Texas Blue Mailbag: Week of 11/4/2007

This week's mailbag features some ponderings about the State Department's forced diplomatic deployment to Iraq and Dennis Kucinich's pocket impeachment filings.

Pat says:

good analysis--I read it after I returned from working 13 hours at the polls--and 13 days after I voted--I attempted to get something--ANYTHING--from my county Dem organization or the state Dems, or any Dem in the legislature re a "Democratic" position on any of the amendments --all efforts were futile--your work would have been more helpful had it arrived during early voting, which is when I urge the Dems in my precinct to vote.

Pat Voelz
Precinct 72 Chair
Montgomery County

George says:

Thank you! I do wish we'd gotten that out faster. To be honest, that was my fault — I was personally torn on a couple of those that I thought were particularly difficult decision, and took pains to look at a number of viewpoints (which I linked in the article) before deciding on my own. I myself didn't vote until the last day of early voting.

But you're absolutely right; I should've started that earlier, and we should've run it earlier. That'll definitely be something we'll keep well in mind next time we do something like this. Again, my apologies.

Melissa says:

You? How's everything going for you?

Josh says:

Pretty good. Thanks for asking!

Spider says:

hey did you hear about the state department, and 88% of state department employees said that they don't feel like the department is looking out for them. and to deflect this criticism, the spokes guy said "well those people are wrong. 88% of people used to believe slavery was good" and i guess he thought everyone would be like WOW CASE CLOSED

George answers:

Yeah, that quote blew my mind. Far short from being in any way convincing, it simply added one emotionally charged issue to another. Not a great recipe.

Then again, I'm not sure how much message control would've helped him, either. After all, when the State Department is throwing diplomats into Iraq against their will, I don't think there's much goodwill to be had there.

Cool Mike asks:

Josh, do you find it odd that, in spite of the fact that Kucinich introduced that legislation to initiate impeachment proceedings against Cheney, there's been basically zero coverage of it on any news network?

Josh replies:
CQ covered this, as did The Hill, which I concede are not really mainstream media. I guess if it wasn't Kucinich, who is prone to zany things, I might be more surprised at the lack of coverage. But it is Kucinich, and unless he works it out so that people are actually forced to debate about it, I don't expect this to get much action in the mainstream media.

EDIT: George also answers:
Kucinich's impeachment attempt was covered in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times, and the AP wire, among others, and I know CBS and Fox carried it as well. I'm sure there were a number of others.