Hypocrisy We Can Believe In

By every indication, Sen. Collins is going to continue to hold Democratic and Republican administrations to different standards--on a whole range of issues.

That said, she seems to have a pretty good point here. The fact that she's been indifferent, historically, to GOP-related contracting abuses and Geneva Convention violations doesn't mean she's wrong this time around.

UPDATE: From WaPo:

Collins also revealed on Wednesday that some of Harding's employees worked at a prison where detainee abuse occurred in 2003, contradicting earlier White House statements that Harding's staffers were assigned to another location.

This looks worse and worse for the White House.

The Essence of Partisanship

It boils down to having two sets of standards--one for your team and another for the other guys.

And whether the subject is arresting terrorists, budget balancing or Senate procedure, over the last year-and-a-half, Sen. Collins has been a true poster child for this kind of crooked reasoning.

Reconcile This

Sen. Collins now:

Sen. Susan Collins (R., Me.) tells NRO that she sees Democrats’ use of the procedure as an "abuse" that will have a "detrimental impact" on the Senate.

Sen. Collins then:

[crickets]

What Was The Hurry?

After a debate that stretched for more than a year, the most thorough discussion of the Maine-specific impact of health care reform (that I've seen, anyway) arrives the day after the legislation passes.

Gotta love the Maine media.

Pick Your Poison

A free Collins Watch subscription to the first reader who can find a quote from Sen. Collins complaining about the poisonous atmosphere created by President Bush in 2003 when he (in the parlance of our times) rammed through his tax cut package via reconciliation.

In case anyone has forgotten, the vote on that deficit-balloning measure was 50-50, with Vice President Dick Cheney breaking the tie so that the rich could get richer.

Needless to say, the junior senator voted in favor of the measure.

Poisoning the Atmosphere

The Hill, today:

One outcome appears certain already: The final vote [on health care reform] won't be bipartisan. Moderate [sic] GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, well-known in the Senate for working across the aisle with Democrats, said it will be a party-line vote that "poisons the atmosphere."

Sen. Susan Collins, in February:

This administration cannot see a foreign terrorist even when he stands right in front of them.

Thought of the Day

If Sen. Collins really was the legislator she pretended to be during the 2008 campaign, health care reform would have passed months ago.

(Special credit goes to the lazy, sloppy, starstruck Maine media for living inside the junior senator's alternate reality.)

Quote of the Day

Sen. Susan Collins:

The Postal Service needs to focus first on expanding customer services and developing new revenue streams rather than cutting services in order to reduce its red ink.

Good Question

As we all know, Sen. Collins professes to want the health care discussion to focus more on lowering costs. Here's the President:

LCV Still Swooning For Collins

Remember when the national arm of the League of Conservation Voters shelved its own standards and, in a move that betrayed its membership, endorsed Sen. Collins?

Even though she had a far weaker record on environmental issues than her opponent? Even though local Maine LCV officials were lining up against her? And even though the organization was unable to articulate why its own environmental scorecard--"a nationally accepted yardstick"--should be ignored in her Senate race?

Good times.

Fifteen months later, LCV is out with its first new scorecard since the election. And in a Senate where 51 members scored a 100 rating, the junior senator clocks in with a disappointing 64.

So much for rewarding bad behavior.

But does LCV at least regret its decision, in light of a year's worth of new information? Is the organization ready to repent and change its ways?

Of course not.

Rather, LCV Deputy Legislative Director Sara Chieffo told us in a phone interview that she remains, "comfortable" with the Collins endorsement. She touted the junior senator's environmental record as compared to other Republicans. (Talk about grading on a curve!) And she said she was "encouraged" by Collins' "engagement" on environmental issues.

One of the things going on here, of course, is that LCV--a nominally "non-partisan" organization--practices affirmative action for Republicans. That makes it easier to solicit donations from independents and green conservatives, and (ironically) to frame the organization as indifferent to partisan politics.

But another thing that's at work here (and let's hope it's the main thing) is that LCV is trying to make nice to Collins in advance of the climate change legislation debate that's coming later this year. Or in 2011. Or sometime.

The background: Collins has put forward a "cap and dividend" proposal that some people of good will think isn't terrible on substance. So the hope is that she will negotiate in good faith to amend the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham proposal, perhaps incorporating some of her ideas. And that she'll then vote for cloture and final passage.

Of course, the question with Collins is whether and to what degree she's being disingenuous--whether she might just be looking to delay, dilute and/or kill progressive legislation without appearing to do so. Mainers, after all, have been taught for years by the local media to listen to her rhetoric and ignore her actions.

On the climate issue, there's already some reason to suspect Collins of bad faith: In 2008, just months before she faced Maine voters, she supported cloture to advance the Lieberman-McCain cap and trade bill, which had no real chance of passing. But after the election, Collins seemed to change her tune, saying, "It's a complicated issue to tackle at a time when the economy is weak."

In any event, we'll be watching. And we'll be among the first to congratulate LCV if their multi-year, standards-shredding effort to cultivate Collins pays off with a big environmental victory.

But I wouldn't bet on it.

Quote of the Day

BDN:

All members of Congress should be concerned that the body routinely passes measures that aren't paid for. But, it seems odd to hold up a $10 billion bill that would help working-class families and the elderly, but not take a similar stand against measures that have added trillions of dollars to the deficit. Sen. Bunning voted for the tax cuts proposed by President George W. Bush and for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Bunning isn't the only one.

More Goodies

If I'm reading this right, Sen. Collins was the only Republican to vote to keep a $100+ billion unemployment assistance-themed bill on track yesterday.

I'm all for it. But it does raise the question: Since the junior senator votes for all the spending and all the tax cuts, wouldn't it make sense for someone to ask her how she proposes to balance the budget?

Thought of the Day

Sen. Collins will gladly cross the aisle to hand out goodies. But she consistently rails against unpleasant things like service cuts and allowing tax cuts to expire.

She likes to have it both ways. And that's why they call her a moderate.

All Over The Place

Yesterday, Sen. Collins was blaming Democrats for Sen. Jim Bunning's (R-KY) crusade against unemployment benefits, health benefits and highway programs.

Today she went to the floor to make it clear that she disapproves of his filibuster.

Tomorrow, who knows.

Collins: Blame Dems For Bunning (R-KY)

She sure is a loyal soldier:

Hundreds of jobless Mainers woke up today with the looming threat of losing their unemployment benefits. Benefits expired this weekend, and a measure in Congress to extend them for another month is being held up by one senator, Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican.

[...]

But Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, says both parties share the blame for the gridlock. "Had Sen. Reid included it in the bill that we passed earlier this week, we would not be in this situation," she told Capitol News Service.

And if Reid had folded health care reform into the same bill, there would be no uninsured people left in the country.

Shame on Harry Reid!

Hint: War Is Hell

Obviously, that's not the whole story. But sending soldiers off to fight multiple tours in a grueling, misconceived and abysmally planned war--without sufficient resources--can't help.

Quote of the Day

Edward Luce in The Financial Times:

In order to win over Susan Collins, a Republican senator from Maine, the Democrats removed $83bn of short-term spending from the [stimulus] bill at the cost of 400,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics.

Collins, Carly and Crist

Also in the latest FEC filing from Dirigo PAC, Sen. Collins' political action committee, is news of donations to the senate campaigns of ousted executive Carly Fiorina and Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL).

The support for Crist, in particular, puts the junior senator at odds with conservative activists.

Old Friends

The top contributor to Sen. Collins' political action committee, Dirigo PAC, for the 2009-10 cycle? Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

In Perspective

The entire "jobs" bill that Sen. Collins has decided not to try to block clocks in at less than two percent of the stimulus bill.

It's $15 billion cost is also a mere fraction of what Collins and allies stripped from the Recovery Act, at a time when every additional dollar of stimulus was sorely needed.

So let's be frank: Her support is little more than a token gesture.

This isn't a centrism; it's a feint toward centrism. Though it's almost certain that the junior senator and her friends in the Maine media will pretend otherwise.

Thought of the Day

The fact that so many wingnuts hate Sen. Collins with such passion demonstrates that they're focused much more on rhetoric than substance.

With the exception of the stimulus bill--which she worked hard to water down--the junior senator has voted with the Republicans on every single major piece of legislation over the last 9 years.

Lucy, Charlie and the Football

Sen. Collins has spent half a year, give or take, carrying water for the GOP and lying about health care. But now she says she's back to being a bipartisan moderate pragmatist.

Anyone who thinks she's interested in advancing serious reform rather than killing it is either incredibly--almost willfully--gullible or just hasn't been paying attention.

Pet Projects

Thomas Cushing Munjoy notices something the deferential, power-coddling Maine media aren't in a hurry to report.

I do wonder where he got that picture.

Joke of the Day

Yesterday:

"It's a bad sign," Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine told me about Bayh's retirement. "The loss of someone like Evan speaks volumes about people's frustrations with the Senate and our failure to work in a bipartisan fashion."

Two weeks ago:

"The Obama administration appears to have a blind spot when it comes to the War on Terrorism.

“And, because of that blindness, this administration cannot see a foreign terrorist even when he stands right in front of them."

Quote of the Day

Thrasybulus at As Maine Goes:

Collins is 100% as conservative as she can be AND win re-election in the dystopia that is Maine. Cut some slack.

Insult, Injury, Etc.

She's lost Tornoe too.

Crisis Management Mode

Just a week ago, Sen. Collins had a national platform and was on the attack. This morning, she dialed in to a local talk radio show to--in the show's own words--"defend her criticism" of President Obama.

Things haven't exactly gone according to plan.

Not surprisingly, Collins spends much of the interview on the defensive, testily delivering the talking points she's been using since the argument turned against her.

But she also manages to deliver this gem: "What's frustrating to me is that it's [the discussion of Abdulmutallab] becoming politicized."

Seriously.

This is a woman who teed off the discussion by quipping, "this administration cannot see a foreign terrorist even when he stands right in front of them."

On the radio, the junior senator tries to walk back that ridiculous, overheated rhetoric--at least implicitly--by saying, "I'm not seeking someone's head. I'm not calling for someone to be fired."

But really, who is she kidding? Not the host, who basically calls her out on her hypocrisy and bad faith.

It seems the damage to the junior senator's reputation has already been done.

Coming Out of the Closet

Yes, we're on Twitter.

End of a Bad Day

A bit more unflattering exposure for Sen. Collins. Start at 0:55 and stick around for the great Bush clip:

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Collins Losing Maine Media?

It's not just BDN. All of a sudden, even PPH has the audacity to allow criticism of Sen. Collins in its pages.

Greg Kesich unloads on the junior senator today.

Remember: Since Richard Connor's early flirtation with Collins skepticism, the Portland daily (like BDN) has handled her as a kind of sainted celebrity, keeping its pages totally free of sentiments critical of Collins.

So what to make of today's about-face? And the fact that it comes the same day that BDN is taking a break from its pro-Collins posture?

Interesting stuff.

Anyway, here's Kesich:

Sen. Susan Collins wrote a column for this newspaper explaining her objections to the package that she voted against in the Senate on Christmas Eve. ("Cost control essential if health care reform is to succeed," Feb 1)

Collins said that she would not vote for the bill because it didn't do enough to control costs and listed several areas in which it could be better...

[But] voting against this health care reform package because it doesn't control costs is like voting against Social Security because it's not nice enough to old people.

Despite a few polite words now and then, partisanship is the order of the day. Collins...is right in the middle of it.

Her ongoing critique of the Obama administration's handling of terrorism does not look like someone trying to find common ground. She lambastes Obama for decisions with which she had no problem when Bush was making them. And she is so dismissive of FBI interrogators, you'd think they'd handed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab over to ACORN for a few questions last Christmas.

It's not entirely clear, but it would appear that Collins' demagoguery about the Christmas Day bomber is what pushed Kesich over the edge. (We unpacked her disingenuous health care critique at greater length here.)

In any case: Bet they're having a wonderful day over at Collins HQ.

Merrill: Collins Pawn in GOP Machine

Who would have thought that a former state senator would have the temerity to call out Saint Susan's noxious rhetoric about the Obama administration? Or that BDN would have the temerity to publish his criticism?

A year ago in an OpEd published here, I praised Sen. Susan Collins for the independence she demonstrated in crafting and voting for the Obama recovery act...

Sadly, last week Sen. Collins allowed herself to be made a pawn of the Republican spin machine. The issue is the government's handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the young man who botched an attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day...

Sen. Collins played her partisan role with all the finesse of an old city ward boss...

Sen. Collins knows that far from being soft on terrorism the Obama administration has been aggressive in going after terrorists around the world. Sen. Collins knows that under Obama, the drone attacks on terrorist enclaves in Pakistan have more than doubled. Sen. Collins knows that Obama beefed up our efforts in Yemen even before the botched Christmas Day attack.

Sen. Collins knows Abdulmutallab is said to have told the FBI that in Yemen he was in contact with terrorists released from Guantanamo by the Bush administration. Sen. Collins knows that one of the tools terrorists are using to recruit young men like Abdulmutallab is America's failure to give detainees captured abroad the benefit of trials.

Does this mean there is no room for a critical look at the administration's handling of the Abdulmutallab affair?

Not at all, but an honest inquiry would start with Collins making a statement like this: "I know trying Abdulmutallab in federal court was simply following a policy set down by the Bush administration in 2003, a policy I have not previously tried to reverse. I know the Obama administration is working on many fronts to keep this nation safe, but we should use this event to see if there is a better way to proceed in the future."

That is the approach Mainers have every right to expect from a senator who won our votes on the promise she would put our country before her party.

Keep in mind the context: It's been many months--if not years--since BDN has published explicit criticism of Sen. Collins anywhere outside its letters to the editor. Her point of view is never countered in news articles and her views are virtually never challenged in editorials or op-Eds. It simply isn't done.

So is this an aberration or a watershed moment?

Clearly, it's too early to tell. But the fact that BDN is willing to risk offending the junior senator suggests that the landscape has shifted.

NYT: Collins Plays Fear Card

The New York Times editorial page:

An election is coming, so the Republicans are trying to scare Americans by making it appear as if the Democrats don't care about catching or punishing terrorists.

[...]

Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, suggested--without any evidence--that vital intelligence was lost by [having the FBI arrest and interrogate Abdulmutallab].

[...]

The Republican propaganda is a distraction from the real issue: that the counterterrorism system is malfunctioning more than eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Like many of the nation's other problems, Mr. Obama inherited this one. For eight years, Congress failed in its legal duty to oversee the intelligence community and the basic operational tasks of the Department of Homeland Security and correct the abusive system of detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere that made our country more vulnerable, not less.

Guess who was chair of the Homeland Security Committee for most of that stretch?

One quibble, though: Collins didn't just suggest that intelligence was lost when Abdulmutallab was placed in FBI custody. She asserted it as fact--and then backtracked.

Her irresponsible, authoritarian rhetoric is certainly getting lots of national attention. But is this the kind of attention she had in mind?

Even More Hypocrisy

Sen. Collins, you'll remember, voted in favor of policies generating trillions of dollars of debt during the Bush administration.

But now, things are different:

Collins, meanwhile, said she would be open to exploring a bipartisan jobs bill that focuses on creating private-sector jobs without adding to the federal deficit.

It's just like her response to the Christmas Day bombing: One standard for Republican administrations, another standard for Democratic ones.

Hypocrisy Watch

For the Maine audience, Sen. Collins shelves the McCarthy-inspired rhetoric about the Christmas Day bombing in favor of a slightly more nuanced argument, albeit one riddled with holes and distortions.

Still no explanation for why she's appalled at the Obama administration for following the Bush approach (which she never criticized) to the letter.

Still no explanation for why Collins expressed no concerns about the FBI's conduct in a discussion with an administration official as events were unfolding.

And still no explanation for her eccentric reading of the Constitution.

Here's a tip: If the junior senator offers you legal advise, run in the opposite direction.

Collins' Blind Spot

After campaigning for and winning reelection as a results-oriented centrist who brings people together to get things done, Sen. Collins has spent the last two weeks spouting often-false, ultra-partisan talking points and making objectively ludicrous, hyperbole-laden assertions like, "this administration cannot see a foreign terrorist even when he stands right in front of them."

Even though the Obama administration followed Bush administration precedent (and the law) in its handling of the Christmas Day bomber.

Even though the junior senator registered no qualms about the Bush administration's approach to similar cases.

And even though there's no evidence that her preferred--illegal--approach to the case would have resulted in a better outcome.

But now we learn that Collins was briefed on the administration's handling of Abdulmutallab on Christmas day? And that she raised no concerns about the actions that only weeks later she would call "dangerous" and "a charade" and "inconceivable"?

It doesn't get much more brazen and disingenuous than this.

It's pretty clear that the last couple of weeks have damaged Collins and debunked, once and for all, the idea that she's a straight-shooter. I suspect that it'll be a while, for example, before she gets any glowing "above-the-fray" treatment from the big, national news organizations.

But her debut as GOP attack dog has been so poorly managed--and so cynically executed--that you have to wonder if she knew what she was signing up for.

Did Sen. Collins jump off the diving board without checking to see if the pool was full of water?

Oh Dear

Greg Sargent breaks some news:

Senator Susan Collins, who's emerged as a leading critic of the decision to Mirandize the bomb plot suspect, raised no concerns about his handling while being briefed on Christmas Day about his capture on a private call with a top Homeland Security official, a source familiar with the conversation tells me.

[...]

When Collins delivered the GOP weekly address in late January, she devoted the entire thing to criticizing the decision to Mirandize the suspect...

But on Christmas Day, Collins was briefed by a top Homeland Security official about the circumstances surrounding the capture and arrest of the suspect, a source familiar with the call says, and she had no objections...

"Senator Collins did not raise any concerns about the possibility of him being Mirandized or about the suspect’s handing," the source says.

Ouch.

UPDATE: Double ouch: Collins' office confirms. And spins desperately. But as Sargent correctly sums up:

The basic point...remains unchanged: There was no reason to assume the suspect wasn't going to be Mirandized, and no concerns about this possibility were raised [by Collins]. In other words, there was no sign that this was a matter of concern for Collins and others until it became a political talking point.

Silence All These Years

Jake Tapper, quoting a "senior administration official":

"The truth is, not one time in the nearly eight years since (attempted shoe-bomber) Richard Reid was Mirandized has one of these guys offered an alternative view until now," the official said. "It's nothing but politics, pure and simple."

Their protests "would be easier to understand if there was one statement" from these Republicans "during that time that was different," the official said. "But alas, there isn't."

Incidentally

Congratulations to Sen. Collins for getting it right about former Sen. John Edwards!

She may not know much about the Constitution. But when it comes to being ahead of the curve on sex and paternity scandals, she's one for one.

Leadership

One wonders what the folks over at Human Rights Campaign are thinking, tonight, about their endorsement of Sen. Collins' 2008 reelection bid.

Are they shocked and dismayed by what the junior senator is saying about "don't ask, don't tell"? They really shouldn't be.

Quote of the Day

Dahlia Lithwick (via Greenwald):

Each time Republicans go to their terrorism crazy-place, they go just a little bit farther than they did the last time, so that things that made us feel safe last year make us feel vulnerable today....

We're terrified when a terror attack happens, and we're also terrified when it's thwarted. We're terrified when we give terrorists trials, and we're terrified when we warehouse them at Guantanamo without trials. If a terrorist cooperates without being tortured we complain about how much more he would have cooperated if he hadn't been read his rights....

But here's the paradox: It's not a terrorist's time bomb that's ticking. It's us. Since 9/11, we have become ever more willing to suspend basic protections and more contemptuous of American traditions and institutions. The failed Christmas bombing and its political aftermath have revealed that the terrorists have changed very little in the eight-plus years since the World Trade Center fell.

What's changing--what's slowly ticking its way down to zero--is our own certainty that we can never be safe enough and our own confidence in the rule of law.

Quote of the Day

Sen. Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME):

I think that it is high time that we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. I think that it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation.

Thought of the Day

In Sen. Collins' fantasy, the government is allowed to lock up Canadian tourists forever without charging them or giving them access to a lawyer. Just because.

More on the Mitchell Interview

Everyone really ought to watch Sen. Collins' unsteady, damaging TV debut as the GOP's civil liberties attack dog. A few more thoughts:

1. Gasping for air is a public-speaking no-no. And it's a pretty good sign you're losing the argument.

2. In the closing minutes, Collins situates herself, quite openly, on the outer fringes of the debate, attacking the Bush administration's civil liberties record from the right.

3. Invoking Jose Padilla by name, Collins makes it abundantly clear that she's comfortable with federal marshals scooping up American citizens, locking them in closets and throwing away the keys--as long as someone in the government is ready to call them "terrorists."

What's more, she'll trash any president who disagrees. At least if he's a Democrat.

BDN Lectures Collins on Constitution

As a rule, BDN doesn't directly criticize Saint Susan--I mean Sen. Collins--in its editorials. But you don't need to read too far between the lines here:

The U.S. Constitution requires that foreign detainees have the same right to a trial as U.S. natives. The Supreme Court upheld this view more than 100 years ago and several times in recent years has ruled that detainees in the so-called war on terror must have access to the judicial system.

So, a bill to ban civilian trials for suspected terrorists, as some have proposed be introduced in Congress, would be a waste of time.

Of course, what BDN thinks is almost beside the point: Collins' rhetoric during this episode hasn't been intended for a local audience. She's not trying to influence Mainers or win their support.

Rather, she's engaged in a calculated, self-conscious attempt to wound President Obama and Democrats, as part of a national political strategy based on fear and misdirection.

She may even succeed. But it's already clear that any success will come at a substantial cost to her moderate bipartisan centrist image.

#CollinsFail Round-Up

More debunking here:

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And here (starting at 2:49):

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Howard on Collins and Lawlessness

H. Cabanne Howard, Executive Secretary of the Maine Committee on Judicial Responsibility and Disability, former member of the Maine Attorney General's Office and current Assistant Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Maine School of Law:

I'm sorry to see that Senator Collins seems to think that when the government apprehends someone on U.S. soil it calls a "terrorist," the Constitution should be suspended. What distinguishes our society from that of the lawless is just these protections.

The Inner Collins?

It's worth remembering that Sen. Collins recently lost her long-time chief of staff.

Have her weekend gaffes about the Constitution, today's apparent retraction and her recent wingnut turn all been products of the shake-up?

Without a savvy, exacting advisor to triangulate for her, are we getting a clearer picture of what the junior senator is made of? And what she really thinks?

Flustered, Fazed and Defensive

Andrea Mitchell does an abysmal job of getting Sen. Collins to answer her questions here. But clearly, the junior senator isn't used to being interviewed skeptically.

Not her finest hour.

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UPDATE: Don't miss the discussion starting at 9:10, where Collins explicitly endorses the Bush administration's handling of Jose Padilla.

Damage Control Mode?

The early reviews aren't good. If we're able to track down the video, we'll post it.

Meanwhile, not a peep from the Maine media. Unless Sen. Collins sends out a press release, it's as if it never happened.

Silence

Disregarding her oath of office, Sen. Collins seemed to call for suspending the Constitution over the weekend, using the platform of the GOP weekly radio address to endorse a reactionary pick-and-choose approach to the rule of law.

Or maybe she was just very, very confused.

Either way, where are the pointed questions? The condemnations?

The MCLU has spoken. But when a sitting US senator calls for the suspension of fundamental constitutional protections--and literally centuries of settled law--wouldn't it make sense for other officials in her state to stand up and call her out? To push back against the offensive, irresponsible rhetoric?

And yet I haven't been able to track down a single reaction from any Maine political figure of any stature.

The silence is appalling. And dangerous.

It's Evolution, Baby

Sen. Collins over the weekend said that giving Abdulmutallab access to a lawyer:

Undoubtedly prevented the collection of valuable intelligence about future terrorist threats to our country.

Collins now:

We will never know whether the quality and quantity of information might have been superior had he not been given a lawyer.

(Emphasis mine.)

Merriam-webster defines "undoubted" as not doubted and undisputed.

Even The AP

You know you're in trouble when the AP calls your position flat-out wrong:

After the Christmas plot, however, the president's critics say the administration should have treated Abdulmutalab as an enemy combatant. The right to a lawyer, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, alleged last week, is reserved for American citizens, not foreign terrorists.

Collins is wrong. Immigrants, even those who entered the country illegally, are guaranteed lawyers in the U.S. when they commit a crime.

And:

It's not exactly clear where Collins or other critics suggest Abdulmuttallab should have been sent...

Had Obama sent Abdulmutallab to a military prison, there's no guarantee he would have talked. But it's certain there would have been a yearslong court challenge like the ones that stalled Bush's anti-terrorism policies...

Which means that, years later, Obama, like Bush, would face the question of what to do with dangerous prisoners who can neither be prosecuted nor set free.

Quote of the Day

Glenn Greenwald:

One can only marvel at the consensus outrage generated by the mere notion that we charge people with crimes and give them trials if we want to lock them in a cage for life. Indeed, what was once the most basic and defining American principle--the State must charge someone with a crime and give them a fair trial in order to imprison them--has been magically transformed into Leftist extremism.

Collins: Cover 30,000,000 For Free

That's the upshot of the position Sen. Collins lays out in a deceptive, innumerate op-Ed today complaining about the absence of cost controls in the Senate health care bill.

Nowhere in the article does she explain how to cover 30 million Americans without increasing the aggregate total spent on health care in the country. (Maybe because it's impossible?)

Instead, she spends the piece pointing to supposed flaws in the legislation.

Collins' proposed fix? She outlines 6.2 billion per year--$62 billion over ten years--in additional health care cost controls. That amounts to roughly .3% of all health care spending in the US.

That's three pennies out of every $10.

Anyone who thinks the Obama administration and congressional Democrats wouldn't make a deal with Collins to bridge that gap hasn't been paying attention.

Of course, Collins isn't interested in such a deal. That's been clear for months.

What we have here, instead, is more bait-and-switch: The junior senator paints a complicated picture to the folks at home and then ditches the nuance once the plane lands in DC, reclaiming her position as a cog in the GOP nonsense machine.

It's a farce and a tragedy. But also a pretty neat trick, and one the Collins team has sort of perfected it at this point.

MCLU: Remarks Dangerous, Wrong

Executive Director Shenna Bellows, on the phone:

Senators take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Senator Collins is saying the Constitution doesn't matter. And that's just wrong.

And:

What Collins is suggesting is that our Constitution should be simply thrown away--that there should be no rule of law, no due process.

Because of this, Bellows said, "Senator Collins' suggestions...are very dangerous to American security." They would, "make permanent some of the abuses of power that occurred during the Bush administration," which have been, "a huge rallying cry for our enemies."

Collins and the Constitution

In the wake of Sen. Collins' ugly radio address, Greenwald does some more intellectual garbage cleanup.

I'm stunned--I really am--that we're even having this debate.

Projection, Anyone?

Sen. Collins, who presided over the Homeland Security Committee during a period in which al-Qaeda flourished and its influence spread around the globe, and who supported a war that diverted resources from the fight against those responsible for the September 11 attacks, thinks the Obama administration has a blind spot when it comes to terrorism?



When Collins goes ahead and apologizes for the damage she caused during the last decade, she'll have standing to criticize others.

Maybe.

Habeas Shmabeas

Gerald journeys into the darkness that was Sen. Collins' radio address, and sets out some basic principles that were uncontroversial across the political spectrum in the age before Fox News.

I also recommend the Glenn Greenwald post Gerald links to, which demonstrates how far the GOP (and elements in the Democratic party) have come--and how fast.

Collins Goes Full Wingnut

What does Sen. Collins mean when she says that the FBI's approach in the Abdulmutalib case, "undoubtedly prevented the collection of valuable intelligence about future terrorist threats to our country"?

Undoubtedly?

What does Collins know that the FBI and the rest of us don't? Someone really ought to pose the question.

But set aside the lying--and the poor production values and the even worse delivery.

The striking thing about this video is its demonstration of just how far the junior senator has drifted from the sensible, moderate center.

Sounding more like Sean Hannity (in full cowering-under-the-bed mode) than Sen. Snowe, she histrionically describes the judicial procedures used by the Bush administration in the cases of Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid as "inconceivable"; "dangerous" and "a charade."

I wonder what country she was living in between 2002 and 2009.

Charade indeed.



UPDATE: Was Collins used, essentially, to launder a noxious, ultra-partisan message so that it would be more salient to the press?

It seems to have worked, at least with the right-leaning Politico.

Question of the Day

Sen. Collins has been a poster child for fiscal recklessness for pretty much her entire tenure in office. But she's usually adept at concealing this fact.

Will anyone ask the junior senator why she voted against PAYGO, something she's previously called a "much-needed restraint for members of Congress as we wrestle with fiscal decisions"?

Does she think it would play into the hands of the terrorists?

Really?

Why did Sen. Collins just vote against PAYGO? (Not a rhetorical question.)

Looking forward to all the disapproving editorials in the Maine papers.

Yeah, right.

Quote of the Day

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH):

The people who have been most outspoken about [the national] debt are the people most responsible for it...those that voted for the Iraq war, and charged it to our kid[s], those who voted for the giveaway to the drug and insurance industry in 2003 and charged it to our kids, and those who voted who tax cuts for the rich and charged it to our kids, and those who ignored infrastructure needs in this country for a decade and charged that to our kids.

And they come and they're screaming the loudest about the balanced budget. And that disturbs me.

Sen. Collins, of course, is one of those people.

Disturbing indeed.

Quote of the Day

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero:

It is extremely disturbing that members of the U.S. Congress are essentially calling for Obama administration officials to discard the Constitution when a terrorist suspect is apprehended--as if the Constitution should be applied on a case by case basis. The whole idea of having constitutional protections is that they be applied across the board for all those accused of a crime.

Bubble? What Bubble?

Sen. Collins will vote in favor of Ben Bernanke's bid for another term as Fed chair.

Thought of the Day

On the bright side, at least Jeannine Guttman still has health insurance.

Polite Company

It's fine and dandy that folks from across the ideological spectrum can get together for a glass of wine.

But let's not forget: Helen Thomas shined a spotlight on torture while Sen. Susan Collins enabled it.

I wonder how they both feel about this.

Because We're Not Iran?

Sen. Collins appears to think that the nation's top spy should have a say in who gets prosecuted and how.

Sen. Susan Collins, the ranking Republican, wondered why Napolitano and National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair weren't part of the decision to charge Abdulmutallab as a civilian.

To be fair, Collins voiced similar thoughts back in 2001 about the civilian prosecution of shoe-bomber Richard Reid.

Just kidding.

Another View

Steve Pearlstein at WaPo:

Given how dug in everyone has become over the past two months, I'm mindful of how difficult it will be to get a few Republicans to sign on to such a deal. But there is very little in the latest version of the health-care bill that Maine's two Republican senators haven't supported in the past or couldn't support in the future.

In succumbing to the intense social and political pressure from their caucus, both Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins flunked the leadership test last year. Massachusetts has now given them a second chance to redeem their reputations and political fortunes in a state that has always valued independence over party loyalty.

Good luck with that.

Still, its nice to see a mainstream journalist acknowledge the obvious.

Of course, Pearlstein is a business columnist, not a political reporter. Clearly, he never got the memo about how everyone is supposed to be very very nice to Saint Olympia and Saint Susan.

Advice For Dems

Sen. Susan Collins:

"If this [health care] bill is pushed through despite the message sent from Massachusetts, I believe it will spur a tremendous backlash."

Left-leaning polls should probably heed Collins' warning since the success of the Democratic party is something she cares so deeply about.

They Write Letters

Not exactly running the show on health care:

Senator Collins says she is still trying to influence what is in the bill. She has written letters to the House and Senate Majority Leaders asking for amendments that would ease the burden on small business and individuals buying health insurance.

Seems Reasonable To Me

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Sen. Susan Collins (R) of Maine, ranking minority member of the Senate Homeland Security committee, added a call for the US to cancel all US visas for people whose names are listed in the broadest database of potential terrorists. This database, the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, is overseen by the National Counterterrorism Center and contains well over 500,000 entries.

Given how many totally legitimate visa requests get denied, it's ridiculous--absurd, really--that individuals suspected of being terrorists can still legally enter the US.

Friends All Around

Via Gerald we learn that Steve Abbott, Sen. Collins' chief of staff, has resigned to run for governor.

Naturally, former Collins staffer and Collins-coddling BDN editor Mark Woodward has joined Abbott's campaign.

And in totally unrelated news, former Collins-coddling PPH editorial page editor Jon Porter has signed on as president of the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce. Quite the jump--from journalist to business booster. (Or maybe not.)

Meanwhile, I wonder who PPH and BDN will endorse in the gubernatorial race.

A few of Abbott's greatest hits here, here and here.

Well Which Is It?

It kinda makes a big difference:

"The administration came in determined to undo a lot of the [terrorism-related] policies of the prior administration," Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the homeland-security committee, told me, "but in fact is finding that many of those policies were better-thought-out than they realized--or that doing away with them is a far more complex task."

Thought of the Day

Sen. Collins doesn't support profiling airline passengers for additional security screening on the basis of their ethnicity. But she has no problem with the government illegally listening in on the phone calls of American citizens.

No Profiling

On national TV, Sen. Collins rejects profiling airline passengers on the basis of ethnicity and religion. (Though it should be pointed out that this sort of thing already goes on.)

Right On Cue

Last week, we joked that PPH owed Sen. Collins a fresh fawning profile since it had run another vapid, adulatory piece about Sen. Snowe.

Well, here it is.

Unbelievable.

Left Hand, Right Hand, Etc.

In a single 20 minute speech, Sen. Collins blasts legislation because it gives special deals to particular states and then touts legislation for giving a special deal to a particular state.

Amazing how she pulls that off.

Thought of the Day

Now that PPH has offered yet another sycophantic piece about Sen. Snowe, doesn't the paper owe Sen. Collins a fresh, gushing profile as well?

Shill Game

I have no reason to believe that Bill Nemitz is getting ready to pull a Jeannine Guttman.

But I can't think of anyone better qualified to write limp, fawning press releases for Maine's senior senator than the PPH columnist.

Quote of the Day

The AP:

Republican senators attacking the cost of a Democratic health care bill showed far different concerns six years ago, when they approved a major Medicare expansion that has added tens of billions of dollars to federal deficits...

With no new taxes or spending offsets accompanying the Medicare drug program, the cost has been added to the federal debt.

All current GOP senators, including the 24 who voted for the 2003 Medicare expansion, oppose the health care bill that's backed by President Barack Obama and most congressional Democrats...As for their newfound worries about big government health expansions, they essentially say: That was then, this is now...

Six years ago, "it was standard practice not to pay for things," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah...

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said simply: "Dredging up history is not the way to move forward."

Just One Example

It's not worth taking the time to unpack all of Sen. Collins' distortions here. But I'd like to look at one example, to convey just how misleading she's willing to be.

At 1:43 in her new video, Collins produces a chart to support what is perhaps her most troubling criticism--that the Senate bill will "increase health care costs" and fail to "rein in costs." After all, wasn't reform supposed to deal with runaway costs? If it doesn't--and instead sends them soaring higher--surely the junior senator is right that the reform legislation is a failure.

But is she right?

As the chart fills the screen, Collins cites the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and viewers are clearly meant to deduce that the chart was produced by the CBO.

It wasn't.

In fact, when you look at the tiny fine print, the chart seems, instead, to have been drawn up by the Senate Republican Policy Committee--using numbers churned out by the "Senate Budget Minority."

And so Collins has performed a bait-and-switch, swapping in a partisan chart--produced by reform opponents, based on their own assumptions--even as she leads viewers to believe that she's passing along independent analysis.

Needless to say, reform proponents reject the chart's conclusions: While they readily concede that (as the CBO notes) total, aggregate cost of all health care spending will go up initially in the Senate legislation (as it would in any plan that extends coverage to millions--including the imaginary one that Collins could actually support) the bill is designed to reverse that increase over the long term by restraining spending growth.

(That may sound counter-intuitive at first, but it won't once you look at the numbers.)

Of course, Collins is free to challenge health care economists like Jon Gruber, who vouch for the cost control mechanisms in the bill. But she doesn't challenge them in her speech. She simply asserts that they're wrong. And pretends that her position is backed up by respected, independent experts.

That's sneaky. It's disrespectful to Mainers and it shows bad faith. And it's totally consistent with the junior senator's disingenuous approach throughout the health care debate.

Voting With Your Dollars

Anyone who buys a copy of Portland Press Herald is subsidizing this kind of sloppy, delirious commentary.

Something to consider.

"Billions of New Taxes"?

If you're wondering how Sen. Collins would reform health care--and pay for that reform--you won't find out in this seven minute video.



But you will get to watch Susan Collins talk down to Mainers like only she can.

Along the way, she works in all the standard GOP distortions, manufacturers a couple of her own, cites a hospital executive--who happens to be a campaign donor--to bolster her argument, and poses, astoundingly, as a fiscal conservative.

Did I mention that the production values are laughable and that her text is occasionally ungrammatical?

In short, good clean fun for the holidays.

Quote of the Day

Ezra Klein:

Thanks to the magic of Google, it's easy enough to revisit the plan (pdf) Obama campaigned on in light of the plan that seems likely to pass. And there are, to be sure, some differences. The public option did not survive the Senate. The individual mandate, which Obama campaigned against, was added after key members of Congress and the administration realized that the plan wouldn't function in its absence. Drug reimportation was defeated, and a vague effort to have government pick up some catastrophic costs was never really mentioned.

But the basic structure of the proposal is remarkably similar...

Whether you love the Senate bill or loathe it, whether you're impressed by Obama's effort or disappointed, it is very hard to argue that the bill Congress looks likely to pass is fundamentally different from the approach Obama initially advocated. "The Obama-Biden plan both builds on and improves our current insurance system," the campaign promised, and on that, for better or for worse, they've delivered. You can debate whether Obama should have lashed himself to such an incremental and status-quo oriented approach, but you cannot argue that he kept it a secret.

What's New?

Bruce is right that Sen. Collins' claim about "seven" Republican amendments is, at a minimum, misleading.

Of course, throughout the health care debate, we've gotten little but slippery rhetoric from the junior senator.

Frustration At Home

Democrats aren't the only ones put off by the GOP's stonewalling on health care reform.

How a self-proclaimed "moderate" could filibuster the most significant piece of domestic policy legislation in a generation--debated for months and ratified by a national election--is simply beyond comprehension.

It's a decision that will haunt Sen. Collins. Or at least it ought to.

Putting Maine First?

It seems pretty clear that Sen. Collins could have cut a deal with Senate Democrats on health care reform that would have redounded to the benefit of Mainers. And so it's no exaggeration to say that her constituents will be literally worse off because of her stubbornness, her disingenuousness and her duplicity.

But then again, Mainers drew the short straw in the stimulus bill too--a piece of legislation Collins voted for--in no small part because of changes she demanded.

So maybe the real lesson is that Maine's needs just aren't a top priority for the junior senator.

Comity

Sen. Susan Collins, a bipartisan moderate centrist, votes to block a health care plan supported by a wide majority of senators--who represent an even a wider majority of the American populace--from even receiving an up or down vote.

The plan which only a year ago she called "pretty good" is apparently now seen as so dangerous that she must do everything in her power to prevent it from being enacted.

Words

After calling candidate Obama's health care plan "pretty good" and something she could vote for during her 2008 reelection campaign, Sen. Collins characterizes the version of it up for a vote in the Senate next week--watered down and nudged to the right to suit centrists-- as "devastating."

She calls it, "detrimental." She accuses it of taking the country "in the wrong direction." She says it "will do more harm than good."

Of course, doing more harm than good is something that Susan Collins knows plenty about.

Thought of the Day

I've been watching Sen. Collins for years, and I still have absolutely no idea what a health care reform bill that she could support would look like.

I doubt anyone knows.

Quote of the Day

Paul Krugman:

Let's also not fail to take note of those who had a chance to join in this historic moment, and punted...

I'm talking...about the self-described centrists, pundits and politicians, who have spent years lecturing us on the need to make hard choices and actually come to grip with America's problems; you know who I mean. So what did they do when faced with a chance to help confront those problems? They made excuses.

Health care costs are, as everyone serious acknowledges, at the core of many of our difficulties, very much including long-term budget deficits. What reformers have been saying for years is that the only way to tackle health care costs is in the context of a reform that also tackles the problem of uninsurance; and so it has proved...

So did the deficit scolds, the people who preach the need to rein in entitlements and start paying our way, rally behind the cost-containment plans? Um, no...

And the lesson I take from that is that these people are insincere. They like posing as defenders of fiscal rectitude; they like declaring a pox on both houses; but when push comes to shove, their dislike of social insurance, their refusal to consider any government economy measures that don’t involve punishing people with lower incomes, trumps their supposed concern about acting responsibly.

Getting To Work?

I defer to Ezra Klein on the health care policy nitty gritty. But I'm not sure I share his analysis of the significance of the Collins-Wyden amendments. And I definitely don't agree with his intimation that Collins has done anything especially praiseworthy here.

To back up for a moment: What seems to have happened last week, in essence, is that the junior senator agreed to support Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-OR) smart, sound amendment as long as he supports her bad-but-not terrible amendment. (That probably oversimplifies the the terms of the agreement. But from what I've read, that does seem to be the jist of it.)

Meanwhile, Collins is still declining to say much of anything nice about the legislation; and she isn't specifying what changes she would need to get on board.

When you take that context together with Collins' history--and in particular, her recent displays of outright cynicism on the subject of health care--it seems far less obvious that what she's engaged in is a good faith effort to strengthen the bill.

Sure, Collins could have had an eleventh hour epiphany and decided, suddenly, to be constructive. But based on what we've seen to date, her goal could just as easily be to dilute the bill to make it less effective; or to nudge the bill to the right for ideological reasons; or to it revise it in ways that will make it harder to pass.

She's entitled to do those sorts of things, of course. And all things being equal, that kind of horse trading, back-and-forth and gamesmanship should probably be encouraged.

But I'm not sure it deserves to be praised. At least not unless it both improves the legislation and helps it get passed.

And it's simply to early to draw any conclusions about that.

Off The Beat

Hope to be back soon. Meanwhile, in case you missed it, there's this.

Then What?

For some reason, Sen. Collins' package of health care reform amendments go undiscussed on her website and unmentioned in her most recent e-mail newsletter.

But let's assume they're as reasonable as they sound: If they pass, will she then support the legislation? Or at least not try to block it from getting an up or down vote?

Times like this underscore what a shame it is that Portland Press Herald went under.

Signal or Noise?

Sen. Collins breaks with the GOP, voting in favor of the first amendment to the Senate health care bill.

Then and Now

Sen. Susan Collins during her 2008 campaign:

"This [health care] is a complex issue. It's one that I think we should tackle by holding hearings all over this country...and then come to Washington and work for two months or three months on virtually nothing but health care and come up with a comprehensive bill that provides access to health insurance for every American."

Sen. Susan Collins, yesterday:

"I'm concerned about the amount of pent up work," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Wednesday in the Capitol as debate on health care slowed to a crawl. "I think we need to have more of a focus on the economy. There are a lot of appropriations bills that need to be debated, a lot of tax bills that need to be extended, so it is a concern of mine how this is all going to be completed in time."

No Longer Operative?

I suspect that this column by Sen. Collins was drafted before the junior senator's recent discussions with the Obama administration, and before the OMB released encouraging data on health care premiums earlier this week.

At least I hope so: The piece is full of unsubstantiated dire predictions and unsourced, dubious empirical claims.

And then there's this:

Most of the health care reform debate so far has centered on the need to expand coverage to the uninsured, a goal that I embrace. No one should have to cope with a devastating illness and the prospect of bankruptcy because of a lack of insurance. The fact is, however, that it will be difficult to achieve our goal of universal coverage until we find a way to control the health care costs that have driven up the cost of coverage for families, employers and governments alike.

First of all, the notion that the health care reform debate has centered on expanding coverage is obviously false. There's been much more discussion of the public option, abortion and "death panels."

But more important is Collins' bizarre claim that achieving universal coverage will be "difficult." After all, the legislation on the table right now gets us almost all the way there.

So yes, getting to universal coverage has been "difficult." But it's been difficult, mostly, because people like Susan Collins have been doing whatever they can to block it.

Being Constructive?

This sounds, of all things, like a genuinely constructive proposal.

My hunch is that it's window-dressing, and an attempt to stay in the conversation: At a certain point, Sen. Collins was going to have to fill out her objections with a few details--or risk being ignored. (Even a beloved bipartisan moderate centrist can get away with vague, contradictory complaints for only so long.)

So it would be foolish to assume that Collins is now willing to negotiate in good faith on health care. I very much doubt, for example, that the junior senator is working up a slew of smart, serious amendments designed to strengthen the bill--and get it passed.

But of course, I'd love to be proven wrong.

Question of the Day

Remember how Sen. Collins used to tout her support for end-of-life consultations within Medicare?

Not Just Me

In two October posts (here and here) Matthew Yglesias and Igor Volsky delve into the contradictions at the core of Sen. Collins' position on health care.

Volsky and Yglesisas are less harsh with Collins than we've been in recent weeks. But of course, they haven't been watching the junior senator as closely as we have.