vibinc

This is my third and last Lieberman post of the day.

On the Big Orange Devil there’s a post by Argyrios that argues the Lieberman vote is the “Change We Need”.

I get what the author is saying. I argued about a week ago that Obama may want Lieberman to keep his post for many of these very reasons. But let’s not confuse what this vote is about. This vote is not about revenge, it’s about accountability.

Instead of holding Lieberman accountable for his actions, Senate Democrats have chosen to reward Lieberman for working for Republican candidates in the elections. As I said earlier this morning, he would have been booted from the party in just about any other country in the world for his actions.

So, Democrats have chosen to not hold their members accountable for working against the party. What does this say about Democrats’ dedication to Democratic principles? Sure Lieberman has been a democrat for 45 years, but his actions in the past several years have effectively undermined Democratic Principles. We’re supposed to feel good about rewarding that? We’re supposed to feel good about not holding someone accountable for their actions? Are you kidding me?

Here’s the real question going forward. How will Lieberman act toward his detractors? Sanders and Leahy spoke out against him in the caucus meeting. Anyone want to be Lieberman works against those three? See, if Lieberman actually feels bad about any of this, other than that fake “politically” bad, he’ll go out of his way to work with those three in particular. In reality, I think we’ll see Senator Lieberman go out of his way to obstruct these Senators, and anyone else he deems to be on his “enemies list”. That’s “Change we can Believe in”.

Below is the press conference after the vote.

I’m probably going to get yelled at for saying this, but I’ve been thinking about it off and on for a long time. Hell, I may have said it before and I just don’t remember, but today’s events brought it back up in my mind, so here we go.

What do the liberal left and the religious right have in common? Frustration.

The religious right worked for years to attain a majority for the Republican Party in the House and Senate, spending countless hours working for people that purported to share their views, giving money and all that stuff. They did this to get rid of “activist judges” so they could get their own “activist judges” that reflected their views. They were faithful warriors in the “Cluture Wars”, fighting for their long-held beliefs. What did they get in return? Nothing.

The majority of conservative legislation that passed had more to do with the real power holders of the Republican Party, the Club for Growth guys than anything the Religious Right ever really pushed for. Gays are still in the military, abortion is still legal, and the 10 commandments still can’t be displayed in courthouses.

If the Republican Party is wondering why they lost their asses the past two elections, blowing off their “boots on the ground” base may, just may have something to do with it.

On the flip side, since 2001 liberal activists have been working to help build a Democratic Majority. The loss of the White House under dubious circumstances in 2000 ignited the liberal left. While the party may have taken a hard right turn in the post-911 environment, by the end of 2003 the liberal left was working it’s way back into the hearts and minds of Democrats, still fearful of the term “liberal” but willing to use us when it benefited getting the Party back into the majority.

While our gains in 2006 were largely attributed to dissatisfaction with the Bush administration’s handling of the war, it was the liberal left that led the charge on that front. Criticizing the Bush Administration was something that struck fear in the hearts of rank and file Democratic candidates. By September of 2006, the chorus was growing, and it was fashionable to be critical, finally.

Since 2006, with a majority in the House and a slim majority in the Senate, Democrats have flipped and flopped their way on issues of great concern to the liberal left. By and large, we on the liberal left, while unhappy, have still gone out of our way to make sure that Democrats get elected. In some cases we worked to primary candidates deemed too far to the right. Still ultimately, we worked for Democrats.

Liberals aren’t exactly getting what we want either, but we’re still working for Democrats, for now. Eventually, we’ll get tired of not getting what we want, or getting mocked, and once again the Democratic Party will be wondering where their base went, just like the Republican Party is doing right now.

Religious Right, we may disagree on just about everything, particularly as it relates to policy, but we know how you feel. It sucks, but the reality is, it’s not gonna change for either of us anytime soon.

Yeah, that’s right.

The vote was 42-13.

Since Twitter is down right now, I’ll post it here.

Wimps.

Update: On the bright side, today is “International Laugh at Joe Lieberman Day!

You can participate by calling his office, and laughing. If you have a video camera, tape yourself doing this and share it with your friends! Lieberman’s office number is (202) 224-4041.

Enjoy!

God love Twitter, I got this update in my feed this morning.

The debate continues over whether Memphis Police Officers should be allowed to live 20 miles outside Shelby County.
The Memphis City Council is divided over the matter, but is holding a meeting Tuesday, November 18, 2008, to vote on a resolution.

I don’t want to start a law enforcement debate, but I’m not positive that “more cops” = “less crime”. Washington DC has a whole lotta cops and a whole lotta crime. Do does Detroit. What do these two cities have in common? A whole lotta poverty. That’s not to say that poverty causes crime, or that the impoverished are criminals, but that poverty reinforces conditions that allow criminal behavior to flourish.

Memphis, like DC and Detroit, has a whole lotta both too.

So will hiring more cops really lower the crime rate in Memphis? Probably not. Still, that’s what politicians do, hire more cops to try and stop more crime because fixing the conditions that make crime more likely (like lack of education, opportunity, hope, etc.) is just too damn hard to sell to the voting public.

But this debate is about whether to open up residency restrictions, not whether hiring more cops is necessary. Personally, I’d rather the cops here in Memphis at least live in Shelby County. I think people are more likely to stay cops in a community that they share a stake in. It costs a lot of money to train a cop, and I would hate to see Memphis put all that money into training just to have an officer leave after a couple of years to someplace else, taking all that training, and training dollars with them. At the same time, I don’t want to lower the bar any further on who can or cannot be a cop, because I think it’s plenty low right now, so maybe looking outside our borders is an answer.

If Memphis wants to look outside our borders for the current or future law enforcement professionals necessary, we need to create a system where we reward them for eventually moving into the city. I’m not sure how to do this structurally, but it’s something to think about.

Ultimately, Memphis needs to think about why we consistently rank so high in violent and property crime, and what current conditions exist to maintain that circumstance. Most people don’t turn to crime because it has any great upside, or for the benefits package, or any of the other reasons people make career choices. Maybe, just maybe, we’re thinking about this all wrong.

I don’t know what happened here in Memphis, but in the mid to late 1990’s in Little Rock, after years and years of some of the highest murder rates in history, something happened. Everything slowed down. Strangely, the unemployment rate also went down. It’s funny. People who have relatively good jobs with some hope for the future don’t rob people or businesses, or try to kill each other, by and large. Sure Little Rock had more cops on the street, but not significantly more. Not enough to cause the decline in crime. Over the past several years, as the unemployment rate in Little Rock has climbed, so has the crime rate…could there be a connection?

Surely not. /snark

Another thing, I’ve never really understood how more cops on the streets magically prevents crime from happening. The immediate presence of law enforcement officers may motivate some ne’er do well to move elsewhere, or wait ‘til the coast is clear to commit a crime, but it doesn’t necessarily stop the crime.

Cops can’t just pick people up because they look like criminals. Can you imagine how many lawsuits the city would face if law enforcement just started detaining people who “looked like” criminals? Hell, what does a criminal “look like” anyway, if they’re not carrying a plasma TV down the street at 2 am, what is the distinguishing characteristic of a “criminal”?

My point here is not that we don’t need more cops. I don’t know if we do or don’t. My point is that if we really want to reduce crime in Memphis and Shelby County, we have to look at the root. Smart City has a good post on this too.

Until we stop ignoring the conditions that maintain the status quo, we’ll never deal with our crime rate.

I’m not saying it will happen, or that anyone’s guilty, or anything like that. To be sure, I don’t know enough of the facts surrounding the Mayor’s personal and professional doings to speak intelligently on the matter. I am pretty sure that Memphis isn’t ready for another indictment.

The Feds here in Memphis have a mixed record when it comes to political indictments. On the one hand you’ve got John Ford. He and his other Tennessee Waltzers are either in jail, or on their way out of jail. On the other hand, you’ve got Edmund Ford Sr., who was found not guilty. I’m not going to make any judgments on the quality of the indictments, but it is interesting that former U.S. Attorney Kustoff left the office (May 16th was his last day) before the Edmund Ford Sr. case concluded (May 21st). I’m not saying it had anything to do with any weakness in the case, because I don’t know that and I recognize that US Attorneys are political appointees and do not actually present the cases. I just find it interesting.

The latter trial involving Edmund Ford left a bad taste in the mouths of many Memphians. A lot of people, including some who initially thought he was guilty, felt the Government’s case looked like entrapment, even if it didn’t meet the legal standard of entrapment. Many people in Memphis looked at the latter indictments as a witch hunt.

Perception vs. Reality being what it is, there is a perception in the community that because the majority of the Memphians indicted in both Tennessee Waltz and Main Street Sweeper were African-American, that this amounted to a racially driven hit job on African-American civic leaders. Remember, in the battle between perception vs. reality, perception often wins.

So now the Memphis US Attorney’s office has a perception problem, and while the Grand Jury is still out on the Mayor, the Mayor most certainly understands this and will use this perception problem in his upcoming campaign to turn any potential indictment into a racial, rather than legal issue.

The Mayor has plenty of public perception to back him up.

1. The perception that only African-Americans were targeted in both operations as I mentioned above. The reality is that this is not the case. That said, the fact that so much of the media coverage in Memphis centered on the Fords ultimately reinforces this perception.

2. Neither Tennessee Waltz, nor any other operation, uncovered individuals who may have sought to buy influence. Certainly, people seeking to buy influence don’t advertise in the classifieds, but while it’s easier to investigate the demand side, the supply side is usually where it begins.

3. There is a perception in Memphis, right or wrong, that wealthy whites consistently buy influence in the city or use their influence to discredit African-American leaders. Herenton effectively planted this seed back in June of 2007. Remember this?

“I think the city of Memphis should know what so-called powerful businessmen are doing to their leaders,” Smith told The Commercial Appeal on Wednesday.
“I think it should upset not only the African-American community, but the whole city.”

4. The Mayor, who has fought off charges of corruption for as long as I’ve lived here, knows how to work a situation. He’s doing it right now. In yesterday’s CA we learned that the Mayor had summoned people to serve as character witnesses on his behalf. Publicly, this looks like solidarity between the Mayor and his current and former appointees. Publicly, this discredits any impression of wrongdoing on the Mayor’s part. It will be interesting to see how many people actually sign the affidavits, but from a PR standpoint, the Mayor has won this round.

So, aside from the evidentiary challenges the government faces, there are some pretty significant PR challenges. Now, that doesn’t seal the deal against the government’s case, but it does raise the standard for them. If the government presents a case rife with circumstantial evidence, they will lose, and be called out by just about every quarter of Memphis as racially driven partisan hacks. If the government can dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s and create a narrative of corruption, they may still lose. The reason, this case will be tried in the court of public opinion more than any other corruption trial in recent memory. The Mayor has a platform, and he’ll damn well use it. It will be difficult for the US Attorney’s office to counter the Mayor, without giving away the store.

So, where to go from here? The US Attorney’s office has a duty to investigate and prosecute individuals who break the law, regardless of the public perception. I’m sure if they feel they have a case, they’ll go with it despite any PR challenges they may face. At the same time, a great deal of caution needs to be exercised so they don’t further diminish the public faith in the local office. If this one gets screwed up, any attempts to reel in corruption could be devastatingly crippled in the future.