Porcupines with quills down

Covert Action Quarterly was a magazine founded in 1978 by Philip Agee. Its original purpose was to monitor CIA activities. It named names, and annoyed the powerful. The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 probably owes its existence to that magazine. It is now reduced to a web site. But while it was running, it was fun.

This is from the summer of 1997 Issue, “Playing by the Rules”:

Washington Rules — the unspoken handbook of rules for survival in the capital city:

• If it’s worth fighting for, it’s worth fighting dirty for.
• Don’t lie, cheat or steal unnecessarily.
• There’s always one more son of a bitch than you counted on.
• An honest answer could get you in a whole lot of trouble.
• The facts, although interesting, are irrelevant.
• Chicken Little only has to be right once.
• “No” is only an interim response
• You can’t kill a bad idea.
• If at first you don’t succeed, kill all the evidence that you ever tried.
• The truth is variable.
• A porcupine with his quills down is just another fat rodent.
• You can agree with any concept or notional future option in principle, but fight implementation every step of the way.
• A promise is not a guarantee.
• If you can’t counter the argument, leave the meeting.

I’ve run these words before, and keep coming back to them because they turn out so often to ne prophetic of official behaviors.

In Obama’s SOTU last night, one line (among others) struck me as disingenuous:

“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests- including foreign corporations- to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

So … what does he want them to do? Write a nasty letter? Is he not aware that our campaigns, including his own, are already bankrolled by our most powerful interests? Why does he urge both parties to “pass a bill” when it only takes one party, his own? Surely he knows that one of those parties likely supports the ruling. Are these just words?

We have seen Obama mouth good words before. The man gives heady speech. With health care and banking reform, he has spoken mightily and undercut his own words behind the scenes. He leads a party that in public comes off as a porcupine with its quills down – a fat rodent.

Citizens United is more than just a bad ruling. It is an organizational opportunity. If my theory that the Democrats exist to prevent organizing, they will gather up all of the steam that is forming around this ruling, all of the energy, and see that it dissipates into air. People will come to them for leadership, and they will gather it up, introduce bills that go nowhere, and in the end throw up their hands, as if powerless. That’s their job, and contrary to belief, they are not weak, not wimps, and are in fact very good at their job.