Good news everyone! Perlstein's at his tipping point

I've been following the release of The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, the third book in historian Rick Perlstein's four-book history of the modern conservative movement. (I was working my way through the first two some four years ago.)

Perhaps because the right-wing smear-merchants have honed their skill set since 2010, or perhaps because they could look the other way when the truth about Goldwater and Nixon got laid out in almost quotidian detail but they're not going to sit idly by and watch anyone reduce Saint Ronnie to human scale again, the rightwing defenders of the faith are after Perlstein with everything they've got, at a level of acrimony that the first two books never excited.

It's reminiscent of the toxic gifts of Karl Rove when he was at his peak, because they're attacking Perlstein from the side of his greatest strength: They're questioning the fundamentals of his scholarship by accusing him, wildly improbably, of plagiarism. (A handy guideline established during the Clinton era: If Republicans accuse their enemies of doing something, it's a safe bet they've already been doing it themselves. We continue.)

The claim is preposterous. But then so was the swift-boating of John Kerry in 2004, and look how well that succeeded. Still, for a variety of reasons – The attackers' claims are more specific and more easily refuted with the documentation at hand? This sort of organized smear-campaign just looks and sounds (and smells) too familiar even to most of the mainstream media who will greatly the commercial and critical fate of The Invisible Bridge? – the attempts to drag the book and its author down are getting a fair amount of play, but they're not being taken very seriously, despite the aid and comfort lent by a disgraceful on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand review from The New York Times (you can easily find the link yourself).

Readers can disagree in good faith about the wisdom and utility of removing citations from the physical book itself and putting them online (Me? I'm evidently in the minority: I don't want to have to read it with my wifi tablet at my elbow, but I will.), but one thing is clear: The source notes are there, online, searchable, and click-throughable. Hence Perlstein, who seems to have been caught by surprise by this hatchet job (again, thanks so much, NYTimes.) can avail himself of the classic defense in such a case: The truth. (Plus the fundamentals of copyright law.)

You can read Slate's David Weigel's account of the general story here and the exchange of hostile and threatening letters (from Perlstein's chief attacker, currently Ann Coulter's publicist) and bemused but firm replies (from Perlstein's attornies) here.

I just want to point out one bit of data and note a historical parallel.

First, the conservative attackers can whine all they want, but Mammon is going to smile on Perlstein.

Second, there is some precedent, going back to 2003, for the situation Perlstein finds himself in, and it invites optimism:

Al Franken got the glad tidings while vacationing in Italy. He had fallen asleep reading "The Tipping Point" and mulling marketing ideas for his forthcoming "Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right," when a friend staying in the villa walked into his bedroom and woke him up. "Al!" he said. "You're being sued by Fox!" After a second-and-a-half of considering this, Franken responded: "Good!" Then he fell back asleep.

If Fox's intention was to break a large, undercooked ostrich egg on its corporate face while pouring streams of golden ducats into Franken's pockets, it carried out its plan to perfection. As everyone who pays attention to such matters knows by now, a judge laughed its copyright-infringement lawsuit (Fox claimed it trademarked the phrase "fair and balanced") out of court -- even adding insult to injury by warning the right-wing media behemoth that its ownership of the phrase it claimed to have spent $61 million developing was extremely dubious. And sales of Franken's book soared sky-high on the publicity, hitting #1 on Amazon's list Thursday.

Here's wishing Rick Perlstein a good night's sleep.

Come on Democrats!

You are so close:

House Republican moderates, in a remarkably blunt White House meeting, warned President Bush this week that his pursuit of the war in Iraq is risking the future of the Republican Party and that he cannot count on GOP support for many more months.

The meeting, which ran for an hour and a half Tuesday afternoon, was disclosed by participants yesterday as the House prepared to vote this evening on a spending bill that could cut funding for the Iraq war as early as July. GOP moderates told Bush they would stay united against the latest effort by House Democrats to end U.S. involvement in the war. Even Senate Democrats called the House measure unrealistic.

But the meeting between 11 House Republicans, Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, White House political adviser Karl Rove and presidential press secretary Tony Snow was perhaps the clearest sign yet that patience in the party is running out.

The Repubs are gradually reaching the point where their own self-interest as a party and as candidates will give you enough votes to override a veto. At this rate it's only a matter of time before Bush gets his "Goldwater moment." Yesterday's meeting was a dress rehearsal.

So don't blow it now:

It's time to replace some conservative Democrats in Washington, DC. I just heard from an impeccable source that there is serious concern on the Hill that conservative Democrats in the House will vote with the Republicans to strip any and all restrictions from the Iraq supplemental tomorrow, effectively giving Bush all the money he wants with no restrictions and no effort to hold either him or the Iraq government accountable for anything. I.e., they will vote to continue this war along the same disastrous course because they're too afraid to challenge George Bush and his failed leadership.

Let me reiterate: This isn't some idle rumor. The concerns are coming from Hill sources themselves.

Yes, while the Republican leaders of the House and Senate are publicly claiming that they won't give Bush a blank check, they're maneuvering behind the scenes to do just that. And while Republican members of Congress are supposedly laying down the law for Bush in private meetings, on the House floor they're going to give Bush everything he wants and needs to continue the war indefinitely.

If that happens, then we need to hang this war, and hang every lost life and every wasted dollar, around the neck of every Republican and conservative Democrat who betrays our troops and our country tomorrow.

Yes, Arivosis is right: If this GOP gambit to peel off freshman Democratic votes works, those people should wear this war vote around their neck an albatross forever. But the point is that it shouldn't happen. Let's hope Pelosi is twisting arms until they come loose.

Come on, Dems--you're so close. Don't blow it now.

Reading: Frank Rich and the Republican Party's desperately needed "Goldwater moment"

I was working at a piece on this general theme a few months ago, but then--as so often happens--the outrage over today's events overtook the outrage over yesterday's events, the idea got shelved for a few days, then indefinitely, and there things stood until this weekend.

As I was writing up the post at the time, it itemized several events that had recently taken place:

1. McCain et al. pushed through a piece of legislation, with a rare burst of bipartisan support, outlawing torture by US forces. After losing the fight against it, Bush signed it into law, along with a presidential signing statement saying he considered himself able to disregard any parts of the law he disagreed with.

2. Bush claimed that general section 3 of the Geneva Accords--the part with the pesky rules against torture and inhumane treatment--is "vague" and needs clarification. For 60 years this section of the Accords has been clear as a buttonhook in the well water, but now this Umberto Eco of the far right thinks it can only function with his clarifying assistance.

3. McCain et al. were close to pushing through a measure that would, yet again, ban the use of torture and inhumane treatment, and Bush, once again losing control of the vote in the Senate, now claimed he supports the bill. He did not renounce the use of torture nor was there indication that he will consider himself any more bound by this law than by the other laws that he's undercut with signing statements.

Where I was headed was that it was time for Bush and the Republican party to have their "Goldwater moment." Around the beginning of August, 1974, a delegation of the most respected members of the GOP congressional leadership, led by Barry Goldwater, trouped over to the White House to plead with Nixon to resign before the pending articles of impeachment came to a vote. You can decide for yourself who among the Grand Old Men of the Grand Old Party might possibly fit that bill today, but the point I was headed for was that the only group whose opinion might possibly sway Bush from his course at this late date was the Republican leadership, imploring him not to take the party down with him.

Of course, torture, end-running the Geneva accords, signing statements--that's all so 2006.

Several failures and many scandals later, the argument was all the stronger when Frank Rich made it yesterday:

The question now is how to minimize the damage before countless more Americans and Iraqis are slaughtered to serve the president's endgame of passing his defeat on to the next president. The Democrats can have all the hearings they want, but they are unlikely to take draconian action (cutting off funding) that would make them, rather than Mr. Bush, politically vulnerable to blame for losing Iraq.

I have long felt that it will be up to Mr. Bush's own party to ring down the curtain on his failed policy, and after the 2006 midterms, that is more true than ever. The lame-duck president, having lost both houses of Congress and at least one war (Afghanistan awaits), has nothing left to lose. That is far from true of his party.

Even conservatives like Sam Brownback of Kansas and Norm Coleman of Minnesota started backing away from Iraq last week. Mr. Brownback is running for president in 2008, and Mr. Coleman faces a tough re-election fight. But Republicans not in direct electoral jeopardy (George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) are also starting to waver. It's another Vietnam-Watergate era flashback. It wasn't Democrats or the press that forced Richard Nixon's abdication in 1974; it was dwindling Republican support. Though he had vowed to fight his way through a Senate trial, Nixon folded once he lost the patriarchal leader of his party's right wing.

That leader was Barry Goldwater, who had been one of Nixon's most loyal and aggressive defenders until he finally realized he'd been lied to once too often. If John McCain won't play the role his Arizona predecessor once did, we must hope that John Warner or some patriot like him will, for the good of the country, answer the call of conscience. A dangerous president must be saved from himself, so that the American kids he's about to hurl into the hell of Baghdad can be saved along with him.

Rich's essay will be in the Readings list on the sidebar.