Conservatives Without Conscience (35 page)

21.
For example, William M. Welch, “We Exposed Our Souls in Late-Night Gingrich Debate,”
USA Today
(January 8, 1997), A-1, refers to Gingrich’s “autocratic and centralized rule of the House majority”; John McQuaid, “Remodeling of House Expected: Livingston to Exercise Restraint as Well as Power,” the New Orleans
Times-Picayune
(November 11, 1998), A-1, stated, “Historians say Gingrich has been the most powerful speaker since Joseph Cannon, R-Ill., whose autocratic rule early this century eventually led to an open revolt against him and a reining in of his power”; and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) characterized the Gingrich/DeLay refusal to allow a vote for censure of President Clinton rather than for impeachment as “one-party autocracy, which we condemn abroad and which history has proven can lead to authoritarian rule,”
Washington Post
(December 20, 1998), A-42.

22.
Robert Kuttner, “America as a One-Party State: Today’s hard right seeks total dominion. It’s packing the courts and rigging the rules. The target is not the Democrats but democracy itself,”
The American Prospect
(February 2004) at http://www.prospect.org/print/V15/2/kuttner-r.html.

23.
Stephen Moore, “Worse Than Drunken Sailors,”
National Review
Online (May 17, 2002) at http://www.nationalreview.com/moore/moore051702.asp. (NRO noted: “Stephen Moore is president of the Club for Growth. This article originally appeared in the
Wall Street Journal
on May 13, 2002.”)

24.
Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, “If You Give a Congressman a Cookie,”
New York Times
(January 19, 2006) at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/19/opinion/19ornstein.html?_r=1.

25.
Kuttner, “America as a One-Party State” at http://www.prospect.org/print/V15/2/kuttner-r.html. See also, Joseph G. Cannon, as told to L. White Busbey,
Uncle Joe Cannon: The Story of a Pioneer American
(New York: Henry Holt, 1927), 243–69. This was an “as-told-to” autobiography published after Cannon’s death. Cannon made the following observation:

It is true we engage in fierce combat, we are often intense partisans, sometimes we are unfair, not infrequently unjust, brutal at times, and yet I venture to say that, taken as a whole, the House is sound at heart; nowhere else will you find such a ready appreciation of merit and character, in few gatherings of equal size is there so little jealousy and envy. The House must be considerate of the feelings of its Members; there is a certain courtesy that has to be observed; a man may be voted a bore or shunned as a pest, and yet he must be accorded the rights to which he is entitled by virtue of being a representative of the people. On the other hand, a man may be universally popular, a good fellow, amusing and yet with these engaging qualities never get far. The men who have led the House, whose names have become a splendid tradition to their successors, have gained prominence not through luck or by mere accident. They have had ability, at least in some degree; but more than that, they have had character.

26.
Staff report,
Economist,
“Pyongyang on the Potomac? The Congressional Elections” (September 18, 2004) at http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3203239&tranMode=LA.

27.
Lou Dubose, “The Man with the Plan,”
Texas Monthly
(August 2004), 1.

28.
See
Eddie Jackson et al. v. Rick Perry et al.,
brief for Appellants, in Supreme Court of the United States at http://www.jenner.com/files/tbl_s69News DocumentOrder/FileUpload500/517/Brief_for_Appellants_in_Jackson_v_ Perry.pdf.

29.
Spencer Overton, “Stealing Liberty: How Politicians Manipulate the Electorate,”
The Crisis
(January/February 2005), 15.
The Crisis
is an official publication of the NAACP.

30.
Dan Eggen, “Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting as Illegal; Voting Rights Finding on Map Pushed by DeLay Was Overruled,”
Washington Post
(December 2, 2005), A-1.

31.
Juliet Eilperin, “House GOP Practices Art of One-Vote Victories,”
Washington Post
(October 14, 2003), A-1.

32.
Dubose and Reid,
The Hammer,
6.

33.
See Robert K. Murray,
The Harding Era: Warren G. Harding and His Administration
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969), 432–33. There is no evidence that President Harding had any involvement with the influence peddling and illegal sale of government property undertaken at the “little green house on K Street.”

34.
Jaun Williams, “The K Street Project and Jack Abramoff,”
Morning Edition,
National Public Radio (January 11, 2006) transcript.

35.
Jonathan E. Kaplan, “Boehner Can Rely on K Street Cabinet,”
The Hill
(October 6, 2005) at http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/100605/Boehner.html.

36.
William Norman Grigg, “Trouble with DeLay,”
New American
(October 31, 2005), 21.

37.
John B. Judis, “Razing McCain,”
The American Prospect
(March 13, 2000), 15.

38.
Dubose and Reid,
The Hammer,
164–66.

39.
Sam Rosenfeld, “Then Came the Hammer,”
The American Prospect
(December 2004), 51.

40.
Jonathan Alter, “Tom DeLay’s House of Shame,”
Newsweek
(October 10, 2005) at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9557669/site/newsweek/.

41.
Story reported by the American Progress Action Fund (January 20, 2006) at http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=klL WJcP7H&b=1331575&ct=1799805.

42.
Anonymous, “Corrupted by Lunch: What Speaker Hastert Thinks of His Colleagues,”
Wall Street Journal
(January 19, 2006), A-14.

43.
Janet Hook, “GOP Seeks Lasting Majority: The Party Dreams of Political Dominion,”
Los Angeles Times
(July 21, 2003), A-1.

44.
Paul Krugman, “Toward One-Party Rule,”
New York Times
(June 27, 2003), A-27.

45.
Scott Stewart, “The College Republicans—A Brief History,” College Republican National Committee at http://www.crnc.org/images/CRNChistory.pdf (reports on Abramoff’s role in the CRNC); People for the American Way, “Right Wing Watch: Americans for Tax Reform” at http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=9326.

46.
Franklin Foer, “Swimming with Sharks: Republicans Learn Their Dirty Tricks by Practicing on One Another,”
New Republic
(October 3, 2005), 20.

47.
College Republican National Committee, “The National Chairmen of the College Republican National Committee” at http://www.crnc.org/images/CRNC_Chairmen.pdf.

48.
Foer, “Swimming with Sharks,” 20–22.

49.
Joseph B. Treaster, “College Republicans Open a Drive Against Student Activist Groups,”
New York Times
(March 13, 1983), A-28

50.
Howard Kurtz and Charles R. Babcock, “Two ‘Nonpolitical’ Foundations Push Grenada Rallies,”
Washington Post
(October 4, 1984), A-1.

51.
Michael Hirschorn, “Little Men on Campus (Republican Party College Activities),”
New Republic
(August 5, 1985), 14.

52.
Sidney Blumenthal, “Staff Shakeup Hits Conservative Group: 7 Fired at Lehrman’s Citizens for America,”
Washington Post
(July 27, 1985), A-10.

53.
Abramoff’s résumé from his days at Greenberg Traurig at http://web.
archive.org/web/20030612020908/http://gtlaw.com/bios/govadmin/abramoffj.htm.

54.
Bell is quoted in Andrew Ferguson, “The Lobbyist’s Progress: Jack Abramoff and the End of the Republican Revolution,”
Weekly Standard
(December 20, 2004).

55.
Michael Janofsky, “Senate Opens Hearings on Lobbyists for Tribes,”
New York Times
(September 30, 2004), A-15.

56.
Material in this section is based on personal knowledge, which I confirmed when writing a column on the subject for
FindLaw
at the time the issue of changing the Senate’s rules first arose. See John W. Dean, “The Ongoing Controversy over Judicial Nominees: What Will It Mean if the GOP ‘Goes Nuclear’ on the Filibuster Rules?”
FindLaw
—Writ (May 23, 2003) at http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030523.html.

57.
See Gang of 14, “Memorandum of Understanding on Judicial Nomination” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_fourteen.

58.
Charles Martin,
Healing America: The Life of Senate Majority Leader William H. Frist, M.D.
(Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2004), 82. I have both quoted from and paraphrased this story.

59.
William H. Frist,
Transplant: A Heart Surgeon’s Account of the Life-and-Death Dramas of New Medicine
(New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989), 122.

60.
Ibid., 123.

61.
Ibid., 124.

62.
Ibid., 130.

63.
The General Laws of Massachusetts, Chapter 272: Section 77 at http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/272-77.htm. The relevant part of the statute reads: “Chapter 272: Section 77. Whoever…mutilates or kills an animal…or procures an animal to be…mutilated or killed…shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than 5 years or imprisoned in the house of correction for not more than 2 1/2 years or by a fine of not more than $2,500, or both such fine and imprisonment.”

64.
David Beiler, “Surgical Precision: How Senate Power Jim Sasser Was Stomped by a Political Novice in Tennessee,”
Campaigns and Elections
(April 1995).

65.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, “Letters Show First Notified of Stocks in ‘Bind’ Trust: Documents Contradict Comments on Holdings,”
Washington Post
(October 24, 2005), A-1.

66.
“SEC Ratchets up Probe of Frist’s HCA Stock Sale, People Say,” Bloomberg. com (September 27, 2005) at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=awvqzH_6IT1o&refer=us.

67.
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and R. Jeffrey Smith, “SEC, Justice Investigate Frist’s Sale of Stock,”
Washington Post
(September 24, 2005), A-1.

68.
Martin,
Healing America,
85–86.

69.
James Taranto, “The Weekend Interview with Dick Cheney,”
Wall Street Journal
(January 28–29, 2006), A-8.

70.
See http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0301.marshall.html.

71.
Anne Gearan, “Ex-Powell Aide Criticizes Bush on Iraq,” Associated Press (November 29, 2005) at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1129-07.htm.

72.
David Luban, “Torture, American Style,”
Washington Post
(November 27, 2005), B-1.

73.
David Luban, “Liberalism, Torture and the Ticking Bomb,”
Virginia Law Review
(October 2005) at http://www.virginialawreview.org/content/pdfs/91/1425.pdf.

74.
Charlie Savage, “Bush could bypass new torture ban: Waiver right is reserved,”
Boston Globe
(January 4, 2006) at http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/01/04/bush_could_bypass_new_ torture_ban/.

75.
Daniel Klaidman, Stuart Taylor, Jr., and Evan Thomas, “Palace Revolt: They were loyal conservatives, and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president’s power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it,”
Newsweek
(February 6, 2006), 35–40.

76.
Ibid.

77.
Ibid.

78.
Ibid.

79.
Helen Dewar and Dana Milbank, “Cheney Dismisses Critic with Obscenity: Clash with Leahy About Halliburton,”
Washington Post
(June 25, 2004), A-4.

80.
Barbara Ann Kipfer, ed.,
Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus: In Dictionary Form
(New York: Delta, 1999).

81.
See, e.g.,
The American Heritage Dictionary
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1982) or
Webster’s College Dictionary
(New York: Random House, 1991).