It continues to be a busy and visible time for Senator Ron Wyden, as he rides the cable and print junket for his "Free Choice" amendment to the Finance Committee inkblot. We've got two TV clips for you, a long interview that frankly makes my Spidey sense tingle in a bad way, and then a news piece from yesterday that simply makes me want to retch. So grab that sandwich and let's dig in!
We'll start with the videos. Note the way they're being presented viz Wyden's position on reform, as here at Blue Oregon but also headlining the YouTube original of the Ed clip--in short, that he's suddenly on board, talking less about plans without public options, more about plans that have them--but also, conveniently, Free Choice running alongside. And the pitch is that the news is happy--yay, he's off the fence! Is he? I'll let you watch. First is Ed Schulz, then Rachel Maddow. He says much the same in both, but Maddow asks some really piercing questions that throw him off his game at bit at the end of hers:
Amid the noise from Third Way centrists like uberelite David Broder, suggesting we'd all be better off if we just "walked on by" (to quote another disgusting media elitist), Oregon's senior Senator has put himself out front for the more rationally composed among us, going on Rachel Maddow's show last night to strongly affirm Bush admin interrogations as "torture" and declaring himself open to prosecutions if evidence warrants. It's worth watching the whole thing, but Wyden's excerpt starts around 3:30:
He doesn't go too far out on a limb with affirmative statements, but does establish that the locus of control for investigating is the Department of Justice, and that he will be actively involved in passing any information out of his intel committee to AG Holder and the DoJ. A sampling of his comments:
First of all, it is very clear that waterboarding is torture. We prosecuted after WWII the Japanese, for doing it to our folks...I think the President has laid out a plan for moving forward. First, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that I serve on, we're out of the gates now. We've got people in place, we're doing the inquiry, and given the fact that many of us protested these interrogation techniques as soon as we found out, we are very motivated to get to the truth. When we get that information, certainly if there are matters that need to be followed up on, such as matters before the Justice Department, we will get it to them...The Justice Department is an independent agency. It's our job to find the facts....I was one of 19 Senators who opposed Judge Bybee at the time. I was particularly troubled by his approach to the Geneva Conventions, matters that he'd written on. With respect to the issue of impeachment, that's before the House of Representatives. If it comes to the US Senate I'd sit as a juror and at that point I'd be making judgements.
Emphasis mine, because we desperately need more pushback on this simple truth: waterboarding was torture. I hope it spreads. Overall, good talk. Let's see the action behind it.
Hat tipping Sirota, (himself becoming a go-to progressive guest on the talk shows and places like Bill Moyer's Journal), yet another great video clip from Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show featuring Peter DeFazio. And like last time, DeFazio is there to extoll the virtues of infrastructure spending in the new stimulus bill, as we were discussing yesterday with efforts like the restoration of $3b in transit funding.
The video starts off with a rant by Maddow about doing what's right policywise in the stimulus--and to her, what's right is infrastructure spending instead of tax cuts. She's not thrilled with the way that Obama's handled it, and she looks to Pete to back her up. DeFazio's a little more diplomatic as he must be, but he does the job. Check it, here. (Grrrr. MSNBC uses an 'iframe' tag for their video embeds, which Soapblox can't handle until the new code is delivered next month. Sorry, you have to click over there instead of watching it here.)
The upshot is that DeFazio's appeared a touch miffed that Obama spent a whole bunch of time attempting to address GOP concerns with the bill, while not finding much of any time to hear the complaints from his own party about not being bold enough. He's hopeful, however, that in the wake of the House stimulus passing without a single Republican vote, that the President will either newly see the folly of attempting to compromise with this group of jerkbags--or plans to use the experience to prove he tried, but now it's time to go ahead and do what needs to be done, and let Rush moan into his bottle of Oxy until the cows come home (or until he hallucinates a couple from the Oxy).
Of course DeFazio's repeated appearances in such a short time are reflective of Maddow's editorial beef--that the bill is not only weak on good things and long on seemingly useless things, but that it runs counter to Obama's own philosophical pronouncements during the campaign. As a champion of infrastructure spending and particularly transit, he's the perfect choice of guest.
But he's also engaging, gives good quote, and frankly represents a fresh national face among a group of talking heads that desperately needed recycling after this last election. Now that the public has delcared the likes of Kristol, Will and Krauthammer to be utterly full of shit when it comes to their ideas for the country, the nation's media outlets are long past due to follow suit. You go, Petey! Represent!
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