Third Way Dispatch

The Alito confirmation notwithstanding, we hear a lot of talk out of conservatives about how those in the Senate who have opposed some of the President’s most controversial judicial nominations are “obstructionists.” The conservatives may huff and puff, but as Mark Twain noted, facts are stubborn things.

Since President Bush has taken office, he has had 228 judicial nominees confirmed: two Supreme Court Justices, 42 Circuit Court judges and 184 District Court judges.

The Constitution gives the Senate the power to “Advise and Consent” on judicial nominees. For a group so committed to “original intent,” the President’s allies in the Senate seem to think that our Founding Fathers meant “Advise and Consent” to mean “rubber stamp”. Of the 12,000 Senate Republican votes on Bush judicial nominees, GOP senators have cast a total of six No votes. Six! That’s a record that would make a Soviet Premier blush.

This last week, we received the best training I have ever received in the Marine Corps. We went to a large movie set where there was a mock Iraqi village set up. There were Iraqi-American actors who were playing roles as civilians and insurgents. There were even mock IED explosions and amputee actors who lost their (fake) limbs when they were caught close to the explosions. We practiced urban patrolling and urban raids in this fully interactive environment, sometimes using blanks and sometimes using simulation rounds. Simulation rounds are like paint ball rounds on steroids. They are 9mm rounds that can be fired out of our actual, issued weapons, but that mark you like a paintball when you’ve been hit.

“Good intentions and good beginnings are not the measure of success. What matters in the end is completion: performance and results. Not just making promises, but making good on promises.”

— President Bush’s 2003 Budget

Next week, the President submits his fiscal 2007 budget to Congress. Like his State of the Union Address, the budget will include a long litany of promises—mostly old, some new, almost all of them already broken. By Bush’s own standard—“performance and results”—his administration and his friends in Congress would get a failing grade.

“There are fewer abortions in America than at any point in the last three decades,” boasted President Bush in last night’s State of the Union Address. Seems impressive, until you consider that there are still 1.3 million abortions every year in America. How can the President gloat about that? How can he point to this area with pride when one in five pregnancies still ends in abortion?

With Washington all atwitter over ethics, congressional leaders in a stare-down over lobby reform legislation, and House Republicans this week choosing whether to elevate “the Congressman from Carnival Cruise” or “the Right Gentleman from Royal Troon” to the vacated Majority Leader post — we thought it wise to draft a document on ethics messaging. Our concern is that golf-playing, SPF 30-toting, pan-seared tuna-eating conservatives in Congress are successfully shifting the debate from ethics to legislation.

Next week, President Bush will be delivering his annual State of the Union address. This speech is a tailor-made showcase for the President’s perceived strengths, and there is no doubt he’ll be doing his best to project an optimistic, proactive and ambitious vision for the nation.

Too often in the past, progressives have reflexively reacted to the optimism of the President’s SOTU with pessimism and negativity. We have even disputed the strength of our nation, arguing that the President gets it wrong when he announces that “the state of the union is strong.” This approach is both politically perilous and substantively wrong. Our nation IS strong, because of the drive, hope and optimism of the American people.