Bush Administration

Last year we noted that The National Day of Prayer Task Force, headed by James Dobson’s wife Shirley and based out of Focus on the Family offices in Colorado, had somehow managed to appoint itself the “official” organizer of the National Day of Prayer.

According to its history, the National Day of Prayer is nothing more than a presidential proclamation, but in the late 1970s a group calling itself the National Prayer Committee was formed - which itself is a project of Mission America  - and the NPC eventually created something called the National Day of Prayer Task Force, which is dedicated to “organizing and promoting prayer observances conforming to a Judeo-Christian system of values:”

The National Day of Prayer Task Force was a creation of the National Prayer Committee for the expressed purpose of organizing and promoting prayer observances conforming to a Judeo-Christian system of values. People with other theological and philosophical views are, of course, free to organize and participate in activities that are consistent with their own beliefs. This diversity is what Congress intended when it designated the Day of Prayer, not that every faith and creed would be homogenized, but that all who sought to pray for this nation would be encouraged to do so in any way deemed appropriate. It is that broad invitation to the American people that led, in our case, to the creation of the Task Force and the Judeo-Christian principles on which it is based.

Neither Mission America, the National Prayer Committee, or the National Day of Prayer Task Force are official representatives of the National Day of Prayer, but they certainly seems as if they are.  If you search for "national day of prayer" on Google, the first link brings you the the Task Force website, as does every link on the National Prayer Committee's website promoting the National Day of Prayer.  And the National Day of Prayer has recently become a rally cry for the Religious Right, with the Alliance Defense Fund creating a Save the National Day of Prayer effort in response to a lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation last year:

The suit alleges that a task force associated with Focus on the Family is "working hand-in-glove" with the government in organizing the National Day of Prayer.

The Foundation charges that the government "aligns and partners" with the NDP Task Force as the official organizer of the National Day of Prayer. The NDP Task Force identifies itself online as "The National Day of Prayer 'Official Website.' " The task force has close ties to Focus on the Family. Its chair person, Shirley Dobson, is married to Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, and the task force is located in the Focus on the Family headquarters.

Adding to the confusion was the fact that the Bush Administration regularly included members of the Task Force in the White House's Day of Prayer events - but it looks like that is about to change:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force had a friend in the White House. Every year, from 2001 to 2008, the Bush administration would invite members of the evangelical Christian organization to the White House to take part in a formal observance of the May 7 event.

But things are different in Washington now. This year, the Task Force - headed by Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson - has not been invited to take part.

Needless to say, the Religious Right will presumably throw a fit about this, alleging that it is just further proof that President Obama hates America and its Christian heritage ... by which they mean, of course, their quasi-official role in controlling the National Day of Prayer.

• Nate Silver wonders why Mike Huckabee doesn't get more respect.
• Andrew Sullivan says that Ed Whelan was involved, during his time in the Bush Administration, in discussions of torture, but Whelan denies it, calling it a vicious lie. [UPDATE: See this post regarding the EPPC's demand that we prominently note Sullivan's retraction.]
• Ed Brayton points out that David Hamilton's decision in Hinrichs v Bosma says the exact opposite of what right-wing groups like the Traditional Values Coalition are claiming it says.
• Matthew Yglesias tears apart Liz Cheney claim that waterboarding is not torture.
• When Michael Steele canceled his speaking engagement with the Religious Action Center earlier this week, he cited an "urgent family commitment." As Ben Smith points out that that was not necessarily the case.
• AU points out that Gordon Klingenschmitt has now changed his website after they pointed out that he might have been violating the law by presenting himself as an active-duty member of the armed services.
• John McCain is claiming that the author of the "controversial" DHS report has been fired, but Think Progress checked and found out that its not true.

Back in February and March, we wrote a series of posts about how the Religious Right was trying to get a supposedly "anti-Christian" provision stripped from the stimulus legislation, screaming and yelling about discrimination and threatening lawsuits only to utterly fall silent about it after the legislation containing the provision at issue was signed into law.

The over-arching theme of those posts was a sense of amazement that the Right fully knew that everything they were saying about this provision was blatantly untrue yet they continued to repeat it regardless.  In fact, it seemed as if most of those screeching about it didn't even bother to read the provision itself or do any basic research ... presumably because doing so would have only undermined their ability to keep lying about it.

I am getting the same impression regarding the Department of Homeland Security report that has become the focus of the Right's outrage over the last few days. The fact that DHS has issued a statement explaining that the report is part of "an ongoing series of assessments to provide situational awareness to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies on the phenomenon and trends of violent radicalization in the United States" doesn't matter. The fact that it was commissioned under the Bush administration and overseen by a Bush appointee does not matter either.  Nor does the fact that the report obviously is not an attack on conservatives, veterans, or Christians, as they are claiming, which is something they would know if they bothered to actually read it [PDF].

But they don't care:

Call Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, to demand an apology for the outrageous DHS memo disparaging America's veterans and pro-lifers

Barack Obama's Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security is stubbornly refusing to apologize to our nation's veterans for issuing a DHS intelligence assessment which disparages veterans as possible terrorist threats. The report also defamed peaceful pro-lifers.

Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America said: "I agree with the Democrat chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Congressman Bennie Thompson, when he said he was "dumbfounded" that such a report would be issued. Veterans and pro-lifers should not be targeted as terrorist threats by the Obama administration. This partisanship must stop."

And, just as with the stimulus provision," the ACLJ is among those taking the lead in generating faux outrage once again, sending out an email to supporters blasting this "unconstitutional report":

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has labeled you, a member of the pro-life community, THE MOST DANGEROUS DOMESTIC TERRORIST.

The DHS warning entitled: ''Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment'' is so troubling that at first, I actually didn't believe that Homeland Security could issue such a document.

But it's true. We've verified it. And make no mistake, this unconstitutional report raises serious questions about the leadership and direction of the agency charged with protecting Americans in the ongoing battle against terrorism.

And why don't they care?  Because they can use as part of their fundraising efforts:

Today, federal employees whose salaries we pay are issuing reports from the Department of Homeland Security that say some conservatives are a grave threat to America. Why? Because we oppose abortion and the massive growth of the federal government. Do they no longer see Al Qaeda or the Taliban as the greatest threat to Americans' liberty? Apparently they are now targeting us. I remind DHS and all who read this that we oppose all violence or lawbreaking. But speaking out is an American right we will not give up!

Parents with children are bearing the brunt of this administration's drive for ever greater control--control of our checkbooks, control of the schools, control of our communities, control of our churches, population control, gun control, environmental control. Control is the common thread.

...

Will you help Family Research Council (FRC) fight excessive government and defend your rights with a donation today?

...

What's their strategy in this new campaign to undermine America 's Judeo-Christian heritage and moral foundation?

* Money to silence your voice. Billions set aside for ACORN and other radical coalitions committed to creating a permanently left-wing government by whatever means necessary--including voter fraud which ACORN has committed.

* Money to teach immoral behavior in schools. New spending means more federal interference in local schools, loss of parental rights, and forcing our children to learn about immoral behavior.

* Money for abortion and a culture of death. Top abortion advocates get hundreds of millions of new federal subsidies from their liberal allies in Washington.

The one common thread to all of this "outrage" from the Christian Coalition, the Family Reserach Council, and others (aside from the lying) is that they don't provide a link to the actual DHS report itself, despite the fact that it is widely available.

If this report is so outrageous and offensive, why aren't these right-wing groups providing links to it so that their activists can read it for themselves?

Maybe because a) they haven't read it themselves or b) they have read it and know that it doesn't say what they are claiming it says and are hoping that their activists will just take their word for it and start sending in the checks.

• Did you know there is a sports complex in one of Israel's biggest settlements in the West Bank named for John Hagee?
• For some reason, Richard Viguerie seems to think that the Justice Department's prosecution of the Ted Stevens case under the Bush administration is evidence of a "alliance between leftwing Democratic politicians and corrupt bureaucrats and special interests."
• Alan Keyes will reportedly be speaking at Washington, DC's "Tea Party" rally next week ... and Fox News has been aggressively promoting them.
• Phyllis Schlafly declares that her gay son is fully supportive of her right-wing agenda and likewise opposes gay marriage.
• Because WorldNetDaily apparently doesn't have enough nutcases writing columns for them, they've decided to bring Michael Savage on board as well.
• Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association in Michigan, was greeted by hundreds of protesters when he arrived to speak at Central Michigan University last night.
• More than 250,000 people have reportedly signed a petition sponsored by the Cardinal Newman Society calling on Notre Dame to withdraw its invitation to President Obama to speak at the May 17 commencement.
• The Vatican has reportedly rejected at least three of President Obama's candidates to serve as U.S. ambassador because they support abortion.
• Finally,  Franklin Graham is beginning to sound more and more like Pat Robertson:

America was once a nation that honored and trusted God, albeit imperfectly. Many of today’s prestigious institutions of higher learning were founded by Christians, and precepts from Scripture were foundational for instruction. Presidents and national leaders embraced Christianity’s influence on civil matters, and God’s moral laws were encoded into our judicial system.

That godly heritage has been abandoned and rejected, and I believe we are paying the price today. Greed isn’t good. The lack of personal integrity has massive consequences. We’ve built a culture of our own making that is on the verge of destruction.

...

This is a time of testing for our country. Will we acknowledge our sin and turn back to God? Will we call on God for help in our hour of distress, or will we continue to further distance ourselves from His aid?

God always leaves room for repentance. He is patient and long-suffering. But there comes a time when He finally allows us to reap what we’ve sown. That will be a bitter harvest, one that I pray we will not experience.

Over the last few days, we've written several posts about an upcoming meeting at the White House between Joshua DuBois, head of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and representatives of Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, and other right-wing groups.

Now, in his daily video update, Faith and Action's Rob Schenck reveals that his organization is also trying to set up a meeting with DuBois.

Schenck explains that he has a busy day ahead of him, entailing a meeting with Tim Goeglein, the former Bush Administration aide who was forced to step down after admitting to plagiarism and was recently hired by Focus on the Family to be their chief lobbyist in DC and with whom Faith and Action shares office space. He then has a meeting with the Salvation Army and then another meeting with the leaders of a new Congressional Prayer Caucus and finally a reception with "Christian members of Congress."

Then, around the 2:50 mark, Schenck reveals that they will also be talking to the White House today about a meeting with the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and Josh DuBois.  After a bit of rambling, Schenck says that Christian conservatives are losing credibility because when the opposition says or does the right thing, they are reluctant to commend them.

Schenck says he is "finding some stuff that is really good here and I've quoted President Obama recently on his statement that marriage is reserved for a man and a woman. Hey, I 've got to applaud that and I'm using it and I'm complementing him on it and, in fact, using it to reinforce our argument that the sanctity of marriage requires that it be reserved for a man and a woman, exclusively."

Interestingly, before the election the Obama campaign was supposed to participate in an event hosted by Schenck and his group but pulled out at the last minute, which turned out to be a smart move, as Sarah Posner explained:

The meaning of the Declaration of Independence was supposed to take center stage at a forum for religious outreach representatives from both presidential campaigns yesterday, but the lunchtime crowd of conservative activists and congressional staff at the Capitol Hill Club was instead treated to a lineup of speakers tossing out apocalyptic rhetoric about Barack Obama.

The event was sponsored by the Capitol Hill-based Faith and Action's Reese Roundtable, an annual luncheon about the moral meaning of the Declaration of Independence. Faith and Action's motto is "bringing the word of God to bear on the hearts and minds of those who make public policy in America." One of its goals is to "restore the moral foundations of our American culture" through placing Ten Commandments displays in public buildings.

Faith and Action's Rob Schenck, a perennial religious-right adviser and gadfly, moderated and wasted no time in lambasting the Rev. E. Terri LaVelle, the Obama campaign's senior religious adviser, who had committed to attend but cancelled at the last minute. "A snub!" protested Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America.

With McCain's conservative-coalitions director Robert Heckman looking on, and at one point chiming in that Obama's recent faith and values outreach was a "colossal flop," Obama was portrayed by speakers as a figure of evil and doom. No one came right out and called him the Antichrist, but the apocalyptic message was clear.

Bernie Reese, the octogenarian founder of the Reese Roundtable, said, "I grew up during [the] days of Hitler; we've almost got a blueprint to what brought Hitler to power. He rode in on an economic crisis and promised the moon to the middle class. He was a man who had glittering rhetoric; he could sit in the room and have his audience in his hand." Alveda King, niece of the civil-rights icon and an adviser to Priests for Life, the militant anti-abortion group, said abortion in the African American community had been done "deliberately, by genocide." We're "beyond chastisement," she went on. "We're in judgment."

"Lord," prayed Johnny Hunter, an African American pastor who gave the benediction, don't let us elect someone who might "bring this nation down."

The Obama campaign didn't want to be seen with Schenck and Faith and Action during the election—good choice—and let's hope that nothing has changed since then.

We have written about Schenck and his ties to a variety of different right wing groups a number of times, most recently when he, Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, and Rep. Paul Brown anointed the door at the Capitol before Barack Obama’s inauguration.  While far from a household name, Schenck has seemingly been becoming more influential over the last few years – he met privately with John McCain during the campaign and even received a VIP invitation to McCain’s announcement that Sarah Palin would be his running mate, where he had the opportunity to speak with both of them.  

He also has a history of harassing Democratic politicians, especially former President Bill Clinton, having been arrested back in 1992 for thrusting a fetus at him during the campaign and being stopped by the Secret Service after confronting him outside of the Washington Cathedral in 1996. He was also deeply involved in the early 1990’s in protesting women’s health clinics, including targeting one where a doctor was eventually assassinated.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times ran an article on the Senate Republicans' threat to filibuster President Obama’s judicial nominees if they are not “consulted on, and approve of, a nominee” before the nomination is officially made, essentially demanding a pre-emptive veto over the entire process.

The article mentions the showdown during the Bush administration when Senate Republicans threatened to deploy the “nuclear option” to do away with the filibuster of judicial nominees and falsely claims that it was critics of the effort who used that sort of "overheated rhetoric”:

Four years ago, the Republican majority came close to abolishing the filibuster rule. With Vice President Dick Cheney in the Senate president's chair, they planned to change rules so judges could be approved by a simple majority. Opponents called this the "nuclear option" in the overheated rhetoric of the time.

In fact, it was Senate Republicans who coined the term back in 2003 because they knew that deploying it would be a “form of mutually assured destruction.”  This Washington Times article from May of that year contains the first public use of the term regarding the filibuster of judges and it was titled “GOP Senators Keep 'Nuclear Option' in Reserve for Judges”:

Republicans could immediately break the current filibusters against two of President Bush's judicial nominees with a rarely used parliamentary procedure that would confirm them through a simple majority vote, according to a plan under consideration by Senate Republicans.

The tactic would be so drastic in the usually congenial Senate that Republicans refer to it as their "nuclear option."

It wasn’t “critics” who were calling it the “nuclear option” because they were over-reacting – they were calling it that because that was the name given to the plan by the Senate Republicans who were contemplating it.

On a related note, the article notes that the Committee for Justice is claiming that it does not necessarily support the GOP’s pre-emptive filibuster threat:

"Most conservatives feel we should stick with the principle that every nominee should get an up-and-down vote," said Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice, a group that lobbies for conservative nominees. "They want the Senate courtesies to be respected."

During the Bush era, Republicans repeatedly said the president's nominees deserved a vote on the Senate floor. However, Levey said, the GOP's reluctance to consider filibusters could change quickly. It "will change if [Democrats] try to jam through judicial activists," he said.

Interesting, but it doesn’t really seem to jibe with the post Levey wrote last week on the CFJ’s blog praising the letter as a sign that the GOP was united on the issue and willing to do what it takes to stop Obama’s nominees.

It is sort of like how the Judicial Confirmation Network claimed back in January it was committed to the principle that every nominee deserved an up-or-down vote and then, last week, praised the Senate Republicans for threatening to prevent Obama’s judges from receiving an up-or-down vote.

Back in 2005, when seven Republicans and seven Democrats in the Senate came together to form the "Gang of 14" in order to prevent Senate Republicans from deploying the "nuclear option" to do away with the filibuster of judicial nominees, they agreed to cloture votes on three controversial Bush nominees and pledged that, from that point on "nominees should only be filibustered under extraordinary circumstances, and each signatory must use his or her own discretion and judgment in determining whether such circumstances exist."

What exactly the phrase "extraordinary circumstances" meant, nobody was sure, as even the agreement reached by the group openly stated.

Following this agreement, no Bush administration judicial nominees were successfully filibustered - not even the nomination of Samuel Alito to sit on the Supreme Court.  Considering that Alito was nominated only after the Right had destroyed President Bush's first choice, Harriet Miers, and forced her to withdraw. If anything met the vague "extraordinary circumstances" standard, it was Altio's nomination, but even then efforts to filibuster his nomination went nowhere.

Today, the Committee for Justice's Curt Levey weighs in on the Senate Republicans' threat to filibuster any of President Obama's judicial nominees if they are "not consulted on, and approve of, a nominee" from their respective states, praising them for standing together and standing up to the Democrats' hypothetical attempts to ram through a bunch of "extreme nominees":

The most significant aspect of yesterday’s letter is the fact that it was signed by all GOP senators. All 41 Republicans will be needed for the party to use the filibuster – or threat thereof – as a tool to force extended debate on Obama’s judicial nominees and, if necessary, to block nominees so extreme that they meet the "extraordinary circumstances" standard set forth in the Gang of 14 agreement. Without such a tool, Democrats would likely rush Obama’s more extreme nominees through the Senate in order to avoid the controversy that would spring from a full airing of their records.

But the Senate Republicans' letter doesn’t threaten to filibuster in “extraordinary circumstances” - it threatens to filibuster every single nominee unless Obama caves to their specific set of demands. Levey is claiming that any nominee they deem "extreme" automatically triggers the "'extraordinary circumstances' standard" and thus justifies a filibuster when the original intent of that Gang of 14 provision was to do away with the filibuster except for under, you know, "extraordinary circumstances."

How did something designed to end the filibuster when Democrats were using it become the justification for the filibuster now that Republicans are intending to use it?

Furthermore, the text of the Gang of 14's "Memorandum of Understanding on Judicial Nominations" explicitly limited its scope to the 109th Congress:

This memorandum confirms an understanding among the signatories, based upon mutual trust and confidence, related to pending and future judicial nominations in the 109th Congress.

The entire agreement was designed to avoid a nuclear showdown in the Senate during the 109th Congress, yet Levey is claiming that it somehow created a permanent standard that exists to this day when it clearly does nothing of the sort and was never intended to do so.

So, aside from the fact that the Gang of 14's compromise was limited to a past Congress and the GOP letter doesn’t refer to "extraordinary circumstances," Levey analysis is spot on.

Were it not for the occasional mention of President Obama and current political developments, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this is a twenty-year old clip of Sen. Jim DeMint, rather than a speech he delivered just this morning, in which he explains that government is the cause of all of our problems and the only solution is more freedom:

"Government is out of control and freedom is the only solution. In America, freedom is built on the principles and values that are derived from Judeo-Christian religious convictions. If we allow this government to continue to purge religion and faith and religious values and the principles that are derived from them from our culture, we will lose our freedom."

DeMint also warns that "if we allow Congress and the President to continue to ignore the Constitution and compromise the rule of law, we will lose our freedom" ... but presumably that is meant as a criticism of the month-old Obama Administration rather than as a call to investigate the actions of the Bush Administration:

A few weeks ago I made a short mention of the fact that various right-wing judicial activists were calling on Barack Obama to re-nominate a few of President Bush's judicial nominees who never received confirmation as a sign of bipartisanship. 

It appears as if this idea is gaining traction because yesterday the Committee for Justice posted a letter that Sen. Arlen Specter sent to President Obama asking him to do just that:

I write to respectfully suggest that, as a sign of bipartisanship, you renominate some of President George W. Bush’s circuit court nominees who were not confirmed prior to the adjournment of the 110th Congress. To do so would echo the bipartisanship President Bush demonstrated when he renominated one of President Clinton’s judicial nominees, Judge Roger Gregory, to a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Several of President Bush’s circuit court nominees had bipartisan support and were not confirmed due to asserted time constraints. I believe these nominees in particular deserve your consideration. Mr. Peter Keisler, nominee to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, had bipartisan support and garnered praise from across the country, including the editorial boards of The L.A. Times and The Washington Post. In addition, Judge Paul Diamond, nominee to the Third Circuit, and Judge Glen Conrad, nominee to the Fourth Circuit, had bipartisan support, including the support of their Democratic home state Senators. All three nominees were rated “well qualified” by the nonpartisan American Bar Association and would be excellent candidates for renomination.

It was just the other day that I noted that many of these activists were lying in wait and saving their ammunition for anticipated court battles so it is probably safe that assume that if President Obama declines to acquiesce to their request, they'll immediately use it as a justification for obstructing his judicial nominees.

Of course, as demonstrated by his recent efforts to work with Republicans to pass the stimulus bill only to watch them unanimously vote against it, Obama probably doesn't have much to gain by trying to reach out to them since they'll inevitably just find some other excuse to justify their obstruction, regardless of what he does.