toxic dump project to be scaled back.

Blog Watch

THINK PROGRESS: Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) supports disaster preparedness but only if it helps his state.

WONK ROOM: Pollution industry dominates climate change lobbying.

YGLESIAS: The right wing is flinging smokescreen rhetoric about income taxes and small businesses.

WRITES LIKE SHE TALKS: Limbaugh to Convene a "female summit" to figure out why women hate him.

Daily Grill

"But we must win the war in Afghanistan."
-- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), 2/25/09

VERSUS

"I believe that if Karzai can make the progress that he is making, that in the long term we may muddle through in Afghanistan."
-- McCain, 11/5/03

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