Bysiewicz Revididus

Former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, now running for U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman’s soon to be vacated seat along side U.S. Rep Chris Murphy, may have had her front grill dented a bit in recent days, but it must be said the lady now is in fearsome forward motion.

Mrs. Bysiewicz has called for U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan as soon as practicable and, by so doing, got a jump on the laggard Mr. Murphy, who has been advertising himself in different venues as the progressive’s progressive.

The modern progressives, nearly all of them Democrats, not so long ago were bestirring themselves as anti-war zealots. Who can forget Cindy Sheehan’s often reported march on former President George Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch?

During the Bush presidency, the air crackled with fervent calls by then presidential campaigner Barack Obama to shut down the Iraq war shortly after the Petraeus surge had been launched. The progressives were hot on closing down GITMO, still open for business. A not yet dead Sen. Edward Kennedy and several excitable congresspersons were besieged by leftists in the Democratic Party to start an investigation that might, God willing, lead to impeachment proceedings against the president and his dark star, former Vice President Dick Cheney. A bill of particulars, eerily resembling Mr. Obama’s venture into Libya, was drawn up by Ronnie Dugger and published in the Texas Observer:

“Bush announced in 2002 his illegal presidential policy that the United States can and will attack other nations first, waging war on them, when he so decides. He is now waging, as if he were doing it in our names, a bloody war of aggression against Iraq, which on the face of it is a crime against humanity under the Nuremberg principles that we and our allies established and enforced with hangings after World War II.”

These were heady times.

All this rhetorical effluvia was launched before President Barack Obama began to morph into Mr. Bush, at least in matters of foreign policy. Domestic policy wise, the president still stands staunchly a bit to the right of Senator Karl Marx. But even here, disappointed progressive Democrats have noticed some unfortunate slippage.

Mrs. Bysiewicz’s bold and unambiguous call for a removal of troops from what has been called “the graveyard of empires” opens the door, unfortunately for Democrats, to a reconsideration of Mr. Obama’s “war of choice” in Afghanistan.

A few weeks ago, dark star Cheney characterized the assassination of Osama bin Laden as "a tremendous achievement for the military and intelligence professionals who carried out this important mission." And the ex-Vice President even went so far as to bestow a compliment on the Democratic president: “I also want to congratulate President Obama and the members of his national security team.” And then Mr. Cheney predictably went and spoiled it all, warning that the war on terror must continue. "Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Cheney “remains a dangerous enemy. Though bin Laden is dead, the war goes on."

Mrs. Bysiewicz and Mr. Murphy, both courting the progressive vote in bluer than blue Connecticut, beg to differ with Mr. Cheney and, perhaps more importantly, with each other.

On a return trip from Afghanistan, Mr. Murphy sent out to his progressive supporters an e-mail in which he said he supported a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan but favored a “long standing presence” in the country.
He was vigorously attacked by Mrs. Bysiewicz, who said “"I strongly disagree with Congressman Murphy on this issue." Mrs. Bysiewitz also took a roundhouse swipe at retiring Sen. Lieberman: “Connecticut Democrats deserve a replacement to Senator Joe Lieberman who will consistently be progressive on removing US troops from Afghanistan."

Following the dust up, former chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee John Droney, long a Lieberman supporter and a political realist, archly observed that the most leftward liberal of the two would want to capture the affections of progressives in a primary race. Mrs. Bysiewicz’s linking of Mr. Murphy and Mr. Lieberman, reviled by progressives, therefore might be a politically astute move.

Mr. Murphy affected a fetching bewilderment. What ever could Mrs. Bysiewicz mean? Does she favor a withdrawl of troops, like, tomorrow?

Possibly not.

Neither of the two Democratic contenders for the U.S. Senate have been asked a question put to presidential spokesperson Jay Carney in a recent press gaggle. Asked on May 13 whether the Obama administration was prepared to ask Congress for approval to continue the participation in the no-fly zone in Libya, the president’s official spokesman, Jay Carney, responded,“I don’t have anything with regard to the 60-day issue, if that’s what you’re referring to.”

Unlike Mr. Obama, who sought authority from the United Nations rather than the U.S. Congress when he ordered the bombing of Libya, Mr. Bush was in compliance with the War Powers Act, which requires the president to seek authority from Congress 60 days after engaging in a war theatre.

The clock on the War Powers Act is ticking. Are the two Democratic contenders for Mr. Lieberman’s seat in the congress concerned?

Possibly not.

The Moody-Bannon

With the departure of the Jodi Rell administration – all good things must end – Lisa Moody, a punching bag for people who did not want, for whatever reason, to punch Mrs. Rell, will also leave the stage, to be replaced by Tim Bannon, Gov. Elect-Dan Malloy’s Chief of Staff.

Mr. Bannon, among other accomplishments, is the very first gubernatorial chief of staff in Connecticut to have appeared as a character in a comic strip. T.F. Bannon, of the firm Torts, Tarts & Torque, an early character in Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury,” was patterned after Mr. Bannon, a school chum of Trudeau’s when the two were terrorizing Yale together, Mr Bannon as chairman and Mr. Trudeau as Editor in Chief of the Yale Record, America's oldest humor magazine.

The use of a major domo to deflect criticism from the chief is considerably older than the friendship between Mr. Bannon and Mr. Trudeau, who likely will not reinsert Mr. Bannon into his strip any time soon.

Though she was perfectly capable of thinking for herself, Queen Victoria had Disraeli to serve as a buffer protecting the Queen from the slings and arrows deployed against her administration from Fleet Street. George Bush’s straw man was Vice President Dick Cheney, said to be his brain mostly because the president, like Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Bannon a graduate of Yale, was thought to have none. That is how Mr. Bush, wandering through Mr. Trudeau’s panels as an empty-headed Roman warrior’s helmet, was depicted in Mr. Trudeau’s strip. One looks in vain to Mr. Trudeau’s for a similar comic treatment of President Barack Obama, whose vices do not include the bogeyman of Yale graduates -- stupidity.

It is obvious that Mr. Trudeau likes Mr. Bannon, whom he describes as “brilliant, competent and integrity itself.” Affection is a wet blanket that stifles the burning embers of comedy. Most political cartoonists are unapologetically fierce. What is the point of having absolute power if you are not willing to abuse it, a famous caricaturist once asked?

No, given Mr. Trudeau’s obvious tilt to the left, it will not do to poke fun at the Malloy regime, which promises to be, on the state level, a repeat in a minor key of the national script rolling out of Mr. Obama’s administration: Get the economy moving again with large-scale capital spending projects; turn the millionaires, hereafter defined as anyone making more than $250,000 per annum, upside down and shake the money from their pockets into the state treasury; spend more money on education -- there can never be too many failing urban public schools; phone Washington and beg for handouts; phone businesses elsewhere in the nation and try to sell them on a state that has a crushing debt, two fiscal years out, of upwards of $6 billion; and prepare to mount a sturdy defense of the Malloy administration by riffing on the theme – it was my predecessors fault; I’m just trying to administer the mess left me by Rell-Moody.

To some extent, Ms. Moody played the same straw man part for Mrs. Rell, a governor who, as a creature of the legislature, was for that reason too willing to arrange collapsing compromises with Democratic leaders fixated on spending tax money lavishly and swelling the ranks of their union supporters.

The lamb that has survived the slaughter is bound to have a cousinly regard for the lamb led to the slaughter. "I think he's one of the smartest people I've ever met,'' Moody said of Bannon.” He's a man of uncommon intellect. He has very high integrity, is very much a hard worker, and he will thrive as chief of staff. He's going to learn to become a juggler, a confidant, a task-master on occasion, a buffer, and a constant multi-tasker.''

At this point, the skies are empty and blue. But major unaddressed problems do not disappear when administrations change. If Mr. Malloy is serious about cutting spending, as his campaign rhetoric indicated, his struggle in office will be similar to that of Rell-Moody, and there is every reason to believe that Mr. Malloy, whose cranial matter appears to be in good order, will sometimes stumble, possibly over the feet of Speaker of the House Chris Dovovan.

No administration is entirely transparent or fault free. When the pratfalls occur, Mr. Bannon, taskmaster and buffer, will be on hand to upright his boss and even, should the occasion warrant, take a media bullet for him. It will be very interesting to see at that point whether Connecticut's left of center media will applaud him for his self sacrificial bravery.