The brutal bio of Tom Cotton - Kristol's guy.

Reposted from Plunderbund


The New York Times Sunday magazine  added to  freshman Sen. Tom Cotton's scrapbook rise to celebrity with a full-page interview and tall photo  of the young Arkansas Republican who fatuously wrote the letter to Iranians warning them of a bad outcome for the deal supported by the U.S.

The vital statistics of the man included his NBA dream team (which, alas, did not include LeBron James!)  and his non-answer as to whether he is dreaming about more trivial matters as a vice presidential candidate on the GOP national ticket in 2016.  He cryptically answered: "I am focussed on the work that the people of Arkansas sent me to do."

As Seinfeld's Kramer would blurt:  "Oh, Mama!"

All of the commotion about the guy sent me back into the files to learn  how he ended up in the Senate in the first  place from the Razorback State.

Think: William Kristol,  the big-time neocon who merged Sarah Palin onto John McCain's ticket in 2008.  Think of the same neocon whose New York Times op-ed columns were eliminated after the editors finally lost patience with his many factual errors.  Think of the same neocon who seeks relevancy as editor of the  right-wing Weekly Standard as well as the smarmy guest on TV shows. And think of the warrior neocon who was a major figure in calling for the Bush invasion of Iraq and who now supports a re-invasion of  that hapless country.

Now, think of the neocon as a board member of the Emergency Committee for Israel with considerable  sway among other donor allies.  Kristol sent upward of $800,000 to his newly bought and paid for  Tom Cotton, another acquired alter ego (who happens to be a Methodist).

As I learned in so many years in the newspaper world, names make news.    So when you see Cotton's name, you need to know more about what the political world is now talking about, the man who wanted to imprison NY Times editor Bill Keller and two reporters over something the Times printed.

As a congressman in 2013 Cotton also proved he can be damned cruel.   He wanted  to insert an amendment in an Iran sanctions bill (amendment later withdrawn) that would have severely punished anyone who violated the sanctions.  He even levied that on their families  as a "corruption of blood" that automatically included "parents, children,  aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandparents, great grandparents, grandkids, great grandkids."

The guy is driven - but do you really want to be a passenger?

Hal(l)ey's comet takes a hit

HALEY BARBOUR comes across as the generic good ol' boy from yonder Mississippi. Radiating good humor and unthreatening southern charm, he's done quite well for himself as the former Republican national chairman and now the governor of Ole Miss. A couple of years ago, Summit County's Republicans hosted him with an outpouring of amity and praise when he spoke at the party's big finance dinner as the guest of chairman Alex Arshinkoff. Then, as now, there was talk that he was itching to run for president.

After this week's fallout from his rising political fortune, Barbour may want to reconsider. In an interview with the ultra-conservative Weekly Standard, Barbour defended the notorious White Citizens Council as peace-loving business folks who maintained law-and-order against the Ku Klux Klan during the Civil Rights movement of the '60s. Or as he put it:

"You heard of the Citizens Council? Up North they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you'd lose it. If you had a store, they'd see nobody shopped there. We didn't have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City."

Historians don't quite remember it as happening that way for the peace of mind of blacks. . Robert Mickey, a University of Michigan political scientist, told the Huffington Post that the Council's primary purpose was to oppose desegregation of schools by intimidating black parents who signed desegregation petitions. The Council even printed the names of signatories in the papers. You can guess what that was all about in the thriving plantation culture.

Time for damage control. Barbour issued a statement saying he didn't think the Councils were at all saintly and, in fact, asserted that their activities in the community were"totally indefensible, as is segregation."

But it was Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant with campaign experience in the south, who stepped forward to defend Barbour. With the usual political finesse, Ayres blithely assured us that Barbour's revisionist account of the White Citizens Council was a "tempest in a teapot."

Problem solved. Or maybe not.