The Texas Observer

A theme is developing at the Netroots Nation Convention. Don’t expect Senator Obama to be the magic bullet when it comes to cleaning up the wreckage of eight years of George W.’s misrule.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based legal advocacy organization hosted a panel Saturday afternoon on Guantanamo and Habeas Corpus and what the president can do in the first 100 days of his term to restore the Constitution and the Rule of Law.

As Americans we are hooked on the idea that any problem can be solved with 10 simple solutions or in some given number of days. Yesterday, former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke plugged his 12 solutions for our national security crisis at his panel.

The consensus on today’s panel, however, from the lawyers and journalists present was that it would take more than one hell of a push broom and 100 days to clean up George Jr.’s mess. The picture was bleak: our Constitution is in tatters and the Supreme Court and Congress have descended into an Alice in Wonderland world where right is wrong and up is down.

Admittedly, it was depressing. Still it was energizing to see a large room nearly filled with extremely concerned and pissed off citizens. At one point, an attendee stood up and asked what bloggers and activists could do to turn the sinking ship around.

Panelist Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: the Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (yes his book was plugged at the panel) encouraged attendees to spend less time behind the computer and more time in the streets protesting.

Scahill saved his most scathing remarks for Democrats in Congress, including Barack Obama, commenting that instead of defining themselves as a real opposition party they had undermined efforts to hold Bush’s administration accountable. “Bush is operating in an enforcement-free zone inside the United States and outside the United States,” he said.

Scahill warned that the U.S. was in the midst of the most radical privatization agenda in history with a record number of private contractors carrying out government duties around the world. To illustrate this, he reminded the audience that Blackwater and Dyncorp were at the moment guarding Senator Obama as he toured Afghanistan and Iraq.

ACLU Lawyer and panelist Jameel Jaffar, told the audience that it was wrong and dangerous to blame Bush for everything. He cited the Supreme Court and Congress as miserable failures when it came to defending our Democracy and the Constitution.

“Ultimately, it will take more than a change in Administration to effect the change we want,” he said. “The most important thing in the first 100 days is to set up a truth and accountability mechanism like the 9-11 Commission,” he suggested.

The take home message was that American citizens need to keep a close eye on their government — now more than ever — and hold political leaders accountable. This includes Barack Obama, no matter how badly Democrats want to see him in the White House.

Scahill exhorted the crowd — many of them not surprisingly Obama supporters — to cheat on their love affair with Barack Obama with a little bit of conscience.

“John McCain and a head of lettuce could get the same number of votes,” he said, drawing laughs from the crowd. “Now is when you really need to hold Obama’s feet to the fire, because he needs your votes and he needs your money — he won’t need them after November.”

by Melissa del Bosque

Overheard at the conservative blogger summit:

“Is that Hussein up there with Hussein?”

—Woman commenting on a Web site depicting Barack Obama and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

by Forrest Wilder

Without much else to run on this election cycle, the Republicans here at the conservative blogger summit are really pounding hard on the whole “Drill Here, Drill Now” business. Congressman John Carter (R-Round Rock) apparently takes the slogan literally. “I believe there’s oil under the ground right here,” he practically shouted during the general session this morning. “I believe we ought to slam-drill right under this hotel!”

Most of the speakers perfunctorily touched on the benefits of renewable power, but then quickly moved on to the charms of drilling ANWR, the outer-continental shelf, the Barnett Shale in urban Tarrant County, etc. It felt like a pep rally for oil. Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones talked up the exciting new oil extraction technologies (horizontal drilling!) while Michael Williams — who’s a pretty good speaker, but looks like he practices in the mirror a tad too much — promised that weaning ourselves off crude is still “way down the road.” Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele made it as snappy as possible: “If you want real change, it’s real simple: drill, baby, drill.”

The speakers — natch — blamed Democrats for standing in the way. Rep. Carter warned ominously that “at least five times in the last month and a half” Democrats have said that “we need to nationalize and take over and seize the oil and gas industry in the United States.” He went on: “That ought to scare the pants off you. They have an agenda to change the world we live in, and that agenda is fierce and it’s frightening.”

Four-dollar-a-gallon gas and fear — is that a winning strategy for Republicans this year?

by Forrest Wilder

To say that former VP Al Gore stole the show from Speaker Nancy Pelosi at this morning’s Netroots Nation convocation would be a lonely understatement in a weekend of hyperbole. Pelosi, despite her bona fides as the first female Speaker of the House and a lot of talk about progressive alliance-making, has failed to deliver on the promise of the Democratic class of 2006. We’re still at war. Karl Rove remains a free man. Etc. None of this may be precisely Pelosi’s fault, and Lord knows she did her best to deflect the blame, but both the tone and content of this morning’s questioning and the pink-clad protesters shouting for Pelosi to “use your power” to bring the troops home made clear that Madame Speaker still engenders significant disappointment, if not outright distrust, among the blogging classes.

Not so Al Gore, who received a rock star’s welcome, and looked the part in a blue blazer over a tie-less black shirt. There would arguably be no Netroots Nation without Gore (as Pelosi pandered), and the assembled lapped that kudo up, though Gore deflected the praise with an obligatory crack about thinking it unwise to claim any credit.

Gore preferred to spend his time in the limelight promoting his call for a 100%-renewable American electrity portfolio in 10 years, and plugging the non-partisan wecansolveit.org as an avenue for change.

Gore’s pitch was inspiring and universal, no way around it, and that made for a sometimes awkward juxtaposition with the Pelosi agenda. For every non-partisan appeal of Gore’s, there was Pelosi to insist that no change is possible without a Democrat in the White House and healthy Democratic margins in Congress. But when a questioner asked Pelosi whether her Congress would accept Gore’s 100%-in-10-years challenge, her long-way-around answer couldn’t quite conceal the fact that she never did say yes.

And that was as good a marker as any of the difference between these two “leaders,” as several questioners addressed them. It was a difference hammered home most interestingly when someone asked Gore the inevitable question about whether he would consider a post in an Obama administration to help further the climate-change agenda.

Without quite ruling that possibility out, Gore made it clear that he feels he’s more useful as a driver of public opinion, influencing the debate by getting the word out, and helping to build a climate of support within which politicians can feel both safe and compelled to create policy.

One can hardly blame him. Gore no longer has to tighten the nuts and bolts of actual lawmaking that so hinder Pelosi. Where she has to take the heat for the complex machinations of Congress, attempting in good grace to face down the disgruntlement of faceless bloggers with out-sized egos and a growing electoral influence to match, Gore can swoop in, engage the room’s inchoate idealism, and go home.

It’s a good gig. And it was a good idea to structure this morning’s Q&A that way, using Gore’s popularity as Pelosi’s escape hatch. And the roomful of bloggers — who do so love to equate commentary with the heavy lifting of actual governance — loved every minute of it.

by Brad Tyer

Prompted by a question about Al Gore’s call for advances in renewable energy, Al Gore does indeed come onstage to join Pelosi to thunderous applause. “We ought to take this show on the road, Nancy,” he says. “We are on the road,” Pelosi responds. “Boy I feel right at home here,” Gore shoots back. 

by Brad Tyer

The buzz at Saturday morning’s Netroots Convention had attendees stacked up outside Exhibit Hall 4 like sheep in the chute. The 8:30 time slot was scheduled for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “Ask the Speaker” presentation, but rumors of a “special guest” had been circulating since check-in. Is it Al Gore? Are Netrooters in for an inevitably self-deprecating “My name is Al Gore and I invented the Internet” joke? Almost half an hour past the session’s scheduled start, there was still no clue on the empty stage.

At ten after 9 a moderator came on stage to explain the event, and to announce that any disruptions of the forum would be dealt with harshly and immediately, with removal from the hall and confiscation of badges. Then she congratulated Pelosi for embracing a new technology “so she could be closer to her people.” (What an unfortunate choice of words).

Texas Congressman Lloyd Doggett introduces Pelosi. Doggett salutes the netrooters for providing inspiration and for demanding accountability, for their role not just as participants in the debate, but as actors and drivers of that debate. Doggett gets in a good line namechecking former Texas Congressman Maury Maverick, “a genuine Teas maverick, not the strange sort of pseudo-maverick running for president this year,” before checking off Pelosi’s relatively modest accomplishments.

And then Pelosi comes on stage to well-warned applause. Acknowledging that the relationship is sometimes stormy, she says “I hope that spirit continues throughout this program.”  We shall see.

by Brad Tyer

President George W. Bush’s former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke continued his criticism of his old boss George W.  during a Netroots Nation panel Friday.

The former White House insider called for an overhaul of the Department of Homeland Security and took the military leadership to task for caving in to Bush and Cheney, allowing troops to go into Iraq and Afghanistan unprepared and under-equipped.

Following the trend of many Netroots panelists, he also plugged his new book, Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters. The gist of Clarke’s book is that the United States is suffering from an unprecedented systemic failure when it comes to national security, and that whoever moves into the White House in 2009 will have to disentangle the mess and start over again.

In 2004, Clarke famously apologized to the families of 9-11 victims at the beginning of his testimony during the 9-11 Commission hearings with the words “…your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn’t matter because we failed.”

The former White House staffer resigned in 2003 in protest of Bush’s misguided rush to war in Iraq. Military commanders should have resigned in protest as well rather than plunge into an ill-fated war, he said. Panel mediator Randy Beers nodded in agreement. Beers, like Clarke, resigned from the National Security Council in protest of the war.

“There is something wrong with the way we have developed our military culture,” Clarke told the audience. “When something outrageous happens like invading Iraq with no justification and no equipment, it is the obligation of the military leadership to protect their troops and they didn’t.”

Clarke also had some sharp words for the Department of Homeland Security, which he described as lacking transparency and oversight from Congress. “Congress has done a horrible job of overseeing Homeland Security,” he said. “And so has the media.” He touched on what he called the “industrial intelligence complex” — thousands of private companies that now do the work of the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

“There are literally thousands of people in the for profit sector who are doing this work and we don’t know what the contracts are worth and there is no oversight — it’s totally out of control,” he said.

This brought to mind Boeing’s border fence contract, which spans 6,000 miles and has no spending limit.

He also lambasted the number of political appointees in the Department of Homeland Security.  “They’ve put more political appointees in there than in any other federal agency,” he said of the Bush Administration. “People who can’t even spell Homeland Security are suddenly showing up to save us from Al Qaeda and the result is duct tape, the FEMA disaster during Hurricane Katrina and  a lot of political pork.”

The agency needs to be downsized and given a clear objective, he said.

Clarke emphasized global warming as  one of the most important national security issues that has been ignored by the current administration for the past seven years. “When people look back at the most pressing issues of our time it won’t be terrorism but global warming,” he said. “The United States not only failed to act it prevented other countries from doing something about it as well.”

Clarke said that the tragedies of last eight years could not simply be fixed by electing a new president. “No matter who you elect,  unless you understand what went wrong in the system, placing all of your hope in one person won’t help.”

In a final plug for his book, Clarke said many excellent books had already been released enumerating the litany of Bush disasters but that none of these books had offered suggestions on how to fix the mess.

Currently Clarke has a part-time gig teaching a course called “Getting Things Done in Government” to political science majors at the prestigious Kennedy School of Government. To help our next president “get things done in government” he has included 12 suggestions in his book to polish the U.S.’ tarnished reputation. Let’s hope they work.

by Melissa del Bosque