Slime, mud and the Rove machine

By Ellen Ratner
There is a great cartoon this week showing a man sitting in a chair in front of his television with mud from head to toe. His wife asks him if he has been outside and he replies that he has been watching political ads. I have watched political ads for years and this year's repertoire of televised political dysfunction represents the lowest, slimiest campaign season I have seen.



It even got personal for me. I have had tears and rage this weekend as Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) made my brother¹s contribution to Democrat challenger Ellen Simon's campaign a centerpiece of his fight to keep his seat in Congress. Why? My bother gave less than the legal limit allowable, but he is one of the lawyers who sued the Bush government in Rasul vs. Bush. Rick Renzi is calling him a lawyer for al-Qaida. If he is a lawyer for al-Qaida, then I guess the United States Supreme Court is a court for al-Qaida, as the majority ruled in favor of my brother's client.

Had Mr. Renzi's mudslingers bothered to check, they would have found out that my father helped candidate Simon's father get his first job when he was a refugee from the Holocaust. We have been family friends for over 50 years. Oh, lest I forget, Renzi goes on to attack Ellen Simon's Cleveland, Ohio values. What are Cleveland, Ohio values? It is amazing given there have been two reports of federal corruption investigations about him.

The Republicans are really digging deep this season, which means they are really afraid of losing the election. My all-time favorite of the ''how low can you go?'' category is in Oneida, N.Y. for an open congressional seat pitting prosecutor Mike Arcuri against state Sen. Raymond A. Meier. The Republican Campaign Committee ran an ad (although many stations refused to air it), saying the Democratic candidate had dialed a sex hotline and charged the taxpayers for it. Turns out he was on a trip with two other law enforcement officials and one of them dialed 800-457-8462 rather than 518-457-8462. The charge to the taxpayers of New York? One dollar. Sen. Meier was horrified by this ridiculous ad, but his national committee was unrepentant.

In the very close Tennessee Senate race between African American Harold Ford Jr. and Bob Corker, the Republican National Committee came up with an ad that has a thinly dressed white woman saying, ''I met Harold (Ford) at a Playboy party.'' Yes indeed, Playboy threw some bash with about 3,000 attendees in Florida. Some called the ad racist, others in very poor taste. Even the Corker campaign thought the ad was over the top and in poor taste. Again the national committee was unrepentant.

The tight Virginia Senate race between Sen. Allen (R-Va.) and former secretary of the Navy under President Reagan, James Webb, (now a Democrat), has degenerated into Sen. Allen of ''Makaka'' fame enticing the Drudge Report to post selections from some of Mr. Webb's novels. The stunt was so well orchestrated that by Friday afternoon Republican-leaning talk show hosts were talking about Mr. Webb's writing about pedophilia in one of his novels. Turns out the ''pedophilia'' that he was writing about has to do with a Thai ritual that involves a father kissing a part of his sons genitalia as a right of passage. He writes about the ''Banana Show'' in the sex area of Thailand, which takes place in almost all the sex bars. Never mind that Sen. Allen will not release his arrest warrant records from 1974. A novel is clearly more important to the tax payers than an arrest warrant.

A few other campaign hits from your friends in the GOP: the Republican Party of Wisconsin distributed a mailing linking Democratic House candidate Steve Kagen to a convicted serial killer and child rapist. The supposed connection: the "bloodthirsty" attorney for the killer had also done legal work for Kagen.

In the Ohio gace for governor, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's campaign is also warning voters through suggestive "push polls" that Rep. Ted Strickland failed to support a resolution condemning sex between adults and children. Strickland, a psychologist, objected to a line suggesting sexually abused children cannot have healthy relationships when they grow up.

Why all this extreme nastiness and sex focus? I don't think you need to be a rocket scientist to speculate as to who might be behind this extreme season. Most of the mud is being slung from the Republican national campaign offices in Washington, D.C. The guy who communicates with all of these national campaign committees happens to be Karl Rove. I can safely make an election year bet that Mr. Rove, a public servant paid for by you and me, is behind this year's below-the-belt nastiness. It is classic Karl Rove tactics. We can only hope that the public has had enough and will see through the slime in time.

My friend, Bob Ney

By Ellen Ratner
"My friend, Bob Ney"
By Ellen Ratner
The Hill Newspaper

I happen to be a proud liberal, one who gets to spout off on 300 radio stations every day. I also represent the liberal point of view as a commentator on the Fox News Channel. I oppose the policies of the Bush administration and the Republican congressional leadership (give me at least a full afternoon, and I could begin to share some of the reasons why).



Yet even in the rancid atmosphere that passes for political interaction in Washington these days, one can occasionally reach across the partisan and ideological divide to form genuine friendships with those on the other side. Thankfully, that's what happened with me and my friend, Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio.

As Republicans distance themselves from him and Democrats use him as a campaign tactic, let me say that I'm heartbroken over what's happened to him.

I got to know Bob when, as a freshman congressman, he used to appear opposite me on radio programs in the Ohio River Valley. Most people know the region only from flying overhead or speeding through on Interstate 70, so the place bears description.

Bob grew up in Belmont County, along the Ohio-West Virginia border, in the area close to Wheeling that used to be called the "Steel Belt." Times were better then, as his dad, a TV cameraman, and his mother, a buyer for a local department store, raised him and his sister in a solidly working-class neighborhood. Today, 14 percent of Belmont County's residents live in poverty, 40 percent more than Ohioans as a whole. Incomes average 30 percent below the nation's, and homes sell for about 40 percent less than those statewide.

What first struck me about Bob was how much the poverty in his home region tore at him. This wasn't your typical Republican, nor did my reporter's nose pick up the cynical, "I-feel-your-pain" shallowness you often see in politicians on both sides of the aisle.

No, here was a guy who really did remember where he came from. He knew that the kids he'd grown up with couldn't afford to raise their children in quality housing, and he went to Washington determined to do something about it.

In the four years that he chaired the Subcommittee on Housing, he was relentless: 63 hearings, 22 housing bills signed into law. One bill he spearheaded helped 40,000 lower-income families buy their first homes; another renovated public housing units that had become badly dilapidated after decades of neglect.

The day he lost his House chairmanship he was conducting Katrina housing hearings in New Orleans. I called him to ask how he was feeling about losing the gavel. His reply: "I'm fine, I have a roof over my head and my family. These people in the Gulf have lost everything."

You probably won't read anywhere that Bob Ney spent his youth teaching English as a second language in pre-Khomeini Iran. He's a multi-faceted guy, the only member of Congress fluent in Farsi.

His politics were similarly nuanced and complex. He was one of only three Republicans to vote against the President's Patriot Act when it was first proposed in 2001, and he supported its curtailment five years later. "Everybody's against terrorism, but there has to be reason in the way that we fight it," he told reporters at the time. It was bold, courageous stuff from somebody whose district went 55 percent for Bush in 2000 and 57 percent for the president in 2004. I only wish some Democrats shared his courage.

Now, of course, he's pleaded guilty to corruption in office, but the Bob Ney I know refused even to use his title to get a good table at a local restaurant when the line was out the door. I only wish he'd had a chance to tell his side in a court of law — and, take it from me, there is another side to this.

Today's Justice Department, however, tries its evidence in the public press, not a courtroom, so it can't be challenged or cross-examined. Those accused of high-profile wrongdoing nowadays are put through a grueling and costly ordeal where they are held upside-down by overpriced criminal defense lawyers, who drop them on their heads once all the money has been shaken out of their pockets.

While I'm heartbroken about Bob and angry as hell about the Justice Department's slimy tactics, I don't worry about him. I know my friend will look at incarceration not as the end of the road, but as a detour, a long-overdue chance to seek help for the alcoholism that has taken over more and more of his life these past few years.

He'll be strong, and when all this is over, he'll be a better man, a better husband and father — and he'll still be my friend.

See Bush run – away from reality

By Ellen Ratner
The mental health experts call it ''reality testing.'' According to www.behavenet.com, the term ''refers to an individual's ability to discern, perceive, appreciate or "test" the qualities of their surroundings.'' After watching the Sunday morning news shows, which included an interview of President Bush by George Stephanopoulos, I'm thinking our nation could benefit from some presidential ''reality testing.'' The president seems to have no ability to discern, perceive or appreciate the qualities of his surroundings or more importantly, the surroundings of the men and women who are serving under his command in Iraq. It is for the benefit of these men and women that I hope the president's loose grip on reality has more to do with his playing a high-stakes game of pre-election mid-term political posturing than it does his true beliefs about Iraq.



The month of October has been the deadliest month in Iraq since November of 2003. The families of the fallen will never again celebrate a birthday, graduation, Thanksgiving, or Christmas without thinking of their missing loved one. The Iraqis had an even worse month. This year's Ramadan holiday was plagued with violence and despair. They were prohibited from celebrating the evening break – fast due to the violence. Taxpayers have spent over $330 billion dollars in Iraq to date. According to President Bush, Saddam Hussein, had nothing to do with the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. Nothing.

Now however, we have spent $330 billion of your hard-earned money. Money that could have been invested in our childrens' educations; into healthcare; into new job opportunities and economic transformation; into alternative sources of energy; into homeland security; and into creating economic opportunity abroad so that young Arab men would be more interested in having a family than blowing one up. It's $330 billion dollars of, as Dick Cheney called the nuclear bunkers in England after the end of the Cold War, ''sunk costs.''

It's a lot worse than sunk costs. Now Iraq is a failed ''would be state.'' We can't even call it a failed state, because it never reached statehood, the definition of which includes the ability to govern and secure oneself. Ironically, the only leader who seems to be able to make a state out of Iraq is Saddam Hussein, who by the way, just begged from his jail cell for his countrymen to stop killing each other. You know things are out of control when Saddam Hussein is the local peace protestor.

When Stephanopoulos asked the president about the mid-term elections, President Bush said that his team was counting on ''our base.'' Great. But who is the president's so-called ''base.'' From my vantage point, there seems to be a wedge within the ranks of the Republican Party. While Karl Rove likely never met a wedge issue he didn't like, wedge issues on the same side of the aisle present an interesting predicament for an administration whose response to his own party has been ''shut up and color.''

Republicans are starting to employ the ''Double D strategy'' of distance and disagree. Gen. Alexander ''Take Charge'' Haig, President Reagan's former secretary of state, also appeared on the Sunday morning line-up. The general speaks out of loyalty to a uniform he wore in the service of our nation, not to or for a political party or particular ''base'' within that party. The general wants a change in course, a new strategy. He essentially said that the ''neo-cons'' have driven our nation over the cliff. Men and women, including the vice president, have taken hold of the political process. He's not interested in waiting one more minute, let alone until the election is over, to implement a new strategy in Iraq. What's the rush? The rush is that our military is putting one foot in front of the other, according to a close Republican friend of mine who just returned from there, but there is no plan. And often times as they put one foot in front of the other that foot lands on an IED or in the path of a sniper or mortar.

The president has commissioned a commission as the answer to the general's criticism. Its findings will not be released until after the election. Most importantly, arguably the single biggest issue for Iraq, that of separating the nation into three independent entities, is ''off the table'' completely. Forget about Republicans and Democrats and Red States and Blue States for a minute and just focus on the reality of the situation in Iraq. Whatever we are doing right now, whatever that one foot in front of the other strategy might be exactly, is not working. No matter what or whose metric you use to measure security or quality of life of the Iraqis, you come up with a downward trend arrow.

The reality of the situation demands that our president explain and implement a new plan in Iraq. We cannot wait, our soldiers cannot wait and the Iraqi people cannot just march off the cliff one by one for the next two years. Yet, my own reality testing tells me that this is wishful thinking. President Bush has said that he will leave Iraq to the next president. It's the first time in American history that a president has taken our nation to war and then said, ''That's the next guy's problem.'' It's not even clear that the president understands that his party is on the brink of losing Congress. When asked about the election he said, ''I'm not on the ballot.'' When asked if he reads any books about his presidency, which by the way would be a great way to do some much needed ''reality testing,'' he said that would be ''weird.'' Some reality, and it needs testing.

Cleaning Up Congress

By Ellen Ratner
I was in the airport the other day and ran into J.C. Watts, the African-American Republican who left his leadership position in the House for private life. He left Congress at the top of his game, as Chairman of the House Republican Conference, the 4th-highest position of leadership in the House. Our short discussion focused on what was happening to the Republicans in Congress, and he said, ''Something happens to people when they get there, Congress changes people, good people.''



My readers will be surprised that this liberal is best of friends with Rep. Bob Ney. I was also at least a causal acquaintance of Mark Foley. Both Republicans, both in big trouble. There are many others in Congress, who have in the past, or are currently teetering in the present, on illegal or stupid acts. How do we clean up Congress? How do we prevent good people from going bad?

People are motivated to run for Congress for three basic reasons: public service, fame and/or power. These reasons are not mutually exclusive. Public service is a lofty goal; fame and power are not. Many people who seek office do so for complicated internal reasons. People who seek fame do so because, according to New York Times journalist Benedict Carey, ''Their fame-seeking behavior appears rooted in a desire for social acceptance, a longing for the existential reassurance promised by wide renown.'' Author Albert Brim of ''The Fame Motive'' says that longing for renown or lingering feelings of rejection and neglect lead to the desire for fame.

How do we fix the mess in Congress, taking into account the personalities that strive to become members; and what happens in the protective bubble that encases members of Congress when they get there?

I propose several solutions:

1. Stop making congressional misbehavior a partisan issue. It happens on all sides of the aisle. It is a ''systems'' issue. The system is what leads to this mess.

2. Develop employee assistance programs for members of Congress. They have one in place for staff, but not for members. All major corporations have a program so that any employee can be referred to, or personally seek counseling for drinking, inappropriate behavior, personal debt, and other problems. Members of Congress are elected by citizens in their district, so you can't threaten their jobs, but you could threaten committee assignments. You do not have to have a PhD in clinical psychology to recognize that James Traficant of Ohio was manic depressive. He should have gone to the House shrink way before he wound up at the House ethics committee. Encourage staffs and family members to report questionable behavior so the member can get help.

3. Put term limits on all chairmanships and committee memberships. Make seniority a relic of the past, so that ordinary citizen members, (those elected within the last six years), have an opportunity to serve. Term limits for members may not be a reality except by a constitutional amendment which may take years. Term limits for leadership and committee memberships are immediate steps which can be put into place without getting all 50 states to agree.

4. Institute transparency by making the schedules of the members of Congress public, (details of family time would be excluded, however). Put the schedules on the Internet weekly. Penalty for non-reporting would be loss of committee assignments. This would make all trips (even if the member paid for it), dinners, golf outings and the like a matter of public record. Suspicious outside influences (like Jack Abrahamoff), would be there for every citizen, local radio host and newspaper to see and analyze. It would also make it easy to see which members require others to ''pay to play.''

5. Make the famous ''district work period'' a real work period. Congressional leaders should be encouraged to participate in three ''one week work experiences'' per year. Former Sen. Bob Graham learned of the everyday lives and needs of his constituents by literally walking or in this case, working in their shoes. He worked hundreds of different jobs for a day in his district. It was a great experience and kept him in touch with his constituents. Imagine what would happen if Denny Hastert or Nancy Pelosi worked for a week each as wait staff in a restaurant, a customer service agent at an insurance company, or as a taxi driver or teacher? Work laws would change, tax laws would change and so would access by the guys with big money and influence.

6. Put congressional office budgets online. All expenditures including large equipment purchases, car leases and the like should be available for scrutiny. The public has a right to know.

These steps would not eliminate all wrong doing, ''stinking thinking'' (alcoholism) and the fame/power bubble that gripmembers once they land on the Hill. They would, however, go a long way toward keeping members in touch with the public service motivations of their personalities. We can't get rid of the fame and power motivation but we can work together to keep it in check.

Good fences make bad legislation

By Ellen Ratner
This week the Senate approved a fence; a seven hundred mile double wall along the border with Mexico. The bill passed easily 80-19 in this election climate and it is identical to the bill that passed the House of Representatives. The Senate and House members who voted for the bill can go home now and proclaim that they have done something to stem the tide of illegal immigration. But will it work?



Sen. Kennedy gave an impassioned speech on the floor of the Senate regarding the fence bill. He was well in the minority but the facts, as they say, are the facts.

Let's suppose they manage to build this miracle fence. Do we really think it is going to stop illegal immigration into the United States? We are surrounded by water and water is very hard to fence. This spring I was with some migrant workers in Florida, the ones who pick tomatoes for McDonald's and Taco Bell. Some of these agricultural workers were citizens, some were green card holders, some had overstayed their visas and some were here illegally. However, most of them did not enter the United States in areas where the fence is going to be built.

Recently in New York state, Bucky Phillips escaped from jail by boring through the top of his cell with an industrial can opener. I don't think you have to be a rocket scientist to know that if you can escape from a jail cell with a can opener, you can do the same with a double fence in the desert. Ladders can be built, tunnels can be dug and federal guards can even be bribed by well paying criminal syndicates to look the other way.

The Pew Hispanic Center's study found that 40 to 50 percent of illegal immigrants entered the United States legally. Sen. Kennedy cited the fact that smugglers would just move their operation to Canada, transporting future illegals via boat or plane and then have them cross the 4,100-mile border with Canada.

So, it is obvious that the fence will slow down the tide but only for a short period of time. Remember the McCain-Feingold Act which was supposed to clean up campaign finance? It did for a couple of years until the 527s and the 501-c4s figured out a way to get as much money as anyone could possibly need into the election mix. A finance fence was built and within a short time every political group figured out how to circumvent it.

We have already increased border security and even built a wall in San Diego. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this has only enriched the smugglers and increased the deaths of people crossing the desert. It has stopped the migrant farm workers from going home to their families during the non-farming season so that more illegal workers remain in the United States year round. The cost for each border apprehension has increased from $300 in 1992 to $1,700 today, with the probability of apprehension decreasing from 20 percent to five percent.

As politically popular as the fence is, it will not work. It might work in Israel but the geography of Israel is not the same as the United States border with Mexico. We need to stem the illegal tide in a way that works, however politically unpopular.

There is only one real and viable solution to the issue of illegal immigration. We need to help our Mexican neighbors create an economy that employs them in non-sweat shop environments. In addition, we must press the Mexican government to allow Americans access to everyday mom and pop businesses that create a viable trade economy. It is very difficult for the average American to own property in Mexico without mounds of paperwork. If we create conditions where Mexicans can come to work in the United States and go back home to Mexico, as well as creating conditions where Americans can work and own property in Mexico, the illegal immigration problem will dissipate. It will not need the billions of dollars for fencing; it will only need some honest politicians to stop posturing and start telling the American people the truth about illegal immigration and what will really work.