Big Sky Cairn

Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer is under a lot of fire.  His all-Democrats-on-deck response thus far has been pretty telling.  There have been two major lines of response from Schweitzer and the Montana Democrats:

1) Brian Schweitzer was just joking.

This was the original tack taken by the Governor’s office. What a kidder.  Let me be clear: I have absolutely no doubt that Schweitzer was joking.  And I’m sure everyone that was in the room knows he was joking too.  You can hear them laughing in the recording.  But that doesn’t get Schweitzer out of the storm.

Just because he was trying to be funny doesn’t mean that he wasn’t also telling the truth.  People joke about things that really happened all the time.  So the debate isn’t about whether or not Governor Schweitzer was joking when he bragged about tampering with a Federal election that impacted the balance of power in the United States Senate.  The debate is about whether or not his jokes were completely fabricated or if they were based on actual events.

2) There’s not enough information to warrant an investigation.

This is the line taken by Attorney General Mike McGrath - a Democrat - when he promptly and rudely wrote off the need for an investigation into whether or not Schweitzer’s jokes were based in fact or completely fabricated.  I have a few thoughts on this.

First, the purpose of an investigation is to discover the facts.  It’s ludicrous to say that there shouldn’t be an investigation because there’s no support for charges - the whole point of an investigation is to gather the information to make that determination at the end of the investigation, not before.  This is like saying there’s no reason to search for a cure for cancer because we don’t know how to cure cancer yet.  The cart is way in front of the horse on this one, and McGrath knows it.

Second, if the Governor has nothing to hide, why isn’t he asking for an investigation to clear his good name?  When the press reported that Senator Burns was being investigated in 2005, the first thing he did was send a letter asking that the investigation happen immediately and offer his full cooperation.  That’s how an innocent man responds to allegations of impropriety.  Which, of course, begs the question: Why is Schweitzer spending political capital to prevent an investigation that would clear his name if he was in fact innocent?  Could it be that his jokes were true?

And that, loyal readers, is the beating of Schweitzer’s tell-tale heart.

On Wednesday, when I left Butte for a business trip, almost no one was talking about the Governor’s comments.  Today, I was waiting in line at my favorite pasty place and it was all people could talk about.  People seemed particularly upset about the tenor of the Governor’s pitiful attempt at an apology.

Mary McMahon has responded to allegations that Schweitzer influenced the Butte-Silver Bow vote count with a fervent no.  She has also asked for an apology from Schweitzer for disparaging her office and making an inappropriate comment about pregnant nuns.  However, what she received was an apology in the form of an explanation in the form of a backhanded slap.

Schweitzer apologized but said, “I’m pretty sure I’m not the first person to joke about election day in Butte.”–Montana Standard

Really?  Isn’t that nice.  He went on to tell the AP that he was playing off well known election themes.  So, apparently, what he said is okay because everyone just assumes that Butte is on the Democrat payroll and would happily break the law to ensure a blue tinted victory.

I was already upset about the Governor’s comment, but this is just the ultimate.

I’m not denying that Butte was very corrupt during the mining boom, but Butte’s reputation extends beyond those unsavory characterizations.

Butte has a reputation of being a tough town full of hard working people who never say die.  People who stand up for the things that they believe and take their place in the history of this country very seriously.  It’s an All-America city that projects the kind of small town, safe-haven aesthetic that has been lost in other places.

The Democrats have benefited from not only Butte’s party affiliation but from its hard working blue collar roots.  And Schweitzer has benefited more than anyone else.

Butte hosted the Mansfield-Metcalf dinner.  Butte hosted Obama on the Fourth of July, to help him shed his elitist image.  Butte hosted Schweitzer’s Montana Economic Development Summit and now he is one of the featured guests at the National Mining Summit.  Schweitzer has even gotten credit for being on the side of green energy for promising a wind power plant that may never even be built.

Governor Schweitzer has reaped the benefits of Butte’s Democratic allegiance.  He has been elected by our votes and enriched politically by our reputation.  He has absolutely no right to cast aspersions on our community.

Now, we are seeing the Governor’s true colors.  And he owes McMahon, her subordinates and everyone in the city of Butte an apology.  A real apology.

The good Governor Brian Schweitzer has been building quite a resume of ethically questionable activities.  It’s funny because while the press and on-the-record Democrats all say he’s such a nice, regular guy the story changes when the conversations go off the record.  People that have to actually work with the raving egomaniac that is our governor tell a much different tale of Schweitzer.  Just ask Mike McGrath or Mary McMahon.  Ask Mike Lange.  He’s not a character.  He’s not a good guy.  He’s a bully.

And now that the New York Times is on the story and the country starts looking into his record, well stuff like this is going to start coming out.   Like this oldie from the Washington Post.

In Montana, he continued, the best way to frame an issue is to get horses and guns into the picture. Schweitzer arrived at this epiphany, he said, after getting beaten in 2000 in a race against Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).

That was Schweitzer’s first go at elective politics and, in the wound-licking that followed, he found that men in Montana were 11 percent less likely to vote for him than were women. For his gubernatorial campaign, Schweitzer hired focus groups to find out why.

He learned that a significant percentage of Montana men are mule-headed, unwilling to change their minds on issues, even when presented with information showing that their views are not supported by facts.

“So, I started doing my ads while I was sitting on a horse or holding a gun,” Schweitzer said. “I spoke to men visually and showed them I am like them. Hell, I can be on a horse and talk about health care.

“Ninety percent of them don’t ride horses and many of them don’t shoot a gun, but my ads said visually that I understand Montana. My gender gap disappeared. I think I have just summed up why Democrats lose elections.”

He also says this - which might explain why he doesn’t seem to think telling the truth is important:

“In politics, it doesn’t matter what the facts are,” he said. “It matters what the perceptions are. It is the way you frame it.”

No, Governor, for some of us facts matter too.

And huge props to the crew over at Montana Pundit.  They are doing an outstanding job.

Attorney General McGrath was flying low and may have been elected on sheer name recognition in November, but like Mary McMahon, it seems Schweitzer’s mouth/ego combo has thrown him into the unflattering spotlight and now he’s got a political bull-eye square on his back.

He’s not really a victim though.  He made his own bed with this amazingly premature decision that made his political calculus obvious.  And to make matters worse, remember this story originally broke on the internet and was driven by blogs long before it even got to a paper or the tv.  In his letter, McGrath is stupid enough to actually try to use this fact as a reason the issue isn’t important.  Talk about spitting in the face of the executioner…

Well, he called down the thunder, now he’s got it.  If you listen, you can hear the rumblings beginning now.

Looks like Mike McGrath - pawn for the Schweitzer Democrat Machine - isn’t going to get in under the Radar in November.  Too bad for him.  Good for Montana.

I even gave him his own category. 

New West, who asked the first questions on this story, has followed up with some quotes from our Attorney General Mike McGrath - who also happens to be a Lawyer (you can hear a bunch of Lawyers laughing and clapping as Schweitzer brags about his actions in the audio - I wonder if McGrath was in that audience). Here’s what McGrath has to say:

The misuse of the criminal justice system for political purposes is a serious matter. It is inappropriate to use a public office as election-season PR for a political blogger or any other special interest.

Ooooh baby. I’m seeing red. Does anyone think for a second that his indignation is about anything other than the fact that Schweitzer has a D behind his name?

Incidentally, this is exactly what the criminal justice systme should be used for; ensuring that elected officials don’t hold themselves above the law.

Go donate to Tim Fox right now. We need to break up this gang of Democrats and their Culture of Corruption. This is beyond the pale.

I first noticed it immediately after Obama did the Bill O’Reilly interview.  The One is aging right before our eyes.  It’s especially noticeable on his head.  Lots of gray.

While I think it’s probably the stress of a 2-year campaign cycle, I can’t help but wonder if his handlers decided he looked too young and needed to add some artificial wisdom to his head.

There really is a lot of repugnant material in this speech Governor Schweitzer game to his Trial Lawyer buddies (and one enemy with a tape recorder).  The Gazette breaks down some of the more vile examples.

1) He advocated the intimidation of Republican Poll watchers by threatening them with jail on trumped up charges.  His excuse: “It was just a colorful way of saying you can’t have anyone intimidated.”  What in the bloody hell does he think threatening someone with jail on trumped up charges constitutes?

2) He claimed to influence the vote-counting procedures in Butte.  Of course, no one was there to tape-record any conversation that may or may not have taken place so this is an easy one to lie away - especially since both Schweitzer and Mary McMahon have a pretty hefty incentive to lie.  But considering his excuse for this entire speech is just that he was lying to fire up a crowd, does anyone think he’d have any problem at all lying to save his own ass?  I’m calling bull; I want an explanation for why Butte/Silverbow turned in their results so late.  I want to know why Mary McMahon would turn down a call from the freaking governor on election night.  It doesn’t add up.

3) He bragged about trying to force the AP to call the race before the numbers were in.  Interestingly enough, this is the only part of the three stories that doesn’t involve multiple parties with strong incentives to lie.  And for this one, we learn that it actually happened:  Clarke said: “Yes, Gov. Schweitzer did call me on the morning after the election, and he did tell me he was going to declare Tester the victor. I told him we would call the race when we were satisfied the vote count was accurate.”

So here’s what we’ve got.  A politician who said he did some things that he absolutely should not have done.  When someone asks him about it, his defense is that he was just lying joking, and that the truth was he is a freaking boy scout.

But if the snake-oil he’s selling is that he’s a liar (that’s his spin, mind you), then how in the name of Obama can anyone trust that he’s not lying about lying

Governor you abused your power.  It’s time for you to resign.

I’m incensed. And I’m not the only one (although thanks to MTPundit, who posted this story three or four times before it got any traction in the Dextrasphere, I was one of the first). Brian Schweitzer has had a bad week.

As someone who “guaranteed” a victory for Jon Tester in 2006 while extorting money from American Trial Lawyers, it’s easy to imagine that he also guarantee victory in Montana for Obama prompting five visits at key photo-op moments during the 2008 election cycle, and a relatively massive amount of resources dedicated to the state. What is it now a gazillion offices? He hired Baucus’ Chief of Staff Jim Messina and gave the Montana Delegation and Brian Schweitzer some serious love at the Dem Convention… and after all that. McCain is up by double digits in Montana. Is that egg on your face Governor?

But it gets better. Governor Blowhard started believing all the hype about how great he was (probably some of the Divine rubbed off on him from The One in Denver) and boasted in a public speech among out-of-state friends about how he delivered the 2006 Senate Election (just like he guaranteed) for Jon Tester.

Poor Jon probably thought he had something to do with it too.

And the beautiful thing is… he had an enemy in that room. An enemy with a tape recorder. An enemy that knew how to upload that speech to the internet.

Governor Schweitzer’s idiotic political move finally gives Montanans a peek behind the curtain of the Schweitzer Administration. They are beginning to see it as gang of partisan Democrats who will do anything to wrest power into their own hands while parading around in bipartisan sheepskins claiming to represent Republicans and Democrats fairly. Tell that to the 195,556 people who voted for Burns in 2006 and whose votes were a nothing more than insignificant pawns to a man who had guaranteed a victory for the other guy.

When asked about Brian’s boasts, Jon Tester said this: “This is just Brian being Brian, and there’s nothing to it.”

Nothing to it? I think there’s a lot more to it.

Montanans are wondering: what else does he say when he’s around out-of-state friends and no reporters are around?

Montanans are wondering: where’s that Montana ethic he waxes so eloquent about when the TV camera is rolling?

Montanans are wondering: what kind of man can orchestrate this crap with his left hand while criticizing Senator Burns for unsubstantiated ethical violations with the right?

Montanans are wondering: if he brags about this, what else did he do that he will never tell anyone but Jag?

I do agree with Tester on one thing. He said this is just Brian being Brian. Yep. Schweitzer’s got a long and loose history with unethical behavior. And that’s not even counting the transgressions he’s been fined for.

It comes down to this. Brian Schweitzer is a slimy, political bully who plays fast and loose with the law and has gotten away with it until now because he’s got a clever turn of phrase. But in a Shakespearian turn, the forked tongue which has been his salvation has become his curse.

This story is finally getting some attention. In the Blogs. In the new media. In the papers. On the TV. In the national wires. People I’ve talked to are pissed. Both Republicans - for the obvious reason - and Democrats for the stupidity of the action.

And so, Brian Schweitzer took a page out of The West Wing Handbook and apologized. He seems to be saying he’s sorry a lot lately and eventually saying “I’m sorry” isn’t going to cut it anymore. People are beginning to see a pattern.

And with due respect, Mr. Governor, and to quote one of my favorite movies, “You can take sorry and shove it up your ass.”

Resign, sir. Now.

Conservatives are often faced with a related duo of frustrating facts when they deal with liberal friends. 1) By virtue of the fact that they are conservative, the liberal will presume that the cause of that ideology is some combination of stupidity or ignorance and 2) in their attempt to educate their conservative friends into liberalism, the liberal will ultimately be completely blind to their own intellectual biases and shortcomings.

Gregg over at Electric City Weblog posted an excerpt from an article that addresses this phenomenon:

Democrats regard their policies as self-evidently in the interests of the US working and middle classes. Yet those wide segments of US society keep helping to elect Republican presidents. How is one to account for this? Are those people idiots? Frankly, yes – or so many liberals are driven to conclude. Either that or bigots, clinging to guns, God and white supremacy; or else pathetic dupes, ever at the disposal of Republican strategists. If they only had the brains to vote in their interests, Democrats think, the party would never be out of power. But again and again, the Republicans tell their lies, and those stupid damned voters buy it.

It is an attitude that a good part of the US media share. The country has conservative media (Fox News, talk radio) as well as liberal media (most of the rest). Curiously, whereas the conservative media know they are conservative, much of the liberal media believe themselves to be neutral.

Their constant support for Democratic views has nothing to do with bias, in their minds, but reflects the fact that Democrats just happen to be right about everything. The result is the same: for much of the media, the fact that Republicans keep winning can only be due to the backwardness of much of the country.

I’ve seen this manifest itself over and over again in contemporary political discourse, but nowhere is it more obvious than in the debate about catastrophic man-made climate change. For liberals, the debate is settled and they’ve moved on to a public information campaign of epic proportions complete with Academy Award winning documentaries, public school curricula, and an army of legislators in the pocket of Big Green.

And maybe the best way to win an argument is to deny that there’s even an argument to be had. But is that the best way to arrive at the truth or the closest to it we can get?

If John Stuart Mill’s notion of a Marketplace of Ideas is to be adhered to - and Thomas Jefferson for one thought that it should be - there can be no greater crime to political discourse than a presumption of infallibility. The notion of the Marketplace of Ideas was one of the fundamental ideals of the Enlightenment that influenced the shaping of the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights - especially the First Amendment. It’s principle is simple: In a competitive environment where ideas flow freely, the better ideas will rise on their own merit.

Of course, that might be the problem right there. Liberals don’t really like marketplaces.

Disclaimer: I am not blind to the fact that the same can be said for the religious and/or social Right. For me, this particular branch of ideology is the same as the liberal left. They all want to declare a monopoly on life’s best practices and then impost that formula on everyone else.

Rasmussen reports that McCain’s lead in Montana has grown to a staggering eleven points - well outside the margin of error but within expectations for Montanans not trying to secure posh positions in the Obama Administration once their term limits are up. Montana Headlines does a great job of ferreting out what this poll shows - and why it may not be a flash in the pan.

Jay Stevens at Left in the West is the only left-wing blogger to cover this so far, and he is beginning to see that the writing on the wall is not another Obama miracle after all.

That said, while I don’t think the November margin of victory will be 11 points, this race is trending Republican. The question has to be, will Obama keep putting the resources into the state if he’s losing ground here? Even if it’s winnable, Montana represents only 3 Electoral College votes, hardly as critical as Florida, say, which is likely McCain +3, or Pennsylvania, which is Obama +3.

Interestingly enough, this sounds suspiciously like what Denny Rehberg said last week from the GOP Convention:

U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg says he does not believe Montana is a presidential battleground.

The Montana Republican says the state party is telling Sen. John McCain to focus his campaign effort on other states.

And here:

Rehberg said Montana Republicans are advising McCain to spend campaign resources on battleground states such as Ohio and Florida, which are considered more pivotal for winning the election.

This is what Rehberg and Erik Iverson have been saying since the beginning, so it’s nice to see Jay come around to reality. Sure it was nice of The Chosen One to grace Montana with his presence, but he was never actually going to win here. We all remember a certain Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana saying as much back in April:

While he thinks either Obama or Clinton running on his or her own has a 50-50 shot of winning the White House against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, Schweitzer doesn’t think either Democrat can take Montana.

Asked why not, he had a one word answer: “Guns.”

There will be another poll down the road that’s a little closer and the Kool-aid will start flowing again. I’ve got a hunch, though, like Jay that we’ve seen the last of Obama in these here parts.