Word finally got into the papers about the push-poll, but it wasn’t a reporter delivering the news:

Jim Douglas and Brian Dubie have taken the strategy to a new low. Word is out that Gov. Douglas is doing a push poll using Brooke Bennett’s death. Can even diehard Douglas supporters stomach that level of cynicism?

That’s from an op-ed by Assistant House Majority Leader Floyd Nease, and it’s a rather salient piece of information against the backdrop of the Governor’s brazen statement in Douglas’s own piece immediately preceding it:

There has been a great deal of talk, finger-pointing and grandstanding in recent days regarding the tragedy of Brooke Bennett’s death. This does nothing to serve Brooke’s memory.

Nease also had this heretofore unknown tidbit:

At his press conference last week, a reporter asked Gov. Douglas repeatedly if either Jessica’s Law or civil commitment would have prevented the horrific tragedy in Randolph. Each time, the governor avoided answering. The reporter finally said, “I hate to keep harping on this, but …” to which the governor responded, smiling, “That’s all right, I’ll keep avoiding it.”

Fascinating, isn’t it? Someone in the press corps found the question important enough to ask, but didn’t find Douglas’s response to their important question important enough to actually report. And again, that response from Governor The-buck-never-stops-anywhere-NEAR-me was“That’s all right, I’ll keep avoiding it.”.

What this tells us is that Nease is only about 70% right when he says in the piece:

Every election year, Jim Douglas exploits tragic events to push reactionary and emotional solutions to real Vermont problems. He doesn’t seem to care so much about whether the solutions work, only that they ensure his re-election.

What he left out is the other part of his standard re-election strategy; depending on the Vermont media to bend over backwards not to make him look bad. Oh sure, there’ll be the occasional report – like the latest pieces about the failure of the Corrections Department – but there will never be any follow through, follow-up, or holding of the Governor’s feet to the fire. Why? Because Douglas’s answers, when actually reported, always make him look and sound bad. And he’s Mr. Nice Guy. The press has long committed to that narrative. As to the reporters that may be inclined to push, they’ll likely be shut down by editorial, or by the eye-rolling condescension of their more seasoned peers.

And in return, Douglas runs the Reporters Benevolent Society, providing nice, well-paying, superfluous jobs on the public dime. Just ask former Brattleboro Reformer editor Sabina Haskell, now the highly paid spokesperson for the Agency of Natural Resources. According to an insider, it was exclusively at her insistence that the Reformer endorsed Douglas over Scudder Parker last go-round. Looks like it paid off.

And so it goes and goes and goes and goes…

Ugh. I’m off on a family trip. See y’all when I get back.

It took a little longer than I expected, but the statewide campaigns are now all about child sexual predation – at least this week. It’s likely that challengers were moving cautiously to gauge the mood, but the first in, predictably, was Jim Douglas – whose call for a renewed Death Penalty and chemical castration laws shared the front page with reports that his Corrections Department supported alleged Brooke Bennett killer Michael Jacques’s release from probation only the year before last (no coincidence there). Since then, Douglas has essentially provided cover for others against any charges of politicizing the issue, given his ill-considered, naked exploitation of the matter through his anti-Symington push polling over the weekend.

So, we’re off, as the candidates fall over each other to get in front of the issue on this Monday…

Symington – who is gradually, finally into some control of the headlines, came out with an uncharacteristically strong statement:

The decision by the Douglas administration to release convicted kidnapper and sex offender Michael Jacques from probation seven years early and to leave him without supervision has raised serious questions about whether the Department of Corrections is adequately protecting the public. The Governor has acknowledged the decision was a mistake, but he has not called for a full investigation of the matter. All he has requested is that his commissioner of Corrections “look at the procedure” for making these decisions.  This is an unacceptably weak response in light of the tragic consequences of his department’s failure in this case.  

With the safety of our children at stake, it is clear that an outside body must to conduct a full investigation of every aspect of this case and our parole system to determine how this failure occurred.  Because I do not want my status as a candidate for Governor to be a distraction in this process, I’ve decided not to call the House Judiciary committee back to conduct this investigation.  I have spoken with Senate President Peter Shumlin, and understand that he is planning to head in this direction, and will provide details on his plans tomorrow.  

I urge my colleagues in the Senate to get to the bottom of this failure without delay. Vermont’s citizens and lawmakers must know exactly what went wrong in enforcing our current laws so the necessary steps can be taken to prevent another tragic failure like this from occurring.

Among the questions that must be answered are:

1)      Why did the Department of Corrections argue for setting a convicted sex offender and kidnapper free despite the opposition of prosecutors?

2)      Does the Douglas administration have tough enough standards in place for deciding who qualifies for early release from probation?

3)      How have the Douglas administration’s job cuts affected the ability of his Corrections department to protect Vermonters?

4)      What is the caseload of parole officers, and is that a factor in this case?  

5)      How many positions in the parole system are unfilled?

6)      What other key elements of our laws to prevent sexual violence are not being adequately managed?

7)      Have the Special Investigative Units that have been budgeted for been put into action, and if not, why not?

8)      What can be done through better management of the Department of Corrections to make sure our children and our communities are safe?

Regarding calls for a special session: if the Governor calls a special session, I will be there.  Legislative leaders set the agenda for special sessions, and I want to assure Vermonters that I will demand any special session addresses why our current laws are not being enforced by the Douglas administration before we talk about adding more laws.  We must do first things first.  It is much more important right now to find out why this convicted sex offender was set free and fix the problems that lead to his early release so that we don’t have a repeat of this failure. I also want to know why the Douglas administration is moving so slowly on appointing special investigators that could play a critical role in solving these cases.

Pow! That’s a change.

Brian Dubie was actually first up this morning, at a press conference on the Statehouse steps. From Barlow:

Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie endorsed a full slate of reforms to the state’s sex offender laws Monday morning and called on Gov. James Douglas to bring lawmakers back to Montpelier for a special session this summer.

Dubie, a Republican running for reelection this year, called for a comprehensive review of Vermont’s criminal justice system and said lawmakers should pass proposals such as Jessica’s Law and chemical or physical castration for habitual sex offenders.

I happened by the presser on the way to work and lingered for about two minutes to listen. Dubie is not the deepest thinker on policy, and his legislative recommendations in calling for a special session can basically be reduced to “this is terrible and somebody oughta do something” with a clear favoritism given to the reactive, easy-to-get-ones-brain around, big ticket punitive measures that the Governor suggests (and that would do nothing to actually solve any problems). Still, listening to the guy stammer and reach for vocabulary, he did strike me as fairly sincere.

Nate Freeman feels differently:

“Brian Dubie and Governor Douglas are reaching new lows in how they are manipulating Vermonters’ emotions on the subject of sexual molestation of children. The fact is, this phenomenon is far more widespread than we want to acknowledge, and that strong measures in primary prevention are the best way to educate families, community members, and Vermonters as a whole about the signs and signals of childhood sexual abuse. Not only do I find the current conversation dubious in it’s real intent, I also find it personally offending as literally tens of thousands of Vermonters have suffered, are suffering, and will suffer from the tragedy of sexual abuse in their pre-pubescent and pubescent years.”

Freeman points to the Governor’s press release dated April 17th as an example of Jim Douglas talking about the work he is doing without any follow-up. From that press release Jim Douglas says the following:

“Vermont is leading the nation in developing innovative, proactive approaches to ending the epidemic of sexual and domestic violence in our state,” Governor Douglas said. “These crimes exact an enormous toll on the health and well-being of survivors, not to mention the impact on health care, corrections, education, social services, and so many of our state resources. The more attention we focus on preventing these crimes ? on teaching our children about healthy, respectful relationships and nonviolent means to resolve conflict ? the better.”

“It is interesting to note that the Douglas Administration is not focusing on the efforts of primary prevention of sexual abuse against children at this critical time. Instead, both Brian Dubie and Jim Douglas are preying on Vermonters’ natural emotional impulse for vengeance. The tragedy in Randolph will never find restitution and the community will never find healing in Brian Dubie’s angry , dubious, political posturing,” Freeman said.

Nate Freeman is a candidate for Lieutenant Governor from the Democratic Party. He is the owner of Freeman’s Upholstery Shop and Green Mountain Kitty Litter in Northfield. He is also a male survivor of early childhood sexual abuse by a female perpetrator.

Expect that last bit of personal history to garner him some ink on the issue.

As I said above, I definitely was inclined to think Dubie was sincere – particularly in his insistence that we should all be working together constructively and not demagogue the issue – but I suppose there’s be one way to find out: somebody should ask him if he condemns the Governor’s abhorrent push polling program on the issue and rejects his attempts to tar Symington as soft on child predators.

Haven’t seen anything from Tom Costello… at all, really. He doesn’t seem to have a website yet.

Call it a hunch, but I’m not going to be shocked if we find out, come the deadline, that Mr. Costello hasn’t turned in signatures. That’s just a hunch, but… well, we’ll see…

UPDATE: Barlow caught up with Costello, who is supportive of the Douglas/Dubie policy approach:

“The prosecutor in the case knew that (Michael) Jacques should not be released from probation early,” Costello said. “It’s clear the prosecutors don’t have enough tools for this fight and should have mandatory minimums and civil confinement as options to use.”

Here’s the Leahy clip from the new Batman movie that’s been making the rounds…

Just got this email from a reader. If true, it is beyond vile and reprehensible:

I live in (town in Central Vermont) and was just push polled.  The questions began with generic questions about the gubernatorial race, but descended into questions intimating that Gay (sic) Symington was weak on child sex offenders, followed by questions intimating that Jim Douglas wants to execute and chemically castrate child sex offenders.

We can have differences of opinion on issues like this, especially after the tragic events in Randolph during the last two weeks.

But to exploit these events and emotions for political gain is unconscionable, and this is not how things are done in Vermont.  I’m appalled and offended by the Douglas campaign, and by extension the governor himself.  I find this disgusting.

Thought you should know that this is going on.

Indeed. Push-polling, in case you don’t know, is the act of faux-polling for the purpose of persuading – often through misleading or even defamatory messaging. The issue rose to particular prominence during the 2000 Election when pro-Bush push polling was used to disseminate rumors about John McCain. Push-polling is considered unethical and roundly criticized (nominally even by those firms that practice it, casting it as “message testing”).

This email follows reports of a noted GOP push-poll firm working in the state last week (Pacific Crest Research out of Utah and California). If anybody has any other details or information, I encourage you to post it here.

UPDATE: Let me be clear; a tragedy like this requires that we talk about solutions in an open, robust way. But refusing to objectively look at the problem and jumping to a well-known, sleazy technique to tar your opponent (especially in light of the failures of Douglas’s Corrections Department in this very instance) belies the real intention, here. If Douglas is a man of any character, he should pull the plug on this immediately, fire whoever is responsible for initiating it, and start a meaningful, cooperative discussion that looks at all the cracks in the system – whether the solutions are legislative, judicial or executive in nature.

UPDATE x2: A poster just alerted me to the fact that Haik has just been hit with the same push poll as well. He identifies the calling firm as ProMark Research Corporation. ProMark is a Houston based company that has done this kind of sleazy crap for Republicans in other states, such as Ohio, Georgia, Colorado and Pennsylvania. So much for “the Vermont Way,” eh? More on these sleazebags as I find out what I can…

I continue to have a lot of lingering fear and anger over the new FISA overhaul and its implications for the future, but amidst it all I have nagging questions over the role in the process and in the debate of our Senior Senator, Patrick Leahy.

Why? Simply that I can’t reconcile why Leahy, for whom concerns over civil liberties has been a signature issue (last year, he was the Vermont ACLU’s Civil Libertarian of the Year), has been disturbingly dualistic on this bill.

And if a glance at the soundbites in play in Barlow’s recent report on the issue has you thinking he hasn’t been, you haven’t been paying close enough attention.

It’s been odd to see the legendarily powerful Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee so disrespected by Majority Leader Reid, first during the Senate’s first stab at a FISA overhaul that would’ve given retroactive immunity to the telcos, at which time Reid broke with protocol and gave primacy to the Intelligence Committee version which included immunity, effectively rolling over Leahy. Sure, there was the formality of giving the Judiciary version a hearing, but its defeat under that schema was clearly a foregone conclusion. Then there was the case of this most recent bill that did pass, fastracked by Reid right onot the floor when a trip through Leahy’s committee would surely have been in order, given its sweeping change to the court system. It’s all begged the question – was Leahy treated so poorly by Reid because he really is not the power broker that we’ve all been assuming he is?

Or, in the final analysis, was he just not moved strongly enough by what he disliked about the bill to do everything he could to scuttle it in light of what he did like about it?

 We’ve taken Leahy to task for speaking in glowing terms of the policy work done on the bill by the likes of Rep. Hoyer and Sen. Rockefeller, who – more than any other two lawmakers – are responsible for the continuing return (and eventual success) of this legislation despite repeated defeats and public marginalization of the underlying issue. The matter was dead, dead, dead – but they brought it backed and pushed it through with very little resistance. While Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold are being praised for their filibuster attempt, many activists seem to have forgotten that Dodd and Feingold had previously intended an Hollywood-style, talk-it-to-death-on-the-floor filibuster – the prospect of which had Majority Leader Reid rightfully concerned about public embarrassment and backlash.

To get a sense of what Leahy really thinks, rather than give him a pass as the traditional media have, lets look at what he actually said. This from Barlow’s article (emphasis added):

Leahy noted that (Sen. Barack Obama) and he had worked together on some provisions when the bill was before the Senate Judiciary Committee and that they both supported the underlining procedural changes.

“We agreed on the FISA changes, but split on the immunity issue,” Leahy said.

And earlier from his press release that opposed the bill, based solely on the immunity provisions:

With respect to the surveillance authorities, I believe the bill represents an improvement over the flawed legislation passed the Senate earlier this year.  I applaud Representative Hoyer and Senator Rockefeller for their diligent work in negotiating this package.

Leahy voted in all the right ways on the floor; for all the amendments that would have delayed retroactive immunity, against cloture and against final passage. But to listen to Leahy, what he was working against was retroactive immunity. But the fact is, immunity was far from the only issue in play in the bill. From the ACLU’s public statement announcing their long-shot attempt to overturn the law:

“Once again, Congress blinked and succumbed to the president’s fear-mongering. With today’s vote, the government has been given a green light to expand its power to spy on Americans and run roughshod over the Constitution,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “This legislation will give the government unfettered and unchecked access to innocent Americans’ international communications without a warrant. This is not only unconstitutional, but absolutely un-American.”

The FISA Amendments Act nearly eviscerates oversight of government surveillance by allowing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to review only general procedures for spying rather than individual warrants. The FISC will not be told any specifics about who will actually be wiretapped, thereby undercutting any meaningful role for the court and violating the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

The bill further trivializes court review by authorizing the government to continue a surveillance program even after the government’s general spying procedures are found insufficient or unconstitutional by the FISC. The government has the authority to wiretap through the entire appeals process, and then keep and use whatever information was gathered in the meantime.

And again, it is this part of the new law that Leahy repeatedly has spoken in support of. Still, by loudly trumpeting his resistance to the retroactive immunity portion of the bill, he has left the impression that he is on the side of civil libertarians in this matter. From the sound of it, he isn’t.

Anti-FISA overhaul pointman Glenn Greenwald argues that the retroactive immunity is the more egregious part of the law, as it codifies the Congress’s disinterest in/refusal to respect the laws of the land. This Congress has been worse than ineffective in maintaining the rule of law (worse, in this matter, than the previous GOP led Congress). Not content with its own complacency, it has now added complicity by affirmatively stepping in to interfere with the courts as rulings seemed to be going against the Administration. Here’s George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley on this weekend’s edition of NPR’s On the Media:

We did have one of 3 branches that was functioning – the judicial branch – was in fact looking into the legalities of the programs and exploring the possible injuries that had been done to citizens. what congress effectively did was it shut down that last branch…

…Look what happened: there were 40 lawsuits that were succeeding in court – they just had a ruling by a court that this entire program was unlawful. what was congress’s response? They changed the law and terminated all 40 lawsuits.

But this “lawless society paradigm” argument is still an abstraction. That’s not to minimize it at all, but simply to state that an assessment of its impact will vary from interpretation to interpretation. The rest of the bill, though, is another, more tangible and quantifiable story. As to going forward and the prospect for monitoring any future abuses, Turley has this to say:

The law also allows the president to engage in warrantless surveillance and makes the process very very easy – theres no reason for him to repeat exactly what he did before. Its like solving bank robberies by taking all the doors off the bank. So we really aren’t likely to see telecoms prosecuted because the congress created a law that is almost impossible to violate.

This is the feature of the law that Leahy has no problem with.

It’s very, very hard for me to see how one can support a change to the law that, as the ACLU says “violates the Fourth Amendment and eliminates any meaningful role for judicial oversight of government surveillance” and still consider themselves – or be considered by others – a champion of civil liberties. In light of this, its harder to give Leahy a pass for his sponsorship of the notorious USA PATRIOT Act, or to simply write it off as a case of temporary, post-9/11 insanity. Taken with his support of this wholesale disembowelment of the 4th Amendment, one wonders in there aren’t two Leahys, one a staunch defender of civil liberties, and the other, a force in favor of their congressional trampling. It leaves one to wonder which one may appear during any given debate.

It’s frustrating, and its something we should keep in mind if, as many are suggesting, Leahy may opt not to run for re-election in 2010. He will inevitably be used as the standard in picking a replacement in any Democratic Primary, and we should remind ourselves that – as good as he has been for Vermont and the nation – we can, and should, always be striving to do better.

Here’s a great still from an actual news broadcast the other night:

Now that’s some good teevee.

From CBS:

“This is a Judiciary Committee matter, and I believe we will some attention being paid to it by the Judiciary Committee,” Pelosi told reporters. “Not necessarily taking up the articles of impeachment because that would have to be approved on the floor, but to have some hearings on the subject.“

Uh-huh.

Sorry, we’re still pissed off about FISA.

Nice try, though. Points for pulling out a real A-list netroots topic-changer…

There’ve been a lot of rambling philosophical threads on this site of late. That’s not to say there isn’t news going on… lots actually, but we seem to be in a philosophical mood this week, so here’s one more…

A lot of the previous thread skirts around the idea of what voting is for, at least as far as an individual is concerned. It’s a question I don’t spend much time with, even though its at the crux of whether or not many people will engage with and/or support a third party candidate such as Anthony Pollina or Ralph Nader (for my part, the reason I don’t do third party is more about what I see as the structure of the system than the purpose of voting).

For many, you are obliged to vote for the candidate that most reflects your own views, and that anything short of that is a betrayal of the system. Many would say that voting against one candidate, as opposed to for one, is also a perversion of the system.

I tend to step back as far as I can with these things to get as close to bland neutrality as I can, which is why the view my wife shared with me yesterday really resonated: the purpose of voting is to have an influence in who is selected. Period. I like that because it minimizes the sort of subjective romanticism that is so often the direction the argument goes between Democrats and non-Democrats on the left. We simply vote to have some say in who our leaders are. If you choose not to vote, you’re choosing not to have a say in the process. If you choose to vote against someone, rather than for someone, you’re choosing to exercise influence in the matter of who shouldn’t get the job.

Others…?

….but somebody had to do it:

And yeah, I admit it. I voted “not sure it was a good idea” on the poll, but might as well have fun with it now that it’s out there…

UPDATE: Annikee points out that the Guard also advertises on AIr America Radio, which makes a difference. I still think its a bad idea to be supporting media outlets with explicitly partisan agendas with tax dollars, but at least there seems to be equal opportunity payoffs going on. / UPDATE

Just imagine the hew and cry, the outrage, the backlash – if this site, or one like it, had some form of government sponsorship. If such a partisan, left-wing online community openly touted direct support from taxpayers, regardless of whether those taxpayers were liberal, conservative, or what have you. How dare my money go to support this garbage! It’s proof of collusion – liberals and their big government agenda! The government shouldn’t be in the business of promoting this kind of partisan agenda!

I imagine it’d be quite a show.

I wonder if far-right reactionary Paul Beaudry of True North Radio would chime in? One would think so, except for the fact that, on his website, the first sponsor listed is The National Guard. That’s right, your tax dollars at work, and all to help keep the most reactionary drivel Vermont has to offer (the site, among other things, currently refers to liberalism as a “disease”) alive and kicking. Guess he can’t quite make his li’l enterprise work without feeding at the public trough, eh? What would Adam Smith say?

Somebody should ask him about it. Maybe this Thursday, when regular visitor and former unofficial co-host Rob Roper, Chair of the Vermont Republican Party, stops by.