Rahm Emanuel delivered one hell of a speech before the Brookings Institution this morning. Greg Sragent has the full text over at TPM's Election Central. Here's an excerpt:
Partisan politics has infiltrated every level of our federal government – from scientific reports on global warming to emergency management services to the prosecutorial power of the federal government itself. Even the Iraq War – from our entry to the reconstruction – has been thoroughly politicized and manipulated.
Recently, even those who had become somewhat inured to the intense partisanship of this Administration were shocked by the political manipulation of our U.S. Attorneys. And we have just begun to feel the impact of this scandal. Just as Hurricane Katrina exposed the issue of incompetence, the U.S. Attorney scandal has placed a spotlight on the Administration’s pattern of always placing the Republican Party’s interests before the public interest.Now, the U.S. Attorney scandal will be to public corruption what Hurricane Katrina was to incompetence in the Bush Administration.
And the scandal has created a new context for viewing and evaluating scandals in the Bush Administration. Americans have learned just how the Bush Administration works and are discovering that under President Bush, no function of the federal government is free from the influence of politics.
And this is no accident. It’s all by design. The incidents I will list today are not a laundry list of one offs or isolated cases of corruption. There is a common denominator. Instead of promoting solutions to our nation’s broad challenges, the Bush Administration used all the levers of power to promote their party and its narrow interests....
The Bush Administration has redefined the famous challenge of President Kennedy’s inaugural address. Instead of “Ask not what your country can do for you,” it has become “Ask what your government can do for our party.”
What's striking about this speech is how well Emmanuel has tied all of the various Bush administration scandals into one coherent narrative. Over the past few years, there are so many things that have gone wrong that its hard even for us political junkies to keep track. Corruption can and should be one of the defining issues of 2008, but that will only happen if Democratic leaders learn to frame it properly. What's gone wrong here isn't a series of unrelated bugs; it is a feature of the way the modern Republican party governs. Not only does Emmanuel understand that, he's found a way to weave it into a single narrative.
The Administration would like the press and public to believe all of this corruption and cronyism consists of isolated instances and one-offs. But I ask you:
Michael Brown. Scooter Libby. Bernard Kerik. Halliburton. Philip Cooney. David Safavian. Lurita Doan. Matteo Fontana. Sue Ellen Wooldridge. Steven Griles. Alberto Gonzales. FEMA. Iraq intelligence. Iraq reconstruction.This Hall of Shame is no accident and these are not isolated incidences. It’s a pattern of political appointees who put partisan interests ahead of country – and were told to do so.
Give the speech five minutes of your time today. For those of you who recognize the names he's listed, it will be a great way to refresh your memory about the details. For those who do not, the speech is an almost ideal way to become acquainted with some of the facts you might have previously missed.
More like this, Rahm, please. More like this.
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